6. =The Suppression of the Revolt.=--The boy-king met the mob at Mile-End, and promised to abolish villeinage in England. Charters of manumission were drawn out and sealed, and a great part of the insurgents returned contentedly home. About 30,000, however, remained behind. When Richard came amongst them at Smithfield, Wat Tyler threatened him, and Walworth, the Mayor of London, slew Wat Tyler with his dagger. A shout for vengeance was raised. With astonishing presence of mind Richard rode forward. "I am your king," he said; "I will be your leader." His boldness inspired the insurgents with confidence, and caused them to desist from their threats and to return to their homes. In the country the gentry, encouraged by the failure of the insurgents in London, recovered their courage. The insurrection was everywhere vigorously suppressed. Richard ordered the payment of all services due, and revoked the charters he had granted. The judges on their circuits hanged the ringleaders without mercy. When Parliament met it directed that the charters of manumission should be cancelled. Lords and Commons alike stood up for the rich against the poor, and the boy-king was powerless to resist them, and it is possible that he did not wish to do so. 7. =Results of the Peasants' Revolt.=--The revolt of the peasants strengthened the conservative spirit in the country. The villeinage into which the peasants had been thrust back could not, indeed, endure long, because service unwillingly rendered is too expensive to be maintained. Men were, however, no longer in a mood to listen to reformers. Great noblemen, whose right to the services of their villeins had been denied, now made common cause with the great churchmen. The propertied classes, lay and clerical, instinctively saw that they must hang together. Wycliffe's attack on transubstantiation finding little response, he was obliged to retire to his parsonage at Lutterworth, where he laboured with his pen till his death in =1384=. His followers, known by the nickname of Lollards,[22] were, however, for some time still popular amongst the poorer classes. [Footnote 22: The name is said to have been derived from a low German word, _lollen_, to sing, from their habit of singing, but their clerical opponents derived it from the Latin _lolium_ (tares), as if they were the tares in the midst of the wheat which remained constant to the Church.] [Illustration: Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer.]