The King was left alone in the Tower, for the courtiers had fled, and desiring to speak with the rebels, he rode out to an open space beyond the city where they were gathered, and there he entered in among them and said to them sweetly, "Ah, ye good people, I am your King. What lack ye? What will ye say?" Such as understood him answered, "We will that ye make us free for ever, ourselves, our heirs and our lands." [Illustration: PREPARING THE FEAST] [Illustration: THE FEAST] "Sirs," said the King, "I am well agreed thereto; withdraw you home into your houses and into such villages as ye came from and leave behind you of every village two or three and I shall cause writings to be made and seal them with my seal, the which they shall have with them, containing everything that ye demand." They said, "It is well said, we desire no better," and so they returned to their own homes. The King could not keep his promise to the peasants, for the lords were stronger than he, yet not long after this time we find the peasants more free and labouring for hire. CHAPTER XXIV THE WAR WITH FRANCE (_continued_) When Henry V was crowned King, he desired much to revive the glories of Crécy and so he summoned his nobles to war. Then he built a great fleet to carry them to France, cutting down the oak trees in the Forest of Epping for that purpose. He was much loved by all his soldiers, "for in wrestling, leaping and running, no man could compare with him. In casting of great iron bars and heavy stones, he excelled all men, never shrinking at cold, nor slothful for heat; and when he most laboured, his head commonly uncovered; no more weariness of light armour than a light coat, very valiantly abiding at need both hunger and thirst, so manful of mind as never to seem to quinch at a wound or to smart at the pain." When he came into the realm of France, he laid siege to the strong city of Harfleur. It was summer time and many of the soldiers fell sick. Though the town was captured, Henry could but turn his back on Paris and march homeward on the old road to Calais, as his great-grandfather Edward III had done in like case. "The English were brought into some distress in this journey, by reason of their victuals in manner spent and no hope to get more: for the enemies had destroyed all the corn before they came. Rest could they none take, for their enemies with alarms did ever so infest them; daily it rained and nightly it freezed; of fuel there was great scarcity; money enough, but wares for their relief to bestow it on had they none. Yet, in this great necessity, the poor people of the country were not spoiled nor anything taken of them without payment, nor any offence done by Englishmen."