In 1381 the memorable meeting between King Richard and the Kentish rebels took place in Smithfield, when their leader, Wat Tyler, was stabbed by Lord Mayor Walworth, and when the boy king, by a bold and masterly act, appeased the mob, who were preparing to avenge the death of their captain. Speed informs us that Walworth, after the fall of Tyler, rushed into the City and returned accompanied by Sir Robert Knowles and a thousand citizens in armour, when he "commanded the head of Wat Tyler to be chopt of from his dead carcase and borne before him on a speare to the king." Froissart says, "among the first" (from the City) "came Sir Robert Knolles and Sir Perducas d'Albret well attended, then several aldermen, with upwards of 600 men at arms, and a powerful man of the City, by name Nicholas Brember, the king's draper, bringing with him a large force on foot." After the dispersion of the mob with ample promises of a redress of their grievances, the king knighted Walworth, and gave him a fee farm worth £100 per annum, as he did also Aldermen Brember, Philpot, Laund, Standish, Twiford, and Traver, granting to each a fee farm of £40 per annum. Thomas of Woodstock, the king's youngest uncle, created Duke of Gloucester, 1385, was the most vehement opponent of his nephew's policy, and the favourites Vere, Pole, and Brember, perceiving him to be the greatest obstacle to their assumption of the supreme direction of affairs conspired to remove him. They arranged that he should be invited to a supper in Brember's house, and whilst there should be assassinated. It was, however, necessary that the invitation should be sent through Lord Mayor Exton, "who," says Maitland, "was no sooner acquainted with this wicked design than he received it with the utmost abhorrence and detestation, and boldly declared that he would never consent to so flagitious an act of villainy," and forthwith gave information to the duke, who took measures for his safety, and resolved upon the destruction of the conspirators, in which he was backed by the citizens of London, who suggested that he should assume the government of the country, hinting that they would be ready to give him support. This, however, was not a practicable scheme, for even if York and Lancaster should approve of the deposition of Richard, they, as elder brothers, would have prior claims to the succession.