But while this pacific interview took place, Wat Tyler, John Ball, and some 400 of their followers burst into the Tower, determined to find the archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Treasurer, Sir Robert de Hales, who were the most obnoxious ministers. "So great was the general consternation that the soldiers dared not raise a hand while these ruffians searched the different rooms, not sparing even the king's bedroom, running spears into the beds, asked the king's mother to kiss them, and played insolent jokes on the chief officers. {817} Unhappily they were not long in finding the archbishop, who had said mass in the chapel, and was kneeling at the altar in expectation of their approach." The Lord Treasurer was also found, and both he and the archbishop were summarily beheaded by the mob. "Murder now became the order of the day, and foreigners were among the chief victims; thirteen Flemings were dragged out of one church and beheaded, seventeen out of another, and altogether it is said 400 perished. Many private enmities were revenged by the London rabble on this day." On the next day, June 15, the king, with an armed escort, went to the camp of the insurgents, at Smithfield, and opened negotiations with Tyler, offering successively three forms of a new charter of popular rights and liberties, all of which were rejected. Finally, Tyler was invited to a personal conference, and there, in the midst of the king's party, on some provocation or pretended provocation in his words or bearing, the popular leader was struck from his horse and killed. King Richard immediately rode out before the ranks of the rebels, while they were still dazed by the suddenness and audacity of the treacherous blow, crying "I will be your leader; follow me." The thoughtless mob followed and soon found itself surrounded by bodies of troops whose courage had revived. The king now commanded the trembling peasants "to fall on their knees, cut the strings of their bows, and leave the city and its neighbourhood, under pain of death, before nightfall. This command was instantly obeyed." Meantime and afterwards there were many lesser risings in various parts of the country, all of which were suppressed, with such rigorous prosecutions in the courts that 1,500 persons are said to have suffered judicially. _C. H. Pearson, English History in the Fourteenth Century, chapter 10._