Tyler was at Canterbury on Monday, June 10th, and here Archbishop Sudbury’s palace was ransacked for papers, and his tenant-rolls burnt. Beyond this, and a rough exhortation to the monks to prepare to elect a new archbishop, no injury was done. The following day Tyler was back at Maidstone, and his men burst open the archbishop’s prison and released John Ball, with all others who had incurred ecclesiastical displeasure. This accomplished, with John Ball, the people’s poor priest, in the midst of them, 30,000 men of Kent--yeomen, craftsmen, villeins and peasants--set out for London under Wat Tyler’s command. Blackheath was reached at nightfall on Wednesday, June 12th, and a camp fixed; but a few indefatigable rebels hastened on to Southwark that same night to burst open the Marshalsea and King’s Bench prisons. John Wraw was at Blackheath, and after a short conference with Wat Tyler, hastened back to Suffolk to announce that the hour of rising had struck. Near Eltham Tyler had overtaken the young king’s mother, the widow of the Black Prince, returning from a pilgrimage, and had promised that no harm should befall her or her women from his host. Reassured, the princess and her company went on their way in safety to the Tower of London, where Richard and his council were assembled, and told of the great uprising. Judges had already been despatched into Kent at the first news of the disorders, but had turned back before reaching Canterbury, not liking the look of things. Early on Thursday morning, June 13th, the camp at Blackheath was astir. It was Corpus Christi day and a solemn festival. After mass had been said before all the people, John Ball preached on his old theme of equality and brotherhood. “For if God had intended some to be serfs and others lords He would have made a distinction between them at the beginning.” He went on to speak of the work to be taken in hand at once. “Now is the opportunity given to Englishmen, if they do but choose to take it, of casting off the yoke they have borne so long, of winning the freedom they have always desired. Wherefore let us take good courage and behave like the wise husbandman of scripture, who gathered the wheat into his barn, but uprooted and burned the tares that had half-choked the good grain. Now the tares of England are her oppressive rulers, and the time of harvest has come. Ours it is to pluck up these tares and make away with them all--the evil lords, the unjust judges, the lawyers, every man indeed who is dangerous to the common good. Then should we all have peace for the present and security for the future. For when the great ones have been rooted up and cast away, all will enjoy equal freedom, all will have common nobility, rank and power.” The sermon was received with bursts of cheers, and the people shouted that John Ball should be archbishop, “for that the present archbishop and chancellor, Simon Sudbury, was but a traitor.”