Among those who perished at the hands of the rebels was Richard Lyons, the deposed alderman. At length, on the evening of Saturday, the 15th, when the king had ridden to Smithfield accompanied by Walworth, the mayor, and a large retinue in order to discuss matters with Wat Tyler (the Essex men had for the most part returned home), an altercation happened to arise between Tyler and one of the royal suite. Words were about to lead to blows when the mayor himself interposed, and summarily executed the king’s order to arrest Tyler by bringing him to the ground by a fatal blow of his dagger. Deprived of their leader the mob became furious, and demanded Walworth’s head; the mayor, however, contrived to slip back into the City, whence he quickly returned with such a force that the rioters were surrounded and compelled to submit. The king intervened to prevent further bloodshed, and knighted on the field not only Walworth, but also Nicholas Brembre, John Philipot and Robert Launde.(636) The same day a royal commission was issued to enquire into the late riot and to bring the offenders to account.(637) (M346) Orders were given on the 20th June to each alderman to provide men-at-arms and archers to guard in turns the city’s gates, and to see that no armed person entered the city, except those who declared on oath that they were about to join the king’s expedition against the rebels. In the meantime, the aldermen were to make returns of all who kept hostels in their several wards.(638) In a list, containing nearly 200 names of divers persons of bad character, who had left the city by reason of the insurrection,(639) there appear the names of two servants of Henry "Grenecobbe." The name is far from common, and we shall not perhaps be far wrong in conjecturing that the owner of it was a relation of William "Gryndecobbe," who led the insurgents against the abbey of St. Albans and compelled the abbot to surrender its charter.(640) (M347) "Jack Straw," on being brought before the mayor, was induced by promises of masses for the good of his soul, to confess the nature of the intentions of the rioters, which were to use the king’s person as a stalking horse for drawing people to their side, and eventually to kill him and all in authority throughout the kingdom. The mendicant friars, who were believed to be at the bottom of the insurrection,(641) were alone to be spared. Wat Tyler was to be made king of Kent, whilst others were to be placed in similar positions over the rest of the counties. The mayor sentenced him to be beheaded. This done, his head was set up on London Bridge, where Wat Tyler’s already figured.(642) (M348)