The discontent of the people at last led the peasants to rise in revolt in many different parts of the country, and to march on London in order to get redress for their wrongs. Princess Joan had been on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, where the Black Prince lay buried, when, on her way back, she fell in on crossing Blackheath with a crowd of the rebels. The rough men surrounded her, but the charm and beauty which she still possessed won their respect and the protection of their leaders. It is said that, after asking her for some kisses, they allowed her to pass on her way unharmed. She went to join her son in the Tower. Richard, then a boy of fifteen, was not frightened by the rebels, who swarmed round the Tower and asked that the king should come out and hear their grievances. He rode out with one or two followers and went to meet the rebels at Mile End, where he promised all that they asked him. But whilst he was away, another band of rebels broke into the Tower. They forced their way into the princess’s room and treated her with rough familiarity and rudeness. They plunged daggers into her bed to see if anything was hidden there, and terrified her so much that she fainted. Then her ladies carried her away, and conveyed her in an open boat across the river to a house belonging to the king called the Wardrobe, and there Richard joined her. Meanwhile the rebels had seized and murdered the Archbishop, the chief minister of the king. In the end the rebels were put down after much bloodshed. Richard II. seems to have had the charm and beauty of his mother, and as a boy at least, the courage of his father, but he did not grow up to be a wise king. He quarrelled with his powerful uncle, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who was suspected of wishing to make himself king, and John, angry with his nephew, shut himself up in his castle at Pontefract. The Princess Joan was ill and had grown so stout that travelling was very difficult for her, but in spite of her sufferings she made several journeys to Pontefract to see John of Gaunt and at last succeeded in reconciling him with Richard. Richard treated her with great respect, and when he went away to make war in Scotland, he appointed five noble gentlemen to stay with her for her protection, wherever she chose to live. But she could not always persuade him to do as she wished. Her son by her first marriage, John Holland, had a quarrel with another gentleman and slew him treacherously. Richard to punish him seized his lands, and when Joan implored his pardon refused to listen to her. This so grieved her that she fell ill and died whilst Richard was still away in Scotland. In her will she asked to be buried near her first husband in the church at Stamford; and there on Richard’s return her funeral took place. The quarrels between her son and his uncles which she had tried to heal grew worse after her death, till they ended in the deposition of Richard, and the choice of John of Gaunt’s son, Henry, as king.