This day all the rabble were again assembled, under the conduct of Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and John Ball, to parley at a place called Smithfield, where, every Friday, the horse-market is kept. They amounted to upward of twenty thousand, all of the same sort. Many more were in the city, breakfasting, and drinking Rhenish, Malmsey, and Madeira wines, in taverns and at the houses of the Lombards, without paying for any thing; and happy was he who could give them good cheer. Those who were collected in Smithfield had king’s banners, which had been given to them the preceding evening; and these reprobates wanted to pillage the city the same day, their leaders saying that hitherto they had done nothing. “The pardons which the king has granted will not be of much use to us; but, if we be of the same mind, we shall pillage this large, rich, and powerful town of London, before those from Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge, Bedford, Warwick, Reading, Lancashire, Arundel, Guilford, Coventry, Lynne, Lincoln, York, and Durham shall arrive; for they are on the road, and we know for certain that Vaquier and Lister will conduct them hither. If we now plunder the city of the wealth that is in it, we shall have been beforehand, and shall not repent of so doing; but, if we wait for their arrival, they will wrest it from us.” To this opinion all had agreed, when the king appeared in sight, attended by sixty horse. He was not thinking of them, but intended to have continued his ride without coming into London: however, when he came before the Abbey of St. Bartholomew, which is in Smithfield, and saw the crowd of people, he stopped, and said he would not proceed until he knew what they wanted; and, if they were troubled, he would appease them.