During this night of suspense and terror, the Princess of Wales held a
council with the ministers in the Tower. The King's uncles were absent;
the garrison, though perhaps able to defend the place, was too weak to
put down the insurgents; and a resolution was taken to try the influence
of promises and concession. In the morning the Tower Hill was seen
covered with an immense multitude, who prohibited the introduction of
provisions, and with loud cries demanded the heads of the chancellor and
treasurer. In return, a herald ordered them, by proclamation, to retire
to Mile End, where the King would assent to all their demands.
Immediately the gates were thrown open. Richard with a few unarmed
attendants rode forward; the best intentioned of the crowd followed him,
and at Mile End he saw himself surrounded with sixty thousand
petitioners. Their demands were reduced to four: the abolition of
slavery; the reduction of the rent of land to fourpence the acre; the
free liberty of buying and selling in all fairs and markets; and a
general pardon for past offences. A charter to that effect was engrossed
for each parish and township; during the night thirty clerks were
employed in transcribing a sufficient number of copies; they were sealed
and delivered in the morning; and the whole body, consisting chiefly of
the men of Essex and Hertfordshire, retired, bearing the King's banner
as a token that they were under his protection.
But Tyler and Straw had formed other and more ambitious designs. The
moment the King was gone, they rushed, at the head of four hundred men,
into the Tower. The Archbishop, who had just celebrated mass, Sir Robert
Hales, William Apuldore, the King's confessor, Legge, the farmer of the
tax, and three of his associates, were seized, and led to immediate
execution.[68] As no opposition was offered, they searched every part of
the Tower, burst into the private apartment of the Princess, and probed
her bed with their swords. She fainted, and was carried by her ladies to
the river, which she crossed in a covered barge. The royal wardrobe, a
house in Carter Lane, was selected for her residence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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