There was little speech among the nobles. These were brave men, but faint with much watching and bewildered. That all England should be turned up-so-down by peasants and common folk was a thing not to be believed; nevertheless, the nobles knew that the Prior of Bury Saint Edmunds was slain by a mob near Newmarket, and also Sir John Cavendish, Chief Justice of England, who was on circuit in Suffolk, but the rioters overtook him hard by Lakenheath. They knew that Saint Albans was up, and already rumours were come up out of Northampton and Cambridge and Oxford. There was fear of Leicestershire and Somerset; what Yorkshire would do might not be determined. 'T was whispered that many lords of manors and noble ladies wandered homeless amid the forests of Kent, bewailing their manor-houses sacked and burned. These things the nobles pondered as they rode from the city to Westminster on Saturday, being the fifteenth day of June in that year, the fourth of King Richard II.
Howbeit, neither at Westminster was found peace, for there came forth of the Abbey a procession of monks, penitents, bearing the cross. Then with groans and tears did these monks tell their tale:—
“O Lord King, the Abbey is defiled!”
“At the shrine of that most holy one, Edward the Confessor, blood is spilled.”
“Sire, avenge us!”
“Richard Imworth is slain, King Richard.”
“Richard Imworth, warden of the Marshalsea, is murdered, sire!”
“His hand was even on the tomb of the Confessor.”
“The people have shed blood in the church!”
“Sire, punish!”