3. Now the neighbours knew that if Walter should be taken, he would be put to death for the offence, and as they all had cause to complain of the tax-gatherers, they assembled in front of his cottage, and declared they would protect him.
4. This was at Deptford, and they all proceeded to London, being joined by thousands of men from different towns, and a dreadful riot there was; so that it was thought necessary for the king to take some means of pacifying the rebels.
5. Accordingly he went, with the lord mayor and some nobles and gentlemen, to meet them in Smithfield, and whilst Tiler, their leader, was talking with the king, the mayor came behind him, and struck him on the head with his mace, and stunned him, and he was killed by Richard’s party; and then the king, fearing the rioters would kill him in return, asked them what they wanted, saying, he was ready to do any thing that was right and just.
6. They said they desired that the poll tax should be taken off; slavery and villeinage abolished by law; so that all who were still in bondage should be made free; and that the old feudal custom of paying duties on goods, at all the markets and fairs, should be done away with.
7. All this Richard promised to do; but no sooner had the men dispersed and gone back to their homes, than he sent out a military force to seize all who had been concerned in the rebellion; and I grieve to say that, although he had given his word that they should all be pardoned, he ordered the judges to have every one of them executed.
8. After such conduct as this, you will not expect to hear much good of Richard the Second, whose selfish extravagance led him to do all kinds of unjust things, for the purpose of raising money to spend on his own pleasures; so that it might truly be said that he was constantly robbing his subjects; as, for instance, he once wanted to borrow a large sum of the citizens of London, which they would not lend him, because they knew very well he would never return it; so he took away their charter, that is, the grant which gives them the right to elect a lord mayor, and to manage the affairs of the city independently of the king; and they were obliged to give him ten times as much to get it back again, as they had refused to lend.
9. The citizens of London were very rich at this period, many of them being great merchants, and it was in this reign that the famous Whittington was Lord Mayor.
10. He had made a large fortune in the coal trade, which was then a new branch of commerce, for coals were very little used for firing till the time of Edward the Third.
11. King Richard had unjustly banished his cousin Henry, Earl of Hereford, and on the death of Henry’s father, the Duke of Lancaster, had taken possession of his estates.
12. This nobleman was a grandson of Edward the Third, and was much liked by the English, who would rather have had him for their king than the unworthy sovereign they had got, although he would have had no right to the throne, even if Richard had been dead.