Ye may well know and believe that it was great pity for the danger that the king and such as were with him were in.  For some time these unhappy people shouted and cried so loud, as though all the devils of hell had been among them.  In this evening the king was counselled by his brethren and lords and by sir Nicholas Walworth, mayor of London, and divers other notable and rich burgesses, that in the night time they should issue out of the Tower and enter into the city, and so to slay all these unhappy people, while they were at their rest and asleep; for it was thought that many of them were drunken, whereby they should be slain like flies; also of twenty of them there was scant one in harness.  And surely the good men of London might well have done this at their ease, for they had in their houses secretly their friends and servants ready in harness, and also sir Robert Knolles was in his lodging keeping his treasure with a sixscore ready at his commandment; in like wise was sir Perducas d’Albret, who was as then in London, insomuch that there might well (have) assembled together an eight thousand men ready in harness.  Howbeit, there was nothing done, for the residue of the commons of the city were sore doubted, lest they should rise also, and the commons before were a threescore thousand or more.  Then the earl of Salisbury and the wise men about the king said:  ’Sir, if ye can appease them with fairness, it were best and most profitable, and to grant them everything that they desire, for if we should begin a thing the which we could not achieve, we should never recover it again, but we and our heirs ever to be disinherited,’ So this counsel was taken and the mayor countermanded, and so commanded that he should not stir; and he did as he was commanded, as reason was.  And in the city with the mayor there were twelve aldermen, whereof nine of them held with the king and the other three took part with these ungracious people, as it was after well known, the which they full dearly bought.

And on the Friday in the morning the people, being at Saint Katharine’s near to the Tower, began to apparel themselves and to cry and shout, and said, without the king would come out and speak with them, they would assail the Tower and take it by force, and slay all them that were within.  Then the king doubted these words and so was counselled that he should issue out to speak with them:  and then the king sent to them that they should all draw to a fair plain place called Mile-end, whereas the people of the city did sport them in the summer season, and there the king to grant them that they desired; and there it was cried in the king’s name, that whosoever would speak with the king let him go to the said place, and there he should not fail to find the king.  Then the people began to depart, specially the commons of the villages, and went to the same place:  but all went not thither, for they were not all of one condition; for there were some that desired nothing