my banners and thereby we shall see what they will do.  Howbeit, other by fairness or otherwise, I will have them.’  ‘That is well said, sir,’ quoth the earl of Salisbury.  Then these new knights were sent to them, and these knights made token to them not to shoot at them, and when they came so near them that their speech might be heard, they said:  ’Sirs, the king commandeth you to send to him again his banners, and we think he will have mercy of you.’  And incontinent they delivered again the banners and sent them to the king.  Also they were commanded on pain of their heads, that all such as had letters of the king to bring them forth and to send them again to the king; and so many of them delivered their letters, but not all.  Then the king made them to be all to torn in their presence; and as soon as the king’s banners were delivered again, these unhappy people kept none array, but the most part of them did cast down their bows, and so brake their array and returned into London.  Sir Robert Knolles was sore displeased in that he might not go to slay them all:  but the king would not consent thereto, but said he would be revenged of them well enough; and so he was after.

      [5] ‘Qui estoit des draps du roy.’  He owned large estates in
      Essex and also shops in London.  He became one of the councillors
      of Richard ii.

Thus these foolish people departed, some one way and some another; and the king and his lords and all his company right ordinately entered into London with great joy.  And the first journey that the king made he went to the lady princess his mother, who was in a castle in the Royal called the Queen’s Wardrobe, and there she had tarried two days and two nights right sore abashed, as she had good reason; and when she saw the king her son, she was greatly rejoiced and said:  ’Ah, fair son, what pain and great sorrow that I have suffered for you this day!’ Then the king answered and said:  ’Certainly, madam, I know it well; but now rejoice yourself and thank God, for now it is time.  I have this day recovered mine heritage and the realm of England, the which I had near lost.’  Thus the king tarried that day with his mother, and every lord went peaceably to their own lodgings.  Then there was a cry made in every street in the king’s name, that all manner of men, not being of the city of London and have not dwelt there the space of one year, to depart; and if any such be found there the Sunday by the sun-rising, that they should be taken as traitors to the king and to lose their heads.  This cry thus made, there was none that durst brake it, and so all manner of people departed and sparkled abroad every man to their own places.  John Ball and Jack Straw were found in an old house hidden, thinking to have stolen away, but they could not, for they were accused by their own men.  Of the taking of them the king and his lords were glad, and then strake off their heads and Wat Tyler’s also, and they were set on London bridge, and the valiant men’s heads taken down that they had set on the Thursday before.  These tidings anon spread abroad, so that the people of the strange countries, which were coming towards London, returned back again to their own houses and durst come no farther.