tidings, yet he did sagely demean himself as touching the treaty with the Scots.  The earl Douglas, the earl of Moray, the earl of Sutherland and the earl Thomas Versy, and the Scots that were there for the treaty knew right well the rebellion in England, how the common people in every part began to rebel against the noblemen; wherefore the Scots thought that England was in great danger to be lost, and therefore in their treaties they were the more stiffer against the duke of Lancaster and his council.

Now let us speak of the commons of England and how they persevered.

How the commons of England entered into London, and of the great evil that they did, and of the death of the bishop of Canterbury and divers other

In the morning on Corpus Christi day king Richard heard mass in the Tower of London, and all his lords, and then he took his barge with the earl of Salisbury, the earl of Warwick, the earl of Oxford and certain knights, and so rowed down along the Thames to Rotherhithe, whereas was descended down the hill a ten thousand men to see the king and to speak with him.  And when they saw the king’s barge coming, they began to shout, and made such a cry, as though all the devils of hell had been among them.  And they had brought with them sir John Newton to the intent that, if the king had not come, they would have stricken him all to pieces, and so they had promised him.  And when the king and his lords saw the demeanour of the people, the best assured of them were in dread; and so the king was counselled by his barons not to take any landing there, but so rowed up and down the river.  And the king demanded of them what they would, and said how he was come thither to speak with them, and they said all with one voice:  ’We would that ye should come aland, and then we shall shew you what we lack.’  Then the earl of Salisbury answered for the king and said:  ’Sirs, ye be not in such order nor array that the king ought to speak with you.’  And so with those words no more said:  and then the king was counselled to return again to the Tower of London, and so he did.

And when these people saw that, they were inflamed with ire and returned to the hill where the great band was, and there shewed them what answer they had and how the king was returned to the Tower of London.  Then they cried all with one voice, ‘Let us go to London,’ and so they took their way thither; and in their going they beat down abbeys and houses of advocates and of men of the court, and so came into the suburbs of London, which were great and fair, and there beat down divers fair houses, and specially they brake up the king’s prisons, as the Marshalsea and other, and delivered out all the prisoners that were within:  and there they did much hurt, and