ou to come and speak
with them on Blackheath; for they desire to have none but you: and,
sir, ye need not to have any doubt of your person, for they will do
you no hurt; for they hold and will hold you for their king. But, sir,
they say they will shew you divers things, the which shall be right
necessary for you to take heed of, when they speak with you; of the
which things, sir, I have no charge to shew you: but, sir, it may
please you to give me an answer such as may appease them and that they
may know for truth that I have spoken with you; for they have my
children in hostage till I return again to them, and without I return
again, they will slay my children incontinent.'

[3] That is, the grand prior of the Hospital.

Then the king made him an answer and said: 'Sir, ye shall have an
answer shortly.' Then the king took counsel what was best for him to
do, and it was anon determined that the next morning the king should
go down the river by water and without fail to speak with them. And
when sir John Newton heard that answer, he desired nothing else and so
took his leave of the king and of the lords and returned again into
his vessel, and passed the Thames and went to Blackheath, where he had
left more than threescore thousand men. And there he answered them
that the next morning they should send some of their council to the
Thames, and there the king would come and speak with them.[4] This
answer greatly pleased them, and so passed that night as well as they
might, and the fourth part of them fasted for lack of victual for they
had none, wherewith they were sore displeased, which was good reason.

[4] 'Les quatre pars d'eux,' 'four-fifths of them.'

All this season the earl of Buckingham was in Wales, for there he had
fair heritages by reason of his wife, who was daughter to the earl of
Northumberland and Hereford; but the voice was all through London how
he was among these people. And some said certainly how they had seen
him there among them; and all was because there was one Thomas in
their company, a man of the county of Cambridge, that was very like
the earl. Also the lords that lay at Plymouth to go into Portugal were
well informed of this rebellion and of the people that thus began to
rise; wherefore they doubted lest their viage should have been broken,
or else they feared lest the commons about Hampton, Winchester and
Arundel would have come on them: wherefore they weighed up their
anchors an