documents, and
put to death persons connected with the law. When they had made their
way into London they burned and pillaged the Savoy palace, the city
house of the duke of Lancaster, and the houses of the Knights
Hospitallers at Clerkenwell and at Temple Bar. By this time leaders
had arisen among the rebels. Wat Tyler, John Ball, and Jack Straw were
successful in keeping their followers from stealing and in giving some
semblance of a regular plan to their proceedings. On the morning of
Friday, the 14th, the king left the Tower, and while he was absent the
rebels made their way in, ransacked the rooms, seized and carried out
to Tower Hill Simon Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury, who was Lord
Chancellor, Robert Hales, Grand Master of the Hospitallers, who was
then Lord Treasurer, and some lower officials. These were all put
through the hasty forms of an irregular trial and then beheaded. There
were also many murders throughout the city. Foreigners especially were
put to death, probably by Londoners themselves or by the rural
insurgents at their instigation. A considerable number of Flemings
were assassinated, some being drawn from one of the churches where
they had taken refuge. The German merchants of the Steelyard were
attacked and driven through the streets, but took refuge in their
well-defended buildings.

During the same three days, insurrection had broken out in several
other parts of England. Disorders are mentioned in Kent, Essex,
Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon,
Hampshire, Sussex, Somerset, Leicester, Lincoln, York, Bedford,
Northampton, Surrey, and Wiltshire. There are also indications of
risings in nine other counties. In Suffolk the leadership was taken by
a man named John Wrawe, a priest like John Ball. On June 12th, the
same day that the rendezvous was held on Blackheath, a great body of
peasants under Wrawe attacked and pillaged a manor house belonging to
Richard Lyons, an unpopular minister of the last days of Edward III.
The next day they looted a parish church where were stored the
valuables of Sir John Cavendish, Chief Justice of the Court of King's
Bench and Chancellor of the town of Cambridge. On the 14th they
occupied Bury, where they sacked the houses of unpopular men and
finally captured and put to death Cavendish himself, John of
Cambridge, prior of the St. Edmund's Abbey, and John of Lakenheath, an
officer of the king. The rioters also forced the monks of th