s. Their demands were reduced to four: the abolition of
slavery; the reduction of the rent of land to fourpence the acre; the
free liberty of buying and selling in all fairs and markets; and a
general pardon for past offences. A charter to that effect was engrossed
for each parish and township; during the night thirty clerks were
employed in transcribing a sufficient number of copies; they were sealed
and delivered in the morning; and the whole body, consisting chiefly of
the men of Essex and Hertfordshire, retired, bearing the King's banner
as a token that they were under his protection.

But Tyler and Straw had formed other and more ambitious designs. The
moment the King was gone, they rushed, at the head of four hundred men,
into the Tower. The Archbishop, who had just celebrated mass, Sir Robert
Hales, William Apuldore, the King's confessor, Legge, the farmer of the
tax, and three of his associates, were seized, and led to immediate
execution.[68] As no opposition was offered, they searched every part of
the Tower, burst into the private apartment of the Princess, and probed
her bed with their swords. She fainted, and was carried by her ladies to
the river, which she crossed in a covered barge. The royal wardrobe, a
house in Carter Lane, was selected for her residence.

The King joined his mother at the wardrobe; and the next morning, as he
rode through Smithfield with sixty horsemen, encountered Tyler at the
head of twenty thousand insurgents. Three different charters had been
sent to that demagogue, who contemptuously refused them all. As soon as
he saw Richard, he made a sign to his followers to halt, and boldly rode
up to the King. A conversation immediately began. Tyler, as he talked,
affected to play with his dagger; at last he laid his hand on the bridle
of his sovereign; but at the instant Walworth, the Lord Mayor, jealous
of his design, plunged a short sword into his throat. He spurred his
horse, rode about a dozen yards, fell to the ground, and was despatched
by Robert Standish, one of the King's esquires. The insurgents, who
witnessed the transaction, drew their bows to revenge the fall of their
leader, and Richard would inevitably have lost his life had he not been
saved by his own intrepidity. Galloping up to the archers he exclaimed:
"What are ye doing, my lieges? Tyler was a traitor. Come with me, and I
will be your leader." Wavering and disconcerted, they followed him into
the fields of Islington, wh