the Tower of London, saying how they would never depart thence till
they had the king at their pleasure and till he had accorded to them
all (they would ask, and) that they would ask accounts of the
chancellor of England, to know where all the good was become that he
had levied through the realm, and without he made a good account to
them thereof, it should not be for his profit. And so when they had
done all these evils to the strangers all the day, at night they
lodged before the Tower.

Ye may well know and believe that it was great pity for the danger
that the king and such as were with him were in. For some time these
unhappy people shouted and cried so loud, as though all the devils of
hell had been among them. In this evening the king was counselled by
his brethren and lords and by sir Nicholas Walworth, mayor of London,
and divers other notable and rich burgesses, that in the night time
they should issue out of the Tower and enter into the city, and so to
slay all these unhappy people, while they were at their rest and
asleep; for it was thought that many of them were drunken, whereby
they should be slain like flies; also of twenty of them there was
scant one in harness. And surely the good men of London might well
have done this at their ease, for they had in their houses secretly
their friends and servants ready in harness, and also sir Robert
Knolles was in his lodging keeping his treasure with a sixscore ready
at his commandment; in like wise was sir Perducas d'Albret, who was as
then in London, insomuch that there might well (have) assembled
together an eight thousand men ready in harness. Howbeit, there was
nothing done, for the residue of the commons of the city were sore
doubted, lest they should rise also, and the commons before were a
threescore thousand or more. Then the earl of Salisbury and the wise
men about the king said: 'Sir, if ye can appease them with fairness,