all through the night those who were awake in the city heard the rebels howling in the suburbs outside the walls. they had ransacked wood lodges and pulled down palings, and made great fires in the streets and open places, so that a yellow glare streamed up into the sky. at low tide some of them had swum the river and waded about on the mud under the water gate of the tower, hooting and shouting, and jeering at the guards on the walls. at one time there were so many of them in the water that they looked like a swarm of big black rats whom fire had driven out of a merchant’s warehouse.
the king’s council, sitting soon after dawn, realised its own helplessness and the danger of rousing a more ugly temper in the mob, for the tiler and the leaders had threatened to burn the suburbs if the gates of the city were not opened. william walworth himself rode out to see it done, but the news had spread before him, shouted hither and thither from aldgate to black friars. the meaner folk had put on holiday clothes, and were swarming in the streets, making a motley of many colours, with the women, in clean wimples, and the young wenches with ribbons in their hair. some of them broke into the churches and rang the bells, so that the whole city was a jangle of exultation. the wealthier folk, the brethren of the richer guilds and companies, kept close in their houses with doors barred and shutters up, all the able men in harness, and with arms ready to hand.
on london bridge a crowd had gathered to see the bridge gate opened, and the river below was crowded with boats. walworth and his men had trouble to push through. horns and trumpets were blown, handbells rung, drums beaten, and from beyond the gate came the answering roar of the peasants. the gates were to be opened, and all these savage, simple souls took it for a surrender, the throwing wide of a new and spacious season, the beginning of the end of long tyrannies and oppressions. no more forced work upon roads and bridges, no more forced hewing of my lord’s wood, of ploughing his land and harvesting his corn; no more gross manor rights, no heriots, no fines, no reliefs, no dishonouring of brides; no more takes, no more arbitrary statutes, no more grindings at the lord’s mill. all men were to be free to give service for a free wage. all men and women were to wear the clothes they pleased, to go whither they pleased, to serve whom they pleased. the gates were to be opened. the great lords had surrendered!
the people on the bridge cheered walworth the mayor, for their hearts were with the men of kent. the sun shone, the bells jangled. it was like may day, and a new season was coming in.
a certain soldierly orderliness marked the marching of the peasants over london bridge, and walworth, who saw them cross, turned and spoke to the city fathers who were with him.
“these sheep are not without shepherds. we shall have news to hear before nightfall.”
john ball and wat the tiler headed the multitude, riding side by side, the priest carrying a wooden cross, the tiler a naked sword. five hundred bowmen in one company followed them, marching in step, their caps set jauntily, their belts stuck full of arrows. a wagon rumbled behind these bow-bearers, drawn along by a crowd of men who shouted and pointed their fingers at things allegorical.
father merlin sat in the front of the wagon, holding a steelyard on a staff, and the crowd called him father justice. behind him, on two stools, were isoult and guy the stallion, each clad in scarlet and white, the swashbuckler wearing a pasteboard crown, isoult a garland of white roses. king jack and queen jill were their pageant names, and it was said that they symbolised the right of the people to rule.
isoult had no smiles for the crowd, but her partner was in royal fettle. the red tusks of his beard bristled with arrogance, and he turned his head from side to side like a haughty and staring puppet. now and again he presented his poleaxe, which served as a sceptre, for the crowd to kiss, nodding his head at them and declaiming his titles.
“by cock, i am king jack—king of the commons! let the lords and gentles shrive themselves, for assuredly i shall crack their skulls. i am king jack, the king of all honest fellows.”
they went at a snail’s pace over the bridge. the roadway between the houses with their painted signs and plaster work and their carved, overhanging gables, shook with the tramp of feet. the bowmen put their caps on their bows and shouted together, and from the boats on the river came the braying of trumpets and the beating of drums.
isoult’s heart was out of the crowd. she was conscious of scorn, of an utter lack of kinship with these rustics who crowded in their thousands over the bridge. the walls of the white tower rose against the blue, speaking to the pride in her, a pride that had blood in the mortar between its stones. yet she owned to a vague curiosity, a desire to foresee the end of all this storm and bluster. was it possible that her own perverse but discarded dreams were to come true, that she was to behold king jack crowned and throned on the seats of the mighty? she felt someone nudging her, and found the swashbuckler thrusting at her with the handle of his poleaxe.
“look alive, wife; grin at them, bob your head. by cock, we are very great people, you and i!”
certainly his greatness had expanded. his eyes flared, and his beard looked even redder than usual. the allegory had got into his head.
“you are fine enough to serve for both!”
“what, no heart for adventure? we are great people, i say. listen to the bells, and the drums, and the fine bellowing voices.”
“they bellow loud enough, even for your fancy.”
“well, queen jill, i shall sit in the king’s chair at westminster. but spur and saddle’s the word, when we have done with all this mummery. we’ll show these lordings how to handle a spear.”
isoult returned to her own mute inner self, and left this stuffed figure and the crowd on the far edge of her consciousness. she saw things without seeing them, heard sounds without hearing them. her thoughts were back in the forest with its green and secret ways, in the wild fern, in the singing of birds at dawn, in the smell of the torn blossom, in the strong arms of a man. she was weary of being tossed along on the foam of this mill-race. it would carry her under the wheel, no doubt, and leave her broken in the still waters of the days beyond. she tried to keep in the past and not to think of the future. what did anything matter, unless the strangest of strange things happened?
the day’s happenings were to be spread out before her like some pageant or wild miracle play, for the wagon went with the multitude, carried along by it like a barge on a muddy stream. the peasants poured through the city, past paul’s, and through ludgate towards john of gaunt’s palace of the savoy. this great and noble house was the first thing to feel the mob’s wrath, and since they could not lay hands on the master, they were determined to wreck his house instead.
the wagon was left standing in the street, and isoult saw all that happened. king jack had joined the crowd; but merlin remained in the wagon, holding his emblem of justice. the mob broke down the gates of the savoy, slew the porters, and threw their bodies out into the street. a torrent of fury poured through into the courtyard till the great palace was as crowded as a beehive, and the uproar within never ceased. men began to straggle out, carrying in their arms all manner of rich gear, plate, and jewels, and beautiful hangings, tapestries, furniture, armour, glass cups, mazer bowls, salts, clothes, dorsers, chalices, gold candlesticks, caskets, and mosaics. everything was hurled down in the street beside the wagon where merlin sat, until there was a pyramid of tangled magnificence lying in the roadway. when they had emptied the palace merlin stood at his full height and waved long arms.
“destroy, destroy, let nothing be left!”
they fell upon the pile, crushing the jewels to powder with hammers, battering the cups into shapeless lumps, hacking the gold and silver dishes to pieces, tearing the silks, embroideries, and tapestries to ribbons. a hundred armourers might have been at work in the street, by the clangour of axes and hammers. the air was full of dust and of silken shreds floating iridescent in the sunlight. a red stream came trickling out of the gateway into the street, for the mob had rolled all the wine barrels into the courtyard and staved them in, letting muscadel and pyment and hypocrasse gush over the stones.
merlin looked at isoult with his ironical eyes.
“we trample pride into the dust, but we do not steal it. see now, what a watch-fire they are kindling.”
blue ribbons of smoke were uncurling themselves from the windows, and in a few minutes it began to rise in black masses from the turrets and the great lantern of the hall. the mob had set the palace on fire, after hacking the wainscoting to pieces, and piling it up to make a blaze. the river of wine still ran through the gateway, soaking into the mass of gorgeous rubbish that had been trampled like litter in a cow-yard. as the windows reddened, the last of the mob came pouring out, sweating, shouting, exultant. soon the heat became so great, and the smoke so thick, that merlin’s wagon had to be dragged away, and the greater part of the multitude followed it back into the city.
the hospital of st. john shared the fate of the palace of the savoy, being sacked and set on fire. merlin’s wagon rolled through the streets with wild faces round it. they passed john ball running like a madman through west cheap, waving a crucifix, and shouting, “let nineveh be destroyed!” all the shops were shut; a sudden terror had seized the city; the may day mood of the morning had gone with the dew. the mob’s blood was up, and its head taking in strong drink, for the tavern keepers had to keep open house and dared not ask for payment. the houses of the wealthier citizens looked shut up and deserted, but through cracks in the shutters many an eye peered and men handled their weapons behind barred doors.
isoult saw richard lyon, wat the tiler’s enemy, murdered in west cheap. later she saw flemings dragged from their houses and butchered before their doors, their bodies hacked in pieces and thrown into the gutters. very few flemings escaped that day, for these men of kent had no pity on them. the lombards shared the fate of the flemings. the mob had smelt and tasted blood, and its face became smeared and hideous.
isoult went through the day, mute, wide-eyed, possessed by a sense of her utter helplessness. she was conscious of anger and scorn, and of a deepening disgust that hardened her face and pinched her nostrils. the dust, the sweat, the butchery, the odour of burnt wood, the flat smell of spent ale, the screams, the shouts, curses, and laughter, the blundering violence, the stupid, ruthless faces. she had a feeling that nothing could stop the mad rush of this multitude, that nothing could master it. the lords and great ones, the castles and richer houses, the whole proud scheme of things would go down before it and be left buried under mud and wreckage.
merlin was watching her, and her loathing was too great to be dissembled.
“lord of foul beasts, are you proud of the day?”
“no fire without smoke, isoult. these fellows are as quiet as lambs in their own fields, but the wrath of god is in them.”
“the wrath of god may prove stronger than your wisdom.”
“let them but shout and drink, and let a little blood, and they will be the more easily ruled when they are weary.”
“this blood lust is useful to you!”
“it shall purge the pride of the oppressor.”
“assuredly it is a marvellous thing that we should be christians.”
towards evening the mob gathered in the square of st. catharine’s by the tower, and fixed their quarters there for the night. here was the very heart of the kingdom, the castle of all castles, and the sight of its walls and towers roused these peasants to the very top of their frenzy. they crowded close to the walls, hooting and howling, and singing songs, boasting of the day’s happenings, and promising themselves nobler things on the morrow. in yonder were great lords whom they hated, and simon of sudbury, the archbishop, whom many of them had sworn to kill. the king should come out to them and grant all that they desired, or they would break in and take him out of the hands of men who were their enemies.
merlin’s wagon had been drawn into the square of st. catharine’s, and from it john ball and wat the tiler spoke to the crowd. fulk, lodged in a little upper room above the king’s chamber in the white tower, could stand at the window and look down at the crowd about the wagon. one of the figures in it was that of a woman in a red robe, a mere red line set among the other little figures that stormed and waved their arms like dolls on a puppet stage. isoult was too far away for fulk to recognise her, nor did she guess that he was in the tower.
