Mr. Trevelyan tells us how a conference was proposed: 'The rebels invited the King to cross the river and confer with them at Blackheath. He was rowed across in a barge accompanied by his principal nobles. At Rotherhithe, a deputation from the camp on the moor above was waiting on the bank to receive them. At the last moment prudence prevailed, and Richard was persuaded not to trust himself on shore. The rebels, shouting their demands across the water, professed their loyalty to Richard, but required the heads of John of Gaunt, Sudbury, Hales, and several other ministers, some of whom were at that moment in the boat. The royal barge put back to the Tower.'[40]
Stow tells us that the watchword of the peasants was 'With whom hold you?' and the answer was 'With King Richard and the true Commons.' The Chronicler adds: 'Who could not that watchward, off went his head.'
Mr. James Tait, the author of the excellent life of Wat Tyler in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, mentions 'a Proclamation in Thanet Church, on the 13th June, [which] ran in the names of Wat Tyler and John Rackstraw, but the St. Albans insurgents who reached London on Friday the 14th were divided as to which was the more powerful person in the realm, the King or Tyler, and obtained from the latter a promise to come and shave the beards of the abbot, prior and monks; stipulating for implicit obedience to his orders.'
The men of Essex were outside Aldgate in great numbers, and as the day advanced the leaders became fearful as to their condition. They had no means of breaking into the city, and if they remained long where they were they would inevitably have been starved.
'Walworth guarded the bridge, and sent to the peasants, bidding them, in the name of the King and the city, come no nearer to London.'[41] If there had been no treachery it would have been easy to keep the rebels outside till they were forced by hunger to desist from their endeavours to enter, for time was on the side of the besieged, but the peasants had friends and well-wishers within, and the city being divided against itself, fell.
Mr. Trevelyan writes: 'A committee of three aldermen rode out to Blackheath to deliver [Walworth's] message. Two of them, Adam Carlyll and John Fresh, faithfully performed their mission. But the third alderman, named John Horn, separated himself from his two colleagues, conferred apart with the rebel leaders, and exhorted them to march on London at once for they would be received with acclamation into the city. After this treachery he did not fear to return to the city, and brought some of the peasants with him and lodged them in his house. He even advised Walworth to admit the mob.'[42]