The tax-gatherers came to this man's shop while he was at work, and they demanded payment for his daughter, whom he asserted to be below the age assigned by the statute.

One of these fellows offered to produce a very indecent proof to the contrary, and at the same time laid hold of the maid; which the father resenting, immediately knocked out the ruffian's brains with his hammer.

The bystanders applauded the action, and exclaimed, that it was full time for the people to take vengeance on their tyrants, and to vindicate their native liberty.

They immediately flew to arms: the whole neighborhood joined in the sedition: the flame spread in an instant over the county: it soon propagated itself into that of Kent, of Hertford, Surrey, Sussex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, and Lincoln.

Before the government had the least warning of the danger, the disorder had grown beyond control or opposition: the populace had shaken off all regard to their former masters; and being headed by the most audacious and criminal of their associates, who assumed the feigned names of Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, Hob Carter, and Tom Miller, by which they were fond of denoting their mean origin, they committed every where the most outrageous violence on such of the gentry or nobility as had the misfortune to fall into their hands.
The mutinous populace, amounting to a hundred thousand men, assembled on Blackheath under their leaders, Tyler and Straw; and as the princess of Wales, the king's mother, returning from a pilgrimage to Canterbury, passed through the midst of them, they insulted her attendants, and some of the most insolent among them, to show their purpose of levelling all mankind, forced kisses from her; but they allowed her to continue her journey, without attempting any further injury.[*] They sent a message to the king, who had taken shelter in the Tower; and they desired a conference with him.