Free The Last Plantagenets by Thomas B. Costain Page A

not there. They searched his palace from top to bottom, burning masses of parchment and piles of illuminated books. The head of the church was not there either and they concluded he must be in London where the head officials of the king had gathered in the Tower. They turned immediately and began to retrace their steps.
    A clamor for action was rising from the ranks. Nothing could prevent them from destroying a few manor houses on the way, without any consideration as to ownership, and burning all documents they could find. They killed all the Black Robes they encountered, a term applied to lawyers who always traveled in austere black gowns with inkhorns in their belts. They blamed all their misfortunes in the past on the connivance of men of the law.
    Their numbers continued to swell. Thirty thousand from the success at Rochester fell into line, according to one chronicle. Word reached them hourly of the nation-wide scope of the uprising. Their confidence climbed and their cries of “By the Bowstring!” now carried a note of triumph. They demanded of everyone they passed adherence to the oath they had coined: “With King Richard and the true Commons.”
    Nearing Blackheath they overtook a member of the royal family hurrying to reach shelter after a visit to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury, none other than the queen mother. She had always been popular with the people and was still called the Fair Maid, and so she had no reason to fear the ragged yeomen who suddenly swarmed about her. She was making the journey in a carriage, having become too stout to ride a palfrey. It was quite a remarkable contraption for that day and may very well have been invented and built for her special use. Certainly it was more elaborate than the whirlicote, a giglike conveyance which was used rarely, very rarely indeed, by the ladies of the nobility. One historian describes it as a wagon twenty feet long, red and gilt, with a high white hood on which the royal insignia of the white hart was painted. It would seem that in it the queen mother might enjoy comfort as well as security. But the condition of the roads had to be taken into consideration. When the marching peasantry overtook the carriage, the wheels were sunk deep in Kentish mud. Men-at-arms stood on guard while the royal servants struggled and sweated to make the mired wheels turn.
    There are two versions of what followed. One is that the peasants helped to extract the wagon and that the queen mother showed hergratitude, and her desire to win their support, by allowing several of the more bold to kiss her and rub their bristling whiskers against her white cheeks.
    The other story is that the marchers cheerfully put their shoulders to the wheel and hauled the coach out of the mud. This much accomplished, they expressed a desire to see the queen mother. One of the soldiers raised a corner of the curtain over the entrance to the hood and conveyed this desire to the royal lady within. Perhaps she had already peered out through some convenient peephole and had been both astonished and frightened by the numbers and the desperate appearance of the rebels. Perhaps with the hauteur of her position she felt it incumbent on her to refuse the request. At any rate the soldier reported that she had said no.
    “Her Grace has no wish to speak with you,” he said. Then he added, “For our part, gramercy for your help.”
    The story of the friendly bussing of the queen mother is the version most often told and believed; and it must be said that it has about it the colorful quality which wins a permanent acceptance for historical episodes. But there is a ring of authenticity about the second version. It can be more readily believed that the queen mother would maintain an aloof attitude, even though it might involve her in unpleasant consequences.
    One way or the other, the royal lady was allowed to drive down the Pilgrimage Road in her creaking, swaying vehicle without any interference and with