THE KING AND THE BONDMEIN.

the country by engaging in expensive wars and other
extravagances; on which the citizens opened the
gates, and Tyler with his thousands passed triumph-
antly over, and entered the city. They made no
attempt to steal, and paid for all they wanted, and
instantly cut off the head of any one of their number
found plundering, and the Londoners hoped the bond-
men would soon obtain their demands, and take their
departure without further mischief. But so large a
multitude was not easy to be kept in order; they had
not been long in the city before they found their way
to the Duke of Lancaster's palace in the Savoy, not far
from where Somerset House now stands, and renewed
the work of destruction. The duke was one of the
hated nobles, and the crowd rushed from room to room
seeking for the owner, and wondering at the magni-
ficence of the stately edifice, and tearing down the
rich damasks, the gold and silver work, and tasteful
carvings which beautified the walls. They spared
nothing, and set the building on fire, and in a few
hours nothing was left of its valuable contents but
smoking ashes. One of the men who was detected
stealing a silver candlestick was flung into the flames as
a punishment for his offence, and to prove, as Tyler had
said, that the peasants were not robbers. Some thirty
or forty of them, however, had got into the cellars of
the palace, where they broke open the wine casks, and
stayed so long drinking the intoxicating liquor, that
the walls of the building fell in and choked up all the
passages, and the rioters, unable to get o-t, pprahfer
miserably under the fiery heap.