Page:Comic History of England.djvu/154

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150
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

established, winding up with the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

During a conference with Tyler, the king was so rudely addressed by Wat, that Walworth, mayor of London, struck the rebel with his sword, and others despatched him before he knew exactly Wat was Wat.

Richard, to quiet this storm, acceded to the rebel demands until he could get his forces together, when he ignored his promises in a right royal manner in the same year. One of these concessions was the abolition of slavery and the novel use of wages for farm work. By his failure to keep this promise, serfdom continued in England four hundred years afterwards.

Richard now became unpopular, and showed signs of worthlessness. He banished his cousin Henry, and dispossessed him of his estates. This, of course, irritated Henry, who entered England while the king was in Ireland, and his forces were soon joined by sixty thousand malcontents.

Poor Richard wandered away to Wales, where he was in constant danger of falling off, and after living on chestnuts knocked from the high trees by means of his sceptre, he returned disgusted and took up his quarters in the Tower, where he died of starvation in 1400.

Nothing can be more pathetic than the picture of a king crying for bread, yet willing to com-