Within the Hollow Crown by Margaret Campbell Barnes Page A

why, there'd be no wars or anything…Nothing to sit in Council for, or feel important about. But at least one man besides Richard beamed upon her. The Mayor was grateful to her for making it easier to say what he had really come to say. "I have already taken it upon myself to do so, madam," he confessed.
       In spite of themselves the others looked relieved. "Quite right, Walworth—quite right!" approved Warwick. A tradesman could do that sort of thing, of course, and it would save men of noble blood from demeaning themselves. "And what did they say?"
       Walworth got up and looked with respectful diffidence towards the raised window embrasure where Richard was standing. "They refused to treat with us at all, but only with the King. They want to tell him their grievances. They seem to think that he—"
       Whatever more he said was momentarily drowned in indignant shouts of "Monstrous!" and "Impossible!" Only when his listeners had spent their indignation were his concluding words audible. "They want him to go to Blackheath."
       The words came to Richard as a shock. They wanted him t o go—not all these warlike adults arguing around his table. The thought of going back to Blackheath—to a Blackheath no longer ominously orderly but swarming with wild beasts who burned down palaces and killed prostitutes like helpless sheep in the streets—was a far more terrifying challenge than any he was ever likely to encounter in the lists. Across the heads of the rest he met William Walworth's steady gaze, and it was as if the man had thrown down a gage. A gage for which the prize was London. Only instead of cantering across some flag-decked lists he would have to ride out from these strong encircling walls into a hostile world where violence and class hatred ruled. Into a strange, inverted world where, like Gloucester and the rest, he didn't know the first thing about the rules. He felt miserably inadequate, but something in him—some heritage stronger than himself—made him nod assent to the inquiry in Walworth's honest eyes.
       "Is it necessary for anyone to go?" asked his elder half-brother, anxious for his safety. "After all, bread doesn't grow on Highgate or Blackheath. Tyler and Straw can order their men about but they can't feed them. Not all those thousands."
       "Keep them out of London for another twenty-four hours and their empty bellies will tell them to go home," agreed the Lord Lieutenant.
       Walworth and his sheriff exchanged uneasy glances. "If we can," they muttered in unison.
       But Gloucester had evidently been turning over some new project in his mind. "I don't see why the King shouldn't go out to them," he said unexpectedly. It was his first contribution to the discussion for some time.
       "My dear Duke, consider the boy's age!" protested the Archbishop. And Salisbury backed him up with the very objection which Gloucester had been swift enough to mention when the rebels had waylaid the King's mother. "Doesn't it occur to any of you that they may keep his Grace as a hostage?"
       "And then they might demand anything !" spluttered the Prior, well aware that his own head would be one of the first things they would want.
       In response to his mother's imploring gaze Richard had returned to the table and was standing by her chair, but evidently he was not giving in to her arguments. "If he goes, I shall go with him!" she declared. "When my father was Duke of Kent he made most of his serfs free. For the love they bear him and the Black Prince and myself they will do us no harm."
       "Then we will all ride with you, madam!" cried Standish and several others, stirred by her courage and trusting rather bleakly in her optimism.
       They were almost all on their feet now, arguing more fiercely than ever. Richard was grateful to Bolingbroke for ending it. "Listen, milords!" he called out, rapping the table with the quillons of his sword to make himself heard. "There's no need to