Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/254

240 upon many of them to give their promise to keep the peace, and to deliver their children into his hands as hostages for their good faith. Two citizens now presented themselves to the council, and since it was dangerous to arrest Longbeard openly, offered to take him by surprise. The offer was accepted, and these men were employed to dog his footsteps, and watch an opportunity of seizing him. At length they found him with only a few companions, and having called to their assistance some armed men whom they had in readiness, they advanced and laid hands upon him. Longbeard immediately drew a knife and stabbed one of them to the heart; then with his companions he effected his escape to the Church of St. Mary of Arches, in the tower of which he barricaded himself. Here for several days he maintained his position, but at length the tower was set on fire, and Longbeard and his friends were driven out by the flames. They were immediately seized and bound, but at that moment a youth, the son of the citizen who was killed, approached Longbeard, and plunged a knife into his bowels. The wound did not cause death, and the soldiers—to whom pity would seem to have been unknown—tied the wounded man to the tail of a horse, and dragged him in this manner to the Tower of London, whence, by sentence of the chief justiciary, he was taken to West Smithfield and was there hung, together with his companions.



During this cruel torture of their leader the citizens remained passive, making no attempt to rescue him; and yet no sooner was he dead, than they proclaimed him to be a saint and a martyr, and cut up the gibbet on which he was hung into relics, which were preserved with a religious veneration. The fame of the "King of the Poor" had travelled far and wide, and the peasantry from remote parts of the kingdom made pilgrimages to Smithfield, in the belief that miracles would be wrought on the spot where he fell. So great was the popular enthusiasm that it became necessary to maintain a guard of soldiers on the spot, and some of the more troublesome pilgrims were imprisoned and scourged. Even these severe measures were only successful after a considerable lapse of time, so enthusiastic were the people in their attachment to the memory of one whom they believed had died in their cause, but whom in his death-agony they raised no arm to save.