Their rising had been even earlier than that of the Kentishmen.
Before Whitsuntide an attempt to levy the poll-tax gathered crowds of peasants together, armed with clubs, rusty swords, and bows.

The royal commissioners who were sent to repress the tumult were driven from the field, and the Essex men marched upon London on one side of the river as the Kentishmen marched on the other.

The evening of the thirteenth, the day on which Tyler entered the city, saw them encamped without its walls at Mile-end.

At the same moment Highbury and the northern heights were occupied by the men of Hertfordshire and the villeins of St.Albans, where a strife between abbot and town had been going on since the days of Edward the Second.
[Sidenote: Richard the Second] The royal Council with the young king had taken refuge in the Tower, and their aim seems to have been to divide the forces of the insurgents.

On the morning of the fourteenth therefore Richard rode from the Tower to Mile-end to meet the Essex men.