The King Behind the King by Warwick Deeping

All through the night those who were awake in the city heard the rebels howling in the suburbs outside the walls. They had ransacked wood lodges and pulled down palings, and made great fires in the streets and open places, so that a yellow glare streamed up into the sky. At low tide some of them had swum the river and waded about on the mud under the water gate of the Tower, hooting and shouting, and jeering at the guards on the walls. At one time there were so many of them in the water that they looked like a swarm of big black rats whom fire had driven out of a merchant's warehouse.

The King's Council, sitting soon after dawn, realised its own helplessness and the danger of rousing a more ugly temper in the mob, for the Tiler and the leaders had threatened to burn the suburbs if the gates of the city were not opened. William Walworth himself rode out to see it done, but the news had spread before him, shouted hither and thither from Aldgate to Black Friars. The meaner folk had put on holiday clothes, and were swarming in the streets, making a motley of many colours, with the women, in clean wimples, and the young wenches with ribbons in their hair. Some of them broke into the churches and rang the bells, so that the whole city was a jangle of exultation. The wealthier folk, the brethren of the richer guilds and companies, kept close in their houses with doors barred and shutters up, all the able men in harness, and with arms ready to hand.