Read "The King Behind the King" by Warwick Deeping online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The great lords and gentlemen sat round the table in the Council Chamber in the White Tower, and out of the summer night came the shouts of the peasants. They had lit bonfires in the square of St. Catharine's and were making merry, there being no lack of meat and drink, for they had taken whatever they desired to lay their hands upon. Hundreds of them were drunk before sunset, and the multitude kept up a fuddled uproar, marching to and fro under the walls, hammering on pots and pans, and making every sort of noise that it was possible for tipsy fools to make.
The King was not at the council board. He had gone to his chamber soon after sunset, and ordered all the windows to be closed, for the wild shouts of the mob had terrified him, even as a child is terrified by the howling of wolves on a winter night. Salisbury, Simon of Sudbury, and Walworth the Mayor had gone to his chamber, to find it lit by a blaze of candles, and the King abed with a great purple quilt, embroidered with golden suns, pulled up over his head. He had turned his face away and refused to speak with them, muttering that one of his uncles had conspired to raise the rage of the people against him.