HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 329 



the duty of true Englishmen, and good liege-men, 

 except they did deliver the king from such wicked 

 ones, that would destroy both him and the country. 

 Their aim was at Archbishop Morton and Sir Regi 

 nald Bray, who were the king s screens in this envy. 

 After that these two, Flammock and the black 

 smith, had by joint and several pratings found tokens 

 of consent in the multitude, they offered themselves 

 to lead them, until they should hear of better men 

 to be their leaders, which they said would be ere 

 long : telling them further, that they would be but 

 their servants, and first in every danger ; but doubted 

 not but to make both the west-end and the east-end 

 of England to meet in so good a quarrel ; and that 

 all, rightly understood, was but for the king s ser 

 vice. The people upon these seditious instigations, 

 did arm, most of them with bows and arrows, and 

 bills, and such other weapons of rude and country 

 people, and forthwith under the command of their 

 leaders, which in such cases is ever at pleasure, 

 marched out of Cornwall through Devonshire unto 

 Taunton in Somersetshire, without any slaughter, 

 violence, or spoil of the country. At Taunton they 

 killed in fury an officious and eager commissioner for 

 the subsidy, whom they called the Provost of Perin. 

 Thence they marched to Wells, where the Lord 

 Audley, with whom their leaders had before some 

 secret intelligence, a nobleman of an ancient family, 

 but unquiet and popular, and aspiring to ruin, came 

 in to them, and was by them, with great gladness 

 and cries of joy, accepted as their general ; they 



