Smithfield, London by Charles of France at Paris a few years earlier, upon the arrival of his consort Isabel of Bavaria. Geoffrey Chaucer supervised preparations for the tournament as a clerk to the King. Along with Tyburn, Smithfield was for centuries the main site for the public execution of heretics and dissidents in London. The Scottish nobleman Sir William Wallace was executed in 1305 at West Smithfield. The market was the meeting place prior to the Peasants' Revolt and where the Revolt's leader, Wat Tyler, was slain by Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor of London on 15 June 1381. Religious dissenters (Catholics
Peasants' Revolt up its royal privileges. Revolt then spread north from Cambridge toward Ely, where the gaol was opened and the local Justice of the Peace executed. In Norfolk, the revolt was led by Geoffrey Litster, a weaver, and Sir Roger Bacon, a local lord with ties to the Suffolk rebels. Litster began sending out messengers across the county in a call to arms on 14 June, and isolated outbreaks of violence occurred. The rebels assembled on 17 June outside Norwich and killed Sir Robert Salle, who was in charge of the city defences and had attempted to negotiate a settlement. The