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 hated legal system centred in London. As the historian Miri Rubin describes, for many, "the problem was not the country's laws, but those charged with applying and safeguarding them". Concerns were raised about these changes in society. William Langland wrote the poem "Piers Plowman" in the years before 1380, praising peasants who respected the law and worked hard for their lords, but complaining about greedy, travelling labourers demanding higher wages. The poet John Gower feared England might see an uprising similar to the French Jacquerie revolt of 1358, in which the peasants had risen up against their masters. There was