In a letter of 27 September 1328 from the mayor, aldermen and commonalty of London to Edward III, the city reported that, thirteen days earlier, Thomas de Wake and John Stratford, bishop of Winchester, came to the London Guildhall ‘to talk about your own good and the common profit of your people’ with the civic elite. Wake and Stratford, acting on behalf of Henry, earl of Lancaster, were contemplating a revolt against Roger Mortimer, who was governing the realm unofficially during Edward III's minority. They complained that the king was not living off his own resources, that he had not been surrounded by a council of prelates and magnates – as had been arranged in the January 1327 parliament at Westminster – and that peace had not been kept in the kingdom. The London government ‘responded that if these things were so, it would be well that they were redressed and amended in your parliament … at Westminster which we believed would be the most convenient and profitable place to hold your parliament, having in mind that your said city is so nearby’.

In the end, London provided a contingent of around 600 men for Lancaster's army, but a full-scale rebellion never arose: Lancaster submitted to the king's grace at Bedford in January 1329. Although the revolt never materialized, London's participation in it remains an important puzzle, for in 1328–29 the city was attempting to overthrow Mortimer, whom it had been so instrumental in elevating to power, along with Queen Isabella and the young Edward III, less than two years earlier.