baggage, and five hundred of the best troops in London fell into the insurgents' hands, and swelled their ranks.
No sooner was the Duke gone, than Wyatt in person came out over the bridge. 'As many as will tarry with us,' he cried, 'shall be welcome; as many as will depart, let them go.' Very few accepted the latter offer. Three parts, even of Norfolk's private attendants, took service with the rebel leader.
The prestige of success decided all who were wavering in the county. Abergavenny was wholly forsaken; Southwell escaped to the Court; Cheyne wrote to the council that he was no longer sure of any one; 'the abominable treason of those that came with the Duke of Norfolk had infected the whole population.'[1] Cobham continued to hold off, but his sons came into Rochester the evening of the Duke's flight; and Wyatt sent a message to the father expressing his sorrow that he had been hitherto backward; promising to forgive him, however, and requiring him to be in the camp the next day, when the army would march on London. Cobham still hesitating, two thousand men were at the gates of his house[2] by daybreak the next morning. Jan. 30.He refused to lower the drawbridge, but the chains were cut with a cannon-shot, the gates were blown open, and the
- ↑ 'It is a great deal more than strange,' he added, 'to see the beastliness of the people, to see how earnestly they be bent in this their most devilish enterprise, and will by no means be persuaded the contrary but that it is for the commonweal of all the realm.'—Cheyne to the Council: MS. Mary, Domestic, vol. iii.
- ↑ Cowling Castle, a place already famous in English Reforming history as the residence of Sir John Oldcastle.
