Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter II · THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

The London bands arrived the following afternoon (January 28), and Norfolk determined to take Harper's advice. The weather was "very terrible." On Monday morning it blew so hard that no boat could live; Wyatt, therefore, would be unable to escape by the river, and an immediate advance was resolved upon. Sir Thomas Cheyne was coming up from Dover; Lord William Howard was looked for hourly, and Abergavenny was again exerting himself: Lord Cobham had urged the duke to wait a few days, and had told him that he had certain knowledge from Wyatt himself that "the Londoners would not fight:"[223] but Norfolk was confident; the men had assured him of their loyalty; and at four o'clock on Monday afternoon he was on the sloping ground facing towards Rochester, within cannon-shot of the bridge. The duke was himself in front, with Ormond, Jerningham, and eight "field-pieces," which he had brought with him. A group of insurgents were in sight across the water, a gun was placed in position to bear upon them; and the gunner was blowing his match, when Sir Edward Bray galloped up, crying out that the "white coats," as the London men were called, were changing sides. The duke had fallen into a trap which Harper had laid for him. Turning round, he saw Brett, the London captain, with all his men, and with Harper at his side, advancing and shouting, "A Wyatt! a Wyatt! we are all Englishmen!" The first impulse was to turn the gun upon them; the second, and more prudent, was to spring on his horse, and gallop with half a dozen others for his life. His whole force had deserted, and guns, money, baggage, and five hundred of the best troops in London fell into the insurgents' hands, and swelled their ranks.