rise in arms before the day appointed. He was soon suppressed by
the earl of Bedford, and constrained to fly into France. On this
intelligence, Suffolk, dreading an arrest, suddenly left the town with
his brothers, Lord Thomas and Lord Leonard Gray, and endeavored to raise
the people in the counties of Warwick and Leicester, where his interest
lay; but he was so closely pursued by the earl of Huntingdon, at
the head of three hundred horse, that he was obliged to disperse his
followers, and being discovered in his concealment, he was carried
prisoner to London.[***]

* Depeches de Noailles, vol. ii. p. 249; vol. iii. p. 17,
58.

** Heylin, p. 33. Godwin, p. 340.

*** Fox, vol. iii. p. 30.

Wiat was at first more successful in his attempt; and having published a
declaration, at Maidstone in Kent, against the queen's evil counsellors,
and against the Spanish match, without any mention of religion, the
people began to flock to his standard. The duke of Norfolk, with Sir
Henry Jernegan, was sent against him, at the head of the guards and some
other troops, reenforced with five hundred Londoners commanded by Bret:
and he came within sight of the rebels at Rochester, where they had
fixed their head-quarters. Sir George Harper here pretended to desert
from them; but having secretly gained Bret, these two malecontents so
wrought on the Londoners, that the whole body deserted to Wiat, and
declared that they would not contribute to enslave their native country.
Norfolk, dreading the contagion of the example, immediately retreated
with his troops, and took shelter in the city.[*]

After this proof of the disposition of the people, especially of the
Londoners, who were mostly Protestants, Wiat was encouraged to proceed;
he led his forces to Southwark, where he required of the queen that she
should put the Tower into his hands, should deliver four counsellors
as hostages, and in order to insure the liberty of the nation, should
immediately marry an Englishman. Finding that the bridge was secured
against him, and that the city was overawed, he marched up to Kingston,
where he passed the river with four thousand men; and returning towards
London, hoped to encourage his partisans who had engaged to declare for
him. He had imprudently wasted so much time at Southwark, and in his
march from Kingston, that the critical season, on which all popular
commotions depend, was entirely lost: though he entered Westminster