r Christopher Blount to attack them; "which he
did with great bravery, and killed Waite, a stout officer, who had been
formerly hired by the earl of Leicester to assassinate sir Christopher,
and was now abandoned by his company[140]." In the end, however, the
earl was repulsed with the loss of one young gentleman killed and sir
Christopher Blount wounded and taken prisoner; and retreating with his
diminished band to the river side, he returned by water to his own
house.

[Note 140: Birch's Memoirs.]

He was much disappointed to find that his three prisoners had been
liberated in his absence by sir Ferdinando Gorges: but sanguine to the
last in his hopes of an insurrection of the citizens in his favor, he
proceeded to fortify his house in the best manner that circumstances
would admit.

It was soon invested by a considerable force under the lord admiral, the
earls of Cumberland and Lincoln, and other commanders. Sir Robert Sidney
was ordered to summon the little garrison to surrender, when the earl of
Southampton demanded terms and hostages; but being answered that none
would be granted to rebels, except that the ladies within the house and
their women would be permitted to depart if they desired it, the
defenders declared their resolution to hold out, and the assault
continued.

Lord Sandys, the oldest man in the party, encouraged the earl in the
resolution which he once appeared to have adopted, of cutting a way
through the assailants; observing, that the boldest courses were the
safest, and that at all events it was more honorable for men of quality
to die sword in hand than by the axe of the executioner:--but Essex, who
had not yet resigned the flattering hopes of life, was easily moved by
the tears and cries of the surrounding females to yield to less
courageous, not more prudent, counsels. Captain Owen Salisbury, a brave
veteran, seeing that all was lost, planted himself at a window
bare-headed, for the purpose of being slain: on receiving from one of
the assailants a bullet on the side of his head, "O!" cried he, "that
thou hadst been so much my friend to have shot but a little lower!" Of
this wound however he expired the next morning.

About six in the evening the earl made known his willingness to
surrender, on receiving assurance, for himself and his friends, of civil
treatment and a legal trial; and permission for a clergyman named Aston
to attend him in prison:--the lord admiral answered that of the two