Charles and his party abroad, watching the continual bickerings of their enemies in England, put in motion all their machinery to create confusion, and to seize the opportunity of taking every possible means of procuring a revolt amongst them. Charles, to encourage his partisans, announced his intention of coming to England to head them. The 1st of August was fixed on for a rising, and Charles hastened into Boulogne, to be ready to pass over into Wales or Cornwall. The Duke of York was to lead over six hundred of the Prince of Condé's veterans, and, crossing from Boulogne, land on the coast of Kent, whilst the Duke of Gloucester was to proceed from Ostend with four thousand troops under Marshal Marsin. Unfortunately for them, their plans had been revealed to Thurloe by Sir Richard Willis, one of the king's sealed knot of seven trusted confidants. Convinced by this treason that the enterprise would fail, Charles sent circular letters to stop the rising. But these in some instances arrived too late. Many appeared in arms, and were fallen upon and routed or taken prisoners by the Parliamentarians. Sir John Gore, the Lady Mary Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, in addition to many other persons of distinction, were arrested on charges of high treason. In Cheshire Sir George Booth raised the royal standard, and took possession of Chester; but on learning the news of the king's deferring the enterprise, and that General Lambert was marching against them, he and his associates fled to Nantwich, where Lambert overtook and totally routed them. Colonel Morgan, with thirty of his men, fell on the field; the Earl of Derby was taken disguised as a servant; Sir Thomas Middleton, who was eighty years old, fled to Chirk Castle, but soon surrendered; and Booth himself, disguised as a woman, and riding on a pillion, was betrayed and taken on the road to London, near Newton Pagnell. This unlucky outbreak and defeat threw the adherents of Charles abroad into despair. Montague, the admiral, who had been won over, and had brought his fleet to the mouth of the Thames to facilitate the passage of the king's troops, pretended that he had come for provisions, and, though he was suspected, he was allowed to return to his station. Charles himself, now almost desperate, made a journey to Fuentarabia, where Mazarin and Don Louis de Haro, the ministers of France and Spain, were engaged in a treaty, in the hope that, if it were concluded, he might obtain some support from them. But he was very coldly received; Mazarin would not even see him. In fact, his fortunes were apparently at the lowest ebb, but it was in reality only the dark hour before the dawn. The day of his fortune was at hand.