Meantime, Henry had not been idle; but he saw that the insurgents were not rousing the country as they progressed, and therefore he judged that the further they were drawn away from their own country the better. Except for a slight skirmish at Guildford, the Cornishmen were not actively interfered with till they encamped on Blackheath. Then, on June 17th, the royal forces proceeded to envelop them. Some two thousand were slain on the field. Audley, the lawyer, and the blacksmith, were put to death as traitors; the rest were pardoned, as having been not so much rebels as victims of demagogic arts. [Sidenote: Warbeck's final failure (Sept.)] The policy of leniency was not entirely successful, for the Cornishmen imagined it merely meant that the King recognised the impossibility of dealing sternly with every one who thought as they did. Warbeck, now in Ireland, where he was not finding the sympathy for which he had hoped, received messages to the effect that if he came to Cornwall he would find plenty of supporters. He came promptly, with a scanty following enough; but only a few thousand men joined him. He marched on Exeter, but that loyal town stoutly refused to admit him, and his attempts to carry gates and walls failed completely. Royal troops were on the march: the gentlemen of Devon, headed by the Earl, were up for the King. Perkin marched to Taunton, and then fled by night to take sanctuary at Beaulieu in Hampshire, where he was surrounded, and very soon submitted himself to the King's clemency. [Sidenote: The Scottish truce] In the meantime the Scottish King, though his sentiments towards Perkin had sensibly cooled, had no intention of leaving him in the lurch, and had advanced on Norham Castle very shortly after his protégé had sailed for Ireland. The Earl of Surrey, however, who commanded in the north, was well prepared, and very soon took the field with twenty thousand men. James was obliged to withdraw, and though he challenged the Earl to single combat with Berwick as the stake, Surrey replied that Berwick was not his property but his master's, and he must regretfully decline the proposed method of arbitrament. He advanced over the border, making some captures and doing considerable damage; but after a week, commissariat difficulties made him retire in turn. In September Perkin's Cornish rising collapsed, and a seven years' treaty was entered upon between the two countries. [Sidenote: The end of Perkin Warbeck 1497-99] Towards the pretender and his followers, the King behaved with his usual leniency. A few leaders only were put to death; other penalties were reserved. Warbeck was compelled publicly to read at Exeter and later in London a confession of the true story of his own origin and that of the conspiracy; and was then relegated to not very strict confinement under surveillance. His supporters were allowed to purchase their pardon by heavy fines, which satisfactorily aided in the replenishment of the royal treasury.