It would have been well if Henry had heeded these complaints and requests. As it was he pushed on to Blackheath, in spite of murmuring in his army, and Cade, unwilling to risk a battle, and knowing that disaffection was at work in London, quietly withdrew to Sevenoaks. There was no spirit in the royal troops to suppress the rising, and many favoured the Captain of Kent. But two knights, Sir Humfrey Stafford and Sir William Stafford, kinsmen of the Duke of Buckingham and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and men of some military repute, decided to pursue the rebels and advanced to Sevenoaks with a small picked body of soldiers. Their defeat was complete. Both knights were slain, and those of their men who were not cut to pieces fled from the battle, or joined Cade’s host. The result of this disaster to the royal plans was that Henry returned to London with an army that soon melted away, or broke into open disorder. Many of the nobles, who on receipt of the petition of the commons of Kent had called for violent measures against the rebels, now left the king, and, with their retainers, rode to their country estates. Henry, to appease the clamour of some of his own followers, ordered the arrest of Lord Say-and-Sele, the king’s treasurer, and of Sheriff Crowmer, and bade officers take them to the Tower. Parliament was dissolved, and Cade was busy in Kent gathering reinforcements, and doing what he could to repair locally the mischief of Suffolk’s rule before proceeding to London.[75] As a last resource, Henry decided to treat with Cade by ambassadors, and on June 29th, when the commons were again encamped on Blackheath, came the Duke of Buckingham, and Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, for many years the king’s chancellor--a gentle old man, who, if he had made no stand against the misgovernment himself, was hardly to be blamed--to arrange, if possible, a peaceful settlement. The conference came to nothing, for neither Buckingham nor the archbishop could promise Cade any positive redress of grievances, or the interview he sought with the king. “These lords found him sober in talk, wise in reasoning, arrogant in heart, and stiff in opinions; one who that by no means would dissolve his army, except the king in person would come to him, and assent to the things he would require” (Holinshed.) The failure of the mission was reported, and Henry, after appointing Lord Scales as guardian of the prisoners in the Tower, hastily fled to Kenilworth, although the lord mayor and citizens of London promised to stand by him if he would remain in the city. There was little of sovereignty in Henry VI., son of Henry V., the conqueror of Agincourt. Quiet he loved, and in religious exercises he found the satisfaction that others found in war and statecraft.