Up to this point the citizens had shown themselves loyal to Henry. They now began to waver. Early in the morning of the 30th June the mayor and aldermen appear to have changed their minds. The earls had sent them a letter and they resolved to receive it. The contents of this letter are not recorded. On the following day (1 July) another communication from the earls was received. Here again we are left in the dark as to its purport—the City’s journals at this period being very imperfect,—we only know that they declined to accede to the request to keep at a distance from London, for the very next day (2 July) they were admitted into the city.(893) (M479) The city was thus lost to the king; but the Tower still held out, and no amount of eloquence on the part of certain doctors of divinity, whom the Common Council had appointed to try and arrange matters so as to avoid bloodshed, would induce Lord Scales and his companions to surrender it, although the garrison was hard pressed for victuals.(894) Nothing was left but to starve them out, and this the Earl of Salisbury proceeded to do, with the aid of the citizens and the boatmen on the river, by whom the Tower was strictly invested by land and water. The Common Council appear to have felt some qualms of conscience in joining in this proceeding, for they caused it to be recorded—as if by way of excuse for their action—that "there seemed to be no other way of preserving the city."(895) A resolution, moreover, that each alderman should subscribe the sum of £5 towards raising a force to intercept victuals on their way to the Tower was rescinded.(896) (M480) (M481) By the 10th July matters had become so serious with the beleaguered garrison, that a letter was sent to the Common Council, signed by the Earl of Kendal, Lord Scales, Lord Hungerford, Lord Lovell and Sir Edmund Hampden, asking why war was thus being made upon them. To this the Council replied that the lords had brought it upon themselves by firing on the citizens in the first instance, and taking provisions from them without payment.(897) At last the garrison could hold out no longer, and the Tower was surrendered (19th July). Lord Scales endeavoured to take sanctuary at Westminster, but was seized by river boatmen and barbarously murdered.(898) (M482) Meanwhile the Duke of York had managed to raise a sum of money in the city;(899) the battle of Northampton had been won and lost (10th July), and Henry had been brought a prisoner to London (16th July). On the same day that the king arrived in London, the mayor, aldermen and commonalty of the City entered into an agreement, under the Common Seal, to abide by any arrangement made between the Earl of Salisbury and the beleaguered lords in the Tower for the surrender of that stronghold.(900) (M483)