Suffolk went into Warwickshire with his brothers, and about fifty followers, and was accused of having proclaimed the Lady Jane at Leicester, and in other places, but according to Holinshed, he only called on the inhabitants of the towns through which he passed, to rise and fight for their liberties, which were at the mercy of Spain.[397] But as in the first rebellion, the people listened to him in stolid and indifferent silence, even refusing the money which he scattered in profusion among them. The Earl of Huntingdon, who was sent in pursuit as soon as Suffolk’s intentions were known, encountered the Duke near Coventry, and after a slight skirmish obliged him to fly for his life. He was betrayed by one of his own tenants, with whom he had taken refuge, and delivered over to his pursuers. Thus the triple cord was utterly broken in less than a fortnight, and Mary and her advisers might now concentrate all their energies on the only one of the chief plotters who seemed likely to prove dangerous. This was Sir Thomas Wyatt, whose name has become identified with the rebellion. In courage, skill and enterprise he far exceeded the other conspirators, and when it was known that he had risen, furnished with arms and ammunition by the Venetian ambassador, consternation filled the hearts of the loyal. Fifteen thousand Kentish men gathered round his standard, in the fields bordering the great highway that runs from London to Dover. They harassed the Flemish and Spanish merchants, travelling from the coast inland, in such sort, that those who escaped with their lives thought themselves fortunate. So great was the terror which he inspired, that if Wyatt had at once pushed on to London, the city would have fallen resistless into his hands. “The 26th day of January,” says Machyn, “began watching at every gate, in harness, for tidings came the same time to the Queen and her Council, that Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir George Harper, Sir Hare Isseley, Master Cobham, and Master Rudston and Master Knevett, and divers other gentlemen and commons were up, and they say because [of] the Prince of Spain coming in to have our Queen, for they keep Rochester Castle, and the bridge and other places.”[398] By six o’clock in the evening, a small force of about five hundred men had been collected at Leadenhall, and the next day marched towards Gravesend, under Captain Brett, as if to fight the Kentish men, while the Earl of Huntingdon set out with another company “to take the Duke of Suffolk”. The Duke of Norfolk, lieutenant of the army, was supported by the Earl of Ormond, and Sir Henry Jerningham, Captain of the Guard, with a considerable number of men under him. But the loyalty of Brett and his men was feigned, and the following account relates the story of their treason:—