As the event proved, they were quite unprepared for the shock of his charge, and, thrown into confusion, they were unable to prevent him from forcing his way safely through their midst; but as soon as he had done so, he found himself surrounded by more than a hundred horsemen, trotting up from different directions. Perceiving that escape was now impossible, he "willingly yielded himself to the likeliest man of the company," and was immediately made a prisoner. Would it have been more becoming to have sold his life dearly and to have died on the field by shot, pike, or sword, than to have surrendered to that ill-mounted, ill-armed, and irregular band of squireens, yeomen, and tradesmen, with the certainty of the disgraceful gallows and the quartering hatchet before him? The reasons for his acting otherwise, given by Father Gerard, are at least logical. He had a desire, he says,[328] "to have some time before his death for his better preparation, and withal" he hoped "to have done some service to the Catholic cause by word, sith he saw he could not do it by the sword." [328] P. 111. I have been unable to find any details as to what befel Sir Everard between his arrest and his long, wearying, and humiliating ride of nearly a hundred and twenty miles to London. Bound a prisoner on his horse, and guarded by armed men on all sides, he would be an object of curiosity and derision in every town, village, and hamlet through which he passed. He would be taken through Warwickshire, which had been the scene of his fruitless attempt to raise an insurrection during the two previous days; probably, through many places well known in happier times in Northamptonshire; through yet more familiar localities in Buckinghamshire, where he had hitherto been hailed with raised hats and genial smiles; and even, perhaps, within a few miles of his beloved Gothurst itself. When he entered Middlesex, the nearer he came to London, the greater would be the angry demonstrations of hostility on the part of the crowds that turned out to see the traitor and conspirator as he was conducted towards the Tower to take his trial for high treason. There may have been a few sympathisers among the mob, such as the man who was heard to whisper that "It had been brave sport, yf it had gone forward";[329] but such remarks would not be made loud enough to reach the ears of Digby. [329] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xvi. n. 29, 1. The shame of that journey must have been intense to a man constituted like Sir Everard, and it may have been increased by the reflection that he had forsaken his friends, with the intention of surrendering himself; and that, although they had certainly deceived him, he was in some sense a deserter from their ranks, at the moment of their extremity, as well as a traitor to his king.