{p.096} The prestige of success decided all who were wavering in the county. Abergavenny was wholly forsaken; Southwell escaped to the court; Cheyne wrote to the council that he was no longer sure of any one; "the abominable treason of those that came with the Duke of Norfolk had infected the whole population."[224] Cobham continued to hold off, but his sons came into Rochester the evening of the duke's flight; and Wyatt sent a message to the father expressing his sorrow that he had been hitherto backward; promising to forgive him, however, and requiring him to be in the camp the next day, when the army would march on London. Cobham still hesitating, two thousand men were at the gates of his house[225] by daybreak the next morning (January 30). He refused to lower the drawbridge, but the chains were cut with a cannon-shot, the gates were blown open, and the rebels were storming in when his servants forced him to surrender. The house was pillaged; an oath was thrust on Cobham that he would join, which he took with the intention of breaking it; and the rebels, perhaps seeing cause to distrust him, carried him off to Wyatt as a prisoner.[226] That night the insurgents rested at Gravesend. The next day (January 31) they reached Dartford. Their actual numbers were insignificant, but their strength was the disaffection of London, where the citizens were too likely to follow the example which had been set at Rochester. [Footnote 224: "It is a great deal more than strange," he added, "to see the beastliness of the people, to see how earnestly they be bent in this their most devilish enterprise, and will by no means be persuaded the contrary but that it is for the commonweal of all the realm."--Cheyne to the Council: _MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. iii.] [Footnote 225: Cowling Castle, a place already famous in English Reforming history as the residence of Sir John Oldcastle.]