The three thousand men told off for the attack on the gates valiantly assailed them. But they met with a stout resistance. Some of them actually got into the City at Aldgate, but the gate was closed behind them, and they were all killed. Robert Basset, Alderman of Aldgate, performed prodigies of valour. At Bishopsgate they did no good at all. In the end they fell back. Then the citizens threw open the gates and sallied forth. The Earl of Kent brought out 500 men by the Tower Postern and chased the rebels as far as Stepney. Some seven hundred of them were killed. Many hundreds were taken prisoners and held to ransom, 'as if they had been Frenchmen,' says the Chronicler.
The attack on the bridge also completely failed. The gate on the south was fired and destroyed: three score of the houses on the bridge were fired and destroyed: the north gate was also fired, but at the bridge end there were planted half a dozen small pieces of cannon, and behind them waited the army of the citizens. It is a pity that we have not another Battle of the Bridge to relate.
The captain, seeing that he had no hopes of getting possession of London, resolved to march westward and meet Edward. By this time, it is probable that he understood what had happened. He therefore ordered his fleet to await him in the Mersey, and marched as far as Kingston-upon-Thames. It is a strange, incongruous story. All his friends were dead: their cause was hopeless: why should he attempt a thing impossible? Because it was Warwick's order? Perhaps, however, he did not think it impossible.
At Kingston he was met by Lord Scales and Nicolas Fanute, Mayor of Canterbury, who persuaded him 'by fair words' to return. Accordingly, he marched back to Blackheath, where he dismissed his men, ordering them to go home peaceably. As for himself, with a company of 600--his sailors, one supposes--he rejoined his fleet at Chatham, and took his ships round the coast to Sandwich.
Here he waited till Edward came there. He handed over to the King fifty-six ships great and small. The King pardoned him, knighted him, and made him Vice-Admiral of the Fleet. This was in May. Alas! in September we hear that he was taken prisoner at Southampton, carried to Middleham, in Yorkshire, and beheaded, and his head put upon London Bridge.