As soon as he had reached this point, and arranged his men, he rode off to Bret, and ordered a party, commanded by Captain Cobliam, to attack the postern-gate, as before related. Bret was to hold himself in readiness to march down to the Bulwark Gate, or to attack the Leg Mount, a bastion at the north-west angle of the fortress, corresponding (though of somewhat smaller size,) with the Brass Mount, as he should receive instructions.
Having issued these directions, Wyat rode back to his troops—he was now mounted, as were several of his officers, on the steeds captured in the recent skirmish with the Earl of Pembroke—and commanded them to remain perfectly quiet till Admiral Winter’s squadron should arrive off the Tower. His injunctions were strictly obeyed, and such perfect silence was observed, that though his men were drawn up within a few yards of the fortress, they were not discovered by the sentinels.
On the arrival of the squadron, Wyat immediately commenced an attack upon the Bulwark Gate—one of the weakest outworks of the fortress,—and while directing his engines against it, some half-dozen wooden houses adjoining it on the side of the moat, were fired by his men; and the flames quickly extending to the buildings immediately contiguous to the Bulwark Gate, that defence was at once surrendered.
The first point gained, Wyat despatched a messenger to Bret ordering him to join him instantly; and while a handful of his men, rushing round the semicircular wall, heretofore described as protecting the lesser moat, attacked the embattled gateway fronting the Lion’s Tower, with the intention of joining Suffolk’s party on the wharf, he directed his main force against the Lion’s Gate. This fortification was stoutly defended, and the insurgents were twice repulsed before they could bring their engines to bear against it.
Bret and his party having arrived, such an irresistible attack was made upon the gate, that in a short time it was carried. With loud shouts, the insurgents drove the royalists before them along the narrow bridge facing the Lion’s Tower, and leading to the Middle Tower, putting some to the sword, and throwing others over the walls into the moat.
The movement was so expeditious, and the rout so unexpected, that the portcullis of the Middle Tower, which was kept up to allow the flying men to pass through it, could not be lowered, and hastily directing those around him to prop it up with a piece of timber, Wyat continued the pursuit to the By-ward. Tower.