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jured villain."1 De Foix, evidently instructed to make an arrangement if possible, desired her if she did not like the Prince's terms to name her own conditions, and promised that they should be carefully considered. At first she would say nothing. Then she said she would send her answer through Sir Thomas Smith; then suddenly she sent for Bricquemaut, and told him that 'her rights to Calais being so notorious, she required neither hostages nor satisfaction; she would have Calais delivered over; she would have her money paid down; and she would keep Havre till both were in her hands.'

Bricquemaut withdrew, replying briefly that if this was her resolution she must prepare for war. Once more de Foix was ordered to make a final effort. The council gave him the same answer which Elizabeth had given to Bricquemaut. He replied that the English had no right to demand Calais before the eight years agreed on in the treaty of Cambray were expired. The council rejoined that the treaty of Cambray had been broken by the French themselves in their attempt to enforce the claims of Mary Stuart, that the treaty of Edinburgh remained unratified, and that the fortifications at Calais and the long leases by which the lands in the Pale had been let proved that there was and could be no real intention of restoring it; so that it was lawful for the Queen to do any manner of thing for the recovery of Calais; and being come to the quiet

VOL. VII.

1 De Quadra to Philip, May 9: MS. Simancas.

5

6

possession of Havre without force or any other unlawful means, she had good reason to keep it."1

On Bricquemaut's return, Catherine de Medici lost not a moment. The troops of the Rhingrave, which had watched Havre through the spring, were reinforced. The armies of the Prince and of the Guises, lately in the field against each other, were united under the Constable, and marched for Normandy.

In England ships were hurried to sea; the western counties were allowed to send out privateers to pillage French commerce; and depôts of provisions were established at Portsmouth, with a daily service of vessels between Spithead and the mouth of the Seine. Recruits for the garrison were raised wherever volunteers could be found. The prisoners in Newgate and the Fleet-highwaymen, cutpurses, shoplifters, burglars, horse-stealers, 'tall fellows' fit for service-were drafted into the army in exchange for the gallows; and the council determined to maintain in Havre a constant force of six thousand men and a thousand pioneers, sufficient, it was hoped, with the help of the fleet and the command of the sea, to defy the utmost which France could do.

2

Every day there was now fighting under the walls of the town, and the first successes were with the English. Fifty of the prisoners taken at Caudebecque, who had since worked in the galleys, killed their captain and carried their vessel into Havre. A sharp action followed

1A conference between the French King's ambassador and certain of her Majesty's Council, June 2.'-Conway MSS., Cecil's hand.

2 Domestic MSS, Elizabeth, vol. xxviii.

with the Rhingrave, in which the French lost fourteen hundred men, and the English comparatively few.

war.

Unfortunately young Tremayne was among the killed, a special favourite of Elizabeth, who had distinguished himself at Leith, the most gallant of the splendid band of youths who had been driven into exile in her sister's time, and had roved the seas as privateers. The Queen was prepared for war, but not for the cost of She had resented the expulsion of the French inhabitants of Havre: she had 'doubted' if they were driven from their homes 'whether God would be contented with the rest that would follow;' she was more deeply affected with the death of Tremayne; and Warwick was obliged to tell her that war was a rough game; she must not discourage her troops by finding fault with measures indispensable to success; for Tremayne, he said, 'men came there to venture their lives for her Majesty and their country, and must stand to that which God had appointed either to live or die.'2

June.

The English had a right to expect that they could hold the town against any force which could be brought against them; while the privateers, like a troop of wolves, were scouring the Channel and chasing French traders from the seas. One uneasy symptom alone betrayed itself: on the 7th of June Lord Warwick reported that a strange disease had appeared in the garrison, of which nine men had suddenly died.3

1 The Queen to Warwick, May 22: FORBES, vol. ii.

2 Warwick to Cecil, June 9: Domestic MS.

3 Warwick to Cecil, June 7: MS. Ibid.

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But the intimation created little alarm. For three more weeks the English Court remained sanguine, and talked not only of keeping Havre, but of carrying the war deeper into Normandy. 'I was yesterday with the Queen,' wrote de Quadra on the 2nd of July. 'She said she was about to send six thousand additional troops across the Channel, and the French should perhaps find the war brought to their own doors. Cecil and the Admiral said the same to me. They have fourteen ships well armed and manned besides their transports, and every day they grow more eager and exasperated.' But on that day news was on the way which abridged these large expectations. The strange disease' was the plague; and in the close and narrow streets where seven thousand men were packed together amidst foul air and filth and summer heat, it settled down to its feast of death. On the 7th of June it was first noticed; on the 27th the men were dying at the rate of sixty a day; 'those who fell ill rarely recovered; the fresh water was cut off, and the tanks had failed from drought. There was nothing to drink but wine and cider; there was no fresh meat, and there were no fresh vegetables. The windmills were outside the walls and in the hands of the enemy; and though there was corn in plenty the garrison could not grind it. By the 29th of June the deaths had been five hundred. The corpses lay unburied or floated rotting in the harbour. The officers had chiefly escaped; the common men, worse fed and worse

' De Quadra to the Duchess of Parma. July 2: MS. Simancas.

lodged, fell in swathes like grass under the scythe, and the physicians died at their side.'

The Prince of Condé, notwithstanding the last answer to de Foix, had written on the 26th of June a very noble letter to Elizabeth. To prevent war,' he said, 'the King and Queen, the Princes of the blood, the Lords of the Council, the whole Parliament of Paris, would renew the obligation to restore Calais at the eight years' end. It was an offer which the Queen of England could accept without stain upon her honour, and by agreeing to it she would prove that she had engaged in the quarrel with a chief eye to the glory of God and the maintenance of the truth."1

Elizabeth had fiercely refused; and when this terrible news came from Havre she could not-would not -realize its meaning. She would send another army, she would call out the musters, and feed the garrison from them faster than the plague could kill. Cost what it would Havre should be held. It was but a question of men, money, and food; and the tarnished fame of England should be regained."

And worse and worse came the news across the water. When June ended, out of his seven thousand men Warwick found but three thousand fit for duty, and the enemy were pressing him closer, and Montmorency had joined the Rhingrave. Thousands of workmen were throwing up trenches under the walls, and thousands of

1 Condé to Elizabeth, June 26: FORBES, vol. ii.

The Council to Warwick, June 29; Elizabeth to Warwick, July 4: FORRES,

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