women were carrying and wheeling earth for them. Of the English pioneers but sixty remained alive, and the French cannon were already searching and sweeping the streets. Reinforcements were hurried over by hundreds and then by thousands. Hale, vigorous English countrymen, they were landed on that fatal quay: the deadly breath of the destroyer passed upon them, and in a few days or hours they fell down, and there were none to bury them, and the commander could but clamour for more and more and more.

On the 11th of July but fifteen hundred July. men were left. In ten days more at the present death rate Warwick said he would have but three hundred alive.1 All failed except English hearts. 'Notwithstanding the deaths,' Sir Adrian Poynings reported, 'their courage is so good as if they be supplied with men and victual they trust by God's help yet to withstand the force of the enemy and to render the Queen a good account thereof.'2 Those who went across from England, though going, as they knew, to all but certain death, 'kept their high courage and heart for the service.'

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Ship after ship arrived at Havre with its doomed freight of living men, yet Warwick wrote that still his numbers waned, that the new comers were not enough to repair the waste. The ovens were broken with the

1 Warwick to the Council, July 11: FORBES, vol. ii. Endorsed 'Haste, post haste for thy life! Haste, haste, haste!'

'Sir Adrian Poynings to Cecil, July 6: Domestic MSS., Elizabeth.

Sir Adrian P'oynings to Cecil, July 9: Domestic MSS., Elizabeth.

enemy's shot, the bakers were dead of the plague. The besiegers by the middle of the month were closing in upon the harbour mouth. A galley sent out to keep them back was shot through and sunk with its crew under the eye of the garrison. On the 19th their hearts were cheered by large arrivals, but they were raw boys from Gloucestershire, new alike to suffering and to arms. Cannon had been sent for from the Tower, and cannon came, but they were old and rusted and worthless. The worst of all sorts,' wrote Warwick, 'is thought good enough for this place.' It was the one complaint which at last was wrung from him.

To add to his difficulties the weather broke up in storms. Clinton had twenty sail with him, and three thousand men ready to throw in. If the fleet could have lain outside the harbour the ships' guns could have kept the approaches open. But a south-west gale chained Clinton in the Downs; the transports which sailed from St Helen's could not show behind the island, and there was a fear that the garrison, cut off from relief, might have been overpowered in their weakness and destroyed.

Too late for the emergency, and still with sullen unwillingness to yield, the Queen on the 20th sent over Throgmorton to accept Condé's terms. But the French Court was with the besieging army, and knew the condition of Warwick's troops too well to listen. The harbour was by that time closed; the provisions were exhausted; the French understood their power and meant to use it. Warwick, ordered as he had been to hold the place under all conditions, 'was prepared to

die sword in hand' rather than surrender without the Queen's permission; but in a few days at latest those whom the sword and pestilence had, spared famine would make an end of. Fortunately Sir Francis Knowles, who was in command at Portsmouth, had sent to the Court to say that they must wait for no answer from France; they must send powers instantly to Warwick to make terms for himself. A general attack had been arranged for the morning of the 27th. Lord Warwick knew that he would be unable to resist, and with the remnant of his men was preparing the evening before to meet a soldier's death, when a boat stole in with letters, and he received Elizabeth's permission to surrender at the last extremity.

War, plague, and storm had done their work, and had done it with fatal efficacy. Clinton was chafing helplessly at his anchorage 'while the French were lying exposed on the beach at Havre.' He could not reach them, and they could but too effectually reach Warwick. Knowing that to delay longer was to expose the handful of noble men who survived with him to inevitable death, and himself wounded and ill, the English general sent at once to the Constable to make terms. The Constable would not abuse his advantage, and on the 29th of July Havre was restored to France, the few English troops remaining being allowed to depart with their arms and goods unmolested and at their leisure.

The day after, the weather changed, and Clinton arrived to find that all was over, and that Warwick him

self was on board a transport ready to sail. The Queenmother sent M. de Lignerolles on board Clinton's ship to ask him to dine with her. He excused himself under the plea that he could not leave his men; but he said to de Lignerolles 'that the plague of deadly infection had done for them that which all the force of France could never have done.'

'1

Thus ended this unhappy enterprise in a disaster which, terrible as it seemed, was more desirable for England than success. Elizabeth's favouring star had prevented a conquest from being consummated which would have involved her in interminable war. Had it not been for the plague she might have held Havre; but she could have held it only at a cost which, before many years were over, would have thrown her an exhausted and easy prey at the feet of Philip.

The first thought of Warwick, ill as he was, on reaching Portsmouth, was for his brave companions. They had returned in miserable plight, and he wrote to the council to beg that they might be cared for. But there was no occasion to remind Elizabeth of such a duty as this: had she been allowed she would have gone at once at the risk of infection to thank them for their gallantry. In a proclamation under her own hand she commended the soldiers who had faced that terrible siege to the care of the country; she entreated every gentleman, she commanded every official, ecclesiastical or civil, in the realm to see to their

2

1 Clinton to Cecil, July 31: Domestic MSS., Elizabeth.

August.

2 Lord Robert Dudley to the Queen, August 7: Domestic MSS., vol. xxix.

6

necessities 'lest God punish them for their unmercifulness;' she insisted with generous forethought that no person should have any grudge at those poor captains and soldiers because the town was rendered on conditions: ''she would have it known and understood that there wanted no truth, courage, nor manhood in any of them from the highest to the lowest ;' they would have withstood the French to the utmost of their lives; but it was thought the part of Christian wisdom not to tempt the Almighty to contend with the inevitable mortal enemy of the plague.'1

Happy would it have been had the loss of Havre ended the calamities of the summer. But the garrison, scattering to their homes, carried the infection through England. London was tainted already, and with the heat and drought of August the pestilence in town and village held on its deadly way.

The eruption on the skin which was usual with the plague does not seem to have attended this visitation of it. The first symptom was violent fever, burning heat alternating with fits of shivering; the mouth then became dry, the tongue parched, with a pricking sensation in the breast and loins; headache followed and languor, with a desire to sleep, and after sleep came generally death, for the heart did draw the poison, and the poison by its own malice did pierce the heart.' When a man felt himself infected 'he did first commend himself to the highest Physician and craved mercy of him.'

1 Proclamation by the Queen, August 1: Domestic MSS.