wax angry at the shameful treason;' the Lord Warwick and all his people would spend the last drop of their blood before the French should fasten a foot in the town.'1 The French inhabitants of Havre had almost settled the difficulty for themselves. Feeling no pleasure, whatever they might affect, in having their antient enemies' among them, they opened a correspondence with the Rhingrave. A peasant passing the gates with a basket of chickens was observed to have something under his clothes. A few sheets of white paper was all which the guard could discover; but these, when held to the fire, revealed a conspiracy to murder Warwick and admit the French army. The townspeople, men, women, and children, were of course instantly expelled; and the English garrison in solitary possession worked night and day to prepare for the impending struggle. 2 May. It was with no pleasure that Condé felt himself obliged to turn against Elizabeth the army which her own money had assisted him to raise. She had answered his proposals by sending to Paris a copy of the articles which both the Prince and the Admiral had subscribed. 'No one thing,' she said, 'so much offended her as their unkind dealing after her friendship in their extremity;' while Sir Thomas Smith, on the other side, described Condé as a second King of Navarre going the way of Baal Peor, and led astray by 'Midianitish women.' Yet, had Elizabeth's own deal 1 Pelham to Throgmorton, April 15: Conway MSS. 2 Henry King to Chaloner: Spanish MSS. ings been free from reproach, it was impossible for Condé, had he been ever so desirous of it, to make the immediate restoration of Calais a condition of the peace. Had the war been fought out with the support of England in the field till the Catholics had been crushed, even then his own Huguenots would scarcely have permitted the surrender. Had he held out upon it when the two factions were left standing so evenly balanced, he would have enlisted the pride of France against himself and his cause, and identified religious freedom with national degradation. Before moving on Havre he made another effort. He sent M. de Bricquemaut to explain his position and to renew his offers enlarged to the utmost which he could venture. The young King wrote himself also accepting Elizabeth's declaration that her interference had been in no spirit of hostility to France, entreating that she would continue her generosity, and peace being made, recall her forces. The ratification of the treaty of Cambray was promised again, with 'hostages at her choice' for the fulfilment of it, from the noblest families in France. But it was all in vain. Elizabeth at first would not see Bricquemaut. She swore she would have no dealings with the false Prince of Condé,' and desired, if the French King had any message for her, that it should be presented by the ambassador Paul de Foix. When de Foix waited on her with Charles's letter she again railed at the Prince as a treacherous, inconstant, per 1 Charles IX. to Elizabeth, April 30: FORBES, vol. ii. jured villain." 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 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. 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." The English had a right to expect that June. 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. Warwick to Cecil, June 7: MS. Ibid. |