ver seen before: and she sent him a reenforcement of four thousand
men, under Lord Willoughby, an officer of reputation, who joined the
French at Dieppe. Strengthened by these supplies, Henry marched directly
to Paris; and having taken the suburbs sword in hand, he abandoned them
to be pillaged by his soldiers. He employed this body of English in many
other enterprises; and still found reason to praise their courage and
fidelity. The time of their service being elapsed, he dismissed them
with many high commendations. Sir William Drury, Sir Thomas Baskerville,
and Sir John Boroughs acquired reputation this campaign, and revived in
France the ancient fame of English valor.

The army which Henry, next campaign, led into the field, was much
inferior to that of the league; but as it was composed of the chief
nobility of France, he feared not to encounter his enemies in a pitched
battle at Yvree, and he gained a complete victory over them. This
success enabled him to blockade Paris, and he reduced that capital to
the last extremity of famine; when the duke of Parma, in consequence
of orders from Philip, marched to the relief of the league, and obliged
Henry to raise the blockade. Having performed this important service, he
retreated to the Low Countries; and, by his consummate skill in the art
of war, performed these long marches in the face of the enemy, without
affording the French monarch that opportunity which he sought, of giving
him battle, or so much as once putting his army in disorder. The only
loss which he sustained was in the Low Countries, where Prince Maurice
took advantage of his absence, and recovered some places which the duke
of Parma had formerly conquered from the states.[*] [32]

* See note FF, at the end of the volume.

{1591.} The situation of Henry's affairs, though promising, was not
so well advanced or established as to make the queen discontinue
her succors; and she was still more confirmed in the resolution of
supporting him, by some advantages gained by the king of Spain. The duke
of Mercoeur, governor of Brittany, a prince of the house of Lorraine,
had declared for the league; and finding himself hard pressed by Henry's
forces, he had been obliged, in order to secure himself, to introduce
some Spanish troops into the seaport towns of that province. Elizabeth
was alarmed at the danger; and foresaw that the Spaniards, besides
infesting the English commerce by privateers, might employ these ha