uld have acted in the circumstances under which
the meeting was anticipated, is very uncertain. The intense
unpopularity of the war had been little relieved by the victory at St.
Quentin, and the general state of suffering made a fresh demand for
money infinitely grievous. But between the issue of the writs and the
20th of January a blow had fallen on England which left room for no
other thought.

For the last ten years the French had kept their eyes on Calais. The
recovery of Boulogne was an insufficient retaliation for the disgrace
which they had suffered in the loss of it, while the ill success with
which the English maintained themselves in their new conquest,
suggested the hope, and proved the possibility, of expelling them from
the old. The occupation of a French fortress by a foreign power was a
perpetual insult to the national pride; it was a memorial of evil
times; while it gave England inconvenient authority in the "narrow
seas." Scarcely a month had passed since Mary had been on the throne,
without a hint from some quarter or other to the English government to
look well to Calais; and the recent plot for its surprise was but one
of a series of schemes which had been successively formed and
abandoned.

In 1541 the defences of Guisnes, Hammes, and Calais, had been repaired
by Henry VIII. The dykes had been cleared and enlarged, the
embankments strengthened, and the sluices put in order.[612] But in
the wasteful times of Edward, the works had fallen again into ruin;
and Mary, straitened by debt, by a diminished revenue, and a supposed
obligation to make good the losses of the clergy, had found neither
means nor leisure to attend to them.

[Footnote 612: A complete account of the repairs at
Calais, with the cost of work, and the wages of the
workmen, is printed in an appendix to the
_Chronicle of Calais_, published by the Camden
Society.]

In the year 1500, the cost of maintaining the three fortresses was
something less than L10,000 a-year;[613] and the expense had been
almost or entirely supported by the revenue of the Pale. The more
extended fortifications had necessitated an increase in the garrison;
two hundred men were now scarcely sufficient to man the works;[614]
while, owing to bad government, and the growing anomaly of the English
position, the wealthier inhabitants {p.295} had migrated over the
frontiers