, and left the Pale to a scanty, wretched, starving
population, who could scarcely extract from the soil sufficient for
their own subsistence.[615] While the cost of the occupation was
becoming greater, the means of meeting it became less. The country
could no longer thrive in English hands, and it was time for the
invaders to begone.

[Footnote 613: _Chronicle of Calais._]

[Footnote 614: Lord Grey to the Queen, June 13,
1557: _Calais MSS._ bundle 10, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 615: In 1550, Sir John Mason wrote to the
council, "I have heard say that, not long sythen
the Low Countries were able to set to the field 300
able men on horseback; I think there lacketh of
that number at this present a great many, the
occasion whereof, by the report of the king's
ministers on this side, is for that the king's
lands are so raised as no man is able to live
thereupon unless it is a sort of poor dryvells,
that must dig their living with their nails out of
the ground, and be not able scarce to maintain a
jade to carry their corn to market." _French MSS._
Edward VI. bundle 9.]

The government in London, however, seemed, notwithstanding warnings,
to be unable to conceive the loss of so old a possession to be a
possibility; and Calais shared the persevering neglect to which the
temporal interests of the realm were subjected. The near escape from
the Dudley treason created a momentary improvement. The arrears of
wages were paid up, and the garrison was increased. Yet a few months
after, when war was on the point of being declared, there were but two
hundred men in Guisnes, a number inadequate to defend even the castle;
and although the French fleet at that time commanded the Channel,
Calais contained provisions to last but for a few weeks.[616] Lord
Grey, the governor of Guisnes, reported in June, after the
declaration, that the French were collecting in strength in the
neighbourhood, and that unless he was reinforced, he was at their
mercy. A small detachment was sent over in consequence of Grey's
letter; but on the 2nd of July Sir Thomas Cornwallis informed the
queen that the numbers were still inadequate. "The enemy," Cornwal