was commissioned to raise troops; and the queen, though
without sending men, sent a courier with encouragements and promises.
But when every moment was precious, a fatal slowness, and more fatal
irresolution hung about the movements of the government. On the 29th
Wentworth wrote again, that the French were certainly arming and might
be looked for immediately. On the 31st, the queen, deceived probably
by some emissary of Guise, replied, that "she had intelligence that no
enterprise was intended against Calais or the Pale," and that she had
therefore countermanded the reinforcements.[624]

[Footnote 624: The Queen to Wentworth: Ibid.]

The letter containing the death sentence, for it was nothing less, of
English rule in Calais was crossed on the way by another from Grey, in
which he informed the queen that there were thirty or forty vessels in
the harbour at Hambletue, two fitted as floating batteries, the rest
loaded with hurdles, ladders, and other materials for a siege.
Four-and-twenty thousand men were in the camp above Boulogne; and
their mark he knew to be Calais. For himself, he would defend his
charge to the death; but help must be sent instantly, or it would be
too late to be of use.

The afternoon of the same day, December 31, he added, in a postscript,
that flying companies of the French were at that moment before
Guisnes; part of the garrison had been out to skirmish, but had been
driven in by numbers; the whole country was alive with troops.

The next morning (January 1, 1558) Wentworth reported to the same
purpose, that, on the land side, Calais was then invested. The sea was
still open, and the forts at the mouth of the harbour on the Rysbank
were yet in his hands. Heavy siege cannon, however, were said to be on
their way from Boulogne, and it was uncertain how long he could hold
them.

{p.299} The defences of Calais towards the land, though in bad
repair, had been laid out with the best engineering skill of the time.
The country was intersected with deep muddy ditches; the roads were
causeways, and at the bridges were bulwarks and cannon. Guisnes, which
was three miles from Calais, was connected with it by a line of small
forts and "turnpikes." Hammes lay between the two, equidistant from
both. Towards the sea the long line of low sandhills, rising in front
of the harbour to the Rysbank, formed a natural pier; and on the
Rysbank was the castle, which commanded the entrance and the