nly small
boats. Their ordnance that comes shall be conveyed
in the same sort. It may therefore please your
majesty to consider it. I am, as a man may be, most
sure that they will first attempt upon Rysbank, and
that way chiefly assail the town. Marry, I think
that they lie hovering in the country for the
coming of their great artillery and also to be
masters of the sea, and therefore I trust your
highness will haste over all things necessary with
all expedition."--Wentworth to the Queen: _Calais
MSS._ bundle 10.]

So far Wentworth had written. While the pen was in his hand, a message
reached him, that the French, without waiting for their guns, were
streaming up over the Rysbank, and laying ladders against the walls of
the fort. He had but time to close his letter, and send his swiftest
boat out of the harbour with it, when the castle was won, and ingress
and egress at an end. The same evening, the heavy guns came from
Boulogne, and for two days and nights the town was fired upon
incessantly from the sandbank, and from "St. Peter's Heath."

The fate of Calais was now a question of hours; Wentworth had but 500
men to repel an army, and he was without provisions. Calais was
probably gone, but Guisnes might be saved; Guisnes could be relieved
with a great effort out of the Netherlands. On the night of the 4th,
Grey found means to send a letter through the French lines to England.
"The enemy," he said, "were now in possession of Calais harbour, and
all the country between Calais and Guisnes." He was now "clean cut off
from all relief and aid which he looked to have;" and there "was no
other way for the succour of Calais" and the other fortresses, but "a
power of men out of England or from the king's majesty, or from both,"
either to force the French into a battle or to raise the siege. Come
what would, he would himself do the duty of a faithful subject, and
keep the castle while men could hold it.[626]

[Footnote 626: Grey to the Queen: _Calais MSS._ The
letter was dated January 4, seven o'clock at night.
The messenger was to carry it to Gravelines under
cover of darkness. It is endorsed, "Haste, haste,
haste! post haste