may rise, vessels may be wrecked, and excellent
enterprises may suffer hindrance, by the common laws or common chances
of things; but the queen in every large occurrence imagined a miracle;
Heaven she believed was against her. Though Guisnes was yet standing,
she ordered Woodhouse to collect the ships again in the Thames,
"forasmuch as the principal cause of their sending forth had
ceased;"[630] and on {p.303} the 13th she counter-ordered the
musters, and sent home all the troops which had arrived at Dover.[631]

[Footnote 630: The Queen to Sir William Woodhouse,
January 12: _MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. xii.]

[Footnote 631: Circular for Staying of the Musters:
_MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. xii.]

Having given way to despondency, the court should have communicated
with Grey, and directed him to make terms for himself and the
garrisons of Guisnes and Hammes. In the latter place there was but a
small detachment; but at Guisnes were eleven hundred men, who might
lose their lives in a desperate and now useless defence. The disaster,
however, had taken away the power of thinking or resolving upon
anything.

It must be said for Philip that he recognised more clearly and
discharged more faithfully the duty of an English sovereign than the
queen or the queen's advisers. Spanish and Burgundian troops were
called under arms as fast as possible; and when he heard of the gale
he sent ships from Antwerp and Dunkirk to bring across the English
army. But when his transports arrived at Dover they found the men all
gone. Proclamations went out on the 17th to call them back;[632] but
two days after there was a counter-panic and a dread of invasion, and
the perplexed levies were again told that they must remain at home. So
it went on to the end of the month; the resolution of one day
alternated with the hesitation of the next, and nothing was done.

The queen's government had lost their heads. Philip having done his
own part, did not feel it incumbent on him to risk a battle with
inferior numbers, when those who were more nearly concerned were
contented to be supine. Guisnes, therefore, and its defenders, were
left to their fate.

[Footnote 632: _MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. xii.,
January 17.]

On Thursday, the 13th, the Duke of Guise appeared before the gates.
The garrison could have been starved out in a month, but Guise gav