Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

Philip used all his influence to induce the queen and her Council to declare war against Henry of France, who had broken that five years' truce into which he had so recently entered. But the finances of the country were not such as to render either the queen or her Council willing to go to war with France, which, connected as France was now with Scotland, was sure to occasion a war also with that country. Cardinal Pole and nearly the whole Council were strongly opposed to it. They assured her that to engage lightly in Philip's wars was to make England a dependency of Spain, and Philip, on the other hand, protested to the queen that if she did not aid him against France he would take his leave of her for ever.

While matters were in this position a circumstance occurred which turned the scale in Philip's favour. Henry II. of France, on deciding to accept the Pope's invitation, and to make war on Philip, called on Dudley and his adherents to renew their attempts on England. Dudley and his coadjutors opened a communication with the families of the Reformers in Calais and the surrounding district, who had suffered from the persecution of the English Government, or who were indignant at the cruelties practised on their fellow professors, and they concurred in a plan to betray Hammes and Guines to the French. This scheme was defeated by the means of an English spy who became cognisant of the secret. The mischief, though stopped there, soon showed itself in another quarter. Thomas Stafford, the second son of Lord Stafford, and grandson of the late Duke of Buckingham, mustered a small army of English, French, and Scots, and, sailing from Dieppe, landed at Scarborough in Yorkshire, and surprised the castle there. But he soon found that, however much the public might dislike the Spanish match, they were not at all inclined to rebel against their queen. Wotton, the English ambassador in France, had duly warned his court of the designs of Stafford, and on the fourth day the Earl of Westmoreland appeared with a strong body of troops before the castle, and compelled Stafford to surrender at discretion. Stafford, Saunders, and three or four others were sent to London, and committed to the Tower, where, under torture, they were made to confess that the King of France had instigated and assisted their enterprise. Stafford was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 28th of May, 1557, and the next day three of his confederates were hanged at Tyburn.

The Council had been averse from the war, and had advised that, instead of appearing as principals, we should merely confine ourselves to the furnishing that aid which we were bound to by our ancient treaties with the House of Burgundy. Now, however, it felt itself justified in proclaiming open war against the King of France, as the violator of the treaty between the nations, in having harboured the traitors against the queen, and in having sent them over in French ships to Scarborough with arms, ammunition, and money. Philip, having obtained what he wanted, hastened over to Flanders, and neither Mary nor England ever saw him again.

The Earl of Pembroke, accompanied by Lord Robert Dudley as his master of ordnance, followed Philip at the end of July with 7,000 men. They joined the army of Philip, consisting of men of many nations—Germans, Italians, Flemings, Dalmatians, Croats, Illyrians, and others—making altogether a force of 40,000 men, the supreme command of which was given to the rejected suitor of the Princess Elizabeth, Philibert Duke of Savoy. The duke successfully threatened an attack upon Marienberg, Rocroi, and Guise, but he finally drew up before St. Quentin, on the right bank of the Somme. There he won a great victory. The English fleet made descents upon France at various points, menaced Bordeaux and Bayonne, and plundered the defenceless inhabitants of the coasts. This was all that was achieved, except what Philip probably most looked for, the drawing of the Duke of Guise out of Italy. But this, while it removed all danger from Philip's Transalpine possessions, led to a loss on the part of his English ally which might be termed the crowning mischief of his union with Mary.

The Duke of Guise, disappointed of his laurels in Italy, was now planning an attack on Calais. The English were never less prepared for the invasion. The fleet which had ravaged the coasts of France, and the troops sent to Flanders, had totally exhausted the exchequer of Mary, which at no time was well supplied. To victual that navy the queen had seized all the corn she could find in Norfolk without paying for it, and to equip the army sent to aid Philip, she had made a forced loan on London, and on people of property in different places; she had levied the second year's subsidy voted by Parliament before its time, and now was helpless at the critical moment. Lord Wentworth, the Governor of Calais, foreseeing the approaching storm, sent repeated entreaties for reinforcements for its defence. They were wholly unattended to.

The Duke of Guise, after entering the English pale, sent a detachment of his army along the downs to Rysbank, and led the other himself, with a very heavy train of artillery, towards Newnham Bridge. He forced the outwork at the village of St. Agatha, at the commencement of the causeway, drove the garrison into Newnham, and took possession of the outwork. The bulwarks of Froyton and Nesle were abandoned, for the lord-deputy could send no forces to defend them. At Newnham Bridge the garrison withdrew so silently that the French continued firing upon the fort when the men were already in Calais; but at Rysbank the garrison surrendered with the fort. Thus, in a couple of days, the Duke of Guise was in possession of two most important forts, one commanding the harbour, the other the causeway across the marshes from Flanders. A battery on the heath of St. Pierre played on the wall to create a false alarm, whilst another in real earnest played on the castle. A breach was made in the wall near the water-gate, and, while the garrison was busy in repairing it, Guise cannonaded the castle (which was in a scandalous state of neglect) with fifteen double cannons. A wide breach was speedily made. Lord Wentworth, well aware that the castle could not be maintained, had ordered mines to be prepared, and calculated on blowing the castle and the Frenchmen into the air together as soon as they were in. Guise, seeing no garrison defending the breach, ordered one detachment to occupy the quay, and another, under Strozzi, to take up a position on the other side of the harbour. Strozzi was repulsed; but at ebb-tide in the evening, Grammont, at the head of 100 arquebusiers, marched up to the ditch opposite to the breach. No one being seen in the castle, Guise ordered plenty of hurdles to be thrown into the ditch, and, putting himself at the head of his men, forded the ditch, finding it not deeper than his girdle. The lord-deputy, seeing the French in the castle, ordered the train to be fired; but there was no explosion. The soldiers crossing from the ditch to the breach, with their clothes deluging the ground with water, had wet the train, and defeated Wentworth's design. The next morning Guise sent his troops to assault the town, calculating on as easy a conquest of it; but Sir Anthony Agar, with a handful of men, not only repulsed the French, but chased them back into the castle. The brave Sir Anthony, with a larger force, would have driven the French from the decayed old castle too, but he had the merest little knot of followers, and in the vain attempt to force the enemy out of the castle, he fell at the gate with his son, and eighty of his chief officers. Lord Wentworth perceiving the impossibility of continuing the defence, destitute of a garrison, and having waited in vain for reinforcements from Dover, that night demanded a parley, and surrendered.

THE HÔTEL DE VILLE AND OLD LIGHTHOUSE, CALAIS.

The fall of Calais necessitated, as a matter of course, the loss of the whole Calais district. Having put Calais into a state of defence, Guise marched on the 13th of January, 1558, to Guines, about five miles distant, to reduce the town and fort there. These were defended stoutly by Lord Grey de Wilton, who had received about 400 Spanish and Burgundian soldiers from King Philip, but they were in too miserable a state of repair to be long held. The walls in a few days were knocked to pieces; the Spanish soldiers were nearly all killed, and the remaining force compelled their officers to surrender. The little castle of Hammes now only remained, and situated in the midst of extensive marshes, it might have given the enemy some trouble; but its governor, Lord Edward Dudley, the moment he heard of the surrender of Guines, abandoned it, and fled with his few soldiers into Flanders. The French were as elated at their success as the English were mortified with it, and the poor queen felt the loss so deeply, that she declared that if her body were opened after her death, the name of Calais would be found graven on her heart.