On this incident the fortune of the whole siege seemed to hinge, and it must have been extremely tantalizing, when the citadel was on the very eve of surrendering, to find that relief had been poured into it by the enemy. No one could imagine how it had been managed. There was a nightly watch of six hundred boats; the Duke was generally among the men in these boats, or in the trenches, till near midnight; even the common sailors pitied his exertions, and felt for his anxieties. Then there was a battery of seven cannon, that fired upon the very landing-place, beneath the Fort, besides sunken collies that played on the same spot. The wind was then fair for Rhé, and the merchant ships that had been hired were making for the Island; but the others were detained, since no supplies from England had arrived to enable them to act. In the midst of all his uncertainties the following letter from the Duchess was despatched to the Duke:--
"My Lord--I ded the last night here very good nwse that you had taken the ships wch cam to releve the fort, which I hope will so much discurage them as now they will be out of all hope, and quickly yeelde it upe, and then I hope you will remember your promise in making hast home, for I will assure you both for the publicke, and our private good here in cort, ther is great neede of you, for your great Lady,[[67]] that you believe is so much your frend, uses your frends something worse then when you were here, and your favour has made her so great as now shee cares for nobody: and poore Gordon is the basist used that ever any creature was, for now you ar not here to take his part they do flie most fercly uppon him, but when you com I hope all things will be mended. I pray say nothing of this, and be sure to burne this leter when you have rede it. I thanke God I am very well. Mall is very well, I thanke God. I thanke you for the orange water you sent me, but yett I dare not us it coming from the Governor,[[68]] thus praying for your health, in hast, I rest
“your trewe loving and obedent wife,
“K. Buckingham.
“10th Octr.”
1627(?)--(on the back of the original letter in pencil.)
Whilst money was thus called for in vain, to carry on the war, the defences at home were daily becoming more and more ruinous. The castles in the Downs were in danger of being swallowed by the sea: and water got into the moat of Deal Castle; the Lanthorn of that fort was wholly destroyed, the loss of which, being a sea-mark, was a source of bitter complaint; Walmer Castle was in ruins.[[69]] Friends there were who wrote to Buckingham to urge strongly on his attention all that was threatening the country, and to suggest his return; amongst these the Viscount Wilmot[[70]] was one whose expressions were modified by great kindness, and evident partiality for the Duke; whilst advice came less graciously from Viscount Wimbledon, whose recent failure must have rendered his comments on the affair far from palatable.
Before his letter of suggestion and advice could have arrived, Buckingham had, however, consented to a retreat. The state of despair into which his troops had been thrown by the reinforcement of the citadel, and their discovery of the false representations of the amount of provisions on which the besieged could count, induced him to take this fatal step. Presently, however, better information was obtained; and though the sick had been sent into La Rochelle, and the ordnance embarked, the vacillating Duke again determined to “stay and bide it out.”
In the midst of this perplexity, on the fifteenth of October, a valuable auxiliary was sent in the person of Charles, Viscount Wilmot.[[71]] Lord Holland also set sail, but the Duke now found it difficult to persuade the men to await the long promised assistance. “Pity our misery!” was their cry. The people were “looking themselves and their perspectives” (as telescopes were then styled) “blind in watching for Lord Holland from the tops of houses;” yet that nobleman lingered at Portsmouth, pretending to believe that Buckingham, who, he said, he knew “would stay till the last bite,” might be supplied with victuals from the west. Then he feared also, as he stated, that the Duke might have sailed towards home; that he was ill supplied with provisions; and that he might be obliged to put back into France or Spain. The King, meantime, was wondering and asking why Holland lingered first at Portsmouth and then in the Downs? Charles’s impatience was expressed with a force unusual to his gentle character. Until the eighteenth of October, no one in England, it appears, knew of the great distress into which Buckingham and the forces were plunged by the failure of the supplies.[[72]]
Whilst the wind was against the Duke’s return, no one could suppose that he would throw up the whole end of the expedition, and sail homewards; yet reports of his preparing to do so continually got abroad, as may be seen from the following letters from the Countess of Denbigh, Buckingham’s only sister, by whom he was much beloved:--