Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

THE FRENCH GO INTO PORT.

231

And

galleys could have done them little pleasure. whereas the day before they came together like a whole wood, they kept now in their removing none order; for some of our small boats which could lie best by a wind,. and which I did purposely send to see what course they held, and what order they kept, brought me word that they lay east with the sails, as though it should seem that they minded to fetch the narrow seas before us. There was four miles in length, as they thought, between their foremost and their hindermost ships."

seas.

[ocr errors]

This was the first time, since the general use of cannon, that two great fleets had encountered in the British On neither part was there any thing like victory to boast of; but the object of the French had been effectually defeated: they found it necessary to return to port immediately after this partial action, not for any damage that they had sustained in it, but because of the state of the ships and the sickness that prevailed on board; and they felt that there had been some loss of credit in an expedition which, having been undertaken at a great expense, had proved so bootless. † The ships were distributed in different ports, there being no hope

* State Papers, 816-819. The French account is, that the English, as soon as they perceived their enemy meant to give battle, made sail," sans plus dissimuler," toward the Isle of Wight; that La Garde, with the galleys, attacked some of their heaviest sailers, and thus made the others slacken sail; but the wind freshened, and enabled them to effect their retreat without disorder: nevertheless, that there was an action of two hours with the galleys, and at such close quarters, that the French had, hardly room to fire their guns; that more than three hundred shot were fired on both sides; but that the galleys, being lower than the English ships, were least exposed, and that, in the morning, many splinters and many dead bodies were seen in the sea; that night put an end to the action, wind and tide, meantime, having carried the English toward their port; and that M. d'Annebault, finding, in the morning, that they were safe there, sailed forthwith for Havre, to land his sick, who were very numerous, and refresh his people. (Du Bellay, 239, 240.) This statement, false as it is, has the merit of being a modest one: of the truth of Dudley's there can be no doubt.

+ Montluc says, " Le desir que le roi avoit de se venger du roi d'Angleterre le fit entrer dans une extrême despense, laquelle enfin servit de peu, quoique nous eussions prins terre, et depuis combattu les Anglois sur mer, où d'un costé et d'autre il y eut plusieurs vaisseaux mis à fonds. Deslors que je vis à nostre depart embrazer le grand Carracon, que estoit ce croisje, le plus beau vaisseau qu'il estoit possible, j'eus mauvaise opinion de nostre entreprinse. Et parce que pour mon particulier je ne fis rien qui fust digne d'estre escrit, et que le general est assez discouru par d'autres, je m'en tairai pour descrire la conquête de la terre d'Oye; aussi nostre fait est plus propre sur la terre que sur l'eaue, où je ne sçais pas que nostre nation ait jamais gagné de grandes batailles."-p. 322.

Sept.

2.

of their putting to sea again that year, both for want of stores and of men. "There be also in this army," said Dudley, in one of his despatches, "divers ships, which, after another storm, will be able to look no more abroad this year; and I think our enemies be in as evil a case, For among such a number of ships as they

or worse.

cannot be strong, and all He would not, however, "their bravadoes and pre

have, and as we have, all
cannot be well tackled."
return till he had revenged
sumptuous attempts made at Portsmouth and in the
Isle of Wight:" more accustomed to inflict than to
endure the evils of war, in this light the English re-
garded their enemies' attempt at invasion. Six thousand
men were landed about three miles west of Treport.
Three ensigns of the French had taken a position to
oppose the landing; they were beaten, but as they re-
treated received continual reinforcements; the English,
however, a second time entered that unfortunate town, in
spite of all resistance, set it on fire, burnt some of the
adjacent villages, destroyed thirty ships in the harbour,
reembarked with the loss of only fourteen men, and then
returned to Portsmouth, concluding the campaign with
this exploit.* If it had not been thus honourably ter-
minated, the plague which now broke out in the fleet
must speedily have rendered it inefficient. †

That fleet had not been equipped without great exertions. Most of the fishermen had been pressed into it; and this was not only an individual hardship, but a serious inconvenience to all persons near the coast, when the observance of fast-days was enjoined by the law and enforced by it. Fish was then one of the necessaries of life; and that the market might not be wholly unsupplied, the women of the fishing towns ventured out in the boats by themselves, or with the help of a boy, or of a man, if one could be found, to assist them, It was not remembered that women had ever before been driven to this occupation. The costs of the war

* State Papers, 829. Holinshed, 850.

State Papers, 826, 827.

Ibid. 852, 833. 841.

[blocks in formation]

had been very great. "The king's majesty," says the chancellor Wriothesley*, writing to the council, "hath this year and the last year spent 1,300,000l. or thereabouts; and his subsidy and benevolence ministering scant 300,000l. thereof; as I muse sometime where the rest, being so great a sum, hath been gotten, so the lands being consumed, the plate of the realm molten and coined, whereof much hath risen, I sorrow and lament the danger of the time to come, wherein is also to be remembered the money that is to be paid in Flanders; and, that is as much and more than all the rest, the great scarcity that we have of corn, being wheat, in all places in manner, Norfolk excepted, at twenty shillings the quarter, and a marvellous small quantity to be gotten of it. And tho the king's majesty should have a greater grant than the realm could bear at one time, it would do little to the continuance of these charges, which be so importable, that I see not almost how it is possible to bear the charges this winter till more may be gotten. Therefore, good my lords, tho you write to me still Pay, pay, prepare for this and for that,' consider it is your parts to remember the state of things with me, and by your wisdoms to ponder what may be done, and how things may be continued."

[ocr errors]

The defence of Boulogne was one of those pressing occasions for which money was wanted. Poynings died at this time. Lord Grey of Wilton was appointed to succeed him in that fortress, and Surrey to take the place of lord Grey at Guisnes. Surrey had gone over to command the vanguard of the army with which Suffolk was to march for the relief of Boulogne; and, to equip himself for the expedition, he mortgaged the furniture + of his house at St. Leonards, near Norwich. Suffolk,

*State Papers, 830.

A minute account of the furniture is printed in the Appendix (No. 48.) to Dr. Nott's Life of Surrey. John Spencer, of Norwich, was the lender. The sum is stated to have been clvii : xxvii of lawful money of England; what that may import I am at a loss to understand. It is said, in the document, that the goods are " of little better valuing than the said sum

who, if the enemy had effected their threatened invasion, should have been the king's lieutenant-general to oppose them, died when he was about to cross the Channel, with the hope of meeting the French king in the field, 66 a right hardy gentleman," says Holinshed; 66 and yet not so hardy as almost of all degrees and estates of men, high and low, rich and poor, heartily beloved, and his death of them greatly lamented.” The French king waited only for the construction of the fort before Boulogne to execute his intended movement against the English pale, that M. du Biez might be at liberty to serve with his army wherever it might be needed; and expecting, upon his report, that it would be completed in a few days, the king advanced to the abbey of Forest Montier, between Abbeville and Montreuil. There he received advice from the mareschal that Boulogne was distressed for provisions; that the enemy were assembling a force at Calais, with the view of relieving it by land; and that he was about to leave some 4000 men in the fort, cross the river with the rest of his army, and encamp upon Mont Lambert, to give them battle, if they persisted in their intent. Accordingly, he repaired to Pont de Brique, and made this movement, at which Francis was so little pleased, that, he said, it seemed as if M. du Biez had no wish that Boulogne should be retaken; because in that event he would lose the command over so many princes and so great an army.*

That army consisted of 12,000 French infantry, 6000 Italians, and 4000 whom Du Bellay calls legionaries; about 1200 men-at-arms, and some 800 light horse. The youth of the court, in hopes of a battle, hastened to join it, some with the king's leave and some without it. Mont Lambert is within gunshot of Boulogne: shots were frequently exchanged between the camp and the town, and daily skirmishes took place. While the army occupied this position, the duc d'Orléans, who was the king's second son, died in the abbey * Du Bellay, 240–245.

[blocks in formation]

of Forest Montier: his disease was supposed to be the plague; and the king, in consequence, removed to l'Hospital, a village at the other end of the forest of Cressy. That name would have given him no pleasant forebodings, if a battle had indeed appeared inevitable. From thence he deputed persons on whom he could rely to inspect the fort; and upon their report that the winter must be far advanced before it could be in a defensible state, without an army to protect it, he saw that his plans for that year were frustrated, and retired to the abbey of St. Fuscian, two leagues above Amiens, that city being infected with the plague. There he received intelligence that Henry had hired 10,000 lansquenets and 4000 horse in Germany, to reinforce his army in the Terre d'Oye, and raise the siege. Upon this he repaired to Le Fere sur Oise, there to take measures for preventing this junction, and for the defence of his own frontier; and, before he departed, he ordered the mareschal to enter the Terre d'Oye and lay it waste, that, if the Germans should arrive there, they might find no subsistence.

La Terre d'Oye was that part of the English pale which lay to the east of Calais: it extended from that town to the Flemish town of Gravelines; a marshy tract, but rich in herbage, about four leagues in length, and three in breadth. It was well protected, not only by Calais itself, and Guisnes, and the castle of Hammes, but by a wide and deep ditch along the French border, with ramparts and blockhouses, at due distances, to flank them. The enterprise began well, though the bridges which had been prepared for the passage of the artillery were, by some neglect, left at Ardres. Near Gravelines the attack was made: one of the blockhouses was stormed, and the garrison put to the sword. Montlue was in the assault: the men waded through the ditch, and, by filling it, a way was made for the artillery. The mareschal then entered; met and routed with great slaughter, but with the loss also of some 80 or 100 horse, several new companies of "Leicestershire men and others," lately sent over; set fire to some

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »