Henry had lost no time in sending, also, to his English allies for succour.  The possession of Calais by the Spaniards might well seem alarming to Elizabeth, who could not well forget that up to the time of her sister this important position had been for two centuries an English stronghold.  The defeat of the Spanish husband of an English queen had torn from England the last trophies of the Black Prince, and now the prize had again fallen into the hands of Spain; but of Spain no longer in alliance, but at war, with England.  Obviously it was most dangerous to the interests and to the safety of the English realm, that this threatening position, so near the gates of London, should be in the hands of the most powerful potentate in the world and the dire enemy of England.  In response to Henry’s appeal, the Earl of Essex was despatched with a force of six thousand men—­raised by express command of the queen on Sunday when the people were all at church—­to Dover, where shipping was in readiness to transport the troops at once across the Channel.  At the same time, the politic queen and some of her counsellors thought the opening a good one to profit by the calamity of their dear ally, Certainly it was desirable to prevent Calais from falling into the grasp of Philip.  But it was perhaps equally desirable, now that the place without the assistance of Elizabeth could no longer be preserved by Henry, that Elizabeth, and not Henry, should henceforth be its possessor.  To make this proposition as clear to the French king as it seemed to the English queen, Sir Robert Sidney was despatched in all haste to Boulogne, even while the guns of De Rosne were pointed at Calais citadel, and while Maurice’s fleet, baffled by the cowardly surrender of the Risban, was on its retreat from the harbour.

At two o’clock in the afternoon of the 21st of April, Sidney landed at Boulogne.  Henry, who had been intensely impatient to hear from England, and who suspected that the delay was boding no good to his cause, went down to the strand to meet the envoy, with whom then and there he engaged instantly in the most animated discourse.

As there was little time to be lost, and as Sidney on getting out of the vessel found himself thus confronted with the soldier-king in person, he at once made the demand which he had been sent across the Channel to make.  He requested the king to deliver up the town and citadel of Calais to the Queen of England as soon as, with her assistance, he should succeed in recovering the place.  He assigned as her Majesty’s reasons for this peremptory summons that she would on no other terms find it in her power to furnish the required succour.  Her subjects, she said, would never consent to it except on these conditions.  It was perhaps not very common with the queen to exhibit so much deference to the popular will, but on this occasion the supposed inclinations of the nation furnished her with an excellent pretext for carrying out her own.  Sidney urged moreover that her Majesty felt certain of being obliged—­in case she did not take Calais into her own safe-keeping and protection—­to come to the rescue again within four or six months to prevent it once more from being besieged, conquered, and sacked by the enemy.