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Soon after the fall of Calais, De Rosne had seized the castles of Guynes and Hames, while De Mexia laid siege to the important stronghold of Ardres. The garrison, commanded by Count Belin, was sufficiently numerous and well supplied to maintain the place until Henry, whose triumph at La Fere could hardly be much longer delayed, should come to its relief.
Between the 25th of June, 1595, and the 10th of March, 1597, the Spanish armies took, in Picardy and Artois, Le Catelet, Doullens, Cambrai, Ardres, Ham, Guines and two towns of more importance, Calais, still the object of English ambition and of offers on the part of Queen Elizabeth to any one who could hand it over to her, and Amiens, one of the keys to France on the frontier of the north.
To the king's infinite dissatisfaction, however, precisely as Don Alvario de Osorio was surrendering La Fere to him, after a seven months' siege, Ardres was capitulating to De Mexia. The reproaches upon Belin for cowardice, imbecility, and bad faith, were bitter and general. All his officers had vehemently protested against the surrender, and Henry at first talked of cutting off his head.
But because the young Poins sat always silent with his eyes on the road to Ardres and slept being privileged because he was yeoman of the King's guard always in the little stone guard cell of the gateway at nights; because, in fact, the young man's whole faculties were set upon seeing that Thomas Culpepper did not pass unseen through the gate, it was four days before the gatewarden contrived to get himself asked why he would have spat in the dust or cast his hat on high.
The king, by making peace, could restore his kingdom to prosperity, relieve the distress of his subjects, and get back all his lost cities Calais, Ardres, Dourlens, Blavet, and many more without any expense of treasure or of blood.
I wist not why the world had grown dark to me till I saw a comedy at Ardres, where, as in a mirror, 'twas all set forth yea, and how love was too strong for him and for her, and how shame and death came thereof." "Those players are good for nought but to wake the passions!" muttered Lucas. "Nay, methought they warned me," said Stephen.
In a short time, indeed, the English from Calais, and from other places held by them in France, began to make sorties and to carry off much plunder from the country round, and especially took by storm the Castle of Banelinghen near Ardres, notwithstanding the truce that prevailed.
Soon after the fall of Calais, De Rosne had seized the castles of Guynes and Hames, while De Mexia laid siege to the important stronghold of Ardres. The garrison, commanded by Count Belin, was sufficiently numerous and well supplied to maintain the place until Henry, whose triumph at La Fere could hardly be much longer delayed, should come to its relief.
Up above in the archway the stonemasons who came from Lydd sang their Kentish songs as hammers clinked on chisels and the fine dust filtered through the scaffold boards. But the young Poins kept his eyes upon the dusty and winding road that threaded the dykes from Ardres, and thought only that when Thomas Culpepper came he must be stayed.
On the day when the Emperor left England, the King and all the Court went over to Calais, and thence to the place of meeting, between Ardres and Guisnes, commonly called the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
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