Note 169 — Chapter XIII · (continued 2)

Cuthbert Vaughan appreciated the importance of this city, and warned Cecil that "if the same, for lack of aid, should be surprised, it might give the French suspicion on our part that the queen meaneth but an appearance of aid, thereby to obtain into her hands such things of theirs as may be most profitable to her, and in time to come most noyful to themselves." Forbes, ii. 90. Unfortunately it was not Cecil, but Elizabeth herself, that restrained the exertions of the troops, and she was hard to move. And so, for lack of a liberal and hearty policy, Rouen was suffered to fall, and Dieppe was given up without a blow, and Warwick and the English found themselves, as it were, besieged in Havre. Whereas, with those places, they might have commanded the entire triangle between the Seine and the British Channel. See Throkmorton's indignation, and the surprise of Condé and Coligny, Forbes, State Papers, ii. 193, 199.