The war with France, which was the necessary consequence of the Spanish match, proved very disastrous for England. Mary's ministers gave Philip no very useful help, while, on the other hand, they contrived to lose the last Continental possession of the Crown. Calais, which had remained in English hands ever since Edward III. captured it in 1346, was suddenly invested by the Duke of Guise, who commanded the French army of the North. The garrison was caught unprepared, and was very weak in numbers. After a few days' siege it was forced to yield, before any help could come either from England or Spain (January, 1558). This disgrace told heavily on the queen's health; she cried that when she died "Calais" would be found written on her heart, and fell into a deeper melancholy than before. Yet her miserable life was protracted ten months longer, and she survived till November, 1558, racked by disease, and calling in vain for her absent husband, yet persecuting vigorously to the last. Her cousin and adviser, Cardinal Pole, died within three days of her. So ended Mary Tudor, who in five years had rendered Romanism more hateful in the eyes of Englishmen than five centuries of papal aggression had availed to make it, and who had by her persecutions caused the adoption of Protestantism under her successor to become inevitable. FOOTNOTE: [33] For example, she chose it for her coinage. CHAPTER XXIV. ELIZABETH. 1558-1603. When Mary Tudor had passed away unwept and unregretted, all England heaved a sigh of relief, and turned to do homage to her sister Elizabeth. The daughter of Anne Boleyn was now a young woman of twenty-five. She had been living for the last five years in almost continual peril of her life, and had required all her caution to keep herself from the two snares which lay about her--the dangers of being accused of treason on the one hand and of heresy on the other. Fortunately for herself, Elizabeth was politic and cautious even to excess--all through her reign her most trusted ministers were often unable to discern her real thoughts and wishes--so that she came unharmed through her sister's reign of terror. [Sidenote: =The religious crisis.=]