This huge disaster only led the way to a greater one. Edward laid siege to Calais, and set himself down before it in fixed quarters for life or death. After the sacrifices he had made for this expedition he could not show his face to the commons until he should have accomplished his enterprise. Round the town he built a second town with streets, and wooden houses solidly and snugly constructed, to serve for residence through summer and winter. The Englishman, established in good quarters, and with abundant supplies, let those within and without the town do what they had a mind. He did not even grant them battle, but preferred starving them out. Five hundred persons, men, women, and children, expelled from the town by the governor, died of cold and hunger between the town and the camp. Such, at least, is the statement of the English historian Knighton.[i] Froissart[e] says, on the contrary, that he not only let them pass through his army, but also gave them an abundant repast. Edward had taken root before Calais, nor was the pope’s mediation capable of forcing him from thence. News was brought him that the Scotch were about to invade England. He never stirred. His perseverance was rewarded, for he soon learned that his troops, encouraged by his queen, had taken the king of Scotland prisoner. The next year Charles of Blois was likewise taken in besieging La Roche de Rien. Edward had but to fold his arms and leave fortune to work for him. It was matter of most urgent necessity for the king of France to succour Calais; but so great was his penury, so inert and embarrassed was that feudal monarchy, that it was not until the siege had lasted ten months that he was able to put himself in motion, when the English were fortified and intrenched behind palisades and deep ditches. Having scraped together some money by a debasement of the coinage, the gabelle, the ecclesiastical tithes, and the confiscation of the property of the Lombards, he at last began his march with a huge army like that which had been beaten at Crécy. He had no way of reaching Calais except through marshes or over sand-hills. To take the former course would have been certain destruction, for all the passes were intersected and guarded. The men of Tournay, however, gallantly carried a castle by assault, without machines and by strength of hand alone. [Sidenote: [1346-1347 A.D.]] The downs on the coast of Boulogne were under the fire of the English fleet. Those about Gravelines were kept by the Flemings whom the king could not suborn. He offered them heaps of gold, and the surrender of Lille, Béthune, and Douai; he would enrich their burgomasters, and make knights and lords of their young men. Nothing could tempt them; they were too much afraid of the return of their count, who, after a false reconciliation, had again escaped out of their hands. Philip could do nothing. He negotiated, he challenged; Edward remained unmoved.[22]