No such silver lining lightened the cloud on the Huguenot horizon. D’Andelot from Orleans, the princess of Condé, Eleanor de Roye, from Strasburg, her imprisoned husband, and Coligny all implored the English queen in vain for speedy relief. The admiral’s position by the end of February was desperate. He had been compelled to move into the western part of Normandy, for his 5,000 reiters were “in such rage for their money that he could scarce keep them together,” and were being so corrupted by the enemy that he might otherwise have lost them utterly.[673] Powder also was wanting.[674] The condition of Montgomery[675] in Dieppe and of Warwick in Havre was quite as bad. In Havre food was so scarce that rations were reduced to a two-penny loaf to four persons; wood was unprocurable; the water was bad.[676] The spoiling of Normandy from the devastation of Coligny’s reiters who were levying upon the country without law or order, and burning and destroying villages without regard to religion, was terrible. “If the reiters understand that another messenger has arrived here (Caen) from the queen and the money not come,” wrote the admiral, “it will be impossible to save our throats from being cut.” Fortunately the very next day the English ambassador arrived in Caen with word for Coligny to the effect that eight thousand pounds in English sovereigns, French crowns, angels, and pistolets were on the way from Portsmouth to Caen.[677] Fire opened on Caen castle on March 1, and the next day the marquis D’Elbœuf surrendered it. Bayeux also capitulated.[678] The fall of these two places and the fearful state of the country,[679] might have broken the resolution of the crown to continue the war.[680] But another fate intervened. [Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE OF GUISE, FEBRUARY 18, 1563 (Tortorel and Perissin)]