Whilst Philip’s army was melting away in idleness Guise, realising where the danger lay, quietly abandoned the Pope to the mercy of Alba, and by forced marches hurried to the Flemish frontier. The intemperate Pontiff was then obliged to make terms with Alba, who entered Rome, as a pretended penitent instead of a conqueror, and once more the two great antagonists were left to fight out their quarrel without papal interference. Henry II. had long had his eye upon England’s important foothold on France, the citadel and town of Calais. The English refugees had exposed to him the weak points in its defence, it had been starved and neglected both by Edward VI. and Mary; and the younger Noailles on his way home when Mary had dismissed him, carefully scrutinised the fortress and reported to the King that it might easily be captured. Guise, on his hurried return from Italy, directed himself straight towards the place and beleaguered it, capturing the Rysbank, the island fort defending the harbour, on the first days of January, 1558. Philip had long known that Calais was weakly held, and in many of his letters to the Queen and Council he had urged that it should be effectively reinforced. On Guise’s approach the King sent his favourite, the Count de Feria, hurriedly to England to say how desperate the condition now was with the Rysbank in the hands of Guise; but the preparations for the voyage of so important a person as Feria took much time, and the Queen in London learnt of the disaster immediately by a letter from Lord Wentworth, the Governor of Calais.