d on huge greased rollers, and
then indeed the men of Rouen were face to face with the reality of a
blockade which held them fast by land and water; so they burnt their
own last warships and set fire to the famous Clos des Galees.

Henry V. had before this written to London for provisions, in a letter
to the Lord Mayor which is still preserved in the archives of the
City, and took nine days to get to him. "And pray you effectuelly,"
writes the King, "that in al the haste that ye may, ye wille do arme
as manie smale vessels as ye may goodly with vitaille and namly with
drinke for to come Harfleu and fro thennes, as fer as they may, up ye
river of Seyne to Roan ward, vith the said vitaille for the
refresching of us and our said hoost." The royal request was
cheerfully welcomed, and the city of London hasted to send "Tritty
botes of swete wyne, ten of Tyre, ten of Romency, ten of Malvesey, and
a thousand pipes of ale and bere, with three thousand and five hundred
coppes for your hoost to drinke"--a "bote" being about 126 gallons. At
the very moment when all this good cheer reached the thirsty
Englishmen, the first pinch of hunger came upon the men of Rouen, as,
one by one, their last communications were cut off. Their attacks upon
the enemy became more frequent and more desperate every day. With
artillery, with every weapon they could scrape together, obsolete or
not, they kept a continual hail of missiles on the English camp,
especially harassing the quarters of the Duke of Gloucester,
absolutely preventing the King's soldiers from ever approaching near
enough to mine their walls, and giving not an hour of rest to the
English army.

But Henry V. was too wise to waste a man. After he had cut off every
avenue of help or hope, he sat quite still and waited, for he knew
that death and disease were on his side, and that against inevitable
starvation no city in the world could stand for long. The horror of
this long-drawn agony was now and then relieved by such single
combats between the lines as that when Laghen beat the Englishman who
had challenged him before the gate of Caux, or by the hanging of a new
French prisoner in the English lines and the retaliation of an
execution on the walls of Rouen. But rations were growing pitifully
small now, and another effort was made to get help from the King and
the Duke of Burgundy. A messenger got through the lines and brought
the stern warning of the citizens to those who had abando