Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII

by Robert Hutchinson

  In London, Henry was incensed by Louis’ plans to depose the Pope. He called together his Council which agreed unanimously on war with France. The king waxed angrily against ‘the great sin of the King of France’ in calling the divisive General Council at Pisa, which had ‘lacerated the seamless garment of Christ’ – Mother Church herself – and would ‘wantonly destroy’ its unity. He attacked those who were guilty of this ‘most pernicious schism’ as ‘cruel, impious, criminal and unspeakable’.15

  As far as Henry was concerned, he could now fight a holy war. More than twenty years later, a recklessly foolhardy Bishop of Durham, Cuthbert Tunstall, dared to remind the king how he had fought against Louis XII in defence of the papacy because he had ‘assisted and nourished a schism’. Henry growled a tart riposte: ‘We were but young and having little experience in the feats of the world.’16

  The Treaty of Westminster of 17 November 1511 provided the diplomatic framework for mutual military assistance between two of the Holy League’s allies, Ferdinand’s Spain and Henry VIII’s England. An Anglo – Spanish army would attack Aquitaine, a region of south-west France bordering the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees, and conquer it for Henry in his virtuous defence of Holy Church. There was another strategic objective. As well as regaining one of England’s long-lost provinces in France, the invasion was intended as a diversionary stratagem – to lure French troops out of the Northern Italian theatre to defend their homeland, thus easing the military pressure on the papal and Venetian troops.

  Battlefield glory beckoned irresistibly and preparations to ready the invasion forces stepped up in tempo during the winter of 1511 and well into the New Year.17 By the spring of 1512, the English were as ready to fight as they would ever be and Thomas Wall, Lancaster Herald, arrived at Louis XII’s court at the end of April to formally deliver Henry’s declaration of war against France.

  The king, furious to be again denied the chance of fighting himself, had to be content with merely inspecting his 12,000 troops under Thomas Grey, Second Marquis of Dorset, before their departure from Southampton in early June. The soldiers’ enthusiasm for war had been ‘marvellously encouraged’ by the timely issue of a papal indulgence that promised every soldier a markedly reduced spell in Purgatory if he died gloriously in battle.18 The English warships also pointedly bore the arms of Julius II, painted by John Brown, the king’s painter. Henry told Cardinal Bainbridge in Rome that he believed that

  never had a finer army been seen, or one better disposed to die courageously in defence of the Church and the Pope, as the indulgence sent by him has roused them against his foes, whom they consider Turks, heretics and infidels.

  The king considered that

  under God’s favour our army will behave itself right gallantly and confound the malice and tyranny of those who, by fair means or foul, oppress the Church of God and favour the great schism, which will take effect unless Catholic princes resist it.

  Henry solemnly pledged ‘his whole power to attack the foes of the Church’ so that ‘they cannot escape defeat’.19

  His cocksure optimism was echoed by the Venetian Lorenzo Pasqualigo in letters to his brothers which described the English soldiers as ‘very fine men, well supplied with everything. In the Channel, there are thirty large ships armed by Englishmen which do not allow so much as a French fishing boat to put to sea without taking it.’ In the war-fevered streets of jingoistic and xenophobic London, ‘foreigners remain … in great fear, but if they do give utterance, it is to abuse France, perhaps unwillingly, as if they were to do otherwise, their heads would be well broken’.20

  As it transpired, these high hopes proved completely baseless.

  Everything began to go wrong as soon as the fleet quit the shores of England. Shortly after the western cliffs of the Isle of Wight were left astern, the ships were dispersed, primarily because ‘of the ungodly manners of the seamen, [in] robbing the king’s victuals when the soldiers were seasick’.21

  The force arrived on the north-west coast of Spain on 7 June and two days later took to the field, near Reinteria, within three miles (4.88 km) of Navarre. Dorset immediately fell out with the Spanish over the campaign’s first objectives. He wanted to capture the French town of Bayonne and make it his forward base, from which he could advance further into Aquitaine. His allies rejected this plan and it soon became readily apparent that Ferdinand had been underhand in suggesting his son-in-law should send troops to Spain. His real purpose was to employ the English forces as a shield, a mere diversion, to cover his seizure of the independent kingdom of Navarre.22

  There were also serious logistical problems, with Spanish promises of transport and ordnance largely unkept. ‘The victuals have not been as they expected; the rain continual, to the annoyance of the soldiers, who lie nightly under the bushes,’ complained the English envoy Dr William Knight to Wolsey back in England.23

  Thomas, Lord Howard, one of the captains of the army, also bewailed the shortage of horses and provisions. He had been

  in considerable peril these six days, being lodged in a field a mile [1.61 km] from Fuentarrabia,24 an arrowshot from a town called Our Lady of Vryne, where they are dying of sickness. Five Spaniards were buried this night [but there] are no English dead except Lord Brooke’s servant.

  My own company are healthy as yet. If the sickness comes, it will be hard to keep order.

  I wish the king had never trusted [Ferdinand] more than they do, then they would never have been sent to this ungracious country where the people love a ducat better than all their kin.25

  Shortage of victuals forced some to try unfamiliar sustenance:

  The Englishmen ate of the garlic with all meats and drank hot wines in the hot weather and did eat all the hot fruits that they could get which caused their blood to boil in their bellies that there fell sick 3,000 of the flux26 and thereof died 1,800 men.27

  There were also clashes with the inhabitants of the town of Sancta Maria.

  It so fortuned that a Spaniard gave evil language to [an] Englishman, who gave him such a buffet [blow] on the face, the town rose and set upon the Englishman … who was slain.

  The Almains [German mercenaries] that lay at the town’s end [raised] the alarm, which hearing, the camp cried harness [to arms] every man …

  The soldiers in a rage ran to the town in such manner that the captains could not stay them and [they] slew and robbed the people without mercy.

  Seven English soldiers were executed for looting and pillage. Unfortunately, no lessons were learnt from this incident and any last vestige of discipline within the army vanished like the wind blowing away cannon smoke. The English went on to burn the port of St-Jean-de-Luz, near the French border, and ‘robbed and killed the inhabitants and so spoiled diverse other villages’.28

  John Stile, English ambassador to Spain, reported in coded dispatches to Henry the growing discontent amongst the rude soldiery. They grumbled that because of the lack of food, ‘they may not live with[in] your wages of sixpence a day’ and wanted a two-pence increase, as ‘their clothing is wasted and worn and their money spent’. The attractions of Spain had palled: they now unilaterally planned to go back to England by Michaelmas (11 October) ‘for no man will abide here’.29 Knight confirmed that some had mutinied:

  The army is idle – a large band has refused to serve [any] longer under eight pence a day.

  The mutiny was pacified but one man suffered death …

  All this comes from inaction. Martial exercises are not kept up. The army is unlearned and has not seen the feats of war.

  Many are slain; others have died; some have deserted. They neglect their instructions.

  The collapse in morale had infected even the army’s war council – ‘many of our council may suffer no counsel’ was Knight’s austere and punning complaint.30

  Worse was to follow. On 28 August 1512, the army’s leaders (without Dorset, as he was very ill) decided the troops should return home, although they were devoid of any battlefie
ld victories, empty-handed of spoil or ransom and, indeed, had failed to achieve anything at all. Knight and one of the under-marshals, William Kingston, were deputed to travel on ahead with the unenviable task of ‘excusing’ their desertion to their king and country.

  Some, such as Sir William Sandys, opposed this choice of envoys, claiming that Wolsey ‘was the cause of all this mischief; that Knight was in his favour and if he went to England he would so represent matters to the king so as to cause their further abiding there’. Regardless, Knight and Kingston embarked at San Sebastian, but after suffering six days of violent storms out on the Atlantic were forced back into the Spanish port.

  The army council reconvened at nearby Errenteria, where Knight pleaded with them not to bring the army home.

  Whereupon, like a noble man, my Lord Howard said … he would endure this winter war and gladly die for the honour of his master, the realm and himself, than contrary to the king’s commandment, with rebuke and shame, return into England.

  [But] one stole out of the chamber and told Lord Brooke’s company that if the commonalty did not resist, they would all have to go into [France].

  Great uproar ensued. Knight’s life was threatened and ‘things’, he reported to Wolsey, ‘are out of order’ – meaning totally out of control.

  Our enemies were men of long continuance in war, full of policy and privy to all our deeds [but] we [were] clean contrary [to this].

  Discipline was so badly kept we might at any time have been crushed.

  I heard Sir Henry Willoughby say that of 8,000 bows, not two hundred were sufficient.

  It is no use blaming anybody as it would end in mutual recrimination.

  Knight warned Wolsey: ‘Be cautious. The great men of England say that you are the author of the war and its ill-success must be attributed to you.’31

  It comes as no surprise that Henry was incandescent at his army’s mass desertion. He sent their captains an urgent and ‘stringent command to put yourselves under the orders of Ferdinand’ and begged his father-in-law to stop his troops leaving the Spanish dominions ‘at all hazards and to cut every man’s throat who refused instant obedience’.32

  It was too late. Having baked copious supplies of biscuit to sustain them on the voyage home, the English army struck camp and embarked, lock, stock and barrel, for England that November, its honour besmirched, its discipline despoiled. No glory, then, for Henry on this campaign. No triumphant recovery of the province of Aquitaine. No deeds of derring-do on the battlefield. Never before or since in history has an English army deserted en masse.

  Even the devious Ferdinand was more generous than he could have been, given the circumstances. His letter to his ambassadors in London smacks of an uncomfortably critical end-of-term school report on his young son-in-law’s military accomplishments, or rather his lack of them. The courtesy of his comments thinly masked a few sharp barbs that must have made Henry grind his teeth in anger and frustration.

  The envoys were instructed to inform the king of England that his commander-in-chief (Dorset) was ‘doubtless a very distinguished nobleman, but that it is to his behaviour from the first day he landed in Spain that is owed the failure of the splendid enterprise they had planned’. Henry should be aware that, if Dorset had not always opposed Ferdinand’s plans, ‘and if the two armies had entered Guyenne [in south-west France]33 without delay by way of Pamplona, the whole, or at least one-half of the duchy, would already be conquered’.

  Stoically, the Spanish king continued:

  The English are strong, stout-hearted, stand firm in battle and never think of taking flight.

  They are very excellent men and only want experience. England has had no wars – the English do not know how to behave in a campaign. Unaccustomed as they are to warfare, they show a marked dislike to perform such labours as are inevitably entailed on soldiers.

  They are inclined to self-indulgence and to idleness.

  But their greatest fault is that in a combined action, they will never assist the [allied] troops, or act in concert with a commander of another nation.

  It would be as well to practice [sic] a portion of the men in the evolutions of regular warfare.

  After they had undergone military drill and acquired some useful combat experience, Ferdinand confidently predicted that ‘the English troops would excel those of any other nation’. However, he considered Henry’s army needed more soldiers armed with long pikes ‘to give it greater efficiency in battle than it at present possesses’. Ferdinand added another helpful suggestion for improvement. Why not mix English archers with German pikemen? German ‘infantry has deservedly acquired a high reputation’ and would stiffen Henry’s battalions. The Spanish king concluded his sobering assessment with a final, damning indictment on Albion’s military prowess: thank you very much, but he needed no more English troops to help him against the French.34

  Others were less charitable regarding Henry’s militarily impotent adventure. Margaret of Savoy, the Regent of the Netherlands and daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, made Sir Edward Poynings squirm when she commented sarcastically: ‘You see, Englishmen have so long abstained from war they lack experience from disuse. If the report be true, they are almost weary of it already.’35

  Henry was only too painfully aware that his martial reputation and that of his force of arms had become something of a joke within the courts of Europe.

  Like many rulers down the centuries, he sought to put a brave face on his misfortune by issuing a carefully sanitised version of the disaster for use overseas by his ambassadors. He instructed them to say that Ferdinand, hearing of the constant rain in those parts

  to the intolerable pains of the soldiers of our army, which in that barren country have persevered, lying in the fields continuously … without any breach or dissolution [of the military pact] had agreed to their return.36

  His retribution inevitably followed. In London, the army’s officers were summoned before Henry, his Council and the Spanish ambassadors on Friday 19 November. As they knelt before the king, who was sitting on a bench, Archbishop Warham demanded an explanation of their disgraceful conduct in Spain.

  They proffered three excuses for their humiliating failure. Firstly, they had no provisions. Secondly, the soldiers had mutinied and demanded to come home. Lastly, the fiasco was all the fault of the Marquis of Dorset – ‘who had been the cause of all that had happened’. Henry sent for Dorset to provide his version of events, as he told the captains ‘that he wanted to know the truth in order to punish those who deserved punishment’.

  The Privy Council eventually went into secret session and emerged with the decision that the English captains ‘had done wrong and had compromised their honour as well as the honour of their country’. The Spanish were asked to name a well-deserved, severe punishment but, to the relief of the miscreants, politely declined to do so.37

  After this fiasco, Henry looked to his burgeoning navy to re-establish England’s battered pride and martial reputation.

  French and Scottish pirates were running amok in the North Sea, capturing and ransoming English merchant ships, including the unfortunately named collier Mary Buttocks, whose home port was Hartlepool. 38 During June 1511 the king had received angry complaints about the Scottish privateer Andrew Barton seizing merchantmen at the eastern end of the English Channel. Henry ordered Barton’s two ships, the Lyon and the Jenett of Purwyn, to be captured ‘with all haste’ and the privateer arrested as a common pirate.

  The ships were eventually apprehended and Barton was brutally killed, together with many crewmen. The vessels were brought to London as prizes and the Scottish prisoners repatriated. James IV of Scotland – Henry’s brother-in-law – protested furiously at this ‘outrage’, demanding the prosecution of Barton’s ‘murderers’ and the ships’ return. Henry responded mildly that justice had merely been done to a ‘crafty pirate’ and thief and he flatly ignored James’ peremptory requests.39

  The French, however, remained firm
ly in Henry’s sights as his main quarry at sea as well as on land. Sir Edward Howard was appointed vice-admiral in April 1512 and ordered to control the English Channel between the French port of Brest and the Thames Estuary. Within weeks, he had captured sixty-six enemy ships and goaded the French into mobilising their navy.

  In early August Howard sailed from Portsmouth, flying his flag aboard the newly commissioned Mary Rose,40 at the head of twenty-five English warships. These included the aging but recently refitted Regent, 1,000 tons, commanded by Sir Thomas Knyvet, Howard’s brother-in-law and one of Henry’s jousting cronies. Their objective was Brest, the home base of the thirty-nine-strong French fleet.

  On the morning of 10 August 1512 the enemy ships were stationed in the approaches to the port, south of Berthaume Bay, and were celebrating that day’s Feast of St Lawrence41 when the English unsportingly attacked. Regent came alongside the French carrack42 Marie la Cordelière, 700 tons, and shackled herself to it by means of grappling irons and chains. The English boarded and as the furious fighting swept across the decks, Knyvet was cut in two by a cannon ball fired at close range and his second-in-command, Sir John Carew, mortally wounded by gunfire.43 The French ship caught fire and a frenzied French gunner, deep in the bowels of the Cordelière, set fire to her gunpowder magazine, choosing mass death rather than the dishonour of capture. Both ships blew up, killing most of the Regent’s seven-hundred-strong crew and all 1,200 enemy sailors.44