Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (22 page)

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Authors: Robert Hutchinson

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The joust that followed was won by Henry who ran twenty-eight courses, broke twelve lances and scored nine hits on the bodies of his opponents and a further one on the helmet of another.
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That evening the foreign ambassadors were entertained in the White Hall within the Palace of Westminster. At the conclusion, Henry allowed the envoys to take some of the eight hundred and eighty-seven ‘H’ and ‘K’ letters of gold sewn into his jacket, hose and bonnet as souvenirs of the evening. However
[the] common people, perceiving, ran to the king and stripped him to his hose and doublet and all his companions likewise. Sir Thomas Knyvet stood on a stage [but] for all his defence, he lost his apparel. The ladies likewise were spoiled.
The king’s guard came suddenly and put the people back or else as it was supposed more inconvenience had ensued.
So the king with the queen and the ladies returned to his chamber where they had a great banquet and all these hurts were turned to laughing and game …
Richard Gibson, Sergeant of the Tents, who kept the accounts for the occasion, managed to recover some of the gold letters after ‘long labour’. Some of those he missed were later sold by a poor shearman (woollen cloth-cutter) of London to a goldsmith for £3 14s 8d.
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There were some of more mature years who worried about the dangers of Henry’s obsession with jousting. Hall reported that
… the ancient fathers much doubted [its wisdom], considering the tender youth of the king and diverse chances of horses and armour. It was openly spoken that steel was not so strong but it might be broken, nor no horse could be so sure of foot but he may fall. Yet, for all these doubts, the lusty prince continued in his challenges.
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Meanwhile, a sizeable household had been appointed for the baby prince. He had his own chaplains, yeomen and Grooms of his Chamber, a Gentleman of his Counting House – even his own Clerk of the Works, Walter Foster. More practically, Elizabeth Pointes was made his nurse.
They enjoyed very short-term appointments.
On 22 February 1511, after only fifty-three days of life, Prince Henry died, probably from what today we would diagnose as meningitis.
The king reimbursed Wolsey £35 13s 4d for his expenses ‘about the interment and burial of my lord prince’ at Westminster, and Sir Andrew Windsor was paid £759 6s
1/2
d for the lavish funeral. In April, it was decided not to show Louis XII’s letter of condolence to Henry or Katherine ‘or say a word about it at present, as it would revive the king’s grief ’.
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He had taken to playing tennis and dice to distract his mind from sorrow, although
to comfort the queen, he [dismissed] the matter and made no great mourning outwardly. The queen, like a natural woman, made much lamentation, [but] by the king’s good persuasion and behaviour, her sorrow was mitigated, but not shortly.
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By that time, Henry’s mind had moved on. His head was filled with the excitement of preparing for war.
THE PURSUIT OF MILITARY GLORY
 
 
‘As God gave Saul the power to slay 1,000 and David the strength to kill 10,000 enemies, so He has made me strong.’
Henry VIII to Pope Leo X in Rome, October 1513.
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It was time to stop pretending. For Henry VIII, the thrill and spectacle of the joust were simply a magnificent rehearsal for what he craved so much: the glory secured by military conquest and his own audacious and brave feats on the battlefield. Tournaments and jousts taught young men the benefits of élan and self-control plus the importance of the rituals of chivalry. Hunting trained them in the complexities of tactics, whilst testing their mettle in the chase. All were intended as knightly preparation for the chaos and slaughter of war.
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The chronicler Polydore Vergil astutely observed that the king was ‘not unmindful that it was his duty to seek fame by military skill’.
3
In Henry’s mind’s eye was always the shining example set by one of his forebears and childhood heroes – another king called Henry who, against the odds, had decimated the French army at Agincourt almost exactly a century before.
4
It was predictable that the hopes and dreams of the dashing young monarch (Plate 10) would dwell on the recovery of his inheritance, that other kingdom across the English Channel, lost by the kings of England during the Hundred Years’ War. The king was determined that both his dynasty and his destiny required an overwhelming
victory against the traditional enemy of France. In this, he was encouraged by his ambitious almoner, Thomas Wolsey.
There were frustrating problems to overcome before Henry could achieve this grand objective.
We have seen how many of his inherited councillors were pro-French, persuading and cajoling an unwilling Henry VIII to agree to a new treaty of alliance with Louis XII of France. Other ministers opposed any risky (and expensive) conflict against the battle-hardened French, believing that England should remain detached from distant, unimportant squabbles between the nations of mainland Europe.
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Most vocal amongst them was the fiscally prudent Lord Treasurer Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who discovered, to his immense chagrin, that his second son Edward had ‘marvellously’ angered and incited Henry over the Scots, France’s long-time ally, so ‘that his grace spends much money and is more disposed to war than peace’.
6
Surrey became increasingly anxious over the perils of England fighting a war simultaneously on two fronts – to the north with Scotland, and to the south and east with the French. He sought to dissuade the king from launching an invasion across the English Channel, but his arguments were dismissed ‘in such manner and countenance … [by Henry] that on the morrow he departed home’.
7
Surrey retired to his extensive estates in Norfolk and Suffolk in a deep sulk, his feelings red-raw at the realisation that he had been politically outmanoeuvred by the ubiquitous Wolsey, now increasingly enjoying the king’s uninterrupted attention in the councils of state.
Henry VII may have left a bulging treasury to fund his son’s insatiable appetite for martial adventure, but any military strategist worth his salt knows full well that intention is one thing, but possessing the capability to execute it is quite another. It takes a long time to build up sufficient military strength to embark on an expedition to hostile shores with any prospect of success.
It had been almost two decades since English troops last fought on the mainland of Europe, during Henry VII’s brief campaign in northern France. His son possessed no standing army of trained or experienced soldiers, nor yet the full panoply of martial equipment with which to arm
them. In November 1509 the king had published a royal proclamation warning those able to bear arms to be ready to fight
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and had begun to buy up longbows and field artillery from suppliers at home and overseas. Henry needed to augment his forces to fulfil his bellicose bluster – particularly the English navy, which he wanted deployed as a floating bulwark to defend his realm and to aggressively control the narrow seas dividing it from mainland Europe.
A warlike Henry was therefore forced to wait impatiently to launch his chosen career as a European warrior-king. His limited resources then available dictated that it had to begin in a very modest manner.
Around 1,000 archers and 500 other troops under the veteran Sir Edward Poynings left the Kent port of Sandwich in June 1511 en route to the Low Countries. Their mission was to provide military assistance to the Emperor Maximilian in bringing to heel the errant Charles Egmont, Duke of Gueldres, a client of Louis XII who was subsidising his defiance of the Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire. The king’s diplomatic objective was to wean the erratic emperor away from unwanted French influence and push him towards an alliance with her European rivals, such as England.
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A month earlier, Thomas, Lord Darcy, had been sent to Cadiz in Spain with another 1,000 men to form a small contingent in Ferdinand’s campaign against the Moors in North Africa. The king impulsively wanted to go himself but his plan was vetoed by his cautious ministers, who were worried about the safety of the English throne given his lack of a son and heir. Darcy, appointed admiral and captain general of the expedition, was ordered to seek a subordinate command in the Spanish forces ‘as the manner of war and ordering of the same in England is not like that against the Moors’.
10
An apprehensive French ambassador in London was speedily assured by silver-tongued officials that the English troops were to fight ‘infidels only – for this king is in peace with all the princes of Christendom’.
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Archbishop Warham, Lord Chancellor since 1504, told Darcy before his departure ‘on such a distant and dangerous journey’ that the more painful his trials and tribulations would be, the more merit would
accrue to his name.
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Sadly, Darcy was to suffer all the pain but receive very little merit.
His expedition, largely funded out of his own pocket, swiftly descended into farce. When he and his troops arrived in Cadiz, they discovered that Ferdinand had already scrapped plans to fight the Moors in present-day Morocco because he feared an imminent French invasion of his own lands from the north. While they awaited more information from the Spanish king, some of the English soldiers went ashore and
fell to drinking of hot wines and were scarce masters of themselves.
Some ran to the stews [brothels], some broke hedges and spoiled orchards and vineyards and [ate] oranges before they were ripe and did many other outrageous deeds.
Darcy had to send his provost marshal ashore to restore order amongst the ‘hot and wilful’ yeoman archers, round them up and harry them back to their ships. The ill-discipline did not end there. Days later, an English soldier tried to buy a loaf of bread from a young girl – but she refused his proffered money. He followed her home and she screamed for help, fearing rape.
The townsmen of Cadiz suddenly rang their common bell and all the town went into harness [armed themselves] and the few Englishmen that were on land went to their bows.
The Spanish cast darts [threw spears] and sore annoyed and hurt the Englishmen and they likewise hurt and slew [many] Spaniards.
Darcy and his captains managed to halt the affray but not before an Englishman and ‘diverse Spaniards’ had been killed. Ferdinand’s representatives and the townspeople had suffered enough of these disorderly allies with their unintelligible language and unchecked vandalism. They told Darcy: ‘Sir, we pray you, since you know the king’s pleasure … that you, and all your people, will go with your ships away for we perceive you owe us some displeasure.’ So Darcy returned to England, chastened and inglorious, after the shambles of a futile expedition that cost him dearly in reputation and in his own hard cash.
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Both this and Poynings’ more successful foray into the Low Countries (where he captured several towns and castles) were mere tactical sideshows in the grand strategy now evolving in Europe against Louis XII.
The French king had summoned a breakaway General Council of the Catholic Church to meet in Pisa in May 1511, to discuss the removal of his former ally, Pope Julius II, now working actively against France. Julius himself sought to lure England into a multinational alliance to drive the French out of northern Italy, even offering Henry a curiously assorted cargo of bribes in August 1511 – a rose wrought in solid 24-carat gold, together with one hundred hard Parmesan cheeses and some barrels of wine – to win him over.
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Within two months, a Holy League against France was formed comprising the Papal States, Spain, Venice and (belatedly) the Holy Roman Empire. England did not join its ranks for a month or so – only because messengers were tardy in bringing authorisation to Henry’s ambassador in Rome, Christopher Bainbridge, the rampantly Francophobe Archbishop of York, recently made a cardinal.
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’.
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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.’
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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.
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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.
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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’.
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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’.
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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’.
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