A CAMPAIGN AND A COURTSHIP
The musters of the mercenaries had been fixed for Dunkirk on May 20, and
the captain of the vanguard, the Earl of Shrewsbury, was to be at Calais
on the 16th,[133] but, as is so often the case, paper plans drawn by
able clerks did not develop rapidly into accomplished facts, and by the
19th nothing was ready.[134] What a muddle it all reads, and the marvel
is that any men were ever shipped at all! First all the shipping had to
be pressed or borrowed, and the hoys had to be hired in the Low
Countries or along the English coast and towed to the embarking or
loading ports. Then the victuallers had to be loaded in the Thames and
at Sandwich, and brought round to the ports where were the hoys or
ships. There was hardly a man in England but was pressed for the King's
service and wore his coat; the very carters of Kent and Sussex sported
the white and green as they cracked their whips by their horses' sides
on their way to Sandwich, while all the able-bodied men south of Trent
were on their way to Dover or Southampton with journey money in their
pockets and the King's coat on their backs. As company after company
arrived they had to be housed till transport was found for them, and for
two days' journey inland round Southampton the country was swarming
with men waiting to be embarked.[135] Fox, bishop of Winchester, was
worrying through with the business of transport there; Lord Mountjoy had
been sent in a hurry to superintend the Cinque Ports,[136] and the
victuallers, while Wolsey, the King's almoner, was worn to a shadow[137]
in London in the endeavour to deliver into life his admirably sketched
plans for organization. Human nature is not passive pen and ink, and
then as now what is called the English lower middle class was absolutely
undisciplined. If you doubt it, think of the Biscay performance in 1512,
and more recent muddles since. Waste, leakage and unpunctuality were the
opening notes of the proceedings, but it is only fair to add that during
the whole campaign there was no lack of wholesome victual and in
consequence no epidemic. Fox, appalled at the sight of the undisciplined
army of brewers, bakers, coopers, smiths, horsekeepers, millers, etc.,
invading the port, and overwhelmed at the thought of the oxen from
Lincoln and Holland, the ling, the cod, bacon, beer, biscuit, to say
nothing of the tankards, platters, and cauldrons needed to feed the
host, longed for the arrival of Charles Brandon and Lord Howard.[138]
But Sir Charles was court-bound having just been made Lord Lisle by his
adoring King, and Lord Howard, admiral of the Fleet in the room of his
late brother, whose gallant death a month ago at Brest had retrieved the
honour of the English nation, was wind-bound at Plymouth, and could do
nothing either by way of scouring the narrow seas to ensure the safe
passage of the hoys and men, or in assisting to bring order out of
chaos. He was waiting impatiently for the next wind to bring him round
to the Wight, refused all leave to his men and raised a gallows at the
water-edge as a grim gloss upon his order.[139] The victuallers' ships
had not come from Sandwich and transport from the west was wind-bound
with the fleet, but Fox muddled on, sure that once Howard came with Lord
Lisle things would hum to the right tune. They evidently did, and Henry
himself came down privately with Lisle to see the vanguard's
departure.[140] Lisle's large retinue went with it, chaplains, fifers,
Blind Dick the minstrel and all, but Brandon himself remained behind to
cross with the King on a hypothetical June 15.
[133] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4008; Galba B. iii. 77.
[134] _Ibid._, 4094.
[135] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4094.
[136] _Ibid._, 4083; Rymer's Fœdera, xiii. 369.
[137] _Ibid._, 4103.
[138] _Ibid._, 4094.
[139] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4076; Calig. D. vi. 102.
[140] _Ibid._, 4095, and 4169.
On June 13 the vanguard, "all picked men armed with corselets,
bracelets, sallets and gorgets and over their armour a coat of white and
green, the King's colours,"[141] set out for the object of attack, the
town of Therouenne. This frontier fortress, so important that it was
called "La chambre du Roy"[142] barred the way to the attack of the
towns on the Somme, for the French had retired into the towns and
castles and meant to wear out the invaders by a prolonged series of
sieges. Louis XII. was at Amiens and the French army was under the
command of the Duke of Bourbon and the Duke of Angoulême, while the army
of Picardy, which was in force at Boulogne and Montreuil, was under the
Sieur de Piennes. Five miles a day was an average march for the English
army, but it was not till twelve days after their departure from Calais
that Bluemantle summoned the town. "Verily, my lord, it was a
stronghold; the ditches on the outside were so deep that a man walking
and looking into them feared for falling to come nigh to the banks;
gaily wooded upon the banks and bushed with quick-set every corner, and
wide walls and other full of great bulwarks, and beside the walls in the
inside mightily fortified with great trenches, many bulwarks made with
timber and earth, and in certain places of the said trenches sundry deep
pits for to have made fumigations, to the intent that men upon the
assaulting of the same should have been poisoned and stopped."[143] Thus
it was described by an eloquent Welshman, and before this stronghold the
English vanguard sat themselves down, awaiting the main ordinance which
was to come with the King. They could not secure their line of
communication with the Calais Pale, and on the 27th they tasted French
tactics when the garrisons from Boulogne and Montreuil cut in near
Ardres, and carried off 100 wagons of victuals escorted by 500 men. Two
hundred green and white coats lay on the field, but the only dead French
things were twenty horses.[144] The Flemish governor of Bethune gave the
English a poor character; they made "but easy their skultwachis" and the
Welshmen amongst them did great hurt to the Prince's subjects.[145]
[141] C. S. P. Venice, ii. 250.
[142] _Ibid._, i. 311.
[143] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4431.
[144] _Ibid._, i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
[145] _Ibid._, i. 4322; Galba B., iii. 119.
On June 30, the day after a terrible storm which wrecked the shipping
and ruined much victual, the watchmen on the Tour du Guet at Calais saw
the King's fleet approaching before the north wind, a sight such as
Neptune had never seen before, and at once there was such a firing of
guns from ships and walls and ringing of bells from the towers that
"you would have thought the world was coming to an end." From the deck
of his beloved _Mary Rose_, the fastest sailer in the fleet, Henry
passed by the Lanternegate through the streets of Calais in procession,
headed by the bishops and priests, to the church of St. Nicholas to give
thanks for his safe crossing, and returned to his lodging at the Staple
to give the unpopular order for the burning of "little Whitesand," whose
villagers had the day before plundered an English ship driven ashore in
the storm. The soldiers were ashamed to do the work.[146] For the next
three weeks Henry amused himself well at Calais, practising archery with
his guard and beating them all, holding revels and receiving embassies
from Flanders, the Duke of Brunswick and the Emperor. Maximilian
suggested that as conquest was their object, they should cut into the
heart of the matter at once, and Henry should meet him at Rheims, to be
there sacred King of France,[147] a suggestion which did not appear as
absurd to Henry "King of France" as it does to us. But Henry had come
out to fight, and now with his army swelled by 8000 German mercenaries,
"who did not respect churches," the host set out led by Maximilian's
guides in leisurely disorder, all along the line the baggage, drawn by
English horses, muddled with the ordnance and its Flemish mares. The
first night in camp it simply poured and the tents were hardly
protection, but Henry was up all night, no doubt boyishly pleased at
tasting at last the hardships of real war, and rode about the camp at
three in the morning to visit the watch and comfort them with a "Well,
comrades, a bad beginning means a good ending, God willing." The
low-lying country drained by broad ditches which served the folk as
water-ways, was deep in mud, and the tracks were almost impassable. One
of the guns called the "twelve apostles," cast in Flanders, was lost in
a pond and the Frenchmen hanging invisible on the flank of the army, cut
to pieces the party sent back to extricate it. De Piennes now threw
himself across the King's line of march, and next morning Henry in
person drew up the army in a fog so dense that nothing could be seen.
When it cleared away there were the French, who challenged any
Englishman to single combat, and many encounters took place, "a pleasant
sight if a man's skin had not been in hazard." Afterwards the engagement
became general, and the Welsh put the French to flight, and yet another
apostle fell into the enemy's hands.[148] Not till August 1, was the
royal camp pitched before Therouenne, and what a camp! "Peter Corse,
merchant of Florens" did his best with his 578 men at 6d. a day to make
it notable with canvas, blue buckram, whited Normandy cloth, Brussels'
saye, green saye and red saye, with signs and fringes and ribbons. The
King's retinue had forty-six halls or tents varying from 24 × 12 ft. to
15 × 15 ft., each flying its sign of the Red Rose, the Red Rose and
White, the Flower de Lyce, the Moon, the Red, the Blue, the Green, the
White, the Gold, and the Black Shield, and so on. Sir Thomas Windham,
the Treasurer, flew the Annewe of Gold, the Yellow Face was kept for
strange ambassadors, while in the Chalice the chaplains sang mass openly
for the host, and there was one provided with beds "for the surgeons to
dress men."[149] The King's own lodging was a veritable canvas house,
the different rooms connected by passages 10 ft. wide. "The King, for
himself, had a house of timber with a chimney of iron, for his other
lodgings he had great and goodly tents of blue water-work garnished with
yellow and white, divers rooms within the same for all offices
necessary; on the top of the pavilions stood the King's beasts holding
fanes, as the Lion, the Dragon, the Greyhound, the Antelope, the Dun
Cow; within, all the lodging was painted full of suns rising."[150]
Little doubt Queen Katharine had insisted on the wooden sleeping house
(and with surprising thriftiness the hut used in the Court revels was
sent over), for her letters attest her almost maternal anxiety for his
health and life, with these "nothing can come amiss to him."[151] The
field was gay with banners, ensigns and flags of every description:
every gentleman from knight to earl flew his own, but the weather was
very foul, and it rained night and day, and everything gorgeous was
ruined.
[146] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
[147] _Ibid._, i. 4355; Galba B., iii. 126.
[148] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
[149] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4629.
[150] Hall's Chronicle, _ed._ 1809, p. 543.
[151] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4398; Calig. D., vi. 93.
The ordnance was planted as soon as it lumbered in from the muddy ways,
bombards, apostles, curtews, culverins, Nurembergs, lizards, minions and
port-guns, and the houses inside the town were "very sore beaten with
guns, and such importunate and continual shot made with guns into the
same, that no person might stir in the streets."[152] The besieged were
not idle, however, and not a day passed without victims in the English
camp to a certain turf-covered rampart on the walls, where were the most
deadly guns, and daily the garrison sallied forth and did damage, and
messengers covered by the sally even rode through the English camp and
away. The French light horse, stradiots and others, hovered round the
camp cutting off stragglers, attacking convoys, and never coming to a
decisive engagement, nor exposing themselves unnecessarily. They had
opportunity to exercise their tactics for the camp, ruled by "deux
opiniâtres," Lisle and Wolsey, who were as new to the business as Henry
himself, was badly kept, and the soldiers were so mad against the
French, and so eager that they often ventured too hardily.[153] Henry
was the keenest of the whole army, too keen for his wife's peace of
mind, and Wolsey had to write and reassure her.[154]
[152] _Ibid._, i. 4431.
[153] Lettres de Louis XII., iv. 189.
[154] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4365; Calig. D., vi. 92.
Since Henry's arrival the Emperor had been at Oudenarde, but at last
feeling sure that the English King was wasting both time and treasure at
Therouenne for lack of expert advice,[155] and moreover to justify his
wages, after a farewell supper with the Archduchess at Sotenghien, he
set out for Aire, while the Lady Margaret by easy stages made for St
Omer with her whole council, who were scared to death at this near
approach to the field.[156] Henry rode to Aire to meet Maximilian on
August 10, eager for his first sight of _l'ami_. It poured torrents, and
the interview was short.[157] The contrast must have been striking
between the rather shabby looking man of medium height clad in black
velvet, white-faced, wide-nosed, grey-bearded, a frank shrewd glance and
amiable manner,[158] but with an indescribable carriage of dignity which
marked him above all; and the auburn-haired, blue-eyed, ruddy young
giant towering above him, clad no doubt in his favourite cloth of gold,
and boyishly frank in his greeting. Everyone seems to have felt the
charm of Henry's bluff unsuspicious manner, and Maximilian was no
exception, "for during the whole journey the Emperor showed the greatest
condescension, declaring publicly that he came to be of use to the King
of England, and calling the King at one time his son, at another his
King, and at another his brother."[159] Maximilian had a well developed
dramatic sense, and he enjoyed playing the part of hired captain and
chief military adviser to the splendid young King whose magnificence and
extravagance, only equalled by his naïve inexperience, impressed the
frugal and penniless Emperor. So "the King's highness and the Emperor be
together and have every other's counsel with the most amiable loving
wise that can be thought."[160]
[155] _Ibid._, i. 4389; Vitell. B., xviii. 56.
[156] _Ibid._
[157] _Ibid._, i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
[158] _Ibid._
[159] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
[160] _Ibid._, i. 4431; MS. _apud_ Sir John Trevelyan.
From the moment the Emperor came into the camp on August 12, to visit
the trenches, things began to march. The evening before Ross Herald had
brought the defiance of the King of Scots, and for all reply from Henry
had got, "Let him do it in God's name!" for the Scottish march was well
guarded. Two days afterwards Henry, anxious in spite of his impatient
bravado, was _très joyeux_ at the news sent by the Swiss that they were
on the point of entering France. 'Twas a good answer to Ross, and
increased the ardour of the captains for the assault of Therouenne.
Maximilian was averse to the attempt, but Henry and his council had set
their hearts on it, saying they could hardly raise the siege without
loss of prestige,[161] and every man said in his heart, Remember
Guyenne. A few days before Captain de Fonterailles had managed to throw
men into the town, and at last the Emperor gave way and, preparatory to
the assault, ordered the camp to be moved across the stream towards
Guingate. This was hardly accomplished at dawn, when the alarm was given
that the French were approaching.[162] It was a convoy of provisions and
they sent forward a large company to draw off the English, as they had
done once before. The accounts of the battle are as usual confusing. It
would seem from the French account that having thrown in the victuals
they were returning in careless disorder, hawking in the fields, their
leaders riding without helmets on small horses and mules, when the
English fell on them from an ambuscade. The English account says Henry
followed the French all day and then attacked.[163] What probably
happened was that the Emperor who refused to have his standard spread,
saying he was the servant of the King and St George, "with 2000 men kept
them at bay until 4 P.M.,"[164] by which time Henry having turned their
position at a place called Bomye[165] (the camp was Guingate), attacked
them unexpectedly, utterly routed them, and took many prisoners of great
price. This was on Tuesday, August 16. Henry was mad with joy,
especially at the number and quality of the prisoners to whom he gave
good greeting on their arrival at camp. Louis d'Orléans, Duc de
Longueville and Marquis de Rothelin, was the most important, and him
Henry clad in a gown of cloth of gold, and on going to table caused him
to be served with water for his hands and to dine with him. The Duke
said, "Sir, I will not." The King rejoined, "you are my prisoner and
must do so," and displayed great graciousness.[166] After Longueville
came in importance M. de Boissi, nephew of the late Cardinal of Rouen,
who was taken but concealed against the laws of honour by Lord Walham,
son of Lord Berghes, for use in treating with Gueldres.[167] Prisoners
of condition were expected to pay 4000 ducats, but the King always
reduced it to 2000 saying to the captor, "I'll pay the rest." A common
soldier was worth 20 ducats, and if he had this on him he was merely
stripped and set at liberty,[168] but in spite of all Henry's care there
were the usual quarrels between Almains and English over their captures.
All the more important prisoners were sent to Aire on the way to
England, and Katharine was rather upset at having to provide lodgings
for Longueville in the midst of her preparations to meet the Scots. She
sent him to the Tower till she had more leisure.[169]
[161] Lettres de Louis XII., iv. 192.
[162] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
[163] _Ibid._, i. 4431.
[164] Lettres de Louis XII., iv. 195.
[165] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4431.
[166] C. S. P. Venice, ii. 288.
[167] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4418; Galba B., iii. 88.
[168] C. S. P. Venice, ii. 288.
[169] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4432.
The battle of the Spurs decided the fate of Therouenne, and on the 22nd
Pontdormi, captain of the garrison, demanded a parley, at which terms of
surrender were agreed on with the Earl of Shrewsbury, and on St
Bartholomew's Eve, August 23, the garrison marched out through the camp
in the sight of the Emperor and Henry, with banners flying, helmets on
their heads and lances on their thighs, 4000 as fine soldiers as any
prince would wish to have,[170] having prudently destroyed their guns
before leaving. Next day, St Bartholomew's, their majesties entered the
city. Maximilian effaced himself with his usual politic good-nature, and
Henry rode through the gates unlocked by the Earl of Shrewsbury, a
veritable St George clad in gilt and graven armour, his coat of silver
damask and white satin, his horse's trappings the same, with red
crosses. Close behind him came Lord Lisle also in silver and white, and
after him "a goodly company of estates, men-at-arms, henchmen all richly
apparelled" in green velvet and cloth of silver. At the gate he was met
by Maximilian, dressed in black velvet with only six henchmen as
sombrely clad, who came as a private person (though the town was claimed
as Burgundian) and together they entered the city. The streets were
filled with people and along the way to the Cathedral, where again the
Emperor yielded the place of honour, they pressed about Henry crying,
"Welcome, most merciful King." After an anthem to Our Lady and another
to St George sung in the King's Chapel of the Cathedral, the procession
returned to the gates where their majesties separated, Maximilian
returning to Aire and Henry to his camp. In spite of Henry's promise to
treat the inhabitants as his own subjects, the city was claimed by the
Burgundians and handed over to them. They destroyed it with fire, and
then Henry set 800 labourers to blow up and pull down the fortifications
so that one stone did not rest on another, and only the Cathedral
remained. From Aire Maximilian retired to Lille, leaving Henry at
Guinegate, for he made war with ceremony, and the spirit of the middle
ages lingered in his camp, so that by the law of arms, "for in case any
man should bid battle for the besieging and getting of any city or town,
then the winner to give battle and to abide for certain days,"[171] he
was compelled to remain on the field awaiting the pleasure of the enemy.
But though he remained a week at Guingate the French did not seek him
out, and he followed the Emperor to Lille.
[170] _Ibid._, i. 4284; Cleopat. C. v. 64.
[171] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4431.
Henry and Maximilian had dined, and drank, and amused each other like
brothers, and Maximilian had fallen in love with Mary's picture and said
he would like to have her for himself[172] now that he was again in the
marriage market. He had also dangled the imperial crown before Henry's
eyes so that the King not only dreamed of entering Paris in triumph, but
saw himself Emperor of Germany. But Maximilian was not there for a
picnic only, and he and Wolsey had also come to understand each other.
In fact Maximilian for the moment "was taken for another man than he was
before thought,"[173] and the negotiations for the near marriage of Mary
and Charles went on satisfactorily. Margaret offered to come and join
the conference at Aire, but the Emperor's servants were more satisfied
with her room than her presence for they could rule him more easily
without her, so she sent Lord Berghes to represent her and to know the
Emperor's pleasure when she should meet the King.[174] The Spanish
agents were hovering about, and Margaret desired to prevent Henry's
resentment coming to open rupture with Ferdinand, so she wrote sharp
letters to her father telling him not to whet the edge of Henry's anger,
and to Henry's agent she said that she was satisfied that all the
default lay with the Spaniards "but she is always of opinion that your
grace should dissemble and cherish them if any other way cannot be
found."[175] So sharp were her letters that Maximilian said if she wrote
like that again he would take the government out of her hands.[176] By
September 5, the preliminaries were satisfactorily arranged; a treaty of
alliance had been signed by Maximilian, Henry and Ferdinand; Maximilian
had been paid in full for his services under St George[177]; and Henry
set out for Lille where he was to meet Margaret. On the 11th the town
rising like an island out of the marsh[178] was reached. The English
encamped at a short distance from it, and when things were in order
thither came the Lord Ravenstein "which after his humble reverence done,
showed the King that the young Prince of Castile, Charles, and the Lady
Margaret, governess of the said Prince, most heartily desired him for
his pastime after his long travail to come and repose in his town of
Lille and to see his brother the prince and the ladies of the court of
Burgundy, saying that it became not ladies to visit him in his martial
camp which to them was terrible." Indeed Margaret told her father that
nothing would induce her to "troter et aller visiter les camps pour le
plaisir."[179] The King "gentelly" accepted the invitation, and "mounted
on a courser his apparel and barde were cloth of silver of small
quadrant cuttes traversed and edged with cut cloth of gold, the border
set full of red roses, his arms fresh and set with jewels," he set out
accompanied by the faithful Lisle and followed by Sir Harry Guildford
and the henchmen. They were convoyed by Ravenstein and many noblemen.
About a mile out of the town they met the burgesses of Lille who
presented Henry with the keys of the town, which Henry graciously
returned saying he trusted them no less than his own subjects. After
this came the nobles of Flanders, Brabant, Holland and Hainault to
salute him, and further on Count Frederic of the Palatinate. In fact
such a crowd was on the road that it was a wonder any were left in the
town, girls offered crowns and sceptres and garlands, while outlaws and
malefactors with white wands in their hands besought pardon. At last
through the throng the gates were reached, where stood the captain of
the town with the well-appointed garrison, and the procession headed by
Henry's sword and mace-bearers pressed through the narrow street of the
city set, though it was broad day, on each side with burning torches, so
that there was scarce room for the riders to pass to the palace. Gay
tapestries hung from the houses and at frequent intervals there were
divers goodly pageants of the histories of the Old and New Testaments
and of the poets. At the door of the Gothic palace built by Jean Sans
Peur were waiting the Emperor, Lady Margaret and the Prince of Castile,
"who humbly saluted him, and then for reverence of the Emperor the King
caused his sword to be put up and his maces to be laid down, and then
the King and all other nobles lodged and feasted."[180]
[172] C. S. P. Venice, ii. 292 and 301.]
[173] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4417; Calig. D., vi. 94.]
[174] <i>Ibid.</i>, 4418; Galba B., iii. 88.]
[175] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4433.
[176] Le Glay Lettres de Maximilien et Marguerite d'Autriche, ii.
206.
[177] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4435.
[178] _Ibid._, 4284.
[179] Le Glay, _op. cit._ ii. 203.
[180] Hall's Chronicle, _ed._ 1809, p. 553; L. and P. H. VIII.,
i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
But their travail was not yet ended, for the city of Tournay was to be
reduced to submission. The Tournois were a double-faced folk, the nobles
were for Burgundy, the merchants and people for France, and the city
had not made submission on the death of Charles the Bold but had claimed
freedom under French protection. They had been thick with the French
while assuring Burgundy of their loyalty, and now they were to take
their punishment at the hands of Burgundy's magnificent ally. On the
15th, after the Lille meeting, when Henry and his favourite captured
Margaret's heart, the English camp was pitched under the walls of
Tournay, a city whose beauty "no one can conceive who has not seen
it,"[181] what with its bridges over the Schalde, its water-mills, its
splendid buildings. From out its three miles circumference rose ninety
towers and it was second only to Paris in population. Guns were sent by
water from Lille, to batter down its stone towers and iron gates, and
the Emperor ordered his to come from Malines, and Taylor, whose diary
for this whole journey is invaluable, makes no mention of Henry's being
mock ones, as the legend runs. Contemporary chronicles are also silent
on what would have become a world-known jest, and the wooden guns in the
Tower must have some other origin. It may be true that the Tournois were
terrified at the sight of the artillery, and yielded, but certainly not
before the city had been much battered, and Lisle had rushed and
occupied one of the gates, carrying away as trophies two of the images
from its niches[182]; but it is much more probable that the news of
Flodden Field, brought by Rougecroix on the 16th, in Katharine's
exultant letters, was the true cause. All was rejoicing in the English
camp. Mass was celebrated in the state pavilion of purple and gold, and
the Te Deum sung for the victory. The bishop of St Asaph preached, and
one can imagine the gist of the sermon, for if the Queen attributed the
victories of the English armies wholly to Henry's piety what argument
would a Tudor bishop be likely to follow! Henry and Brandon rode off to
Lille to carry the news to Margaret, and the King sat in her lodging
singing and playing the cyther and the flute, and then danced with her
ladies and drew the bow with her gentlemen. His spirits were so high
that all the way back he raced and played with his escort.[183] A few
days later came John Glyn with the pathetic confirmation of the death of
James IV.--his plaid embroidered with the arms of Scotland, now all
bloody. And Katharine with feminine ferocity wrote, "in this your Grace
shall see how I can keep my promise, sending you for your banners a
king's coat."[184] Henry was exultant, St George had indeed granted his
servant victories! And next day the keys of Tournay were handed over.
Thus a second time within a month the King made a triumphal entry into a
captured town, and on Sunday, September 25, the Council of the city met
him, again clad as St George, at the Porte Ste. Fontaine, "their horses
and mules having the English arms painted on paper before them." The
King there passed under a canopy of gold and silk prepared by the
inhabitants in great haste, and carried by the principal burgesses, and
thence along the high street St. Jacques, the citizens all bearing wax
torches, and down the rue Notre Dame to the Cathedral, "where he saluted
God and St Mary,"[185] and then, as he stood under his banner in the
church he made many knights. He went to his lodging to the sound of
bells, for every one in the city was rung, and to shouts of "vive le
roi."[186] Henry exacted 50,000 crowns from the city as fine, and
cleared the surrounding _bailliage_ of the French, who went away so fast
that they could not be pursued.[187]
[181] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
[182] _Ibid._, i. 4459; Harl. 3462, 32_b_.
[183] C. S. P. Venice, ii. 311.
[184] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4451; Vesp. F., iii. 15.
[185] _Ibid._, i. 4467; Archæol., xxvii. 258.
[186] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
[187] _Ibid._, i. 4502; Vatican Trans., Add. MSS. 15,387, 4, B.M.
[Illustration: MARGARET, DUCHESS OF SAVOY
FROM THE WINDOW IN THE CHAPEL OF THE VIRGIN IN THE CHURCH OF BROU
(ABOUT 1528)]
On the following day, Monday, the Emperor and the Lady Margaret, with a
splendid suite of ladies in chariots and gentlemen on horseback, came
into the city by torchlight, and negotiations for the marriage were
reopened in earnest. Henry and Lisle had both been as eager to see
Margaret as she to see them. The day after the battle of the Spurs her
_maître d'hôtel_ Philippe de Brégilles, whom she had sent to the camp at
Therouenne, had written to her: "Madame, le roi ce soir a fort pressé
l'Empereur de vous haster de venir, toutefois devant votre arrivée je
vous dirai aucunes choses que le roi m'a dit desquelles me députe de
vous écrire. Madame, le Grand-Ecuyer, milord Lyle, est venu à moi me
prier que de lui vousise faire ses très humbles recommandations et que
de bon cœur désirrait de vous faire service. Je croy que savez assez
que c'est le second roi, et me semble que ne serait que bon de lui
écrire une bonne lettre, car c'est lui qui fait et deffait."[188] No
doubt the "bonne lettre" was written, and Margaret, having seen Lisle at
Lille and approved, came to Tournay with the idea in her mind of using
Brandon, "cet opiniâtre," who did and undid all, to further her plans
for the reduction of Gueldres and the protection of the Burgundian
frontiers against France by English means. If she had approved at
Lille, on further acquaintance both Henry and Brandon pleased her
immensely; Henry because of the irresistible charm of his youthful
frankness, courtesy and good-nature, "entirely good and thinketh no
evil,"[189] and Lisle "because of the virtue and grace of his person,
the which me seemed that I had not much seen gentleman to approach it;
also considering the desire he always showed me that he had to do me
service." Her task seemed an easy one, and while Wolsey and Fox debated
with Berghes and Hans Reynner the terms of the marriage treaty, she was
flirting diplomatically with Lord Lisle, and beguiling the King, who
even promised to settle the succession on his sister in case of his
having no heirs of his body. But before the time came for her departure
from Tournay, probably before the coming of Prince Charles on October
10, she was conscious that feelings other than political had been
brought into play. The fact was that neither Henry nor Brandon had ever
met a young woman who made her own life and governed others, and they
misinterpreted Margaret's evident pleasure in Lisle's society and her
courteous treatment of him as proceeding not from cool diplomacy but
from her interest in the man. "I have always forced me to do him all
honour and pleasure," she said, "the which to me seemed to be well
agreeable unto the King, his good master." This certainly was Margaret's
first attitude, but force seems later to have passed into desire. The
change from the ceremonious tranquillity of the Court at Malines, with
its environment of old regrets, to the stirring atmosphere of the
youthful Court with its insular unconventionality, made Margaret no
doubt feel young again, and as she flirted with Lisle, the idea of a
match between the two was mooted, either by the King or favourite. She
must have looked most attractive, with her fair hair, brown eyes and
clear colour, her face lighting up in conversation, and her gay laugh.
Margaret knew neither English nor Flemish, and the Earl knew, or
pretended to know, no French, her usual tongue, but evidently a few
Flemish words, so that the King was "trwchman," or interpreter, and
Margaret hints that his translations might have been warmer than the
original warranted, "because of the love which he beareth him." One
night--she herself relates the incident--at Tournay, after a banquet, a
trwchman was needed. Brandon, on his knees before her playing with her
hands, drew from her finger a ring she had long been accustomed to wear,
and put it on his own. "Larron," she called him, laughing, and said she
had not "thought the King had with him led thieves out of his country.
This word _larron_ he could not understand: wherefore I was constrained
to ask how one said larron in Flemish. And afterwards I said to him in
Flemish _dieffe_, and I prayed him many times to give it to me again,
for that it was too much known." But Brandon kept his loot till next
day, when Margaret spoke to Henry and said she would give one of the
bracelets she always wore to have it back again, for it was too well
known. So Lisle returned it and got the bracelet. Then Henry, either
just before or after this incident, astonished her by asking whether she
would stretch her goodwill towards Lisle to a promise of marriage, as
was the fashion of the ladies of his country. It needed all Margaret's
tact to answer graciously, for she said, "I knew well that it came to
him of great love to speak so far forth as of marriage. And of another
prince I had not so well taken it as of him, for I hold him all good and
that he thinketh none evil, wherefore I have not willed to displeasure
him." Therefore she answered vaguely at first that it was not the custom
in this country, and that if she did it she would be dishonoured and
held as a fool and light, also she feared her father. What, indeed,
would the Weiss König have said had his daughter mated with a squire of
England, a jerry-built viscount, after refusing its King! Still, now
that Henry had shown his whole hand Margaret knew what tricks would fall
to her, and had she not been _éprise_ of Lisle, she would certainly in
all prudence have drawn back and at least considered the situation. It
is a comment on the personal quality of political relations that
Margaret says she dared not say openly that she would have none of Lisle
for a husband for fear of offending the King. So she temporized, and
probably her more than sub-conscious reason was her growing attachment
to the Grand-Ecuyer. There's not the shadow of a doubt that Margaret was
taken with Brandon, but that she ever intended to marry is another
matter. To Henry's vicarious wooing she says she answered that she
herself was willing, but she durst not do so, and hinted that she would
go away and "it would be to me too much displeasure to lose so good
company." So "he passed the thing into his departing." But when the time
for Margaret's return to Lille drew nigh, in her room late at night he
returned to the charge, saying that he knew well "she would be pressed
for to marry her, and that she was too young to abide as she was: and
that the ladies of his country did remarry at fifty and three-score
years." She sighed and said she had been too unhappy in husbands to
marry again. Henry brushed this aside with, "I know well, Madame, and am
sure that my fellow shall be to you a true servant, and that he is
altogether yours, but we fear that ye shall not do likewise, for one
shall force you to be again married: and that you shall not be found
(save) out of the country at my return." So she gave what she says was
an easily given promise not to marry till she saw him again, for she had
made up her mind, "not again to put me where I have had so much
unhappiness and misfortune," and Lisle swore on his part, standing with
her hand in his, "to be true to her, to take no lady nor mistress, but
to continue all his life her humble servant, which was enough honour for
him."
[188] Lettres de Louis XII., iv. 196.
[189] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4851; Titus B., i. 142. For the
whole episode, unless otherwise noted.
By this time Wolsey and Fox had settled the treaties, and Prince Charles
had arrived, "a boy of great promise,"[190] whose conversation delighted
Henry. He only stayed two days, long enough to see how the land lay with
his aunt for all her protestations of diplomatic pastime, and was
present at a grand tournament held in the public place amid torrents of
rain, where the King and Lisle challenged all comers and kept the
barriers, and the King excelled all in agility as in person, and broke
more spears than any other.
[190] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4284; Cleopat. C., v. 64.
Two days later the army left Tournay, where the soldiers had remained
too long in idleness, contracting very heavy expenses, and Henry went to
Lille to sign his sister's marriage treaty. There Margaret was
determined that her entertainment should not be ruined by the rain, and
held her tournament in a large room raised above the ground many steps
and paved with black stones like marble. The horses, to prevent their
slipping and to deaden the noise of their hoofs, had their shoes covered
with felt.[191] The tournament over, the lords and ladies danced, and
Lisle renewed his suit to Margaret. Again he was on his knees before
her, playing with her hands, and again he took possession of her diamond
ring, but this time all Margaret's entreaties could not get it back, and
Henry, when appealed to, failed to see her point that it was its
notoriety and not its value that urged her. He carelessly promised her
another better, and next day, before setting out, Brandon brought her
"one fair point of diamonds and a table ruby and showed me that it was
for the other ring: wherefore I durst no more speak of it, if not to
beseech him that it should not be showed to any person." Brandon gave
the promise, which was ill-kept, and went away with the ring and
bracelet and troth renewed between them in the little ante-room the
night before. Margaret had undertaken the education at her Court at
Malines of his little daughter Anne,[192] whom he now left with her
under the care of his cousin, William Sidney.
[191] L. and P. H. VIII., i. 4284.
[192] Lettres de Louis XII., iv. 308.
Two treaties were signed at Tournay, one between Henry and the Emperor
against France and for the marriage of Mary and Charles, and the other
between Margaret, in the name of Maximilian, and Henry, allowing the
latter to return into England after leaving a sufficient garrison in
Tournay, on condition of contributing 200,000 crowns of gold for the
Emperor's expenses in supporting 4000 horse and 6000 foot, in Artois
and Hainault. In her hands Margaret held a promise, "en parole de roi,"
written by Wolsey's hand, and signed by the King, never to make nor
conclude peace or truce with the common enemy, the French, without the
knowledge of his "bonne sœur and cousine," on condition that she did
the like."[193]
[193] Lettres de Louis XII., iv. 355.