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Mary Croom Brown

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ROMANTIC HISTORY
MARY TUDOR, QUEEN OF FRANCE

ROMANTIC HISTORY

TWO ENGLISH QUEENS AND PHILIP.
Martin Hume, M.A.

THE FIRST GOVERNESS OF THE NETHERLANDS.
Eleanor E. Tremayne.

MARGARET OF AUSTRIA.
Eleanor E. Tremayne.

THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN.
Richard Davey.

THE GREAT INFANTA.
L. Klingenstein.

ISABEL, SOVEREIGN OF THE NETHERLANDS.
L. Klingenstein.

MARY TUDOR, QUEEN OF FRANCE.
Mary Croom Brown.

MARY TUDOR, DUCHESS OF SUFFOLK, AND HER HUSBAND CHARLES BRANDON, DUKE OF SUFFOLK

FROM THE PAINTING BY JEAN DE MABUSE IN THE POSSESSION OF THE EARL OF YARBOROUGH

MARY TUDOR
QUEEN OF FRANCE

BY
MARY CROOM BROWN

WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published in 1911

V

PREFACE

ANYONE who writes the life of Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., must owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs Everett Green, who first drove a wedge through the mass of documents dealing with the subject. Since that date, however, new evidence has come to light and fresh readings of mutilated documents have been possible. Here and there a detail has been verified, nothing in itself, but when fitted in suggesting a new meaning to the whole; for this romantic history, dealing as it does with personal detail, is a very jig-saw puzzle. The date of the princess's birth, now at last definitely ascertained, is one of these details; the fact that in France she was twice married to Charles Brandon is another; and, to give a third instance, the detailed evidence shows that in the question of the dismissal of her English train from the French Court, Mary was as much sinner as sinned against. But after all is said, the difference between a book written fifty years ago, and one of to-day lies not so much in the matter newly discovered, as in the method of handling the same documents, and in the present incorrigible habit of valuing personality above ceremony, in this case looking for the woman in the princess and finding her. So while fifty years ago Princess Mary "penned many epistles," now she writes letters; then "she was advanced to maternal honours," now her first child is born. It all means the same thing set to differing measures. We jig along: they walked solemnly.

My thanks are due in no small measure to Miss A. M. Allen and to Mr P. C. Allen for their careful and friendly help, and to the Librarian of Exeter College and the officials of the Record Office for their courtesy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

 

PAGE

Childhood and Betrothal to Charles of Castile 1

CHAPTER II

European Complications 25

CHAPTER III

A Campaign and a Courtship 48

CHAPTER IV

The Duchess repudiates her Suitor and the Princess breaks her Contract 72

CHAPTER V

Betrothal to Louis XII. of France 93

CHAPTER VI

Queen of France 119

CHAPTER VII

The Englishmen in Paris 139

CHAPTER VIII

The White Queen and the Duke. The Secret Marriage 148

CHAPTER IX

Confession and Penance 173

CHAPTER X

The Lovers Come Home 200

CHAPTER XI

Afterwards 219 Appendix 253 Index 277

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, and her Husband Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk Frontispiece From the Painting by Jean de Mabuse, in the possession of the Earl of Yarborough

FACING PAGE

Elizabeth of York 4 From the Painting in the National Portrait Gallery (Flemish School) Henry VII 14 From the Painting in the National Portrait Gallery (Flemish School) Maximilian, Emperor of Germany 36 From the Painting by Albrecht Dürer at Vienna. (Photo, F. Hanfstaengl) Margaret, Duchess of Savoy 65 From the Window in the Chapel of the Virgin in the Church of Brou Margaret, Countess of Richmond 73 Painter unknown, National Portrait Gallery Charles, Prince of Castile 90 From the Painting in the Louvre (Flemish School) Louis XII 103

Engraved by A. Berthold, from his Tomb in S. Denis

Francis I 144 From the Painting in the Louvre (French School) Henry VIII 153 Painter unknown, National Portrait Gallery Cardinal Wolsey 191 Painter unknown, National Portrait Gallery Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots 231 National Portrait Gallery

REFERENCES

L. and P. H. VII. and R. III.

= Letters and Papers, Henry VII. and Richard III.

L. and P. H. VIII.

= Calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII.

C. S. P. Venice

= Calendar of Venetian State Papers.

C. S. P. Spain

= Calendar of Spanish State Papers.

Calig

= Cottonian MSS., Caligula B.M.

Galba.

=

" " Galba,

B.M.

Vitell.

=

" " Vitellius

, B.M.

Vesp.

=

" " Vespasian,

B.M.

R.O.

= Public Record Office.

XII

MARY TUDOR, QUEEN OF FRANCE

CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND BETROTHAL TO CHARLES OF CASTILE

TO write the full life of Mary Tudor, second daughter of Henry VII., is to attempt the impossible, for the term usually implies a consecutive story from the gate of birth to that of death. We do know now the dates written over both these gates, but while her early days are shrouded by lack of information, her later years are equally indistinct. For less than a couple of years Mary Tudor lives and moves before us, and only this watch and vision is clear. From October 1514 to May 1516 she reveals herself, and fortunately with greater distinctness than she could possibly have done in a chronicle of orderly days with their circling duties and small joys and sorrows. To most ordinary men and women there comes one great moment in life, the third act of the play, to which all the previous scenes have been leading, and it is during Mary's great moment, when her nature was keyed to its highest pitch, that we are able to see her clearest. Before it arrives and after it has passed one desires, and desires in vain, the chronicle of those smaller joys and sorrows, but it is not to be found, and as we cannot have the life let us make the most of the episode.

The date of Mary's birth has at last been fixed as the 18th March 1495. The day and the month have hitherto been a matter of uncertain conjecture, and the year has been given as 1496 on the strength of a privy seal of Henry VII. which runs as follows: "de Termino Paschæ anno xi. regis nunc: Anne Skeron nutrici dominæ Mariæ ls. pro quarterio unius anni finiti ad festum Sancti Johannis Baptistsæ ultim.; Johannæ Colyng, Fredeswidæ Puttenham, Marjeriæ Gower, Johannæ Cace, Avisæ Skidmore et Alicæ Bywymble cuilibet earum xxxiijs. iiijd, pro attendenciis suis nutrici ducis Eboracencis et sororum suarum per medium annum ad finem predictum." So that Anne Skeron had only completed three months' service at midsummer when the other nurses and attendants had completed six. Now the xi. year of Henry VII. lies between August 22, 1495, and August 21, 1496, so that this midsummer falls before Easter 1496, the date of the document, for it is "ad festum Sancti Johannis Baptistæ ultim." Hence the quarter's wage then due must have begun in March 1495, not in March 1496 as Mrs Green [1] and, following her, Dr Gairdner argues. That it was 1495 is supported, in a somewhat weak-kneed fashion, by the fact that in the beginning of 1499 [2] Henry refused to give his daughter in marriage to the Duke of Milan because she was only three years old, and by her brother's statement in his letter to Leo X. announcing the repudiation of the Castilian marriage contract in 1514, that she was married in December 1508 at the age of about thirteen (cum vix annum tertium decimum attigisset). [3] Henry VII.'s love of accuracy makes his statement that Mary was three years old and not four at the beginning of 1499 worth having, and, as Dr Gairdner says, his son had no reason to deceive the Pope in 1514. His sister had then been safely married to an old man, and there was no necessity to keep up a fiction about her age. But evidence of unassailable authority is to be found in the Calendar prefixed to Queen Elizabeth of York's Psalter in the Library of Exeter College, Oxford, where the date of Mary's birth is given as 18th March 1495. The only question which now arises is, Did the writer who inserted the dates for the Queen in the Calendar use the January or the March year? But remembering the date of the privy seal already quoted, and the fact that the new fashion of reckoning the year as beginning in January was already in use in private documents, it is only reasonable to conclude that the writer, whoever he may have been, had adopted the modern calendar.

The difficulty of determining the age of the princess is partly due to the fact that when Mary was growing up and developing rapidly into a young woman, Charles of Castile, nearly five years younger, remained a child in appearance. The Flemish Council said she was too old for him, and sought to break off the match, and in 1514, to answer the gibe that Charles wanted a wife and not a mother, her age seems to have been officially announced as sixteen, while as a matter of fact she was nineteen. No wonder in these days of early marriages (her sister Margaret was packed off to Scotland when she was just over fifteen, and her father had been born before her grandmother's fourteenth birthday) she felt as though she had coiffé Ste Catherine, and the fiction of her age grew easily.

ELIZABETH OF YORK

FROM THE PAINTING IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY (FLEMISH SCHOOL)

The childhood of Mary passed in obscurity; new frocks, a few doctor's bills, a papal pardon, are the few indications of her existence. Once only do we see her, as a child of four, in the winter of 1499, playing in the great hall at Eltham, [4] when Lord Mountjoy brought Erasmus to see Prince Henry there. When she emerges into clearer light, she shows herself to be of little mental originality but of strong passions, and it will be interesting to describe, so far as is possible, the qualities she may have inherited from her father and her mother. Henry VIII., Queen Margaret of Scotland, Queen Mary of France, all had these violent qualities which are miscalled Tudor, for they really belong to the house of York.

Her mother, Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV., had been rescued from the arms of her uncle, Richard III., to be thrust into those of Henry of Richmond. She was a rather short woman, inclined to embonpoint, with deep breasts. She possessed a happy, pleasure-loving temperament, was very charitable, deeply attached to her sisters, Katharine, Countess of Devon, and the lady Bridget of York; religious in the outward sense of the word. That is to say, that while she took many journeys for pleasure in the summer, she did her pilgrimages vicariously by means of her servants. [5] Her portrait in the National Portrait Gallery is not that of an intellectual woman, it is, rather, a childish face with great comeliness. She had ruddy hair and brown eyes, which she bequeathed to none of her surviving children, who all had the pale blue eyes, looking grey in certain lights, of their father. She was beloved by the Londoners because she was the daughter of her father, and no doubt this means that she had his easy manner, and possibly, like him, was "among mean persons more familiar than his degree, dignity or majesty required." [6] She had no influence in Court nor with her husband. All the feminine influence there was centred in her mother-in-law, the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, with whose orderly, ceremony-loving nature Elizabeth must ever have been secretly at feud. Henry believed there was no woman to equal his mother, and the "King's lady mother" regulated the whole Court in personal matters with a despotic hand. Ceremony was to her the breath of her nostrils, and, where she was, nothing moved but to slow and stately music. Elizabeth, on the other hand, loved flowers and gardens, music and disguisings and picnics, [7] and she passed on her delight in these things to her children, while she did not "like" her position of subjection; but that there was open revolt we cannot tell. There is a pathetic hearsay picture of her as the comforter of her husband on the death of Prince Arthur in 1502, which shows her gentle nature and soft, comforting manner. (Again, these were passed on to Queen Mary and Henry VIII.) Henry was absolutely broken down by the news, and she hid her own sorrow at the sight of his grief till the first agony of his was passed. But when she went back to her own room, "natural and motherly remembrance of that great loss smote her so sorrowful to the heart, that those that were about her were fain to send for the King to comfort her." This account the writer acknowledges to be at second hand, but whether her reported words be the self-same that she uttered or not, yet the fact remains that in spite of Lady Margaret, Henry turned to his wife for comfort in his great grief. Possibly Lady Margaret grudged the Queen her easy popularity, for she was as beloved as Henry was disliked. "She is a very noble woman," writes the Spanish agent, and suggests that his master and mistress should show her a little love.

Henry's picture has been drawn by Hall. "He was a man of body but leane and spare, albeit mighty and strong therewith, of personage and stature somewhat higher than the mean sort of men be, of a wonderful beauty and fair complexion, of countenance merry and smiling, especially in his communication, his eyes grey, his teeth single and hair thin, of wit in all things quick and prompt, of a princely stomach and haute courage. In great perils, doubtful affairs and matters of weighty importance, supernatural and in manner divine, for such things as he went about he did them advisedly and not without great deliberation and breathing.... Besides this, he was sober, moderate, honest, affable, courteous, bounteous, so much abhoring pride and arrogancy that he was ever sharp and quick to them which were noted and spotted with the crime.... Although his mother were never so wise (as she was both witty and wise), yet her will was bridled and her doynges restrayned. And this regiment he said he kept to thentent y^t he worthely might be called a King, whose office is to rule and not to be ruled of other." [8]

De Puebla, the Spanish ambassador, found that when he was angry Henry's speech was full of venom, and that the words came from his mouth like vipers and he indulged in every kind of passion. Add to this another Spaniard's estimate of the King. In 1498 Pedro d'Ayala wrote to Ferdinand of Aragon. Henry "is disliked, but the Queen is beloved because she is powerless. They [the people] love the Prince as much as themselves, because he is the grandchild of his grandfather.... The King looks old for his years, but young for the sorrowful life he has led. One of the reasons why he leads a good (i.e. sober) life is that he has been brought up abroad. He would like to govern England in the French fashion, but he cannot. He is subject to his Council, but has already shaken off some and has got rid of some part of this subjection. Those who have received the greatest favours from him are the most discontented. He knows all that. The King has the greatest desire to employ foreigners in his service. He cannot do so, for the envy of the English is diabolical, and I think without equal. He likes to be much spoken of and to be highly appreciated by the whole world. He fails in this, because he is not a great man. Although he professes many virtues, his love of money is too great. He spends all the time he is not in public or in his council in writing the accounts of his expenses with his own hand.... The King is much influenced by his mother and his followers in affairs of personal interest and in others. The Queen, as is generally the case, does not like it." [9] The same writer puts down the fact that Henry was more intelligent than his courtiers to his not being a pure Englishman.

From another source [10] Henry's impatience with unsupported accusations is emphasized. "Ye would be ware how that ye brake to him in such matters, for he would take it to be said of envy, ill-will and malice," and he would send "sharp writing again that he would have proof of this matter." Further, the King was superstitious, and d'Ayala hints that this is his Welsh blood: "in Wales there are many who tell fortunes." In 1499 he was warned by a priest that his life would be in great danger for a year, and he aged in consequence twenty years in two weeks, and grew "very devout and heard a sermon every day during Lent, and has continued his devotions for the rest of the day."

The whole Court was devout in the same sense, and while one Spaniard says that "when one sees and knows the manners and the way of life of this people in this island, we cannot deny the grave inconveniences of the Princess's (Katharine) coming to England before she is of age ... before she has learnt to appreciate fully our habits of life," [11] another complains that it is impossible in Lent to get a piece of meat in the Court kitchen. [12] And the two complaints illustrate well what was and what was not to be found in the Court.

The nursery of the royal children was at Eltham, and there Mary probably remained till she was of fit age to appear in public. During her first two years the "Norcery" was under the care of Mistress Elizabeth Denton, [13] of whom Henry and Mary were genuinely fond, [14] and when she became one of the Queen's gentlewomen, her place was taken by Mistress Anne Crowmer. [15] The children consisted of Henry, Duke of York, the ladies Margaret and Mary, and later on of Lord Edmund, who died a baby in 1500. Arthur, Prince of Wales, who was nine years older than Mary, had been emancipated from women's care, and had his own household. Babyhood in these days was not prolonged, and before Mary was two years old she was dressed like a woman of twenty in kirtles of black silk and velvet edged with ermine and mink, and provided with ribbons for lacing and for girdles, [16] while next spring (8th April 1497) [17] she was playing about in black velvet edged with tawny tinsel, or in black satin edged with velvet and a kirtle of black damask; the gowns, poor child, already stiff with buckram. Her smocks were made of fine linen. The usual channel by which Mary got all her clothes was an order to the keeper of the Great Wardrobe at the Tower minutely describing the articles to be delivered, signed at the top by her father. The same year (16th November 1497) [18] she was given 3 pairs of hosen, 8 pairs single soled shoes and 4 pairs of double. In July 1499 [19] she was put into colours, and presented with a green velvet gown edged with purple tinsel satin, and a blue velvet gown edged with crimson velvet, both stiffened with buckram, a kirtle of tawny satin edged with black velvet lined with blue cloth in the upper body, and another of black satin lined with black cloth in the upper body, 2 pairs knit hosen and linen smocks. Sheets, blankets, carpets, stools, basins, all chamber furnishings came from the Great Wardrobe, and were not to be had without a personal order from the King. No doubt her grandmother ordered such clothing for her grandchildren as she considered proper, and only once is there evidence that Queen Elizabeth took any interest in Mary's clothes: that was when she paid for the making of a black gown for her just after the death of Prince Arthur. [20] What emotions may underlie that bare entry in the Queen's private accounts we can only conjecture.

The education necessary for a young lady was to learn to sing and to dance, to play the lute and other instruments, and to order her discourse wisely. Very much what it was fifty years ago. Henry admired French manners more than any other, and wanted his children to be conversant with them. So with Mary he placed Mademoiselle Jane Popincourt, a child of about her own age, and we may conjecture that the large wardrobe provided in March 1498 for "a French maiden" [21] was for her. She had almost the same clothes as the princess, and was called her attendant, and Mary herself says they were brought up together. If Henry's idea was that his daughter should learn to speak French in her childhood, he was disappointed. Probably Jane learnt to speak English, but when Mary's marriage drew near in 1512, she had to have a special schoolmaster to coach her in the language, and this in spite of the fact that in Henry VII.'s court French was the usual tongue. Beyond reading and writing (spelling, alas for the record searcher, was not taught), singing, dancing, and embroidering, Mary's education did not go, and we have only to look at the portrait of her father to realize that he was one of those men who pray, "d'une mule qui brait et d'une fille qui parle latin, délivrez-nous, seigneur." His mother's benefactions to learning at the universities go no way to prove that she believed in it for women, as in fact she did not, and the result was that neither Mary nor her elder sister attained to the intellectual poise which is so remarkable in their descendants, Lady Jane Grey and Queen Mary Stuart.

So the two girls lived at Eltham, made habitable by their grandfather, and went in and out under his device (the rose en soleil) on the doorway, [22] and afterwards at Baynard's Castle, Westminster Palace, Richmond, Windsor, Greenwich, wherever the Court was, going from one place to another by river in the Queen's great barge with its white and green awnings and 21 rowers in livery, and taking two days to get from Greenwich to Richmond. [23] Once out of the nursery they were with their mother's ladies, and with their aunts, the Lady Katharine Courteney, Countess of Devon, and the Lady Bridget of York, who, after the Queen's death, became a nun. [24] They knew Lady Katharine Gordon, the unfortunate widow of Perkin Warbeck, whose position at Court must have been a curious one; she was one of the Queen's ladies. Among the others were Lady Anne Howard, Lady Elizabeth Stafford, Lady Alyanore Verney, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Pole, whose husband, Sir Rauf, became chamberlain to Mary as Princess of Castile, and whose daughter-in-law, Dorothy, was one of her ladies. Dame Joan Guildford, sister of Sir Nicholas Vaux of Calais, and protégé of the Countess of Richmond, whose husband was controller of the household; Anne Weston, of the same Westons as Francis, who came to so tragic an end in the Boleyn catastrophe; Anne Browne, who went through so much misery before Charles Brandon married her; Eleanor Jones represented Wales, beloved of Henry and his mother; and the two Baptistes, Elizabeth and Françoise, were French waiting-maids. [25]

When Mary was six years old her father attained his ambition, and the alliance with Spain, for which he had wrought so hard since 1488, constantly handicapped by conspiracies and rebellions, was affirmed by the marriage, in November 1501, of Katharine of Aragon and Arthur of Wales. Mary and her sister had new gowns for the occasion. Margaret, because she was six years older than Mary, and was about to be betrothed to James IV. of Scotland, and had to look her best in the presence of the Scots Commissioners, had her first gown of cloth of gold: "tawnay cloth of gold tissue trimmed with ermine backs and furred within with ermine wombes." She had another of purple velvet, made very long, with tabard sleeves furred with the same, two new hoods made in the French fashion, one of crimson and one of black velvet, two kirtles, one of tawny, one of russet satin, two pairs of sleeves, one of crimson satin and one of white cloth of gold of damask lined with blue sarcenet. Margaret's joy can be easily read in the light of her later open pleasure in fine clothes, for when in Scotland, despoiled of all by the Duke of Albany, and too ill to move, she had the new gowns sent by her brother brought in to her room time and again, so that she might admire them. Mary had no cloth of gold. She had two gowns, one of russet velvet trimmed with ermine backs and furred within with miniver, and another of crimson velvet with tabard sleeves trimmed with the same; a kirtle of tawny satin with a pair of green satin sleeves. The whole Court got new clothes, and on the day of the marriage the King's henchmen in their crimson cloaks, bordered with black satin, [26] the Duke of York's followers in yellow and blue, with the guard in the King's own livery of white and green, and the minstrels and "trompettes" with their banner-hung instruments also dressed in the King's colours, the King and the Queen and their children in cloth of gold or tawny satin and ermine, must have made a fine sight as the procession passed along the blue cloth laid down from the bishop's palace to the cathedral door. [27]

But in a few months cloth of gold was exchanged for black satin, for Arthur died in Wales on 2nd April 1502, though in November, when Mary received her half-yearly supply of clothes, she was given a crimson velvet kirtle, possibly in anticipation of Margaret's marriage with the King of Scots on 25th January 1503. At the same time Elizabeth Langton, wardrobe maid, received linen for smocks, rails (nightgowns) and night kerchiefs for the princess and for Jane Popincourt. [28] This is the first time rails are mentioned in the list. Did small children go to their "naked bed'? The Queen was going to have another child, and about three weeks after Margaret's marriage she died in child-birth in the Tower (11th February). Her French nurse [29] had not been a success after all. She is reported to have comforted Henry on Arthur's death with the promise of more children, saying God had given them so many "and we are both young enough, and God is where he was." Her child was a daughter, named Catherine, who only lived a few days.

HENRY VII

FROM THE PAINTING IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY (FLEMISH SCHOOL)

At once the atmosphere of the Court changed, and from now on it lived in a bustle of match-making, for father, son and daughter were all in the market. First there was Katharine of Aragon, whose destiny was so uncertain. The Spanish alliance brought Henry the European position that he coveted, and he neither wanted to risk losing it by restoring the Princess to her parents, or to lose the chance of widening his sphere of influence by binding Henry of York to marry her. However, the main thing for the moment was to hold on to Spain, so in July 1503 a dispensation for Katharine's marriage with her husband's brother was applied for. It only arrived in Spain in November 1504, when Isabella of Castile lay on her death-bed. It comforted the Queen, who had been horrified at Henry's interim proposal to marry the Princess himself. The death of Isabella (who is always called Elizabeth in England) and the question of the succession to Castile opened wider plans to Henry's imagination. Already, in 1500, Henry had had an interview with Philip of Burgundy in St Peter's Church, outside Calais, and Mary's marriage with Philip's son, Charles, Duke of Luxemburg, then four months old, had been mooted, as well as the Duke of York's to a Flemish princess. Then, in 1505, Henry thought of marrying Margaret of Angoulême, or her mother, Louise of Savoy, and suggested that Mary should marry the Dauphin. [30] Henry, in his underhand way, also said she was asked in marriage by the son of the King of Portugal, [31] but this is doubtful. But the King in 1506 finally concentrated his ambitions on Flanders and Castile, and in 1506 fortune came to him from the sea. Philip of Burgundy and his wife Joanna, now King and Queen of Castile, were on their way to take possession of their new kingdom to Ferdinand of Aragon's despite, when they were storm-driven into Weymouth harbour. Hall says that Philip had been so battered about and seasick that he insisted on landing, though his councillors warned him that if he once put his foot on shore, courtesy and perhaps force would demand a longer visit. And so it turned out, for Henry sent him a cordial invitation to visit him at Windsor, and thither went Philip, followed later by Joanna, who showed no haste to meet her sister Katharine. This is the occasion on which we see the Princess Mary dancing and playing the lute before Philip in the King's dining-room at Windsor. "And when the King heard that the King of Castile was coming [from his appartments in the Castle] he went to the door of the great chamber and there received him.... And so both together went through that chamber, the King's dining chamber, and from thence to an inner chamber where was my lady Princess and my lady Mary, the King's daughter, and divers other ladies. And after the King of Castile had kissed them and communed with them, and communed a while with the King and ladies all, they came into the King's dining chamber, where danced my lady Princess and a Spanish lady with her in Spanish array, and after she had danced two or three dances she left; and then danced my lady Mary and an English lady with her: and ever and anon the lady Princess desired the King of Castile to dance, which, after he had excused himself once or twice, answered that he was a mariner; but yet,' said he, 'you would cause me to dance,' and so he danced not, but communed still with the King. And after that my lady Mary had danced two or three dances, she went and sat by my lady Princess on the end of the carpet which was under the cloth of estate and near where the King and the King of Castile stood. And then danced one of the strange lords and a lady of England. That done, my Lady Mary played on the lute, and after upon the claregulls, who played very well, and she was of all folks there greatly praised that in her youth in everything she behaved herself so very well." [32]

The upshot of this visit was a contract of marriage between Mary and Charles, and between Henry VII. and Philip's sister, the Duchess of Savoy, not long a widow for the second time, provided the lady consented. The lady would not consent, and Jehan le Sauvage, President of Flanders, wrote to Maximilian, her father, the King of the Romans, that though he had laboured daily with her for a full month, she still decidedly refused. [33] Again and again Maximilian, in need of money and help against the Duke of Gueldres, pressed his daughter to consent, if only to amuse the King of England with promises, but she always answered "that although an obedient daughter she will never agree to so unreasonable a marriage." [34] So Henry was fain in the end to be content with the marriage of Philip's son Charles, Duke of Luxemburg, to his daughter Mary.

September 1506 saw Henry's horizon suddenly widen. Philip of Castile died in that month. Henry would marry his widow Joanna and control Castile. Fortune this time favoured Ferdinand, who had been none too well pleased by the marriage projects; Joanna went mad, and though Henry said he did not mind that, seeing that she could still bear children, it gave Ferdinand an excuse for delaying negotiations. Mad or sane, Henry wanted to marry her, and de Puebla, the Spanish agent in England, suggested that marriage with such a man as Henry would restore her to sanity. [35] Margaret of Savoy [36] had obeyed her father in "amusing" Henry, and the King played off one marriage against the other, telling Ferdinand that he must decide soon about Joanna, for Margaret of Savoy was waiting to marry him, [37] while to Margaret he said that there were so many other great and honourable matches daily offered to him on all sides [38] that he could hardly choose which to have. It is true Margaret of Savoy had come to the Netherlands, but not as the prospective wife of the King of England waiting to cross the channel at his nod. She had been appointed Governess of the Netherlands and guardian to her nephew Charles, Prince of Castile. By her means a treaty was concluded in 1507 with England, and the marriage of the children was to have taken place at once, but Henry's illness prevented it. France, Spain and Austria were to meet at Cambrai in December 1508 for the adjustment of their claims in Italy, and Henry, in pursuance of his policy, tried hard, by means of Wolsey, to get the Bishop of Gurk, Maximilian's secretary, to help him to weaken Aragon by detaching France from him, so that Ferdinand, who was maintaining himself in a usurped Castile by French support, would find it impossible to continue to hold the kingdom. Henry's desires had no weight at Cambrai, and England, having no stake in Italy, was ignored. But on December 16, 1508, the marriage between Charles of Castile and Mary of England was celebrated at Richmond.

While these events were passing, Mary, to judge by her clothes, was growing up. They became more elaborate. Her mourning for her mother did not last long, for in June 1503 (three months after Elizabeth's death) she was wearing a gown of blue cloth edged with black velvet, and another of the same colour lined with miniver and edged with ermine. Her kirtle was of blue damask bordered with black velvet, and her bonnets were of "ermines powdered" and black velvet. She tied her hair with tawny silk ribbon. Her stockings were white, and she was now allowed 300 pins. Jane Popincourt's allowance was practically the same; she, too, had a blue gown edged with black velvet, white stockings, shoes, gloves, and pins. In the autumn Mary had 1000 pins. Her allowance comes to two gowns, kirtles, bonnets, etc., in the half year—not excessive for a princess. [39]

Henry VII. did not go in for unnecessary magnificence, and Mary's trousseau, seeing she was to remain in her father's court at his charge, was a very modest one. Her wedding gown was of tawny cloth of gold of tissue with wide sleeves, lined with ermine, and trimmed with the same down the front and round the foot, and with an ermine collar. Henry ordered for her 1600 powderings from his own store—that is, the little black tails which turn miniver into ermine. Her other gowns were of purple tinsel furred with black shanks (coarse sheep's skin), of black damask furred with the same, of crimson velvet "purfled with purfull" (border) of crimson cloth of gold of damask, and lined with black sarcenet, two kirtles, a scarlet petticoat, two pairs of slippers, six pairs of hose and a pair of night-buskins (bed-socks); "a chamber stool of tymber," a basin of tin to wash her head in, a new bowl of "tre" to make lye in and baskets to carry the said basins in. All which details indicate that she was to have a separate establishment. Thriftiness comes in, and she was given a pair of sheets to cover up her gowns with. [40]

She was a pretty, fair-haired child, with her father's beautiful complexion, small for her age and looking younger than she was. She had good manners and moved gracefully. By December 17 she was word-perfect in her part of the ceremony, which was more than the Prince's proxy was, and had been thoroughly well coached in her demeanour. The marriage was to take place at Richmond, in what had been Queen Elizabeth's room, called Mary's for the moment. There on that Sunday morning the Flemish ambassador, Lord de Berghes, who was to be Charles' proxy, the Governor of Bresse, Dr Sploncke, and Jehan le Sauvage, President of Flanders, with the Flemish nobles who had come to see the show, met the English Court. They waited, first for the King, who soon came in from the next room and engaged the ambassadors in pleasant and courteous conversation, and then for Mary, who did not keep them waiting long. Preceded by the Princess of Wales and her ladies, she entered and went to the high place prepared for her, and there stood alone under the golden cloth of estate. The ceremony began by speeches from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the President of Flanders, and these ended, with "due reverence in most humble maner shewed and doon by the said Lord Barges with most effectuous recommendacion made on the behalf of the Prynce of Castile, he then, takynge my sayd lady by the hande and eftsones declaryng thauctoritie geven unto him to contract matrymony with hir for and in the name of the sayde yonge Prynce, rehersed and uttred at the informacion of the sayd president the wordes of parfect matrymonye per verba de presenti whiche were before substantially devysed, put in writyng, and by the said lorde Barges then spoken and uttred, lyke as the said president redde theym to hym. And that doon, the hands withdrawen and dysclosed as the maner is, the Kynge's sayd daughter, eftsones takyng the sayd Lord Barges by the hande, with mooste sadde and pryncely countenance, havynge noo maner of persone to reherse the wordes of matrymonye to hir uttred, spake parfittely and distinctly in the frensche tonge by a long circumstance the wordes of matrymonye for hir partie, which by reason of the rehersall of his commission were veraye longe. Howbeit she spake the same without any basshing of countenance, stoppe or interrupcion therin in any behalfe; which thynge caused dyverse and many, as wel nobles as other, then beying present and herynge the same, not oonly to mervayle but also in suche wyse to rejoyse that for extreme contente and gladnes the terys passed out of theyr ies.

"After prolacion and utterance of which wordes ye sayd lord Barges, as procuratour to the sayde yonge Prynce, for corroboracion and confirmation of the sayde contract, not oonly subscrybed wrytyng conteignynge the wordes of matrymonye by hym uttred, lyke as my forsayed ladye dyde also for her partie, but also the sayd lorde in reverent maner kyssed the sayd ladye Marye and put a Ryng of Gold on hir finger, and in wyttenesse and testymonye of the sayd contract there were two notaries there beynge present requyred on both parties to make instruments upon the same. And all the lordes, ladyes and nobles heryng and seying the premysses then and there were desyred to bere wytnesse thereunto." [41] The ambassadors brought with them jewels for Mary; one from Emperor Maximilian containing an orient ruby and a large and fair diamond garnished with large pearls; another from the young prince, a K for Karolus garnished with diamonds and pearls engraved with these words,—"Maria optimam partem elegit quae non auferetur ab ea": and a third from the Duchess of Savoy, a goodly balas (ruby) garnished with pearls. The ambassadors also carried a prim little letter from Charles to his "wife" with the date left blank, and on December 18, it was sent to Mary.

"Ma bonne campaigne, Le plus cordialement que je puis a vo[tre] bonne grace me recommander. J'ai charge le s^re de Bergh[es] et autres mes ambassadeurs ordonnez pardeca vous deviser [la] disposition de ma personne et de mes affaires, vous priant l[es] vouloir croire et par eux me faire savoir de votre sante [et] bonnes nouvelles qui est la chose que plus je desire [que] sect le benoit filz de dieu auquel je prie ma bonne comp[aigne] vous donner par sa grace ce que desirez.

"A Malines xviii [in a different hand] jour de decembre.

V^re bon mary,
Charles." [42]

The marriage was regarded by the Burgundian party in Flanders as a bulwark against France, and an enthusiastic poet sang—

Reveillez vous cueurs endormis

Qui des Anglois estes amys

Chantons Dame Maria.

La Thoisan d'or et les pourpris

Des Chasteaulx, Aigles et des litz

Joyra Dame Maria.

Marie fille du vray litz

Henry septiesme Roy de pris

Prince sur tous les Princes,

Delyvreia de grans ennuys

Tout Flandres de ses ennemys,

Remontant les Eglises.

And so on through eight stanzas, the chorus being the opening one.

Henry did not long enjoy his triumph, and the last months of his life, secure now in the marriage with Castile, he spent in increasing the discomfort and misery in which he had kept the Princess of Wales for the last six years. He again postponed her marriage with Henry, and Katharine wrote in despair to her father that "it was impossible for her to endure any longer what she has gone through and is still suffering from the unkindness of Henry, especially since he has disposed of his daughter in marriage to the Prince of Castile, and therefore imagines he has no longer any need [43] of" Ferdinand. Henry died on April 21, 1509, and by his will, dated at Canterbury, April 10, Mary is provided for as follows: "And whereas we for the dot and marriage of our said daughter, over and above the cost of her traduction into the parties of Flanders, and furnishing of plate, and other her arrayments for her person, jewels and garnishings for her chamber, which will extend to no little sum nor charge, must pay and content to the said prince of Spain the sum of fifty thousand pounds in ready money at certain dates expressed in the said treaty.... And in case it so fortune, as God defend, that the said marriage by the death of the said Prince of Castile, or by any other chance or fortune whatsoever it be, take not effect, but utterly dissolve and break, or that our said daughter be not married by us in our life, nor after the same have sufficient provision for her dot and marriage by the said three Estates, we then wol that our said daughter may have for her marriage fifty thousand pounds payable of our goods.... So and in none otherwise that in her said marriage she be ruled and ordered by the advice and consent of our said son the Prince, his council and our said Executors; and so that she be married to some noble Prince out of this our Realm."

After her father's death Mary's life went on in much the same way as before, only to a faster note, for her brother was young, and her grandmother, the only check on the new fashions, died within a year of Henry. As the time fixed for the consummation of her marriage approached she was given a schoolmaster in the French tongue. It is to be presumed that it was only in the year 1512 [44] that John Palsgrave became her master, for up to that date there is no mention of a schoolmaster in the accounts. Moreover, Palsgrave, in his book 'Lesclarcissement de la lange Francoyse,' says that it was Henry VIII. who commissioned him "to instruct the right excellent princess your most dear and entirely beloved sister, queen Mary dowager of France, in the French tongue." Palsgrave writes himself down as "Natyf de Londres and gradue de Paris," and he produced in 1530 the first French grammar for Englishmen. Henry had had as French master Giles Du Wys, called his luter in 1501, [45] and he had a "clear and perfect sight" in the language, but Mary had only had Jane Popincourt. Still, she must have known a little French, for, as has been seen, she had been able to recite her marriage contract in that language without a stammer. But much was to happen before Mary crossed the sea to speak the French she learnt from Master John Palsgrave.

CHAPTER II
EUROPEAN COMPLICATIONS

HENRY VII. on his death-bed saw clearly that his policy of thwarting Ferdinand and seizing the government of Castile in favour of his son-in-law was not one which could be followed out by an inexperienced prince, and much as he distrusted Aragon, he knew it would be better that his son should have him for a friend at the outset than be entangled at once in his rancorous schemes. The prince must buy his own experience, and Henry's advice to him was to marry Katharine with all convenient speed, for naturally she could not remain a hostage in the young King's hands as she had in those of his father. With the King's death dropped the policy of peace at any price, for his son was of the new age, eager to join in the battles of Europe and rich enough to afford himself the gratification of military glory. More than once his father, distrusting all men, had fought for peace with his back to the wall, but Henry VIII., who dreamed of entering Paris at the head of a victorious army, regarded distrust of Spain as a mere maggot in the paternal brain, and, with the wealth of the greatest pawnbroker in Europe at his back, was eager to take the offensive against France.

For the first three years of his reign the King, new-married and happily, was guided by his father-in-law, and was merely a tool in his hands, and in spite of John Stile's warning from Valladolid, Henry did not doubt his goodwill. In order to understand Ferdinand's policy it must be borne in mind that he was influenced by a fear which overhung all his dealings with his allies and his enemies—the fear that Castile would rise against him in favour of its prince. Philip's order to void the country within twenty days [46] was never forgotten, and he lived in hope that Charles might never emerge from a sickly boyhood, for though his daughter, Philip's widow, was a negligible quantity, his grandson, alas, was not. The greater part of Ferdinand's revenues were said to be derived from Castile. He made war and carried his arms into Italy, Africa and France at her expense, but legally his only status there was that of regent for his daughter, Queen Joanna, who existed at Tordesillas, watching there for the resurrection in ten years of her dead husband, Philip, and was, "of no sadness nor wisdom more than a young child and very feeble." [47] Her hysteria had been allowed to develop into clear craziness. Ferdinand trusted none of the Castilian nobles, who feared that his amity with Henry and the latter's marriage with Katharine would deprive them of English help for their prince. After the ratification of the marriage between Mary and Charles, he took into his own hands as precaution all the castles of Galicia, [48] for many of the nobles, like Gonsalvo the great captain, had offered their services secretly to the Emperor for their prince, and Ferdinand feared that Maximilian's success in Northern Italy might preface the revolt of Naples and Sicily to the Prince of Castile. England had been ruled out of the Treaty of Cambrai as not having a stake in Italy, and now Ferdinand wanted to keep her neutral till it suited his convenience. So he proclaimed himself Henry's faithful friend, brother and ally, and said that he accounted all causes belonging to Henry, and himself, and the Queen's grace and the Lady Mary, his noble sister, and the Prince of Castile, as one thing and cause without variance, and that he governed Castile solely for the weal of the prince, "the whych ys and schalbe hys eyre of all hys landys after hys decesse." It was to be a nice little family party, with Ferdinand as paternal despot. He had not the faintest idea in the world of making Charles, whom he hated, his universal heir, but in the wisdom of John Stile, the English agent in Spain, "wordes maye be spoken wythe dyssymulacyon." [49] There was, however, discord in the family. Ferdinand declared that though there was no open breach between him and the Emperor, there was "a little grudge and variance for the governacyon of the realm of Castile," in which the Emperor was unreasonable, and he trusted Maximilian would soon be reformed with reason. At this moment he was working for some modus vivendi with him concerning this "governacyon," and that once arranged, he intended to make common cause with him against France, whose Italian conquests were causing Spain great uneasiness. He made all his dealings with the Low Countries depend on this settlement, and refused to pay Lady Margaret's jointure, long in arrears, and other pensions owing to Flemish subjects, till that was settled. If the Emperor's future was unprosperous in Italy, Margaret was to have a slack answer, but if Maximilian sped prosperously, then Margaret might have her jointure on condition that she negotiated the amity between the Emperor and Aragon. [50]

With France, as may be seen, Ferdinand did not mean to break till it served his purpose. In John Stile's words:—"as touching to the French King that he [Ferdinand] also intendeth for to continue in amity with him, as long as that your highness and your good-father shall think standeth with the honours and profits of your highnesses, and no longer nor otherwise; the King your good-father being joyous and glad that your highness is in amity and good peace with all Christian princes, and his majesty not counselling nor advising your highness as yet for to move any war unto any outward prince, unless that great causes should move your highness there unto." [51] Verily a treaty solemnly sworn to on the Gospels and in sight of the Host was but a cloak to hide new sins against the amity! In his great desire to keep his son-in-law entirely in his own pocket, and to forward this present policy, he had great difficulty in finding an ambassador to send to the English court: a natural Castilian was openly for the prince, an Aragonese for the French, and he ended by sending Luis Carroz, who was well tarred with his master's stick.

After the contract at Cambrai the French, with their usual quick resoluteness, were first in the field in Italy, but their successes, culminating in the battle of Agnadello, 14th May 1509, and the capture of the Venetian general d'Alviano, delighted no one but Maximilian, who hoped to find his opportunity in the weakness of the Venetians, and besieged Padua. The other members of the League, Ferdinand and the Pope, feared both French and Emperor, and the one tore his beard and secretly received at Rome the Venetian envoys asking for help, while the other, who already saw Maximilian holding Naples for his grandson, allowed the Venetians to use his ships, and sent provisions from Naples to Venice, to revictual Padua. "Il cherchait tenir toujours l'Empereur si bas qu'il ne pourroit lever la tête," grumbled Gattinare to Margaret, [52] but all the same to break with "ce marrano" would draw in its train trouble with Gueldres and difficulty in getting payment of the duchess's jointure, so those on the gangway between the Empire and France had to sit quietly waiting on opportunity. At this moment Maximilian was the only member of the League who was pursuing a single aim. He wanted to crush the Venetians. Ferdinand, while ostensibly trying to bring about an understanding with Maximilian, was secretly practising against him, and Louis XII., at whose court Imperial, Burgundian and Spanish ambassadors were squabbling over their masters' affairs, was supposed to be furthering this amity between Ferdinand and Maximilian, but all the while was secretly moving against it. He said, for Maximilian had been rebuffed before Padua, that it was not a fair moment to treat, for "un homme reculé ne fait jamais appointtement à son profite, et que si l'on veult faire bon appointtement il la fault faire la lance sur la cuisse." [53] Just what Maximilian could not do. "Je ne scay quel Diable fait ses affairs si malheureux," [54] said the exasperated Burgundian agent De Burgo. However, by December 24 an understanding had been arranged between the grandparents of Charles, and amity concluded. Naples was secured to Aragon, so far as Maximilian was concerned, and Ferdinand began to weave his web round France.

He begged Henry, but secretly, for fear of the French getting wind of it (for the Spanish ambassador in France said that the French had their spies in England, and nothing was spoken in London but straightway it was known in Paris), to try and conclude a league between England, the Emperor, Spain, Flanders; Portugal would join, and Spain would be secure, no stab in the back for her. Henry must write to Julius II. and ask him to join, "so that the said amity and lyage may be made and established before the French King shall have knowledge of the same." For, he lisped to John Stile through his lost front tooth, such a noble league came by the great power and mercy of Almighty God, as did the accord and amity between the Emperor and himself, so that the French King should not attain unto his cruel purpose to destroy and subdue all the countries of Italy. Under such high patronage he foresaw no difficulty in reconciling the Venetians and the Emperor, for simultaneous inspired advice from England, Spain and Rome was to make the Venetians restore to the Emperor all that they had of his, and Louis was to find himself alone and at bay before the kings of Europe. In order to bring Henry's interests into the ring, Ferdinand emphasized the subtle policy of France, for, victorious in North Italy, she would turn her arms against the South, and wrest Naples from the crown of Castile and Aragon. All the same, till the establishment of this great league he ordered Henry to pass the time with the French King in goodly terms—in fact, to do as did his father-in-law, and always lean to the best advantage. [55] So the English ambassadors at Rome were hand in glove with the Venetians, and daily plotted with them and the Aragonese to the great prejudice of the league of Cambrai. [56]

Time now revealed the weak point in Ferdinand's calculations. Maximilian would not be won over, and in spite of English and Aragonese practices Venice would not give up her conquests. So that the rotten rags of the league of Cambrai had to be patched together, and Ferdinand told Henry that he must give all aid to the kings of the league to destroy the Venetians. But whatever you do, live in peace with France, is the chorus of all his letters. How to do this while the Duchess of Savoy was asking persistently for help against the Duke of Gueldres, [57] and the Scots were buying guns [58] in the Netherlands? France was backing Gueldres as usual with men and money, and in reply to the complaints of the Flemish agents, Louis XII. only shook his head over "ce mauvais sujet" of a duke and wished the devil might fly away with him for a disturber of the peace. Margaret must make what terms she could, so she turned to England. Henry was arming and preparing for events. He bought forty-eight guns from Hans Popenruyter, the gunfounder at Malines, [59] and was to have them as cheap as the prince, said Margaret, who seized those bought by the Scots and resold them to Henry. [60] She said distinctly, however, that she would neither be party to the league with Aragon against France nor persuade her father thereto unless Henry promised help against Gueldres. [61] To defend the Flemish border against Gueldres was a left-handed way of making war on France, and Ferdinand would not approve. So Henry followed his "good-father's" advice and imitated him, and in April accepted the Golden Rose from Julius II., [62] while two months later he confirmed the treaty made with France in March 1510. [63] If Henry was Ferdinand in miniature, "Julius was Julius indeed," and in August a letter from him to Henry was intercepted by the French. Its contents were forwarded to Henry by Maximilian, who denied the truth of the Pope's statement that he and Ferdinand had entered into a league with the Papacy against France. This was only the Pope's evil plan to assist the Venetians "au contraire de la ligue de nous tous rois car les dits Veniciens ont gagné ses mignons et privez conseillers." [64] Louis XII. now wrote to James IV. of Scotland to remind him of the ancient league between their countries. [65] Henry, still passing the time with all parties, told the Pope he would join the league when Maximilian and Ferdinand did: [66] then he wrote to the Council of the Cardinals at Milan, supporters of and supported by France and Maximilian, promising assistance in settling [67] the perplexities of the Church; and almost in the same breath he promised Ferdinand one thousand archers. [68] Hence Sir Robert Wingfield, ambassador to the Emperor, was taken aback and perplexed by the demand that Henry should countenance the General Council at Pisa and the articles devised against the Pope which were set forward in the name of the Emperor and the French King, and he told the bishop of Gurk that the King would gladly have known the Emperor's mind before the imperial foot had been so far in the bushel. [69] The crux of the situation was Maximilian's attitude towards the Venetians, whose terms of peace he refused. Neither would he have aught to do with Pope or Aragon against France. Margaret, however, came to the rescue, for peace negotiations with Gueldres on the basis of the Duke's marriage with the Archduchess Isabeau, [70] sister to the Prince of Castile, had come to nothing, as they were meant to. She was still anxious for Henry's support in Flanders, and as the price he exacted was the alliance, she threw into that scale her influence with her father. So long, however, as the rumour ran that Ferdinand intended to put the crown of Naples on the head of the bastard of the Archbishop of Saragossa, to the prejudice of the Prince of Castile, Maximilian refused to have anything to do with him, [71] and Margaret wrote that until this suspicion was weeded from her father's mind, the League of the Holy Trinity, symbolized by the three princes, would never take place. Ferdinand's answer was to send the bastard to Malines as hostage. [72] In the naïve blasphemy of the age Ferdinand and Henry were the father and son, so that the Third Person was the one symbolized by Maximilian. Louis XII. was watching Margaret, and, thanks to the French party in the Flemish Council and French merchants married to Englishwomen as spies in England, he lacked no news. He warned her that he had been told of her league, but affected not to believe the gossip. [73] However, by July he knew the truth, for Margaret's efforts had borne fruit for her gathering, and Henry, as hansel-money for the future league, sent Sir Edward Ponynges and 1500 archers [74] into the Low Countries to help Castile against Gueldres. "Je suis adverty," said Louis XII. to Andreas de Burgo, "que ma cousine m'a fort piqué en Angleterre," and added one to the score against his former playmate. Matters moved secretly till October, when the Holy League against France between the Pope, Aragon and Venice was published, by which Ferdinand was to find the men and the other two the money for chasing the French from Lombardy. England joined it [November 1511], [75] and now France had but one ally, whom she was exceedingly nervous about losing, and tried to steady by the offer of a marriage between Renée of France and the Archduke Ferdinand, brother to Charles. Maximilian coquetted with the league, and by the end of the year rumour had it that his ambassador, the ubiquitous Gurk, had already taken his lodging in Venice at St Paul's, and that Louis might make mince-meat of his duchy. [76]

At the French Court nothing was talked of but the possibility of an English invasion: 25,000 men said spies, "prêts à monter en mer" and invade by Calais at any moment: and Louis was so irritable and depressed that the whole Court was profoundly discouraged, [77] for Aragon and England were like to be two prongs in the back of the country. True, Gueldres could be loosed again on Flanders and the Scots on England, but the adage then as now was true, and vicarious warfare was seldom satisfactory. The old weapon of supporting a pretender to the English throne, blunt, rusty, and out of date as it had so rapidly become, reappeared, and Richard de la Pole, Captain of Almains, [78] was styled and treated as King of England in France. [79] A lean, blackavised French priest with a crooked eyebrow, Louis' faithful spy, [80] carried the correspondence between Pole and his family, which eventually led to the execution of Earl Edmund in the Tower. The taking of Brescia by the Duke of Nemours [February 1512] cheered up the French Court, and by April, when the English King-at-arms arrived with Henry's defiance, "not in his coat but clad like a gentleman," the English scarce had almost become vieux jeu, and the country had regained its poise. Henry said he had no choice but to make war in aid of his allies, the Pope and Aragon, and Louis replied if that was all, he did it with little reason. Still, the French King hoped to keep Margaret and the Emperor out of the alliance, while the English agents in Flanders were working hard to bring them within it, and to keep them to the old amity. The Governess of the Netherlands had one idea all through, the crushing of Gueldres, whose thieving raids and besieging excursions kept the eastern border in a state of harried poverty. The duke claimed sovereign rights which Flanders did not recognize, and France had always found it paid to support him. In consequence of the dual suzerainty, Imperial and French, to the Burgundian provinces, there were always two parties in the Flemish Council, the French and the Burgundian, or, as it was now, the English. The Burgundian was Margaret's party, and she over-rode the opposition of the French sympathizers, but she could not prevent their clogging the execution of her purposes by secret intrigues with France. Louis gave up all hope of detaching her from the English. Maximilian, on the other hand, was, in his fickleness, surer game than his daughter, for though in June [1512] he dismissed the French ambassadors from Brussels, telling them that if they would not go when they could, they should not when they would, [81] in October he was practising with Louis at Cologne.

MAXIMILIAN, EMPEROR OF GERMANY

FROM THE PAINTING BY ALBRECHT DÜRER AT VIENNA

Between these months much happened to the unfortunate English ambassadors who were attempting to finish the negotiations begun with the Emperor in May. First Maximilian dismissed the French ambassadors. That looked hopeful. Then he refused to allow the gentlemen of Flanders to serve in Henry's army. Next he demanded 100,000 crowns of gold down on declaring war with France, and said that the Pope or Aragon would willingly give him as much. He knew his worth to the league! Then he departed suddenly, saying the whole business was safe in his daughter's hands. Now began endless delays. Margaret had no formal commission: [82] she did not think her father would be pleased to find himself in the same boat as the Venetians [the veriest abc of dealing with Maximilian]; and the real reason was that by means of Duke George of Saxony, Gueldres had proposed a truce with the Emperor which Margaret was willing to accept. So the Governor of Bresse and the Count de Berghes, both Margaret's adherents in the council, fought shy [83] of Sir Edward Ponynges and Sir Thomas Boleyn, and the stomach of the English was much diminished by waiting. Margaret, "a perfect friend to England," suggested, after a couple of months' waiting, that they should fee the Emperor's secretaries to keep her commission in his memory, [84] and a fortnight later she asked Sir Thomas if he would lay a wager on its soon coming. Gladly, said he, and they shook hands on it; a courser of Spain to an English hobby. [85] The Emperor's secretaries wanted to know the form the commission was to take. The English said the same as at Cambrai; [86] that is, full powers to treat, and no doubt Margaret wanted that too, for when it did come in restricted form, at the beginning of September (though it was dated August 2 at Cologne) for a whole day she was so cross that the ambassadors could not see her. [87] On September 4 they discussed the treaty, which was confined to Henry and Maximilian; Flanders was to be neutral. The English said the Imperial alliance alone was dear at 150,000 ducats, and Henry refused to treat save on the previous understanding, which included Flanders.

All this time the English army, sent to Guienne to invade France according to the treaty of the Holy League of November 1511, had been idly kicking its heels and waiting for Ferdinand to co-operate for the recovery of the province. But Ferdinand did nothing, and the men, wearied with idleness and worn by lack of victuals in a disorderly camp, mutinied and returned home ingloriously in the Autumn [88]. In October, however, there came rumours from the Bishop of Liège, [89] the centre of French influence in the Low Countries, of the defeat of the French in the south, and Maximilian broke off negotiations with Louis and turned to the English, with the result that Gueldres broke again across the Maas, with "good effect, for the inhabitants were in a manner fast asleep and are now awake." [90] The Duke's French reinforcements had an encounter with the Liegéois, and Maximilian himself was nearly kidnapped on his way from Cologne by the Duke's men, disguised as Burgundians. [91] But news of the impotence of the English excursion into Guienne soon became public property, and their undisciplined and disgraceful retreat was the joke of Court and camp. Margaret was annoyed for two reasons: the first that Gueldres was very active and that French negotiations had been broken off, and the second that the rich English were but reeds to lean on. So when in October Henry refused to pay 50,000 crowns for entertaining the Swiss against the French, [92] and asked that the Emperor's subjects (in the Low Countries) should be prevented from serving the French, the President of Bresse replied that Maximilian had prevented one thousand Swiss from taking French service, "which answer was so colorably made that a man might savour the color of it all the chamber." Then my Lady Margaret spoke "with a qualm of a little melancholy about her stomach" [Ponynges' way of saying she was in a great rage], "if ye be disposed to delay it [the treaty] we shall defer it as well as you," saying besides, that "Englishmen had so long abstained from war that they lacked experience from disuse and it was reported that they were now weary of it." She wrote to her father in this mood and caused more delays, [93] and when the ambassadors remonstrated, she said openly to them, "Where had we been now if this confederation had been concluded between your master and us?" [94] All fair promises and sweet words, but no deeds, were to be found at Malines. From Scotland came the gibe that the English soldiers could not easily be induced to invade France or Gueldres after their Biscayan experience, [95] and though Henry declared that the return of the army was sanctioned by the King of Aragon and himself because of the constant rains in Guienne, and "the intolerable pains of the soldiers of our said army, which in the barren country had perseverantly lain in the fields," [96] no one believed his report. The joke of the thing is, that, as a matter of fact, from September to January there reigned superb weather in Biscay that year. [97] Ferdinand said he believed that Henry had given secret orders for the return. [98] But the supreme insult came from Maximilian, who proposed that the command of the English army in France should be handed over to him while Henry remained in England. The Emperor counselled the King not to stir out of his country, but to keep the people in awe and bridle the Scots. [99] He would take command for 100,000 crowns. Nothing more was needed to increase Henry's war fever. He had a bull from Julius II. [100] granting indulgence to those who served in the holy war against France; his agents were already in Italy buying armour, for the Frescobaldi had made a corner of it in Milan; [101] in Zeeland, collecting ships for the passage, where they bid against the French; [102] in Flanders, buying horses and feeing men. [103] At home Wolsey was busy with military organization and his schemes for a more efficient commissariat and transport, while Henry and Admiral Howard, following the admiral's advice, "for no cost sparyng, let provision be maad: for it is a weel-spent peny that saveth the pownd," [104] were working to bring the navy up to some sort of fighting standard. And into this busy Court, full of young men dreaming of loot and military glory, and enthusiastic old men like Sir Gilbert Talbot, who, having served Henry's father and grandfather, was now "minded so sore and purposed to have served the King's grace and in this journey, that I almost forgot God and set my heart on none other thing, but only how I might best serve his grace at this time," [105] came Maximilian's proposal. Gueldres saved the situation. His activity, veiled by renewed offers of truce, [106] inclined Margaret to the English as a poor prop, but her only one, and many Flemish nobles offered their services to Henry. [107]

The final ruin to Henry's faith in his allies was to come very soon, and of it he was warned by John Stile from Valladolid. Ferdinand made a truce with the French for one year. It came about this way. The Emperor and the Pope, despairing of accommodation with the Swiss, had made a league together to the great displeasure of Aragon, who, oddly enough, in view of what followed, resented that any league should be made suddenly without his consent or England's. He also feared that such league would cause the Venetians to adjoin themselves to the French, and of a likelihood with the Turks, so that Louis would be stronger than ever. Anne of Brittany, the French Queen, was anxious for a Cisalpine peace, and as a means to this end wanted to ignore English rights and marry the Princess Renée to Charles of Castile, with the duchy of Brittany as dowry. [108] Ferdinand told Stile a fisher's tale [109] about his having dispatched the Provincial of the Grey Friars to England by way of France to be Queen Katharine's confessor, and that on his way he had been taken prisoner and carried to Blois, and that Anne had had him released and sent him back to Spain, carrying a letter of peace to the Queen of Aragon. All which tale was but nutshells, for the return of the Provincial with the letter was preached in open pulpit by a friar of his own order, who admonished the people to pray for peace. Ferdinand grasped at the proposed truce as a moment in which to gain strength to carry out his original plan for the complete isolation of France and the annexation of Navarre. So in devious pursuit of this plan, on March 16, 1513, new articles to the treaty with Aragon were signed in London, and Henry was again bled, and at Malines the Aragonese ambassador attempted to rid the Flemish council of Chièvres and the French party and replace them with people more agreeable to his master, [110] while at Valladolid John Stile was told positively that the truce between France and Aragon was accomplished. [111] All fair writing and slack deeds in Spain also, "for the Spaniards," said Stile, "are by nature so hasty and envious to all strangers that they despise every man."

Ferdinand did not succeed in ousting the French party at Malines, and it continued to grumble at the English in Zeeland, where it said they only made war on the Flemish and were so dull that they let French vessels pass unchallenged. [112] Lord Chièvres, the head of it, made tremendous capital out of a carack belonging to one Andreas Scarella, the Sta Maria de Loretto, [113] which had been sold in Zeeland to the French, but the English got wind of the transaction and lifted her, cargo and all. The council said this interference was grossly impertinent, and were hot and intemperate over the matter, and not at all repentant for their "seditious" ways in favouring the French King, which made it impossible to conserve their ports and havens as Henry would have liked. They said they could do that well enough for themselves without troubling the English. Henry had laid an embargo on all trade between the Low Countries and France, and he now offered if this matter were dropped to allow them to resume their trade under "letters testimonials," English captains to have the right of search. [114] However, in spite of the strength of the French party, on March 16 Maximilian, with a final haggle over the rate of exchange, signed the treaty with Henry, who steadily refused to have any Swiss in his pay, saying that his army was so powerful that he hoped to lead it to Paris, "especially our father of Aragon making war against our said enemy." Next month, April, Henry knew of his father-in-law's perfidy, [115] but he passed the time in Spanish fashion, and went the length of forcing Ferdinand's ambassador to sign the treaty of the Holy League, concluded at Malines on April 5, [116] by which the Pope was to invade Dauphiny; the Emperor, the trans-Alpine provinces; Henry, Picardy, Normandy and Aquitane; Ferdinand, Béarne and Languedoc. Luis Carroz swore to it publicly in St Paul's on April 25, [117] and then wrote to Spain that in spite of Ferdinand's secret orders he had been forced to do so for fear of the consequences of refusal. [118]

As was to be expected, the Emperor, who quivered to every wind, again wavered at news of this Franco-Spanish truce. The news had reached him spiced (by Ferdinand) with the lie that Henry was privy to it, and though Wingfield indignantly told him that Henry was not "so light or of so little resolution to arm him at all pieces and then call for a pillow," [119] he said that if Henry entered the truce he would also. However, in the end, stiffened by resentment and by the English attitude, he definitely ordered his subjects in the Low Countries to serve Henry, and the Count de Ligny and others took service.

All this time the English had been skirmishing with the French in the Calais Pale [120] and the Welshmen of the garrison had done some damage. Sampson Norton, the head of the arsenal, had been taken prisoner, and the French party at Malines tried to prevent his exchange. [121] The English fleet had been exercising in the channel in March, a brave show, and now letter packets need not be dropped overboard to save them from French hands. [122] In April the organization of the land forces was approaching something like order, and the fleet was sailing along the coast of Brittany, which Howard hoped to make a desert for many a year, looking for the enemy. Never was such a navy seen, and Préjan and his French fleet dare not hove in sight, so the gallant admiral went to find them and his death. But if French ships were not in evidence in the channel, French agents were thick in Flanders. The Count de Ligny was balked in raising troops for England by a "lord bearing a French order," [123] who warned the towns against him as a favourer of the English, and Louis told the Ghentois they would rue any help they gave. Sir Robert Wingfield, carrying the treaty from Brussels to the Emperor at Trier for ratification, found that "French crowns fly far," [124] and twice on his journey he barely escaped ambuscades. The second one was laid by the son of Robert de la Marck, who a week before had taken four Englishmen to his father's castle at Hesdin. The Franco-Spanish truce was soon common property, and Margaret had an anxious moment, but she was relieved when the English ambassadors told her of the noble deeds at sea of their countrymen

against the French, and "she took a letter out of her purse wherein the tidings were written concerning the bruit and common rumour of the truce between the King of Aragon and the French King, and brake the said letter, casting it on the ground saying these words, 'Let the universal bruit and vulgar opinion give place to the truth.'" [125]

Ferdinand was furious at the English attitude, for he felt his golden goose had passed out of his hand, and he was not calmed by the news of the victory at Brest and the burning of the French ships. He raked up all the old grievances against the marriage of Mary and Charles, pointed by the fact that Charles was now riper in years, and would soon be of age. In May the dreaded league between France and Venice was known at Valladolid, and it weighed greatly on his stomach that the shrewd turn he had hoped to play France was likely to recoil on his own head, for Maximilian and Henry were sure to remain allied. He was right, but it was touch and go with Maximilian. The Emperor said roundly to Wingfield, who came up with him at Augsburg, that if France were to regain Milan he would have enough to do there without actually invading France, though Louis were "the most worthy vitupere of any prince living." However, a couple of days later, in Augsburg Cathedral, after mass sung by his own chapel with exquisite organs, with his hand on the Gospels and Canon he swore to the treaty with Henry. [126] There seemed some chance of his holding to his oath this time, for his words appeared "to pass more roundly than they were wont to do." Alas for hopes! Two days had hardly passed [17th May 1513] ere a wind from the south veered him round. The Venetians and the French were allied, and he told Wingfield that had he been advertised of these news he would never have sworn, and now it was as impossible for him to send an army to France as it was for a man who had promised to run a furlong to do so if he broke his leg. But he said he would do his best to run out the remainder on a stilt. Poor Wingfield! "The French," he groaned, "are so subtle that they can blind and corrupt the whole world." [127] Margaret, however, was steadfast and impervious to French corruption, and said she felt herself safe from France behind English arrows, [128] but the French party in her council left few stones unturned in their efforts to avert war. Charles' Spanish secretary was sent secretly into France to try and break the treaty of marriage between Mary and the prince, and to practise a negotiation between Louis XII. and the Emperor. [129] Louis said that Margaret and Lord Berghes had assisted the English against the opinion of the council, and he kept for them a pensée. It took the familiar form of Gueldres at this moment. Ferdinand, said spies at Blois, was called a traitor in France, and so he was, for at Malines he posed as Henry's friend, and rated Margaret for not giving him adequate assistance. He begged her to ask the King of England to use his counsel, and promised to assent to anything that would advance the amity with England, and also re-assented to the marriage treaty. "A very wise prince," said Margaret, "in whose subtle understanding is comprised many profound matters: his mind and intent are good." [130]

The defeat of the French at Novarro set all Rome daily expectant to hear of their extermination by the English in Picardy, while experts in Germany shook their heads over such a possibility. [131] They said that the advantage lost last year in Guienne would not be easily recovered. Wingfield expressed the English feeling of confidence when he wrote "but such is God and better which only is the head of your enterprise, and hath given the noble courage and hardiness to elect of yourself the cost, travell and jeopardy, to attain the honour and glory that must needs follow." [132]

CHAPTER III
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.

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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."

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.

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.

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]