Potter David. Henry VIII and Francis I
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180 chapter four
be embroidered, gives a clear enough picture of the problems of bring-
ing food in convoys over thirty miles.
88
Aer this, orders came from
the King to hold Etaples and get supplies from England direct. By
the end of August, there was some shaky occupation of Etaples estab-
lished under Sir John Fogge, though Gruydd suggests that the route
remained too insecure.
89
Intelligence during August stressed the ability of the French garri-
son to get supplies even though they were short and reduced to eating
their horses. eir artillery emplacements at the Abbeville gate were
formidable.
90
Some success was had in devastating French territory
when at the start of September a raid was led by Buren, Surrey, Sussex,
Mountjoy and lord William Howard which burned Saint-Riquier, Rue,
the suburbs of Abbeville and the town (though not the castle) of Le
Crotoy. Norfolk claimed that a vast booty had been brought back and,
with the discipline of the men, nothing like it had been seen during
the campaign.
91
But conditions in the English camp were deteriorat-
ing in the midst of lth, disease and hunger throughout August and
early September. An army of 20,000 men could simply not be main-
tained in such conditions. e conclusion of the Treaty of Crépy on
18 September, entailed the withdrawal of Imperial support on 29th.
Now the bulk of the French royal army under the Dauphin and Vendôme,
released from guarding against the Emperor’s invasion, could bear
down on the English. e order for withdrawal came on 25 September,
a day when Norfolk reported that no more than 13,000 active soldiers
were le in his army.
92
is was followed by something of a sauve
qui peut in which much of the equipment and the wounded were le
behind. English forces were withdrawn to the defence of Boulogne
against the French counter-attack.
Mounting a siege both at Montreuil and Boulogne had proved
beyond the capability of the English military system. e siege works
at Montreuil, though not starved of equipment, were undermined by
88
Ibid., pp. 24–31.
89
Ibid., pp. 31–33; L&P, XIX, ii, 248.
90
Intelligence from the French camp, August 1544, NA, SP1/26, fo. 192 (L&P, III,
2706, misdated to 1522). is also, perhaps improbably, claimed that the leaders of
Amiens, in the event of an English siege, had agreed that ‘ilz ne se feront poinct battre,
et sy vous apporteront les clefz.’
91
Norfolk to Council with King, 2 Sept. 1544, G.F. Nott, e Works of Henry Howard
Earl of Surrey, 2 parts (London, 1875), appendix, no. xvi (L&P, XIX, ii, 176).
92
Norfolk to Council, 25 Sept. 1544, L&P, XIX, ii, 297.
‘
fighting over the bear
’
s skin
’
181
Illustration 1 e Departure of Henry VIII from Calais, July XXV. MDXLIV. Engraved from a Coeval Painting, at Cowdray in
Sussex, the Seat of Lord Viscount Montague. “e Meting of the Kinge by Sr. Anthony Brown upon the Hill Between Callis and
Morgvison.” Drawn from the Original, by S.H. Grimm. Engraved by James Basire, 1788. Sumptibus Societatis Antiquariorum
Londini. Publish’d according to Act of Parliament, 23rd April, 1788. (1–5 from copies printed in W.H. St John Hope: Cowdray
and Easebourne Priory, London 1919).
182 chapter four
Illustration 2 e Encampment of King Henry VIII at Marquison, July MDXLIV.
Engraved from a Coeval Painting, at Cowdray in Sussex, the Seat of Lord
Viscount Montague. Drawn from the Original, by S.H. Grimm. Engraved by
James Basire, 1788. Sumptibus Societatis Antiquariorum Londini. Publish’d
according to Act of Parliament, 23rd April, 1788.
‘
fighting over the bear
’
s skin
’
183
Illustration 3 e Siege of Boulogne by King Henry VIII. MDXLIV. Engraved from a Coeval Painting, at Cowdray in Sussex,
the Seat of Lord Viscount Montague. Drawn from the Original, by S.H. Grimm. Engraved by James Basire, 1788. Sumptibus
Societatis Antiquariorum Londini. Publish’d according to Act of Parliament, 23rd April, 1788.
184 chapter four
divided counsels; supplies were never adequate. Henry would have
liked to take both places but the emphasis was inevitably on the siege
he was conducting himself.
Invasion: Boulogne
We can assume that the unsatisfactory reports from his command-
ers in France and his suspicion that neither Landenberg’s troops nor
logistical support from the Low Countries would be forthcoming had
concentrated Henrys’ mind on Boulogne and Montreuil by the end
of June 1544. MacMahon rightly stressed that the sieges of Montreuil
and Boulogne were equally important for Henry, both suggesting the
advantage of a useful extension of the security of English territory.
Henry had been nagged into attacking Montreuil by the Burgundians
since 1542 and was reasonably informed about the fortications of
Boulogne.
93
e principal division of the royal army, the Battle, consisting
of nearly 10,000 foot and over 3000 horse, followed Norfolk’s and
Russell’s force by a few weeks and was to be commanded by Henry’s
old favourite and companion in arms, the duke of Suolk. At the very
end of June, Chapuys reported that Suolk would leave London early
on 30 June accompanied by Gardiner, as co-ordinator of supplies, and
Browne, master of the Horse. With him travelled Gage, comptroller
of the Household and expert on supplies, Arundel as Master of the
camp and St. John, lord Chamberlain. In eect, the military heavy-
weights of the Privy Council were about the cross the Channel.
94
St.
John and Gage (assisted by his servant Otwell Johnson) were speci-
cally charged with transporting the Battle and ensuring the passage of
transport horses from Dover and Sandwich.
95
Suolk passed through
Gravesend to Dover and crossed to Calais on 3 July.
96
e town and
Pale had been churned over by Norfolk’s army, so he quickly marched
93
See the reports of Wallop, 11, 17 June 1542, NA SP1/171, fos. 10–11, 35–36
(L&P, XVII, 397, 411). MacMahon, ‘Invasion of France,’ pp. 38–46.
94
Chapuys to Charles V, 29 June 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 799; Hall, ed. Whibley, II,
pp. 348–349.
95
Otwell Johnson to John Johnson, 29 June 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 801; Gage and
St. John to Council, 30 June 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 807.
96
See the vivid anonymous account, ed. W.A.J. Archbold, ‘A Diary of the Expedi-
tion of 1544,’ EHR, 16 (1901), 5–37.
‘
fighting over the bear
’
s skin
’
185
on 5th to a camp at Coquelles in the Pale and then with the bulk of
the Battle towards Marquise, where there was forage in the villages
between that town and the sea at Wissant, where they camped. ere
he could wait for Buren’s auxiliaries and, 1500 troops from Norfolk
and Suolk who had been delayed and Henry’s own military follow-
ing.
97
At Wissant, Suolk, Browne and the others were nally told
their objective would be Boulogne and received a ‘plott of Boleygne in
moolde’ to begin planning. Paget informed them of the King’s usual
pontications about the practicability of mining (he dismissed the dif-
culties which had been raised) but laid out very clearly Henry’s tacti-
cal objectives:
To make mountes in places without to shote from in to the town and,
the housing standing thick and nere unto the walles, to bear them down
and the shoote over in to the towne and with contynuall shot of his
ordynance and of his mortars, the town being very little within to mak
any succour or defence against the same to make . . . . terrible frayes unto
them and with the terror and trouble therof so to astonne and torment
them that they shuld be fayn to fall to composition.
98
Henry had clearly made up his mind to take advantage of his one
really convincing military arm, his artillery.
At Whitehall on 7 July, the necessary instruments for the Regency
in the King’s absence were promulgated.
99
Henry le Whitehall on
11th and travelled via Gravesend, Rainham, Faversham and Forde to
Dover. On 14th, he crossed to Calais and took up residence at the
Exchequer house, holding talks with Suolk and the others and send-
ing Admiral Lisle, Cobham and Hoby to nd out what on earth was
going on at Montreuil. On 18th, Suolk rode back to Marquise to
begin a reconnaissance of Boulogne’s defences. ough it must have
been worrying that Suolk had insucient horse to guarantee their
onward journey to Montreuil, preparations for Henry’s advance to
Boulogne in one day were eased by having the baggage train of his
corps forwarded rst to Marquise. Suolk’s report was optimistic as
far as the possibility of trenching was concerned and his camp was
97
Suolk to Henry VIII, 4 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 835; Suolk, Gage and Browne
to Henry VIII, Wissant, 10 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 882.
98
Paget to Suolk, Gravesend, 12 July 1544, NA SP1/190, fos. 23–24(289) (L&P, XIX,
i, 903).
99
L&P, XIX, i, 864, 890.
186 chapter four
nally established their on 20th.
100
But Boulogne was no easy target.
e basse ville could be set aside as it was only very lightly fortied.
e upper town, of course, was situated on a height, though the natu-
ral approach in any case lay in the north to north-west, where the land
slopes gently away from the walls. Here it had been equipped with
fausses brayes (as was usual in the period), as well as an éperon outside
the castle and round artillery bastions outside the tours Nostre-Dame
and Françoyse which had been under construction throughout the
time Oudart du Biez had been governor. Both the Cowdray frescoes
and the British Library drawing (Cotton, Aug.I.ii, 116) show the fausse
braye and round bastions characteristic of the rst half of Francis I’s
reign, the tour Francoyse decorated by the king’s salamander device.
101
e ancient Roman lighthouse, the Tour d’Ordre, was lightly garri-
soned but would present no problem.
102
Lisle also reports the existence
of the ‘Green Bulwark’ to the south of the old town. He also approved
Suolk’s boldness and the energy by which the siege was immediately
pressed forward.
103
True, arquebusiers were short as was light cavalry
for skirmishing but Bowes was again on hand with his northern horse-
men to go cattle-raiding, no doubt a familiar activity to them. e basse
ville was entered with hardly any ghting on 21st, the Tour d’Ordre
was taken in short order and trenches quickly established. It comes as
a surprise, though, to note that only at this point was thought given to
establishing a naval blockade of the rade. Nevertheless, when Lisle and
Jennyns of the Privy Chamber arrived on 20th with the troops from
Scotland, they did so by sea, so the harbour was at least open.
104
100
Suolk and Browne to Henry VIII, Marquise, 18 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 932;
Paget to Suolk, 18 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 933; Suolk et al. to Henry VIII, 20 July
1544, L&P, XIX, i, 947.
101
E.g. Potter, Du Biez, no. 46 (1528). In June 1542, Henry had been informed that
the ‘rampire’ from the castle to the Notre-Dame gate was 48 feet thick ‘which they
trust not so muche upon as a towre called franchois, the towre Nostre Dame, the gate
of the towne and to the castell, in the which ether be lowpis a lowe, that apperith
not . . . not serving for any other purpose, but for anckes oonly.’ Nothing was known
about vaults or trenches but the south gate was also being fortied. (Wallop to the
Council, 17 June 1542, NA SP1/173, fo. 35v(37v) (L&P, XVII, 411).
102
‘la tour d’Ordre fust rendue par ung nommé Grand Jehan Charpentier . . . sans
endurer le canon et ouvrit la porte aux Anglois sans endure le canon.’ BnF, Dupuy
474, fo. 12v.
103
Lisle to Paget, 20 July 1544, NA SP1/190, fos. 96–97 (L&P, XIX, i, 949): ‘I suppose
ewe soche stronge townes as this ys hathe byn so nere aproched rom the fyrst daye.’
104
Ibid. Suolk et al. to Council with King, 21 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 957. L&P,
XIX, ii, 424 (diary of siege based on BL Cotton, Calig. E IV, fos. 59–68).
‘
fighting over the bear
’
s skin
’
187
Getting Henry and his troops to the siege was like conveying an
ungainly and threatening totem into the midst of the war; there was no
doubt his presence was an encouragement but it also had its penalties.
Days were taken up in preparing a suitably well-watered and airy site
for his camp and cavalry detailed to meet him half-way at Marquise.
Henry set out from Calais on 25th accompanied by his military retinue,
the guards, companies of men-at-arms, demilances and light cavalry
and Henry’s favourite, the duke of Albuquerque with 150 brilliantly
decked out horsemen.
105
Aer camping uncomfortably in the rain at
Marquise, where he was met by Anthony Browne, the King arrived
at the camp on 26th. At the end of July the Imperial representative
Courrières was sceptical whether the English were up to conducting an
artillery bombardment either at Boulogne or Montreuil, thinking them
inexperienced (‘guesres experimenté [en] tielles negoces.’)
106
All the
same, the siege works were being pressed energetically, with trenches
dug towards the bastion outside the castle and mounds being built
to bombard the ramparts directly. Henry was able to report to the
Queen that the battery had begun on 4 August and that he expected to
reduce the town in twenty days. ree batteries had been established,
under Suolk, Seymour (Master of the Ordnance) and Lisle and nearly
100 pieces were employed, half of them the larger sort, as well as
50 mortars in reserve. irty-ve salvoes per piece per day were bud-
geted for and this meant that, for cannon alone, there were 700 shots
in two days.
107
As it happens, the siege of Boulogne is one of the best
visually documented in the period, both from the copies of the fres-
coes commissioned at Cowdray for Sir Anthony Browne and the large
scale drawing of the aermath of the siege now in the British Library
(see illustrations). Both make clear the huge scale of operations and
the closeness with which the town was invested.
108
105
M.A.S. Hume (ed. trans), Chronicle of King Henry VIII. Written in Spanish by
an Unknown Hand, (London, 1889), pp. 112–115. e Spanish chronicler asserts that
Albuquerque played a signicant leading role in the siege and it is the case that he
commanded English troops in France under Mary I.
106
Courrières to Chapuys, 31 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 1024.
107
Artillery: NA SP1/190, fos. 252–259 (L&P, XIX, i, 1034); Council with King to
Queen, 5 Aug. 1544, St.P., X, p. 21 (L&P, XIX, ii, 35).
108
e frescoes were engraved by James Basire from drawings by S.H. Grimm and
published by the Society of Antiquaries in 1788, Accompanied by an essay entitled
A Description of some Ancient Historical Paintings preserved at COWDRAY in Sussex
(Society of Antiquaries, London, 1788). Joseph Ayloe had already published ‘An account
188 chapter four
e operation was much tougher than Henry had expected. ough
he had dismissed the problems of mining, the shallowness of the
soil before rock was hit meant that mines would be dicult and the
supply of earth for the artillery mounds was limited.
109
e artillery
bombardment dragged on inexorably without much eect and early
in September Hertford reported that, while he had thought the town
would fall by 1st ‘you shall undarstand that bi [reson of moche f ]owlle
wethers that felle here and allso [our] lak o powdar hath causid the
tyme to be defarid, the which I assur you in mi jugment and . . . in
others, it canot be long aer the cuming of the powdar the which I
trust shalbe here within towe dayes.’ e castle braye had already been
won and despite the delays, Hertford reported Henry was as ‘mery
and in a good helth as I have senne his Gras att eny tyme this vij
ye[re].
110
Contrary to Henry’s earlier pronouncements, it was mining
that brought the attackers close enough to the walls for Hugh Paulet
to mount a successful assault on the fausse braye on 1 September. is
gave the opportunity to prepare for a general assault the following
day but the French resistance was so ferocious, involving boiling oil,
pitch and massed arquebus re, that the attackers were driven back.
Henry ordered further mining from the breach to the fausse braye
below the ‘Flemings Tower.’ But time and gunpowder were running
short. Desperate measures had to be found to scour up the latter in
England and the Low Countries; the weather was turning even worse
and (perhaps most dangerous) money to pay Buren’s Germans would
run out on 22 September.
111
e mine under the Flemings Tower was
exploded but failed to bring it down. It took another week for another
massive mine under the castle to be ready while Spanish arquebusiers
were withdrawn from Montreuil to participate. Henry himself put pen
to paper in a letter to the Queen on 8 September to report that, with
the ditch taken, he had no doubt that ‘with Godes grace the castell and
towne shall sortly follow.’ at very day ‘we begyne thre bateryse and
of some English Historical Paintings at Cowdry, Sussex’ in Archaeologia, 3 (1774),
pp. 238–272. e paintings were destroyed by re in 1793.
109
Suolk, Gage and Browne to Henry VIII, 12 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 882 (top
soil no more than 1 foot); Suolk and Browne to same, 18 July 1544, ibid., no. 932:
‘And then for the nature of the [ground] for casteng of or trenches we have caused or
p[ioneers] to dygge in dyvers places upon the syde towa[rdes the] castell, who have
tryed in proofe that for 9 fo[ot] or thereaboutes it is faire earth.’
110
Hertford to Council with Queen, 2 Sept. 1544, L&P, XIX, ii, 74.
111
L&P, XIX, ii, 174, 187, 192.
‘
fighting over the bear
’
s skin
’
189
have iij mynys goyng bysyd won whiche hath done hyh execution in
scakyng and terying . . . oon o theyre grettest bulwarkes.’
112
An order
of the day divided the assault into two fronts, Suolk’s camp with
2500 men and Lisle with 2100 to be supplemented by 500 more. Half
of the third section of the siege camp (under the Lord Chamberlain
and Cavendish) was detailed to join the assault. e assault was to
advance in two waves but, crucially, those in the rst wave were to be
selected by the captains ‘as they feale the disposition of ther souldy-
ours.’ e mine was blown up on 11th and another massive assault
given. ough this did not fully succeed, enough of a foothold on the
ramparts was attained to make the town indefensible.
113
French Defence Strategy
Francis, like Henry, was ailing in the rst months of 1544. Aer
inspecting the Norman ports in April and May, he returned to spend
most of June and July in and around Paris, much of July at the château
of Saint-Maur where he was reported ‘very ill and has not been out of
bed for ten days with a fever.’ Aer the victory of Ceresole, bad news
became the norm. Further encounters in the Milanese went against the
French and Luxemburg (where supplies ran out) was lost on 6 June.
On 11 July Francis appointed the Dauphin his Lieutenant-general
throughout the realm and not until the very end of the month did his
health improve.
114
He spent most of August at a forward headquarters
at Villers-Cotterêts, from where he made a eeting visit to Epernay,
near the prepared defence camp at Jalons, early in September. How
did the French commanders opposing Henry respond to the chal-
lenge? Monluc recounted that it was thought by the French that
they were facing joint forces of 80,000 foot, 20,000 horse and ‘inni’
artillery, which seems to indicate a fairly precise knowledge of the
112
Henry VIII to the Queen, 8 Sept. 1544, BL Cotton, E IV, fo. 58v, autograph.
113
e order of the day for this assault is probably NA SP1/192, fos. 69–71 (L&P,
XIX, ii, 221). Mason to Honnings, 11 sept. 1544, NA SP1/192, fo. 63 (L&P, XIX, i,
216): ‘We asssayled yesterday the castle to play with all, and therefore we ended in like
sorte without any thing and [that] the defense was so erneste as a great nombre of our
men are [hurt] and sume slayne. Among is Jheronimo the deviser whiche I thinke is
v
m
pounde in the kings way.’
114
C. Paillard, L’invasion allemande, pp. 305–307, ‘fort malade, et a desjà plus de
dix jours quy ne bouge du lit d’une èvre.’