Potter David. Henry VIII and Francis I
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230 chapter five
9688 infantry in the Battle. e rest can be more clearly identied in
the list of the Battle in the Hateld House MS (see Appendix 1). In
this, the Shire levies are shown to have contributed 224 horse and
1265 foot and Mewtas of the Privy Chamber his 500 men. In addition,
in this version the contributions from the councillors and peers were
substantially increased.
107
We know that in addition to these, there
were 300 cavalry from Calais, 200 miners, 200 Irish kerne and 1,000
transport personnel. e Council had wanted to recall 4000 men from
Hertford’s army in Scotland in May but the condition of the men was
so poor that only 1450 were judged in a good enough state. ese
included the very important formation of 500 arquebusiers under
Mewtas (listed in the Hateld survey under the Privy Chamber reti-
nue of Mewtas) and 200 men of Lord Cobham but Hertford’s promise
to send them immediately to Calais was not kept; though some were
at Calais in early June, the rest did not arrive at Boulogne until mid-
July, though Mewtas seems to have been back and forth across the
Channel during the summer.
108
e contradictions in these documents
show clearly enough that the exact composition of the King’s Battle
was in a state of ux until the eve of departure.
e best documented retinue of the Battle is that of omas
Cawarden, Master of the Tents and Revels, whose landed power lay in
Surrey and Berkshire. Cawarden was an unlikely commander in some
ways. Son of a sheerman, London mercer’s apprentice in 1528 but by
1540 (presumably through omas Cromwell’s promotion) a gentle-
man of the Privy Chamber, Cawarden was an outstanding organiser of
equipment and events. He was also scheduled to lead a retinue of 55
horse and 200 foot in the King’s battle. In fact, his following amalgam-
ated the militarily active sta of the Tents and Revels with his own
military retinue and consisted of nearer 600 men. e soldiers were
drawn from his estates at Newbury, Nonsuch and Bletchingley. In the
rst, the musters had declared 24 gunners, 44 archers and 84 pikes
and ‘clubs.’ From Nonsuch and Bletchingley came a further 60. ese
were added to 41 foot and 64 light horse and over 200 crasmen of
107
L&P, XIX, i, 275; Hateld House, CP 201, fos. 7–14 (Calendar, Hateld MSS,
I, no. 16).
108
Hertford, Lisle, Sadler to Henry VIII, 18 May 1544, Hamilton Papers, II, no. 240
(L&P, XIX, i, 531); Lisle to Russell, 20 July 1544, Calendar Hateld MSS, I, no. 175;
Council to Norfolk, 6 June 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 634; Council to Hertford, 9 June 1544,
ibid., I, no. 172; Suolk et al. to Council with King, 21 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 957.
L&P, XIX, i, 424. Ibid., XIX, ii, 252, 280.
an unequal contest? 231
the Revels. In the event, conduct money was paid for 390 men.
109
Cawarden’s men were ultimately organised in ve companies of 100
foot (some entirely soldiers, some partly made up of crasmen from
the Revels and Tents) and around sixty light horse commanded by
men-at-arms (see Appendix 5). In addition, each company had a cap-
tain, petty captain, a ‘whier’ a drum and fe with surgeons, chaplains
and 1 mounted ‘gythorne’ (gittern player) shared, bringing the total
retinue to 593 men.
110
e precise state of one company’s readiness in
the rst half of August listed 48 gunners (of whom one was dead and
7 were in need of a bill), 30 pikemen (3 of whom had no weapon and
2 had only clubs), 9 club men 6 bowmen of whom 3 were ‘not here.’
111
One of the more unusual components, and one which testies to
the desperate need to nd troops, was the appearance of the Irish in
the ranks.
112
St. Leger, the Lord Deputy of the recently-created king-
dom, actually suggested raising 3000 ‘kerne’ (catharnach), 1000 to join
Hertford in Scotland and 2000 to march to London to join the king’s
army. is was optimistic; there was grumbling that insucient time
had been given and that Englishmen ‘wolde not be so suddenly rered
to departe the Realme.’
113
In the event, by March 1544 only 1000
could be raised, though the Council of Ireland held out the hope that
more could be had if they were treated well. e Irish Council pointed
out that men would hardly be willing to go ‘being never trained to
the thing’ without some Irish noblemen to lead them. One was found
in Ormond’s nephew Lord Power, with Piers Butler, brother of Lord
Dunboyne as his deputy.
114
By 7 May, those raised had been sent over.
Recruitment was by royal warrants to the Irish nobles and, as with
English recruitment, each small detachment of men had their own
captain before amalgamation into proper companies. Two kerne usu-
ally had a ‘boy’ (in fact a serving man) to carry their equipment; this
was changed to one boy per 4 kerne on this campaign. us, in the list
of those recruited, there were 1154 kerne and 234 boys (thus leaving
109
SHC, LM/24/8; LM/26, conduct money from Newbury, Bletchingley, Nonsuch
and London (for the crasmen and horsemen) to Dover.
110
SHC, LM/24/14, pay for the rst half of August 1544.
111
SHC, NL/24/27 pay list for Maxell’s company, 1–14 Aug. 1544.
112
W.G. Strickland, ‘Irish soldiers in the service of Henry VIII,’ Journal of the Royal
Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 13, i (1923), 94–97; D.G. White, ‘Henry VIII’s Irish
kerne in France and Scotland,’ e Irish Sword, 3 (1958), 213–235.
113
Council of Ireland to St. Leger, 24 March 1544, St.P., III, p. 492 (L&P, XIX, i, 240).
114
Ormond to Henry VIII, 6 May 1544, St.P., III, p. 495 (L&P, XIX, i, 473).
232 chapter five
920 ghting men). It may be because of this that the captains of the
kerne were paid at a lower rate (3s. 4d p.d.) than those of English
companies (4s) even though the kerne themselves received the same
pay as English soldiers.
115
ough usually depicted as just wielding
broad swords, some of the companies (notably Ormond’s and
Butler’s) consisted of about a quarter gunners, though how general
this was is dicult to say.
116
Roughly 400 were allocated to Hertford’s
army in Scotland. e Earl found them ‘very unruly . . . their weapons
are swords and darts; not past 40 can shoot in hackbuts.’ ey were
‘by nature wild.’
117
e well-known engraving of Irish kerne preserved
at the Ashmolean has been attributed to 1544. is may be the case
but the image created is more akin to French depictions of the
Brazilian Indians as noble savages in the 1560s.
e rest of the kerne marched to London to join the King’s army.
Holinshed’s Chronicle records that in May ‘passed through the citie of
London in warlike manner, to the number of seaven hundred Irishmen
having for their weapons, darts and handguns, with bagpipes before
them; and in saint Iames parke besides Westminster they mustered
before the king.’
118
Early on in the campaign they earned plaudits for
skirmishing around Ardres alongside some English cavalry.
119
Henry
must have found them acceptable enough in that many were incorpo-
rated in the ‘Battle’ of the army.
120
But their ‘savagery’ was remembered
by the people on whom they were quartered; during the siege of
Montreuil, they burned the 200 houses and some boats in the village of
Berck and another 270 houses at Verton.
121
Troops such as these could
only provide an exotic, perhaps alarming, tinge to the main army.
115
L&P, XIX, ii, 552.
116
Council of Ireland to Henry VIII, 7 May 1544, St.P., III, p. 497 (L&P, XIX, i,
477.2), Names of the lords and gentlemen . . . which send kerne; ibid., 4 List of names
of the kerne supplied; ibid., 5 conduct costs; John Lynne to Hertford, Westchester,
6 May 1544, Hamilton Papers, II, no. 231 (L&P, XIX, i, 471).
117
Hertford et al. to Henry VIII, 25 May 1544, Hamilton Papers, II, no. 244 (L&P,
XIX, i, 575).
118
Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, 6 vols, (London, 1808),
p. 838.
119
Norfolk to Council, 9 June 1544, NA SP1/188, fo. 80(90)r (L&P, XIX, i, 654):
‘where dyverse of the Irische men dyd very well and folowe the frenchemen very nere
theyr gate and skyrmysche very galyardly and reckoned by the frenchemen as the pry-
sonners say, to be gens mervelous sauvaige and also gens experimentés à la guerre.’
120
L&P, ii, 275.2.
121
AN, J 1017, fos. 381r, 384r.
an unequal contest? 233
Each corps of the army was equipped with an artillery and arma-
ment train. Unfortunately, only the plans for the Vanguard are pre-
served in any detail but it shows that that number of great siege pieces
envisaged in March–April was relatively small: 2 cannons, 2 demi-
cannons, 4 demi-culverins and 18 sakers and falcons (smaller eld
pieces).
122
At the end of June, Russell was complaining about shortages
of valuable pieces as well as of shot and powder, some of which had to
be brought rapidly from the Tower.
123
e King’s camp at Boulogne
(and presumably by then Norfolk’s at Montreuil) had a serious siege
train: 8 cannons, 9 demi-cannon, 7 culverins, 10 demi-culverins with,
of the smaller pieces, 27 sakers and eventually nearly 20 falcons and
bombards. Divided into three batteries, these were serviced by compa-
nies of 4–500 pioneers.
124
In addition, Henry took with him his ‘privy
ordnance’ as well as his own store of weapons, transported from
Whitehall to Saint Katherine’s docks and thence across to Calais.
125
Armaments, though largely supplied from within England, had to be
supplemented by procurement from the Low Countries. John Gage
had both experience and a useful sta behind him and had already
been organising supplies of arms and armour through his contacts in
the Low Countries, notably the Johnsons, for some time.
126
Keeping order in an army made up of such varying components was
bound to be a problem. In French armies, each army corps had stas
of prévôts des marchéchaux; this seems not to have been the case in
English armies at this period, though similar functions were carried
out. In fact, unlike in France, the war of 1544 was accompanied by
the printing of War Ordinances, partly modelled on those of 1492
and 1513. All such works are now rare but they were printed in some
numbers.
127
As soon as he arrived in France, Norfolk called for the
122
‘e proporcyon o ordenaunce, artylery and habyllymentes of warr for the
furnyture of an armye ryall wythe all maner of munycyons necessarye for the same.
Fyrst for the forewarde’ L&P, XIX, i, 273.13. e total for powder: 34 last 1 bar. 80lb.;
shot 5,820; carriages 225.
123
Russell to the Council, 26 June 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 784.2; ibid., no. 990 (27 July).
124
NA SP1/190, fo. 252 (L&P, XIX, i, 1034); Additions made in NA SP1/190,
fo. 258 (XIX, i, 1034.5).
125
John Rogers’ account, BL Add. 5753, fo. 116v (L&P, XIX, ii, 104), mentioning
‘shrimps’ (an early form of gun) with 54 gunners, 100 ‘basses’ of iron, ‘swordes of the
engynnes’ and brass pieces ranged around the King’s tent.
126
Anthony Cave to John Grant, 28 April 1544, L&P, XIX, ii, App. 7, iii, 2.
127
Statutes and ordynances for the warre, Londini (In Fletestrete by omas Barthelet
printer to the kinges highness, Anno M.D.XLIIII. [1544] STC 9334. e only copy in
234 chapter five
despatch of the ‘new printed [books o]f ordres to be kept in the feld.’
e Council sent him 200 copies, which indicates that they expected
them to be in the hands of each captain and petty captain.
128
Norfolk
himself imposed discipline severely, ordering the execution of those
soldiers who le the camp without permission.
129
Nearer the end of the
campaign, a royal proclamation ordered the imprisonment of all who
had le the camp and returned to England without royal permission.
130
We should not underestimate the ferocity of the ghting and the
fact that even commanders were aected. So, omas Cawarden lost
a leg in the operations at Boulogne, though he recovered and was
knighted. Cheyney was shot through the thigh and his son John was
killed at the siege of Montreuil. Lord Grey of Wilton was also shot
through the shoulder at Montreuil while serving ‘only in a cutt
jerkin.’
131
With the siege of Boulogne dragging on, it was decided to
raise new levies. On 11 September, letters went out from the King’s
camp for new shires musters of 4000 men to be ready at one hour’s
notice, though these were countermanded on 21 September.
132
BL is severely damaged. Of the 1513 version, Hereaer ensue certayne Statutes and
Ordinances of the Warre (London, R. Pynson, 1513) STC 9333, the only copy in the
Bodleian Library, is incomplete, though excerpts can be found in the description of
a copy formerly in the Loseley MSS, A.J. Kempe, e Loseley Manuscripts and Other
Rare Documents (1836), p. 109–. e 1492 version is Here begynneth certayn statutes
and ordenaunces of warre (London, R. Pynson, 1492?) STC 9332, Soc. of Antiquaries
copy, is also severely mutilated (BL copy is a microlm of this).
128
Norfolk to the Council, 12 June 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 685; Council to Norfolk,
26 June, BL Harl. 6989, f. 123 L&P, XIX, i, 781.
129
2 July 1544, BL Add. MS, 10110, f. 204. L&P, XIX, i, 821.
130
10 Sept. 1544, BL Harl. 444, fo. 206.
131
His heir, More, testied in 1560 that Cawarden had served he King at Boulogne
‘one of his previe Chamber with king Henry the eight and of greate creditt with him,
he served at Bulloigne with a hundred light horse of his owne and le one of his legges
in his service’ (SHC, LM/425/17). Russell to Paget, 22 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 965. A
Commentary on the Services and Charges of William Lord Grey of Wilton, ed. P. de
Malpas Grey Egerton (London: Camden Society, 1847), p. 65.
132
NA SP1/192, fo. 60 (L&P, XIX, ii, 214). Wriothesley to Council with Queen,
1544, St.P., I, ii, no. CCI, conning the levy to London, Kent, Surrey and Middlesex
because of the urgency; L&P, XIX, ii, 452: accounts 300 from Hertfordshire, 600 from
Essex and probably 800 more from Norfolk and Suolk, expenses for transport of
1700 from Ipswich and Harwich. Conduct money for 620 men from Middlesex to
London, Sept. 1544, NA E101/676/23. ough counter-manded, their expenses still
had to be paid. e cost of prest money and return for 1620 men at Tower Wharf
(ordered 25 Sept.) was £956.7.6. (L&P, XX, i, 517.v).
an unequal contest? 235
Armies for the Defence of Boulogne, 1545–1546
Two major military eorts in France were made in the remaining
20 months of conict. During the summer of 1545, though the most
serious English eort was put into the navy and defence of England
itself, a land army which may have been envisaged for as many as
12–15,000 men was planned during July and August to face up to the
serious threat to Boulogne. Relatively little is known about this pro-
jected army as there are no planning documents, though from no
doubt incomplete warrants to pay coat and conduct money there are
records of 6973 infantry plus 2600 Spaniards being transported either
to Dover or to Boulogne (Appendix 6). A substantial proportion of
these were levied from London and records of coat and conduct sur-
vive for 1582. e city of London, like most great cities of the age, had
a military capacity that could be drawn on. In 1544, it was assessed as
having 2000 able men, 1000 of them archers.
133
In the three corps of
the armies in that year, there were bands of 200–300 foot soldiers from
London. e crisis of 1545 saw a larger eort. On 24 July, the City sent
1,500 men to Portsmouth because of the French invasion threat, mus-
tered in St George’s eld. Having reached Farnham, though, they were
turned back because the danger to the Isle of Wight had receded. In
early August 1545, Charles Wriothesley recorded that:
e citie of London sent a 1,000 souldiers, of gonners, bowemen, morris
pykes, and billes, which mustered in Finsbury feild, and there had every
man a newe white coate, and so went from thense to Tower wharfe,
where they toke barges to Gravesends, and to goe from thence to Dover.
ey were led by the city Sword-bearer and conduct money to Dover
was 2/6d, when they would enter into the King’s wages.
134
For the rest,
companies of 100 or 200 were being sent from the southern and south-
eastern shires, a rather more restricted area of recruitment than in
1544. In the event, only 5000 troops crossed for service with Surrey
aer the death of the Duke of Suolk.
When Hertford was placed in charge of the army to stabilise
Boulogne and oversee the fortication of Ambleteuse in January–
March 1546, he was equipped with a force of just over 11,000 drawn
from the full range of southern counties (Appendix 7). Sir John Harrington,
133
NA SP1/184, fo. 214 (L&P, XIX, i, 273.1).
134
Wriothesley, Chronicle, pp. 158, 159–160.
236 chapter five
who had been Treasurer of the Vanguard in 1544, was appointed
Treasurer for this army.
135
Here the stages of planning are much
clearer, with a preliminary survey of available troops, lists of retinues
by shire of those actually sent and a substantial range of coat and con-
duct payments. e counties which contributed most troops were
those which had sent similar companies in 1544: Devon, Somerset,
Essex, Gloucester, Warwickshire, Leicester and Norfolk. On this occa-
sion, Hereford also sent 500 men, commanded by Cornewall again
among others.
Supply, Provisioning and Transport
e supplying of an army in the eld was a severe test for any early
modern state. Aer all, the army of invasion for France in 1544 was
the size of a major city in England. Soldiers were expected to pay for
their daily ration of 1–1.5 lb of biscuit, 1–1.5 gallons of beer and a
pound of beef out of their daily pay, but getting such quantities to the
right place in sucient quantity was always a problem. Of necessity,
there could be no permanent military commissariat because campaigns
were so sporadic and there was no standing army. When wars were
waged, either merchants were encouraged to provide supplies at a
market for the soldiers or the government could arrange for the sup-
plies through its own commissioners. In an emergency, signet letters
went out to South East shires to raise the necessary supplies.
136
In 1544,
the Netherlands government was also under obligation to provide sup-
plies at market rates. Purveyance was widely used and, though unpop-
ular, not out of line with market prices.
137
Organising supplies for armies on the northern border had its own
problems, caused by the severe lack of local resources and the distance
from London by sea. In 1542, Norfolk found that the price of wheat
and barley in East Anglia was being driven up from 8s the quarter to
135
L&P, XXI, i, 643.v.
136
e commissioners for Surrey were required to assemble 150 oxen with yokes
and carts without damaging tillage and then countermanded (signet letters to
C. Moore and J. Skinner, 16 Sept., 23 Sept. 1545 (SHC, LM 6729/13/4, ibid., 6729/4/2.).
137
C.S.L. Davies, ‘Supply services of English Armed Forces, 1509–1550 (D.Phil.,
Oxford, 1963) and conveniently summarised in his ‘Provisions for Armies, 1509–1550;
a study in the Eectiveness of early Tudor Government,’ Economic History Review, 17,
ii (1964), 234–248.
an unequal contest? 237
11s largely as a result of the prices oered by merchants from the
North.
138
e Duke promised to have as much biscuit made as possible
for shipping to Newcastle but one of the main problems with the army
in the North (partly stemming from general poor harvests) remained
lack of supply. East Anglian merchants had shipped to Alnwick and
Berwick by 8 August substantial quantities: 3500 qu. of malt, 732 of
wheat, 806 of barley, 200 of rye and 400 of peas and beans. More was
about to be sent early in September (1500 qu. of malt for instance) but
shortages still prevailed.
139
Such quantities would only serve for a rst
provisioning. In a series of very gloomy reports, Southampton reported
that the supply situation remained dire: ‘the contrea is not able to
minister grayne to serve for bred and drinke’; he was ill at the thought
that ‘so grete a nombre of men shuld be called to gether and no maner
of victailles in a redynes to furnish them’; ‘how bare the contrea is as
well of grayne as all things ells, saving she.’
140
On Fitzwilliams’ death,
the experienced courtier Sir John Gage, controller of the household,
was sent to the north to sort out supply shortages. From Berwick
he reported:
I fynde scheche scasete of bredde herre, as I amme sorey in my hartte to
se the pepeylle in scheche a lake, and as I parseve the scassety comeytt
for lakke of gryndeynge, the veche canne notte be holppeyne, the sende
to awlle the myllers in the contery, to swmme xvj mylleys of, verre by
the contery ys sorre dysapeowntheydde and the nessesyte herre notte
releveydde.
141
When an army had been projected in December 1543 against the
Scots, Suolk called for Gage’s assistance, and did so again in February
1544.
142
e supply of the army for the invasion of Scotland in 1544
was much more eective than that of 1542.
143
By 1544, it was normal for a committee to handle the provisioning
of each army, with Gardiner guring on most such bodies. In 1544, a
138
Norfolk to Henry VIII, 2 Sept. 1542, Hamilton Papers, I, p. 172. Account of Sir
John Harrington, Treasurer of Norfolk’s army, NA E315/212.
139
Ibid., pp. 173–174.
140
Southampton, 19, 21, 23 September 1542, Hamilton Papers, I, nos. 166, 173, 177.
141
Gage to Wriothesley, Berwick, 22 Oct. 1541, BL Add. 32648 fo. 84, Hamilton
Papers, I, no. 222, p. 281 (L&P, XVII, 976).
142
Suolk to Henry VIII, 3 Feb. 1544, Hamilton Papers, II, no. 161 (L&P, XIX, i,
86), Gage was to join Lisle and Hertford for this Scottish campaign. It seems unlikely
that Gage actually went north on this occasion.
143
Davies, ‘Provisions for armies,’ p. 245.
238 chapter five
group of councillors, Gardiner, Lord Saint John (Great Master of the
Household), with Peckham and John Rither (of the royal household)
were empowered to present bills for provisioning to the Treasurer of
the Wars.
144
Sir John Gage, who accompanied Suolk’s army, played a
pivotal role in the organisation of transport and supplies for the army
for the invasion of France, for which he contributed 21 horse and
300 foot. His second son James, a master of the Household, was Master
Victualler of the Middle Ward of the Army.
145
e use of sta, espe-
cially the clerks, of the royal household in military supply was long
established
146
and, though the reforms of 1526 and 1539 had sought to
avoid the diversion of household men from their duties, their skill as
administrators was too great to ignore. Otwell Johnson was alerted to
the likelihood of going over with his master, Gage, in March but seems
to have stayed in London when Gage le for Dover at the end of June.
John Johnson was supposed to meet him either there or at Calais.
147
Otwell joined his master for the campaign and reported on the sieges
of Boulogne and Montreuil to his brother in London.
148
In July Suolk
praised the diligence of Gage and his colleague St. John in getting the
army over to France.
149
Gage, then, was one of the key administrative
experts for the campaign. He stayed on with Norfolk and Suolk at
Calais until late October receiving with them the stinging rebuke by
which Henry VIII chastised his councillors for seeming to abandon
Boulogne.
150
e Boulogne campaign is notable for the elaborate char-
acter of its supply train, some 2,100 men, though the army under
Norfolk at Montreuil fared less well, partly as a result of its supply
from the Netherlands.
151
144
L&P, XIX, i, 610.1.
145
L&P, XIX, i, 273, Muster-book of the Army against France. Gage was to be
accompanied by his son-in-law Baynham but this was deleted. James Gage: NA,
E351/573. See D. Potter, ‘Sir John Gage, Tudor Courtier and Soldier (1479–1556)’
English Historical Review, 117 (2002), 1111–1146.
146
R.C. Braddock, ‘e Royal Household, 1540–1560’ (Northwestern University,
Illinois, Ph.D. thesis, 1971), p. 31.
147
Otwell to John Johnson, 2 March, 29 June 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 149, 801.
148
Otwell to John Johnson, 28 July, 19, 26 Aug. 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 998, ii, 111, 140.
149
Suolk and Browne to Council, 2 July 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 819.
150
e letters signed by Gage and other commissioners with Norfolk at Calais are
printed in G.F. Nott, e Works of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey and of Sir omas
Wyatt the Elder, 2 vols. (reprint, New York, 1965) I, appendix, pp. xlvi–lvii.
151
Davies, ‘Provisions for armies,’ pp. 243–244.
an unequal contest? 239
What were the main problems in provisioning and transporting
the armies in 1544? e usual method of commissioning purveyors
or individual merchants to nd and transport supplies was employed.
Henry Leigh was commissioned to have custody of part of the supplies
brought in by various merchants and purveyors from England from
July to October 1544 and disburse those supplies to ocers such as the
yeoman and captain of the bakehouse, Richard Warde, victualler of
the Rearguard, George Stonehouse, with the same charge for the
Vanguard (both members of the royal household) and Sir Anthony
Rowse, surveyor of victuals in the Boulogne camp. To take one exam-
ple, Leigh received 10,086 dozen loaves (‘lobreads’), mostly delivered
to the victuallers of the three wards, though 323 dozen went mouldy
in ships at Calais and 575 dozen were lost in what Leigh called the
‘great skyrmishe’ (i.e. the Camisado) in October 1544.
152
Leigh drew
the bulk of his supplies from Anthony Birkes, victualler of Calais and
Clerk of the Comptroller of the Household, Gage. Birkes in turn drew
his supplies from a range of merchants and purveyors in England (for
grain most notably omas Woodehouse of Norfolk) and went on to
be victualler for the garrison of Boulogne in 1545. He thus accounted
for 5370 quarters of wheat, partly le over from the siege and partly
le by the French garrison. Unfortunately for him, Birkes was cap-
tured by the French during the ghting on 27 August 1545 and may
have died in captivity.
153
Wood was supplied from Appledore and
Tenderden in Kent by Robert Hammond in the form of 809,000 billets
at a cost of £807.
154
Supplies, especially for Norfolk’s army, were chronically slow to be
transported from the Netherlands, prices in the camp driven up by
shortages. Suolk had apparently joked that one or two of the bureau-
crats in the Council (Wriothesley?) should join the campaign so that
‘by your wisdoms your rates might have been followed’ but the prob-
lem remained chronic at Montreuil.
155
e most serious problem was
that a large proportion of supplies (certainly for the army before
152
Account of Henry Leigh, NA, E351/573. is account in part was drawn up to
justify the losses of supplies in the lower town during the Camisade. See Leigh and
Birkes to Council, 27 Oct. 1544, L&P, XIX, ii, 491.
153
NA, E351/180, account of his widow Katheryn Birke. e spelling is variously
Berkes, Brickes and Birkes. Birkes in royal household, L&P, XVIII, ii, 530. In 1544
formally a member of the royal household in the Battle (L&P, XIX, i, 275).
154
NA, E351/177.
155
Norfolk to Council, 13 June 1544, L&P, XIX, i, 694.