Potter David. Henry VIII and Francis I
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
340 chapter seven
triumph to have got them there. ey were destined to bulk out and give
some attack to the new army being prepared at Calais under the com-
mand of Hertford. In February, Paget wrote that this would be ready
around 20 March and would consist of 16,000 English, 2,000 Italians,
2,000 Spaniards, and 6,000 Germans being levied by Pennynck, ‘who
is already aboutes it’ and would arrive ten days aer, as well as 4,000
horse, part German, part Italian. By June 1546, Hertford’s forces at
Boulogne included a substantial contingent of north German, Clevois
and Albanian cavalry who had served before and would do so again.
134
Mesnage’s informants had proved remarkably accurate in their
reports of all this. Mesnage himself made eorts to persuade Josse, the
Emperor’s secretary, to order a stop to Pennynck’s passage through
the Emperor’s patrimonial lands.
135
Mesnage seems in these months
to have had a general brief to watch English activities, not only in
Germany but also in the Netherlands, Italy and Scandinavia. Most of his
information, though, came from sources in Germany, especially aer
he had reported the acute danger that the Germans would soon reach
Boulogne to join with the English in pillaging French territory.
136
One of
Mesnage’s agents in north Germany, wrote to him from Hamburg that
‘you and M. de L’Aubespine have brought me good luck since I have
obtained here what the King demanded.’
137
is was almost certainly a
134
Paget to Mont, 25 Feb. 1546, St.P., XI. 60: Paget’s clear doubling of Penninck’s
numbers is an indication of how even an English envoy could be deceived by hs own
government. In another note to Petre he is clear that Pennynck had 3000 men, with
each band armed with 150–200 arquebusiers (L&P, XXI, i, 614, ii) Chaloner’s account
for the payment of foreign troops, NA, E 351/43, indicates, for cavalry, that Leucht-
macher (148, incl. 18 from Pomerania), Hoen (37) and Vanderlugh (53) were paid for
eight months, 8 Apr. 1545–1547 Feb. 1546, 250 horse. BL, Add. MS 5753, fos. 188–
197, receipts, Apr.–July 1546, of Leuchtmacher (80 horse), Vollard Vanderlugh (250),
Peter Hoen (250 Dutch horse), Christo von Vrsberch (?Prysborch) (415 horse), Otto
Count of Rytberg, Capt. Salablanca (66 arquebusiers), Hans van Winsigenrot; many of
these were also stationed at Boulogne in October 1544. In 1549, Dymoke recalled that
Rytberg ‘I do knowe well for to be a greatte muttyner, for he dyd serve before Bullen
with Edel Vol and what ado he made ther ys no unknowe to some of my lordes of
the councell:’ to Somerset, 11 May 1549, SP68/3, p. 696.
135
Mesnage to Bassefontaine, 28 Apr. [1546], BnF, fr. 17890, fos. 2–3.
136
Mesnage to Francis I, 30 Mar. 1546, ibid., fo. 106: ‘Sire, les advertissements ne
contiennent que pour certain le Roy d’Angleterre faict faire toute diligence possible
d’assembler bas Allemans pour les rendre dedans ung moys prestz d’entrer dedans
voz pays, esperant que par telle diligence il vous previendra que voz forces ne seront
encores assemblées pour les pouvoir empescher de se joindre à Callaix et Bollongne
avec quelque nombre d’Angloys qu’il y veult faire descendre . . . ’ On Mesnage in this
period, see D. Potter, ‘Foreign Policy in the Age of the Reformation,’ 538–539.
137
Roland Guyneau to Mesnage, Hamburg, 20 Apr. [1546], BnF, fr. 17890, fo. 15r–v:
france and england compete for troops 341
promise from the Hanseatic towns not to supply ships to the English.
Claude de L’Aubespine, royal secretary, attended the Diet of Princes
at Frankfurt in January–February 1546 with his brother Bassefontaine.
e latter was observed by Mont with Reckerodt in conclave with the
Landgrave.
138
ough his main task was to direct negotiations with the
Protestants, with a view to spurring them on to war with the Emperor,
he seems to have taken considerable interest in the English levies. On
23 April 1546, he outlined his plans:
As for me, I shall leave by tomorrow to go to Heidelberg on business and
from there straight to Frankfurt to discover some English plot, for I begin
to get wind that he wants to make a levy of some High Germans. For a
day or two there have been two of his war commissioners at Frankfurt
to exchange money and to recruit lansquenets. Conrad Phenin, colonel
of the English levies, the one who sent levies from Lower Germany, has
already sent 3000 men.
Bassefontaine was pleased to report that Mont had tried to take up
the men around Worms, but without success.
139
He was also in con-
tact with the Protestants through the diplomat Ulrich Geiger (alias
Chelius) and it was Chelius who seems to have been informing him
of the movements of Mason and Mont and of the whereabouts of the
now anti-French colonel, Count Wilhelm von Fürstenberg.
140
Francis
I was kept informed of everything. Acknowledging Bassefontaine’s
report on ‘what the English King does through duke Philip’ [i.e. the
Palsgrave] by various promises, the King’s opinion was acid:
‘vous et Monsieur de L’Aubespine m’avez apporté bonne fortune car j’ay obtenu par
deçà ce que le Roy demandoit.’
138
e Hessian ambassadors Walter, Günterode and Aitinger to the Landgrave,
27 Jan. 1546, SAM, Pol. Arch., 842, fos. 475–476, quoted in Pol. Corr, IV, 32, n. 14.
Bassefontaine was oering French subsidies to the princes at Frankfurt. Johann Sturm
to [Fraisse], 10 Feb. 1546, ibid., no. 25. Mont to Henry VIII, 10 Feb. 1546, L&P, XXI,
i, 191.
139
Bassefontaine to Mesnage, dated Good Friday 1546, BnF, fr. 17890, fos. 91–92:
‘De moy, je partiray d’icy demain pour aller à Hedelberg pour quelque aaire et de là
incontinant à Francfort pour descouvrir quelque menée de l’Angloys car je commence
à sentir qu’il veult fayre levée de quelques haultz Allemans: depuys ung jour ou deux
il a eu deux commissaires de ses guerres à Francfort pour fayre quelques eschanges
d’argent et pour aussi fayre descendre quelques lantzquenetz. Conrad Phenin, col-
lonel dud. Angloys, celuy qui passoyt gens ès Basses Allemaignes a faict desia passer
iii mille hommes.’
140
‘Peterman’ (Ulrich Chelius) to ‘Vogelstein’ (Bassefontaine), 27 May 1546, BnF,
fr. 6616, fo. 108. See also Bassefontaine to Hacfort, Regensburg, 24 July [1546], SAM,
Pol.Arch., 1834, fo. 10; ‘Vogelstein’ to Günterode, 24 July, ibid., fo. 11.
342 chapter seven
I think that he [Henry VIII] will keep no promises. ose he approaches
understand very well why he makes such oers. As for me, I consider
them such friends and so clear-sighted that they will be careful not to
go along with him.
141
Mesnage and Bassefontaine worked together closely in monitoring
English manoeuvres.
142
Mesnage’s informants led him to believe that the levies had become
crucial; the King of England would have to make his greatest eorts
that year, since his subjects’ ability to support the war was virtually
exhausted.
143
Hence it was crucial to frustrate this last eort in order
to obtain the best possible terms at the peace which had to come
sooner or later. When Mesnage reported that Fürstenberg, that old
thorn in the French side, was raising troops for England, he asked
Bassefontaine to make representations to the Elector Palatine and
Landgrave ‘so he ceases to serve your enemy.’
144
A little later he again
asked Bassefontaine to approach the Palatine in order to stop his
nephew, the Palsgrave Philip’s, activities on Henry’s behalf.
145
In fact,
though Hans Bruno of Metz made strenuous eorts to recommend
Fürstenberg, who had planned to oer his services to the English King
with a letter from the Emperor, nothing resulted.
146
e assembly
141
Francis I to Bassefontaine, 3 May 1546, AE Acq. Extraord. 11: ‘ce que l’Angloys
faict par le duc Philipes’ ‘Je pense qu’il [Henry VIII] n’en tiendra aucune. Mais ceulx
à qui il s’adresse entendent tresbien à quelle n il faict telles ores, et quant à moy je
les extyme tant mes amys et si cler voyans qu’ilz n’ont garde d’y voulloir entendre.’
142
Francis I to Bassefontaine, 17 May 1546, from Fontainebleau, orig. crs. Bayard,
ibid. For an eighteenth-century copy of this, cf. BnF, fr. 6620, fo. 1.
143
Mesnage to Francis I, 13 Apr. 1546, dra, BNF, fr. 17890, fos. 88–89: ‘le Roy
d’Angleterre est en necessité de faire ses plus grands eors ceste année contre vostre
Magesté pour ce qu’il ne peult plus longuement soustenir la guerre, tant pour la ste-
rilité et charté de vivres qui sont en ses pays que aultres grandes necessitez que souf-
frent ses subjectz.’
144
Ibid. Mesnage to Francis I, 17 Apr. 1546, BnF, fr. 17889, fos. 90–92: ‘an qu’ilz
le facent cesser de servir à vostre ennemy.’
145
Mesnage to Bassefontaine, 6 May 1546, ibid. fos. 210–211. Philip, Duke of
Bavaria, Count Palatine of the Rhine (d. 1548), was receiving a pension of £833 6s.
per half year from Henry VIII: NA, E 351/43. He had oered his services to Henry
in June 1545 and been invited to visit England in March 1546 to show what he
could do: see L&P, XX, i, 885; XXI, i, 137, 297, 469, 550. Fraisse to Francis I, Mar.–
Apr. 1546, in Ribier (ed.), Lettres et mémoires d’estat, I, pp. 603–606: ‘le duc Philippe
est en extreme necessité tellement malade en Angleterre, que l’on n’espere pas qu’il
en revienne jamais.’
146
Mont to Henry VIII, 30 Mar. 1546, St.P., xi, 86–88; Mont to Paget, 30 Mar.
1546, ibid. 88–89. On Bruno, see G. Zeller, Le Réunion de Metz à la France (2 vols.,
Strasbourg/Paris, 1926), pp. 82–83.
france and england compete for troops 343
of soldiers around Frankfurt and Worms in April and May 1546
remained outside English reach, and the English oers to Fürstenberg,
made by Mont when the Count was taking the cure in Württemberg,
came to nothing because of Fürstenberg’s unwillingness to accept the
meagre terms proposed.
147
e English displayed even more anxiety about French manoeuvres
in Germany during the rst half of 1546, than vice versa. Mont reported
Bassefontaine’s arrival at Frankfurt for the Diet, in the company of
Georg von Reckerodt.
148
He was highly suspicious of the Frenchman’s
insinuating himself into the counsels of Hesse and Saxony, and for the
rest of the year Bassefontaine’s activities were observed.
149
ough Mont
felt that the Germans were bound to favour England for confessional
reasons,
150
the obvious successes of French diplomacy in the spring of
1546 led to serious eorts by the English to discredit the French. So
Paget, in a letter to Bruno, characterized Bassefontaine and Reckerodt
as papal spies who saw and knew everything around the Landgrave.
151
In March, Mont taxed the Landgrave with his friendly dealings with a
king so opposed to his faith, and was told, quite fairly, that it would be
foolish for the Germans to alienate the French King before they were
sure of England, whose alliance had so oen been sought and never
obtained.
152
In April, when Mont oered the Landgrave a retainer of
10,000 . if he would retain captains to serve Henry in case of need and
prevent troops going to French service, he described Bassefontaine,
Reckerodt, La Planche and Fraisse as liars who wanted the Germans
to serve the French King as slaves and spill their blood in his cause.
Philip naturally pointed out that to prevent troops going to Henry’s
enemies would be tantamount to an act of war against France. e
latter had helped him in the past and was quite capable of stirring up
147
Mont to Henry VIII, 1 May 1546, NA SP1/217, fos. 160–163 (L&P, XXI, i, 730);
Henry VIII to Palsgrave Philip, Sept. 1546, NA SP1/224, fos. 1–13 (L&P, XXI, ii, 2).
148
On Reckerodt (1500–1559) see a brief note in Pariset, Les relations, p. 37, n. 25.
A servant of Philip of Hesse, he had been a French pensioner since 1540: see CAF,
IV, 174, 11802.
149
Mont to Henry VIII, 7 Jan. 1546, St.P., XI, 1; Mont to Henry VIII, 27 Jan. 1546,
NA SP1/213, fos. 174–175 (L&P, XXI, i, 129).
150
Mont to Henry VIII, 10 Feb. 1546, NA SP1/214, fos. 34–35 (L&P, XXI, i, 191);
Mont to Paget, 10 Feb. 1546, St.P., XI, 40–43.
151
Paget to Bruno, 25 Feb. 1546, ibid. 62–63.
152
Mont to Paget, 27 Mar. 1546, ibid. 83. Bruno had sent to England a copy of
Francis I’s letter to the Protestant states in which he rejected their requests that he
tone down the persecution of heretics, 19 Feb. 1546, NA SP1/214, fo. 114r.
344 chapter seven
his enemies in Germany.
153
Mont’s inability to oer a rm alliance ren-
dered his grandiloquent language useless; it remained the policy of the
Protestant princes to seek rstly an Anglo-French alliance, and then,
aer June 1546, to take advantage of the Anglo-French peace treaty to
obtain aid from both.
Bassefontaine, as we have seen, had intended to go to Heidelberg at
the end of April and French eorts now focused on the Palatinate, the
most reliable French ally in Germany as a result of the Emperor’s aban-
donment in 1545 of the Elector Frederick II’s claim, through his wife,
to the Danish throne.
154
Mont, returning from his visit to Fürstenberg,
found Bassefontaine and Reckerodt hard at work entertaining leading
members of the court and seeking a muster-ground for the soldiers
brought together at Frankfurt.
155
Not surprisingly, John Mason’s mis-
sion, accompanying the Palsgrave Philip back to Germany, was largely
designed to improve Anglo-Palatine relations, damaged by the omis-
sion of English congratulations for Count Frederick’s elevation to the
electoral title; a religious and political league was now proposed. In this,
the interruption of troop supplies to France would play a major role.
156
e situation had gone too far, though, and the Elector’s secretary
had already been sent to France.
157
Mason’s description of his negotia-
tions shows how keenly he was aware of being out-manoeuvred by
Bassefontaine who, though he had le Heidelberg, had accomplished
153
Paget to Mont, 10 Apr. 1546, St.P., xi, 99–101; reply of the Landgrave to Mont,
13 May 1546, NA SP1/218, fos. 137–138 (L&P, XXI, i, 834/ii): ‘si militem a Gallo
averteremus et ad Serenissimum Anglie Regem admitteremus, aperte nos belli socium
contra Gallum constitueremus.’
154
Partly by the treaty of Speyer, May 1544, and in the approach to Christian III of
December 1544: cf. M. Roberts, e Early Vasas (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 146–147.
155
Mont to Henry VIII, 1 May 1546, NA SP1/217, fos. 160–163 (L&P, XXI, i, 730).
156
Mason’s instructions are in St.P., XI, 97–98, n., and NA SP1/216, fos. 178–181
(L&P, XXI, i, 582), dra corrected by Paget ‘. . . being enformed that the French
King our enemye hath dayly conversant with thElectour, Bassefontayn, Rikerode
and Volpesleger, who ar sured to levye daylye men of warre in those partes against
us . . . and doubting not but that esteming moch more the syncerite of our amitye
towardes him then the colorable and pretensed freendshipp of the French men, which
do nothing with dedes but altogether in wordes, he would be glad to gratify us in
this cace . . . ’ Reckerodt le Heidelberg about the middle of May and went on to the
French court via Württemberg: cf. Reckerodt to Bing, 21 May 1546, SAM, Pol.Arch.,
1839, fos. 3–5.
157
For the arrival of Hubertus at the French court, cf. Francis I to Bassefontaine,
3 May 1546, AE, Acq. ex., 11; and for his departure, cf. Francis I to Bassefontaine,
17 May 1546, ibid.
france and england compete for troops 345
his work well. When the Chancellor of the Palatinate tried to minimize
the inuence of the French, Mason claims to have replied:
Is it not knowen. . . . the longe tyme that Bassefowntayn, Rycrode, and
others have haunted here? Howe frendelye they have ben entreteigned?
And what chere and revell they have made here? It is to be thought that
they have doone all this for their owne pleasures; the town being so
unpleasaunt.
Mason was pessimistic about the possibility of using the Elector
Palatine to stop the levies, in view of the French sympathies of his
councillors, and was well aware of the practical problems of prevent-
ing recruitment:
and for the stayng of any men either to be levyed or to be passed for
Fraunce, the Palzgrave as I am enfourmed, can not do that we thinke he
may do [though] he wolde thereunto employe him self. Well he might
mak proclamation no man so hardy to go from his house and then they
that have any thing to lefe wolde tarye. But idle and unmarryed men
which have litle to take to might go owt of his cowntreye as though they
had to do at Argentyn or in the marquisate of Bade or in Swytherlande
and the Palzgrave never the wyser.
158
ough Mason’s mission was largely unsuccessful, and nothing could
be done to stop the French levies, the conclusion of peace saved the
worst consequences. e French eorts in Germany were part of the
precautionary measures devised in case Henry VIII decided to renew
active warfare. In fact, diplomacy and nancial necessity forced an
uneasy compromise in the Anglo-French treaty (7 June). e peace,
therefore, made Bassefontaine’s task of obstructing English moves in
Germany needless, at least for a while, and the King able to suspend
his activities:
Since the negotiations hitherto entered into for the pillage of the money
that the King of England had ordered for the levy of soldiers in Germany
to serve him against me are no longer appropriate at this time, considering
I am in peace and amity with him, you will make known to those who
wanted to be of my service that the enterprise is no longer necessary.
159
158
Mason to Henry VIII, Heidelberg, 11 May 1546, St.P., xi, 158–159; same to
Paget, 11 May 1546, NA SP1/218, fo. 68v (L&P, XXI, i, 797).
159
Francis I to Bassefontaine, 13 July 1546, orig. crs. Bayard, AE Acq. ex. vol. 11: ‘Et
pour autant que les practicques qui avoyent esté par cy devant dressées pour destrous-
ser les deniers que le Roy d’Angleterre avoyt ordonnez pour faire levee de gens de
guerre en Allemaigne an de s’en servir alencontre de moy ne sont plus apropos pour
346 chapter seven
With the peace of June 1546, troop-recruitment in Germany ceased
for a while to involve direct Anglo-French competition. e interests
of the Protestant princes now became concentrated on obtaining from
the newly reconciled monarchs the help of which they were in such
desperate need. Even in February 1547, however, it was reported that
Francis I was assembling his mercenaries in Picardy and had vowed
to recapture Boulogne or die in the attempt. With the death of Henry
VIII and the accession of Henri II in France, Anglo-French relations
rapidly cooled. Hertford, now Duke of Somerset, became increasingly
preoccupied with Scotland, and the French determined to intervene
there. Boulogne, too, remained a major issue of dispute between the
two countries, and the old pattern of competition for recruits began to
appear, with both France and England continuing to draw mercenar-
ies from the Empire.
160
e diplomatic duel with France continued:
the Emperor’s victory at Mühlberg, though it crippled the power of
the Schmalkaldic princes, le room for lesser nobles and diplomats
to conspire to bring France back into German aairs as protector of
German liberties; while the accession of Edward VI gave England a
prominence in the Protestant cause it had not hitherto known.
ceste heure que j’ay paix et amityé avecques luy, vous regarderez de faire entendre à
ceulx qui desyroient estre avouez de moy qu’il n’est plus besoing qu’ilz facent telle
entreprinse . . . ’ is clearly refers to the plan for Reienberg mooted in April.
160
Spy news from France, Feb. 1546/7, BL, Harleian 288, fo. 57. M.L. Bush, e
Government Policy of Protector Somerset (Montreal, 1975), pp. 7–39.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE ADMIRALS’ WAR
e said lord King has levied such a ne and large
navy that its equal has not been seen for a thousand
years.
1
e naval campaign in the Channel during the summer 1545 ttingly
balanced the accidental blowing up of Admiral d’Annebault’s agship,
the Philippe, with the débacle of the Mary Rose. It was also the most
serious cross-Channel conict in the rst half of the sixteenth cen-
tury. A eet of at least 250 ships – the largest assembled by France
in the Channel since the 14th century, some said not for a thousand
years – was joined in Normandy by an army of 25–30,000 men.
2
At
what stage was the decision made in France to transform the war into
a grand naval confrontation? e naval war needs to be understood
in context.
The French War Effort at Sea
It was usually dicult to restrain the enthusiasm of privateers when
war approached. At the start of 1543, it was reported from Normandy
that ‘Frenche shipps preparing to warfare . . . howbeit the same was not
1
Declaration of Marin de Montchenu to the city of Paris on behalf of Francis I, 11
July 1545 (Registres . . . Paris, III, p. 58): ‘Ledict seigneur . . . a levé une si belle et grosse
armée de mer qu’il n’en fut veue une pareille, passé à mil ans.’
2
On the war in the Summer of 1545, from the French point of view: see C. de
La Roncière, Histoire de la marine française, III, pp. 409–431. François Nawrocki,
‘L’amiral Claude d’Annebault (vers 1495–1552): Faveur du roi et gouvernement du
royaume sous les règnes de François Ier et Henri II’ (èse de l’Université de Paris
IV, 2009), I, pp. 370–391 Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron, pp. 501–503. On
the English point of view, see D. Loades, e Tudor Navy: an Administrative and
Political History (Aldershot, 1992); Loades, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland,
1504–1553 (Oxford, 1996). On sources: Du Bellay, Mémoires IV, pp. 283–310; Mon-
luc, Commentaires (ed. P.Courteault, Paris, 1964), pp. 179–190; Spanish Chronicle,
pp. 120–123; E. Gosselin, Documents authentiques et inédits pour servir à l’histoire
de la marine normande et du commerce rouennais pendant les XVI
e
et XVII
e
siècles,
(Rouen, 1876), pp. 44–46.
348 chapter eight
by any commaundment of the Frenche Kynge, but by the fantasye of
the owners and mariners of the shippes for theire owne sake. For of
late before many good and ryche pryses were taken by some of them.’
3
A French eet had been occupied in the North Sea, where Jean de
Clamorgan had been sent with a squadron to Denmark to claim the
aid due to France by the treaty of 1541 (six ships and 1000 troops).
4
Francis was obliged under the treaty of 1541 to contribute 100,000 écus
to Christian III’s expenses but, as he brought no money, the Danish
king was not prepared to move. is made it all the more dicult for
Francis to ask Christian for aid in 1545, when he promised to transfer
funds to Strasbourg should Christian agree to join the sea war. All
Clamorgan achieved was to capture some rich ships from a merchant
eet taking Flemish goods to Spain.
5
e mission of a squadron sent
to Scotland in May–June 1543 was even less happy. ese had set o
from Dieppe, by their own account, to waylay the Flemish Iceland
eet, specically instructed not to attack the English. eir leading
ship the Sacre managed to repel borders from the Minion and the
Primrose o Orfordness in July but of 16 ships, half were lost before
they took refuge in the Firth of Forth.
6
An engagement took place on
22 July 1543 between ships from Bareur and Brittany and an English
squadron attacking Cherbourg. A couple of Breton ships drove them
back to Bareur, where there was an artillery exchange. ere, the
Great Martin of London was sunk and 80 prisoners, including a ‘gros
millourt,’ taken.
7
e squadron prepared to escort the French expedi-
3
Intelligence from Normandy, 12 jan. 1543, NA SP1/175, fos. 33–34 (L&P, XVIII,
i, 40.2). is was encouraged by a French royal ordinance of March 1543 which per-
mitted the seizure of goods on ships of the king’s enemies ‘an que nosdictz subiectz
reprennent leur curage et ayent . . . desir et occasion d’equipper navires en guerre.’
Article xliii added that since ‘aucuns de nosd. alliés et confederez vouldroyent porter
grand faveur à noz ennemys et adversaires que à nous’ the contracts of lading were to
be presented in the Admiralty courts. NA SP1/176, fo. 172 (L&P, XVIII, i, 344).
4
Mémoires du sieur Richer, fo. 2r, 11v.
5
La triomphante victoire faite par les Français sur la mer par Monsieur de Serres
capitaine coronal des trois galeres tant de Honeur que du hable le Roy (Rouen: Jehan
Lhomme, xx jour de juing 1544), BN Res 8, Lb/30, no. 93 (repr. Rouen, 1899, ed. M. De
la Germonière). Gosselin, Documents authentiques pour . . . l’histoire de la marine nor-
mande. Rouen, 1874, p. 25, ‘Chanson faicte sur le triomphe que les Dieppois ont fait
sur la mer.’
6
Sadler to Henry VIII, 22 July 1543, Hamilton Papers, I, p. 586; L&P, XVIII, i, 796,
807, 810, 827, 844, ii, 69, 70, 84, 85. J.D. Tracy, ‘Herring Wars,’ 249–272.
7
Francis I was alert to the threat to Cherbourg and Granville in June (to Matignon,
camp of Maroilles, 23 June 1543, Correspondance de Matignon, no. CXVI); Mémoire
on what is necessary for the defence of Cherbourg 26 July 1543, ibid., pp. 76–77;
the admirals
’
war 349
tion to Scotland in the summer of 1543 was seriously impeded by the
stationing of an English eet in the western route. Henry VIII also
ordered the tting out of a squadron to impede the French herring
sheries in December 1543, though one of the ships, the Sweepstake,
was unable to sail because of plague.
8
In that month, another engage-
ment exploded o Le Havre. e Catherine of Rouen and another
ship gave chase as far as Portland.
9
For most of 1544, French naval
forces remained dispersed in the face of the joint Anglo-Imperial inva-
sion. A French galley squadron was operating o the Maas estuary
but the English lost only one other major vessel in a ght with Dieppe
pirates, though some Flemish ships were taken o Falmouth.
10
Clearly, up to the end of 1544 naval combat between England and
France was characterised by either skirmishing in the Channel or by
transporting forces to Scotland (Scottish privateers were as noisome to
Dutch shing eets as to the English) but there are signs that a broader
strategy was being considered in 1544. An anonymous letter acquired
by the Imperial ambassador, reported a French captain as saying:
e King of France has visited all the ports of Normandy and in all of
them has had prepared and laden all the ships for war; among them is
a carrack of 500 tons. ese ships are being prepared for an invasion of
England. e captain-general is the vicomte of Dieppe. e ships are to
land at a port I understand is called Southampton and from there they
shall go further to a place called Rye
is clearly indicates that as early as May 1544 a scheme of invasion
involving the Great Carrack (the Philippe) was being considered and
that the objectives developed in 1545 were already in mind.
11
A spy
Estouteville to Matignon, 3 Aug. 1543, ibid., p. 77, on the treatment of prisoners;
La prinse et deaicte des Angloys par les Bretons devant la ville de Bareu près La
Hogue au pays de Costentin, duché de Normandie. Nouvellement imprimé à Paris, 1543
(BnF Res NFG-11) reprint in A. De Montaiglion, Recueil es poesies françoises, VIII,
pp. 198–203.
8
Lisle to Paget, 7 Nov. 1543, L&P, XVIII, ii, 348.
9
La Roncière, Histoire de la marine, III, p. 401. e Catherine was equipped at Le
Havre to raid into the Channel from 1543 onwards (AM Le Havre, EE 78).
10
Tracy, ‘Herring Wars,’ p. 261; 23 June 1544 (La triomphante victoire faite par les
Français sur la mer. repr. Rouen, 1899); 7 July CSP Venice, V, no. 312; 1544, L&P, XIX,
i, 345; XIX, ii, 349, 364.
11
‘Lettre d’un inconnu à un Anglois?,’ 22 May 1544, NA PRO31/2/3, fo. 133 (CSP
Spain VII, no. 107): ‘Le roy de France a visité tous les portz de Normandie et comment
que à tous lesd. portz il a fait apprester et areter tous les navires à la guerre; entre lesd.
navires il y a ung carracon qui porte cincq cens tonneaulx, lesquelz navires sont prepareiz
pour descendre au pays d’Angleterre. Et est capitaine general desd. navires le visconte