Potter David. Henry VIII and Francis I
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INTRODUCTION
e last war between Henry VIII and Francis I, which formally began
in July 1543 and ended in June 1546, seems at rst a postscript to the
long series of conicts generated by feudal claims and national rival-
ries in the later middle ages and fuelled by competitive emulation of
Renaissance princes in the sixteenth century. e purpose of this book
is to show that, in fact, it was a far wider and more destructive conict
than it looks at rst sight and had long-term implications. is was the
most serious and destructive war between France and England in the
reigns of Henry VIII and Francis I. In addition, France faced an enor-
mous threat to its security which required a gigantic eort of organi-
zation to resist. For England, the war was pivotal in the redeployment
of the country’s military and political resources. It was the rst war
since the mid-eenth century in which, for a while, England had to
ght alone against France. ere were unfamiliar developments. Irish
kerne were seen parading with bagpipes in Saint James’s park in 1544.
e roofs of monasteries were further stripped of their lead in a vain
attempt to plug the nancial caused by expenditure at levels not seen
since the mid-fourteenth century. e timetable of herring sheries
and of the Icelandic herring eet became matters of crucial concern.
In 1545, the agships of the two kingdoms sank in the greatest naval
oceanic campaign before 1588. German princes were deeply involved
at every stage, while English agents scoured the roads of Germany
desperate to raise mercenary forces. England became drawn into the
confused and exhausting struggles within the Scottish nobility and the
Venetian Republic was drawn into mediation and peace-making. In
every sense this began as and remained a Europe-wide war.
It was also a war fought against a background of Europe-wide
cyclical social and economic crisis. In August 1545, a French galley
was found beached at Etaples with its ghostly crew of slave oarsmen
all dead of the plague. e ship had probably come all the way from
Marseilles to participate in the Anglo-French naval campaign.
1
e
gruesome image evoked unites two major themes: the complexity and
1
Chapuys to Granvelle, Bourbourg, 25 June 1545 and enclosure, L&P, XX, i, 1036
and 1036ii.
2 introduction
scale of the war and also the bleak social and economic background
against which it was fought. All across Western Europe in the middle
years of the 1540s we see evidence for harvest failure, rising prices,
rising taxes and nally, the plague. e deaths at Etaples coincided
with that of Charles duke of Orléans, Francis I’s younger favourite
son who died, probably of plague, on campaign with his father against
the English at the abbey of Forêt Montier south of Montreuil on 9
September.
2
ough plague was cyclical and there is probably no automatic
causal link between famine and plague in this period,
3
there was
clearly a peak in the 1540s and the evidence for the overlap between
dearth and plague across Western Europe is compelling. Peddlers of
astrological predictions in 1544 like the Netherlander Cornelis Scute
safely foretold a ‘great burning and fervent sycknesses, of the which
many people shall dye,’ in the spring, rumours of war to come, hard
weather and ‘many new diseases,’ in the summer, great blood shed-
ding and wars. He owed his translation and publication in England
to his prediction of excellent fortune and triumph for Henry VIII in
this year and of ‘great losse in his dominion’ for Francis I.
4
e grim
story of dearth and death is clear enough from London-based chroni-
clers. e summer of 1542 was exceptionally wet and ooding reduced
the supply of wood the following winter. e spring of 1543 was very
cold and then cattle disease broke out, causing a huge rise in the price
of meat.
5
is misery is conrmed by reports from Newcastle and
Northumberland in September 1542, where ‘the extreme wether and
rayne that hath fallen’ seriously undermined the supply arrangements
for the campaign that had been planned against Scotland.
6
Predictably,
2
Martin and Guillaume du Bellay, Mémoires, ed. V.-L. Bourrilly and F. Vindry, 4
vols. (Paris, 1988–1919), IV, p. 210 casts doubt on the diagnosis of plague but suggests
that the whole country had been infected by bad air ‘pour la necessité que la guerre
et le feu y avoient apporté.’
3
J.-N. Biraben, Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1975), I, tables p, 119, 125; pp. 130–154; list of outbreaks, p. 383.
4
Cornelys Scute, A prognostication for the yere of our Lord MCCCCCXLiiii
(London: R. Graon, 1544) STC 508.5, sig.Cjv-Cij, Ejv r-v, Fj.
5
C. Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors ed. W.D.
Hamilton, 2 vols. II (London: Camden Society, 1875–1878), I, p. 141 [hereaer Wrio-
thesley’s Chronicle].
6
Norfolk and others to Henry VIII, 27 Sept. 1542, J. Bain (ed., Letters and Papers
Illustrating the Political relations of England and Scotland in the XVIth Century, for-
merly in the Possession of the Dukes of Hamilton now in the British Museum [hereaer
Hamilton Papers], 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1890–1892), I, p. 231: ‘e wether hath ben
introduction 3
some form of plague broke out in the summer of 1543, driving
Henry VIII from the vicinity of London and prohibiting any Londoner
from coming within 7 miles of the court. at October, the Michaelmas
Law Term in London was postponed because of it and by December it
had broken out at Berwick.
7
e winter of 1543–1544 was particularly
hard and the controls on the quality of fuel in London were relaxed by
proclamation. Meanwhile in Flanders, Henry VIII’s agent, Dr. Layton,
bemoaned the freeze-up, followed by a thaw that rendered the ‘dirty
and devilish’ country abominable and le him groaning under eects
of a severe chill that was to prove mortal.
8
By 1545, plague was severe throughout the northern border regions
from Newcastle to Berwick, where it was claimed that most towns-
men were dead or infected. Constant military activity since 1541 and
the stationing of native and foreign troops had damaged food sup-
plies. Plague was already rife in Scotland, noted to be ‘wonder greit’
in Edinburgh and elsewhere.
9
At a time when the calling of Parliament
was being considered at the start of 1545, William Paget noted ‘e
Derth of all ings, which will appere the rather here, uppon such a
greate Assemblee as shall be at the Parliament.’
10
is dearth of grain
and food supplies in London in 1544 and 1545 prompted the import
of supplies from northern Germany and the Baltic, which had to be
paid for by special levies on the livery companies. Continuation of
the plague in London prompted a new proclamation by the Queen
in September 1544 prohibiting anyone from infected parts of the city
suche in this parties with excessive rayne, that much of the corne standethe yet in the
grownde.’ See also Henry VIII to same, 29 Sept., ibid., pp. 238–239.
7
J. Stowe, e Annales of England (London, 1592), p. 987; Wriothesley’s Chronicle,
p. 145; Edward Hall, Chronicle, ed. C. Whibley, e Triumphant Reigne of Kyng Henry
the VIII, 2 vols. (London, 1904), [heraer, Hall, ed. Whibley] II, p. 345; L&P, XVIII,
ii, 316; L&P, XVIII, ii, 475.
8
11 Feb. 1544, P.L. Hughes and J.F. Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols.
(New Haven/ London, 1964–1969), I, no. 226, pp. 325–326; Layton to Paget, Ghent,
12 Feb. 1544 (L&P, XIX, i, 101, 105).
9
Hertford to Paget, 5 Oct. 1545, St.P., V, p. 539 (L&P, XX, ii, 524); A Diurnal of
Remarkable Occurents that have passed within the country of Scotland since the death
of King James the fourth, till the year 1575 [Diurnal of Occurents] (Bannatyne and Mai-
tland Clubs, 1833), p. 39; Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1545–1625, [RPCS]
ed. J. Hill and D. Masson, 14 vols. (Edinburgh, 1877–1898), I, p. 5.
10
Hateld, Cecil MSS, 36, fos. 21–23; S. Haynes and W. Murdin, A Collection of
State Papers, relating to Aairs in the Reigns of King Henry VIII 2 vols. (London,
1740–59) I, pp. 55–56.
4 introduction
from approaching the court.
11
e correspondence of the Johnson
family regularly records the deaths from plague in London in 1545.
12
Unusual weather added to this melancholy litany of woe. In December
1543 and the summer of 1545, violent storms swept across England
and France, duly observed by the chroniclers as portents of evils to
come.
13
At Bristol, the civic annals recorded that a great plague was
endured for a year in 1544–1545, conrmed by registers which show
mortality ratios of 7.7 and 5.9 in two parishes.
14
e evidence of parish
registers, although sparse for the period, is conclusive enough. In Essex,
plague spread out from London and prevailed during 1543–1546. In
Devon, where, aer a catastrophic harvest in 1545, food prices were
unprecedentedly high, the city of Exeter experienced a plague which
rapidly spread through the county in 1546–1547 and has been judged
the worst of all outbreaks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
15
e parish registers at Norwich make it clear that this city of 12,000
people (one of the largest outside London), which was experiencing
a decline of its Low Countries oriented cloth industry, experienced a
severe plague in 1544–1545.
16
e crisis was Europe-wide and aected France and the Low
Countries just as much as England. Fear of plague was present in
the Low Countries by May 1543 and had broken out at Mechelen
by August.
17
Gravelines was infected by July 1545 and the whole of
Normandy and Picardy by August 1545.
18
Nantes experienced plague
and mortality in 1544–1546. At Senlis, where landsknechts had been
garrisoned in 1545, plague began again in May 1546, accompanied by
two months of famine, when the poor scoured the forest for wood to
make toys to sell for bread. e plague was rst reported at Amiens
11
Wriothesley’s Chronicle, pp. 147, 156; Procl. 18 Sept. 1544, Hughes and Larkin,
I, no. 237 (L&P, XIX, ii, 246).
12
Sabine, 20 May, L&P, XX, i, 778; Ottwell, 18 Nov. 1545, Saunders, L&P, XX, ii,
869.
13
J.G. Nichols (ed.), Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, (London, Camden Soc.,
1852), [hereaer Grey Friars Chronicle] p. 45; Wriothesley’s Chronicle, pp. 156–157;
Stowe, Annales, p. 994.
14
‘Civic annals of Bristol,’ qu. By P. Slack, e Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart
England, (London, 1985), pp. 111, 119.
15
Slack, Impact of Plague, pp. 84, 99.
16
Ibid., p. 126.
17
L&P, XVIII, i, 588; St.P., V, no. DCCCCII.
18
irlby and Petre to Paget, 6 July 1545, L&P, XX, i, 1124; Guidiccione to Farnese,
31 Aug. 1545, Acta Nuntiaturae Gallicae, correspondance des nonces en France, 16 vols.
(Rome/Paris, 1961–1984) ANG, III, p. 306.
introduction 5
in November 1544. A steady stream of cases led to the promulgation
of the city’s plague ordinances in March 1545, with action taken at
the same time against heretics and prostitutes. e epidemic was also
present at Abbeville.
19
Amiens played host to foreign soldiers brought
in by the king ‘comporting themselves strangely, committing various
huge blasphemies, acts of force and violence’ and also had to support
6000 landsknechts in the King’s service.
20
is compounded economic
problems caused by war. At Amiens, the cloth industry of saieterie
went into recession with the Imperial war of 1542, which interrupted
trade with the Low Countries. e poorer workers were thrown out of
work, some involved in disorder others attempting to move to Rouen.
Emergency work was provided on the city’s ramparts.
21
Unsurprisingly,
by late 1545, famine, war and plague had brought the poor relief fund
into decit.
22
If the evidence for dearth and mortality seems impressionistic, it is
conrmed by many of the price indices that we have for the period.
Le Roy Ladurie argued that the long decline of living standards among
the Languedoc peasantry began in the 1540s but the causes in that
decade were more specic and relate to price rises that are almost
certainly symptomatic of crises of production. e price of top-class
wheat at Paris measured in nominal and real terms shot up to new
highs in the middle of the 1540s, a pattern reected also at Douai in
the Low Countries and to a lesser extent at Toulouse in Languedoc
and Strasbourg in Alsace.
23
e cause of this widespread price spike,
situated aer all in a long period of steadily rising prices, is almost
certainly harvest failure. is is attested statistically at Paris and
19
Chronicle of Jean Mallet, in A. Bernier (ed.), Monuments inédits de l’histoire de
France, 1400–1600 (Paris/ Senlis, 1835), p. 48. AMA BB 24, fos. 89–90 (5 Nov. 1544);
BB 24, fos. 125–130 (19 March 1545): ‘l’inconvenient de la peste, qui commence à
regner en ceste ville.’ Abbeville: archives for the period now lost but mentioned in
AMA BB 24, 9 Dec. 1546.
20
AMA BB 24, fos. 147–148 (18 June 1545): ‘vivans estrangement, faisant plusieurs
enormes blasphemes, forces et violences’.
21
AMA, BB 24, fos. 219–220 (23 Nov. 1542).
22
AMA BB 24, fos. 166–167 (22 Oct. 1545).
23
J. Meuvret and M. Baulant, Prix des céréales extraits de la mercuriale de Paris,
2 vols. (Paris, 1962), I, pp. 41–42, 243–244, planche III; M. Mestayer, ‘Les prix du blé
et de l’avoine à Douai de 1329 à 1793,’ Revue du Nord, 1963, pp. 137–174; E. Le Roy
Ladurie and M. Morineau, Histoire économique et sociale de la France vol.I, ii (Paris,
1977), p. 936. For a general overview, J. Delumeau and Y. Lequin, Les Malheurs des
temps: histoire des éaux et des calamités en France (Paris, 1987), pp. 253–272.
6 introduction
Strasbourg, where the harvests were very poor.
24
In England, it is clear
that the years 1544–1546 saw a sharp increase in average market pric-
es.
25
In the Netherlands, the cloth industry was severely damaged by
the war of 1542–1544 and widespread poverty recorded at Ypres in
1545.
26
Jeremy Goring pointed out that the combined eects of plague and
the sweating sickness may have carried o a third of the population
of England in the mid-Tudor period, the latter probably aecting men
in their thirties disproportionately. Its consequences for military man-
power are important, though not straightforward.
27
Plague certainly
aected war eorts at specic points, as it had in the French campaign
of 1523.
28
We know (see chapter 8) that it played a part in limiting the
naval operations of 1545 but as early as 1543, epidemic had spread to
the eet when the Sweepstake had to be withdrawn from operations
against the French because of plague.
29
During Henry VIII’s campaign
in 1544, weather conditions were unseasonably wet and the ground
around Calais sodden.
30
Plague had broken out at Dover and the
King’s advisers had to hasten the shipment of men to Calais ‘suche
that thinfecting of any of them might be daungerous to the army here.’
Unsurprisingly, soldiers of the Calais garrison were dying of plague in
October and it did not die out there until the following May and at
Boulogne until the following August.
31
Plague was described by Lord
Admiral Lisle in September 1545 as ‘universal’ in the English navy.
32
e French navy also had to withdraw from campaign because of the
24
M. Morineau, ‘D’Amsterdam à Seville’ Annales E. S. C., 1968; Histoire économique,
I, ii, pp. 951–952.
25
Y.S. Brenner, ‘Prices and Wages in England, 1450–1450’ (M.A. thesis, London,
1960), qu. in C.S.L. Davies, ‘Provisions for Armies, 1509–1550: a Study in the Eec-
tiveness of Early Tudor Government,’ Economic History Review, 17,ii (1964), 248.
26
I. Diegerick, Inventaire analytique et chronologique des archives de la ville d’Ypres,
7 vols. (Bruges, 1853–1868), V, pp. 303–312.
27
J. Goring, ‘Social change and military decline in mid-Tudor England,’ History,
60 (1975), 185–186.
28
L&P, III, ii, 3302, 3363.
29
Lisle to Paget, 7 Nov. 1543, SP1/182, fo. 73 (L&P, XVIII, ii, 348): ‘sore infectyd
with the plage.’
30
L&P, XIX, i, 835.
31
Ottwell Johnson to John Johnson, 26 Aug. 1544, SP1/191, fo. 175 (L&P, XIX,
ii, 140); Council with the King to Council with Queen, 8 Sept. 1544, SP1/192, fo. 45
(L&P, XIX, ii, 202); Sabine Johnson to John, 20 May 1545, L&P, XX, i, 778; Council
at Boulogne to Council, 20 Aug. 1545, L&P, XX, ii, 226.
32
L&P, XX, ii, 346.
introduction 7
eects of plague. In November 1545, it was observed that, because of
the plague, there were no more than 50 men le at the French fort of
Outreau opposite Boulogne.
33
e Regent of the Low Countries was
anxious avoid the passage of German mercenaries to England in 1545
because of the spread of disease.
Internal upheavals aicted both countries. e politico-religious
upheavals of 1536 had then weakened Henry VIII’s capacity to make
war. e Tudor regime had barely surmounted the northern rebellion
of 1536 and was faced again in 1541 with discontent and conspiracy
in Lincolnshire that led to many executions. Francis I had commanded
his wars against a background of social crisis before, most notably
from 1521 and from 1527.
34
French society had shown a degree of
dynamism in the late 15th and early 16th centuries but was now begin-
ning to enter a period of recurring crises.
35
e previous one was the
grande disette of the late 1520s, which was followed by a renewal of
plague in 1530–1531 and social rebellion, notably at Lyon in 1529. e
troubles of the mid 1540s, though, were if anything greater and to a
degree exacerbated by war. When Francis, faced by new war expen-
diture in 1541–1542, extended the inland salt tax regime to the privi-
leged areas of the western coast, he sparked o one of the more serious
open rebellions of his reign at La Rochelle and the islands. Indeed, a
French deserter, L’Artigue, even suggested that the nobility and people
of Brittany ‘were never so desperate or mal content’ while the western
regions subjected to the Gabelle were ‘very discontented’ and thus a
likely area for English military operations.
36
*
33
Council to Surrey, Nov. 1545, L&P, XX, ii, 1715.
34
Jean de Bourdigné, Hystoire aggregative des annalles et cronicques d’Anjou ((Paris,
1529), fos. 197r, 200r): weather conditions that destroyed the harvest in 1521 and
1523, accompanied by general disorder. Jean Bouchet, Annales d’Aquitaine (Poitiers:
Marnef, 1557), fos. 206v–207r on disorder, 1523. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, ed.
V.-L. Bourrilly, (Paris, 1910), pp. 82–3. Chronicle evidence is not so plentiful for the
France of the 1540s. Jean Bouchet’s Annales d’Aquitaine says much about war but
little on social conditions.
35
e evidence for growth is available from many sources, including tithes and
land rents (see M. Baulant, ‘Le prix des grains à Paris de 1431 à 1788,’ Annales E.S.C.,
23 (1968), 520–540).
36
BL Add. 28593, fos. 185–188, L’Artigue’s plan, June 1543: ‘ne fust jamais si deses-
peré ne si mal content.’
8 introduction
Against this backdrop of social upheaval, the two ageing warhorses,
Henry VIII and Francis I decided on or were impelled into another
round of conict. Both were well into middle age by contemporary
standards, both perhaps prematurely aged by illness. eir relations
since 1515 had been marked by alternating phases of competition in
war and diplomatic/cultural display. is raises the question of the
attitudes of the two rulers towards each other in the last period of
their reigns. It goes without saying that no documentation penetrates
their minds and, other than for their two meetings many years before,
they only knew of each other by report. Francis I protested in 1544
and again in 1546 that he had never really wavered in his ‘love’ for
Henry, though there is every reason to see this as im-am. Presents
were routinely exchanged. But the information owing into France
in 1540 and 1541 seems to convey the idea that Henry had become
a tyrant (or at least failed to revoke the legislation blamed in France
on Cromwell). e constant fear of arrest by foreign envoys on their
return home, reports of faction struggles continuing between the
former Cromwellians and Cromwell’s enemies who had triumphed
in July 1540, gave the impression of a highly unstable polity (per-
haps magnied by French reactions to Henry’s rejection of Anne of
Cleves – see Chapter 1) and a discontented people. Even the ostensi-
bly friendly Marguerite of Navarre remarked to a Cleves envoy that
Henry ‘is starting to go o his head.’
37
For his part, Henry had for
years received reports that Francis’ throne was tottering (‘he is just
a fool and he is losing his kingdom. All the French people think so’
he had been told in 1522) but sensibly treated this with scepticism.
38
But his sources probably conrmed in his mind the idea that Francis
had been duped by the Emperor and Montmorency. English envoys
did not always nd Francis easy to deal with or to get the measure of.
William Howard, struggling in the snows of the Alps in December
1537, lamented that ‘yowe have sent me to a kyng that ys very strange
to know.’ e French king was seriously ill in 1539 and his health
became a major subject of speculation; attention turned to estimating
37
Marillac to Francis and Montmorency, 18 Jan. 1541, Kaulek, 261–262, (L&P,
XVI, 466, 467); Du Boys to the duke of Cleves, 12 Jan. 1542, G. Bers, Die Allianz
Frankreich-Kleve während des Geldrischen Krieges (Cologne, 1969) p. 183: ‘commence
grever et perdre son entendement.’
38
BL Cotton, Calig. D VI, fo. 353: ‘ce n’est qu’ung fol et qu’il pert son royaume.
Tout le people de France le estime en ceste sorte.’
introduction 9
the qualities of the Dauphin Henri.
39
Both monarchs may have been
gratied at stories of ill health. Henry, aer all, was widely reported
to have put on a great deal of weight in 1539–1540 and his recurrent
ulcer problem was international knowledge. is made him moody and
dangerous and provoked remarks that he had been deceived in hav-
ing been ‘made’ to put Cromwell to death on false charges.
40
Francis
provocatively continued to encourage Henry to root out ‘Lutherans’
(as he said he had done) though both had no qualms in negotiating
closely with Lutheran princes. Some insight into Henry’s attitude may
be conveyed by the existence of a satirical painting, catalogued in the
royal inventory of 1542 and still in the Royal Collection, depicting
Francis, Queen Leonor and a Fool.
41
e picture just sketched out might seem to argue that warfare in
the period had nothing to do with internal stability and productive
resources and was fought out of whim or caprice; this would be far
from the truth. Classic French military memoirists such as du Bellay
and Monluc largely ignored famine, pestilence and taxes in their his-
tories of the wars. But monarchies strove mightily to win the support
of their populations, to swing opinion behind war because, whatever
their political structures, they had to extract revenues and loans.
42
Royal servants such as Richard Morison backed the claims of their
masters to the enthusiastic support of their subjects. In his Exhortation
39
Howard to Cromwell, Briançon, 8 Dec.[1537], Hateld. Cecil MSS, 150, fo. 25.
Wyatt to Henry VIII, 28 Dec. 1539, Muir, p. 110: ‘his master, being sickly, gyven to
ese, and not aparent long ly.’ See R.J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron: e
Reign of Francis I (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 391, 484, 495.
40
Pate’s report of count palatine Philip’s comments, 4 Oct. 1540 (L&P, XVI, 120);
Marillac to Francis and Montmorency, 3 March 1541, Kaulek, 273–5 (L&P, XVI, 589,
590), J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London, 1968), pp. 426–427.
41
Wallop to Henry VIII, 26 Jan. 1541, State papers Published under the Authority of
His Majesty’s Commission. King Henry VIII 11 vols. (London, 1850–1852) [St.P],VIII,
513 (L&P, XVI, 488). On the painting at Hampton Court, see L. Campbell, Renais-
sance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in he 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries (New
Haven, Conn., 1990), pp. 206–207. Catalogued in 1542 as ‘oone table with pictures
of the Frenche Kynge, the Queene his Wye and the Foole standynge behynde him.’
(M.A. Haywood, e 1542 Inventory of Whitehall: the Palace and its Keeper 2 vols.,
London, 2004). More study is needed of this portrait but its link the dual portrait of
Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon (especially in its complete original form owned by
Samual Egerton Brydges of Denton) evident.
42
is is apparent both in S. Gunn, D. Grummitt and H. Cools, War, State and
Society in England and the Netherlands, 1477–1559 (Oxford, 2007) and D. Potter
Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and Society, c. 1480–1560 (Woodbridge,
2008).