Potter David. Henry VIII and Francis I
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
10 introduction
of 1539, written at the height of the invasion scare, Morison argued
that, given the King’s mighty eorts and fatherly care to set a defensive
wall around his realm (in part to defend it against the ‘abhominable
hore’ who ‘these many yeres hath soused al kyngedoms in the dragges
of Idolatry’) running the risk of ‘utter enmitie with all prynces,’ was
it not the evident duty of his subjects to rally to his support in the
event of war? Written with a patriotic passion that looks forward to
Elizabethan rhetoric, this serves to underline the need for Renaissance
monarchs to persuade their subjects to war. Morison’s religious rheto-
ric was matched by omas Becon, who in 1542 declared that the men
of Kent were eager to leave home and hearth to serve the King.
43
e reasons for war are complex and, it will be argued here, not
simply the outcome of royal personality traits and the pursuit of kingly
honour. Luke MacMahon has argued in a vividly written thesis on the
1544 campaign, that the main begetter of the war was Henry himself, a
monarch more than ever in command of the apparatus of power aer
the death of Cromwell, with a powerful sense of honour but also now
grown wily and cautious, yet determined to ‘take a piece of France with
him to the grave.’
44
War with France might well appear the ‘default
position’ of English policy in this period. Jean du Bellay thought in
1528 that ‘it is quite something to go against nature’ in trying to make
the English accept a French alliance.
45
Yet Henry spent much of his
reign in peace with France even though he had plenty of claims to
parts or all of it. Indeed at times in the late 1520s and early 1530s rela-
tions between the two kingdoms were remarkably close.
46
True, Henry
43
Richard Morison, An Exhortation to styrre all Englyshe men to the defence of
theyr countrye (London, 1539); e Early Works of omas Becon, ed. J. Ayre (Parker
Society, 1843), p. 235.
44
L. MacMahon, ‘e English Invasion of France, 1544’ M.A. thesis (Warwick,
1992), pp. 4–7.
45
Du Bellay to Montmorency, 9 Dec. [1528], V.-L. Bourrilly and P. de Vais-
sière, Ambassades en Angleterre de Jean du Bellay: la première ambassade (septem-
bre 1527–fèvrier 1529 correspondance diplomatique (Paris, 1905), p. 482 (L&P, IV, ii,
5016): ‘c’est grant chose que de combattre contre nature.’
46
See the interesting comments by M.J. Rodriguez Salgado, ‘Obeying the Ten
Commandments: the rst war between Charles V and Francis I, 1520–1529’ in
W. Blockmans and N. Mout (eds.), e World of Emperor Charles V (Amsterdam,
2004), pp. 15–67; S. Gunn, ‘e French Wars of Henry VIII,’ in J. Black (ed.),
e Origins of War in Early Modern Europe,(Edinburgh, 1987), pp. 28–51 at p. 38.
G. Richardson, ‘Eternal peace, occasional war: Anglo-French relations under Henry VIII’
in S. Doran and G. Richardson (eds.), Tudor England and its Neighbours (Basingstoke,
2005). Charles Giry-Deloison has also examined the long and almost uninterrupted
introduction 11
claimed formally to be King of France and oen referred to Francis as
‘the French king.’ Henry’s claims were allowed to wake or sleep as cir-
cumstances dictated. Like a litigious landowner, Henry could invoke
them as and when he saw t.
47
Cromwell may have spoken out in 1523
against futile and expensive wars for ‘ungracious dogholes’ in France
and advised concentration on some sort of union with Scotland
48
but
it was the internal and external circumstances of England in the 1530s
that assured there would be no foreign wars.
e temptation to understand conict between renaissance monar-
chies mainly in terms of the personal rivalries of monarchs is tempting
but should be resisted.
49
It is axiomatic that, within such polities, the
king was the ultimate arbiter, especially in matters of peace and war.
is was par excellence a matter of the royal prerogative and there is
good reason to view the formulation of policy as a matter of the King’s
decision, shaped to a greater or lesser extent by the advice of more or
less trusted ministers. Henry VIII professed to be a realist and a mon-
arch who was too wily to be deceived. Henry remarked to the French
ambassador Jean de Dinteville that he knew the old French trick to:
Lead people on when they are preoccupied with other problems without
coming to the point but rather to use deception. But he is proof against
this since he has known the world for too long. He speaks frankly and
wants others to do the same.
peace from 1475 to 1513 in his ‘France and England at Peace, 1475–1513,’ in ‘e Con-
tending Kingdoms.’ France and England 1420–1700, ed. Glenn Richardson (Aldershot,
2008), pp. 43–60 and a later period in ‘’Une alliance contre nature? La paix franco-
anglaise de 1525–1544’ in his François Ier et Henri VIII. Deux princes de la Renaissance
(1515–1547) (Lille, 1995), pp. 53–62.
47
C.S.L. Davies, ‘“Roy de France et Roy d’Angleterre”: the English claims to France,
1453–1558’ in L’Angleterre et les pays bourguignons, Publications du Centre européen
d’études bourguignonnes (XIV
e
–XVI
e
siècles), no. 35 (1995). e King instructed Suf-
folk and Browne in July 1544 to restrict his summons ‘to all those oonly that be
within [Pic]ardy and the countie of Boullen[oys and Guynes]’ (NA SP1/190 fo. 78).
His commanders replied that, as Henry was entitling himself King of France ‘all his
Majestes subiectes of Fraunce showlde be named in the same.’ (ibid, fo. 85) (L&P,
XIX, i, 933, 940).
48
R.B. Merriman, Life and Letters of omas Cromwell, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1902), I,
pp. 34–43.
49
I have already considered these problems in broad terms in D. Potter, ‘Foreign
Policy,’ in D. MacCulloch, e Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Polity (Lon-
don, 1995), pp. 101–134, 267–276. On the complex decision-making process around
the king in this period, see most recently R. Claess and O. Poncet (eds.), La prise de
décision en France (1525–1559) (Paris, 2008), which covers a broad range of decisions
on internal and external policy and the persons who shaped them.
12 introduction
He added that ‘his council in no way governs him, rather he governs
his council; otherwise, the council would be king and not him. He is
happy to receive their advice but he makes the decisions and any King
should act thus.’
50
It is also true that monarchs such as Henry VIII professed to order
their view of the world in terms of their honour.
51
eir advisers under-
stood this and sought to accommodate it. But royal advisers tended,
in their unguarded moments, to be sceptical about their masters’ foi-
bles. Stephen Gardiner, aer all, was told by Francis while on embassy
to France in the 1530s, that he did not understand princes’ honour
(‘I coulde noo skyl of princes honours’).
52
Ministers and diplomats
quite clearly had to take account of the demands of royal honour. Yet
they also understood that there were other matters at stake. Nicholas
Wotton, for one, was clearly sceptical about the value of war. In an
unguarded moment at the start of the 1544 campaign, he remarked to
Paget that the French garrison was leaving Luxemburg ‘leane, weake,
famished and dedde for hunger, even like as I looke that we shall be,
when we come owte of France.’ When he was approached by a French
diplomat, Grignan, at Worms during July 1545, the Frenchmen sug-
gested that, despite their masters’ quarrel they might ‘talke familiarlye
to gyther without oce.’ Wotton replied that:
e Kinges hertes wer in Goddes hand and he turnidde theym as pleased
hym from peace to warre and fro warre to peace. And then I said smylinge
unto hym, when our maisters have contynuidde this warre vij or viij
yeres, they will then peradventure beginne to looke yn theyr purses and
perceiving summe parte of theyr money spente, they will consider that if
they persever yn it, that at lengthe they shall spende a greate deale more
50
Memoir by Jean de Dinteville, Aug. 1533, N. Camusat, Meslanges historiques
(1644), fo. 19v: ‘l’ancienne façon de France . . . mener et entretenir les gens pendant
qu’ils en ont aaire sans venir au point mais de user de dissimulation, qui est chose
par ou on ne le menera pas, car il y a trop long temps qu’il cognoist le monde, et que
luy il parle franc, il veut que l’on luy face de mesme . . . son conseil ne le gouverne
point, et que luy gouverne son conseil, autrement le conseil seroit Roy et non luy. Il
veut bien avoir leurs opinions mais il veut conclure, et qui est Roy doibt ainsi faire.’
51
e clearest expositions of this theme are in G. Richardson, Renaissance Mon-
archy: the Reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I and Charles V (London, 2002) and C. Giry-
Deloison, François 1er et Henri VIII. Deux princes de la Renaissance (1515–1547)
(Lille, 1996).
52
J.A. Muller, e Letters of Stephen Gardiner (Cambridge, 1933), pp. 181–182
(L&P, XX, ii, 774).
introduction 13
and that maye be an occasion to make theym remember that peace is as
protable as warre.
53
Francis I was always conscious of his honour but had a clear enough
understanding of the real bases of power. He had had plenty of time to
observe Henry VIII (as will be seen further below) and it is pertinent
to remind ourselves that early in 1545 he observed that Henry was a
tyrant:
hated by his nobility and his subjects for reasons fairly well known by
everybody. Now he is weak and short of money because of the great
expenses of the last two years, seeing himself invaded in his own lands
by land and sea. It is to be believed that he will be abandoned by his own
subjects as were most of his predecessors.
54
Yet this was the monarch who displayed shock and foreboding at
Henry’s death, just two months before his own.
at the interests of kings were circumscribed by the limits of their
resources was well enough understood. Eustace Chapuys was scepti-
cal in 1536 about whether Henry would ever be prepared to spend
the money to conquer a kingdom that would cost him even more to
hold.
55
In 1559, Nicholas Bacon summed up the odds between France
and England neatly at a time when Henry VIII’s windfall prot from
the dissolution of the monasteries had been squandered:
who is so ignorante, that knowes not that the kingdome and dominions
that be under the governance of the crowne of Fraunce to be foure tymes
as much as the realme of England, and the men in them iiij times as
muche or more, and theirwith that the French [King] hathe and useth as
large an authoritie and commaundmente to levie moneye and treasure
53
Wotton to Paget, 11 June 1544, SP1/188, fo. 100(110) (L&P, XIX, i, 678).
Wotton to Paget, 21 July 1545, SP1/204, fo. 83 (L&P, XX, ii, 1242); this idea of the
heart of the King in the hands of God was a commonplace. In 1536, for instance, Jean
Hannart, Imperial ambassador to France, resigned himself to war, ‘toutevoies Dieu est
ancores puissant pour changer les voulentez des princes.’ (HHSA, Frankreich, Varia
4, fo. 96v).
54
Camusat, Mélanges historiques, Mémoires du sieur Richer, fos. 10v–11r: ‘Hai de
sa noblesse et de ses subjects pour les causes assez cogneus d’un chacun et de pres-
ent foible et espuisé de deniers pour les grandes despences qu’il a soutenues depuis
deux ans en ça, se trouvant envahy dedans ses dicts pays par mer et par terre, il est
à croire qu’il se trouvera comme la plus part de ses predecesseurs delaissé par ses
propres subjects.’
55
Chapuys to Charles V, 22 Sept. 1536, NA PRO 31/18/2, II, fo. 202r–203v (L&P,
xi, 1479, p. 195).
14 introduction
upon his people for the maintenance of his enterprises, as the prince
heere hathe and more.
What was more, the French King’s credit was commensurately greater,
his army and commanders experienced and he had access to German
mercenaries ‘wher we cannot with oute greate daungers doe the like
to defend us.’
56
To the French, the picture looked dierent. Guillaume
Paradin in 1550 wrote of ‘this island (which compared to other lands
is no more than a stful of land)’ but which had inicted untold and
countless aictions on his country.
57
In the mid-Tudor period, the absence of a strong grip on policy-
making allowed a clearer development of common national interest
(aer all a concept hardly unfamiliar in the fourteenth and eenth
centuries).
58
Under Henry VIII, the maintenance of honour was
also innitely exible. e devious and complex negotiations which
brought an end to the war between Francis and the Emperor Charles V
are a good example of this. Nor did his honour as a Christian prince
prevent Francis from exulting in the collaboration between his eet
and that of the Ottoman Sultan in 1543, even if there was also some
embarrassment.
59
e ‘honour of princes’ should always be viewed in
the context of the geopolitical system within which they ruled. e
primary job of a prince was to ensure his own and, by extension, his
subjects’ security. For Henry VIII in 1540, the overriding question
was how to ensure that security, especially in a dangerous interna-
tional context. He had remained neutral in the Franco-Imperial war of
1536–1538 and had, as a result, found himself isolated and threatened
by Charles V and Francis I in 1539. Remaining neutral in the event
56
Speech in the Privy Council, c. 15 December 1559, copy, BL Harl. 253, fos. 83v–
92v, at 87v (summary in CSPF Eliz. II, pp. 197–198). e importance of the French
King’s access to credit was stressed by John Mason, 18 April 1551, see P.F. Tytler,
England in the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary 2 vols. (London, 1839), I, p. 358.
57
Guillaume Paradin, Histoire de Nostre Temps (Paris, 1561), p. 463: ‘cette Isle (qui
au pris & conference des autres n’est que vne poignee de terre).’
58
D. Potter, ‘Mid-Tudor foreign policy and diplomacy, 1547–1563’ in S. Doran and
G. Richardson (eds.), Tudor England and its Neighbours (Basingstoke, 2005), 106–138.
59
G. Poumarède, ‘Justier l’injustiable: l’alliance turque au miroir de la Chré-
tienté (XVI
e
–XVII
e
siècles),’ Revue d’histoire diplomatique 3 (1997), 217–246; E. Gar-
nier, L’Alliance impie (Paris, 2008); C. Isom-Verhaaren, ‘ “Barbarosssa and his army,
who came to succor all of us”: Ottoman and French views of their joint campaign of
1543–1544,’ French Historical Studies, 30 (2007), 395–425. J. Bérenger, ‘La collabora-
tion militaire franco-ottomane à l’époque de la Renaissance,’ Revue international de
l’histoire militaire, 68 (1986), 51–66.
introduction 15
(almost certain in the long run) of a renewed Franco-Imperial war
was not a wise option. Gardiner, troubled by the idea of needing the
promises of other princes, may have stood out for a kind of ‘splen-
did isolation’ by arguing in 1538 that it were better that ‘they shuld
depend of us’ and the King, emperor in his own kingdom, ‘no fur-
ther to care what other men doo.’
60
But another counsellor had argued
that, in the event of a Franco-Imperial war in 1536, Henry must join
with one or the other; if with Francis this would increase his expenses
without any hope of prot and also damage his merchants’ trade in
the Low Countries; if with Charles, Francis’ defeat would render his
debts to Henry less likely to be repaid and his victory would give the
Emperor preponderance in Italy and would make him more powerful
vis-à-vis Henry.
61
Eustace Chapuys reasoned with Gardiner in 1542
that, though Henry was powerful at home and had no need of allies,
‘newtralitie was neyther suer nor proufytable.’
62
Henry, therefore, had
to decide with which of his fellow monarchs to conclude an alliance.
With Francis, he had been on cordial or at least peaceful terms, as his
‘perpetual ally,’ since 1525. True, he had not come to Francis’ aid in
1536 and the pension paid by Francis (in Henry’s eyes a ‘tribute’ in
place of just possession of his lands in France) had ceased to be paid
in 1534. But Henry had then scarcely been in a condition to wage
war against anyone except his own subjects.
63
Eustace Chapuys wryly
remarked in 1535 that there was no lasting regard between the two
kings and that all depended on how they sought to exploit the ups and
downs of their relations vis-à-vis the Emperor.
64
is was a reasonable
view for a Habsburg envoy to take but perhaps understated the regard
between Henry and Francis. e French envoy Dinteville thought that
60
Gardiner to Cromwell, 23 Jan. [1538], Muller, Letters . . . Stephen Gardiner, p. 80.
61
BL, Cotton, Vitellius B XIV, 12 (L&P, X, 1254), this document is highly damaged
but the general meaning clear enough.
62
Gardiner, 17 May 1542, Muller, Letters . . . Gardiner, p. 99.
63
e French ambassador Jean de Dinteveille had observed in 1533 that, in the
event of war, ‘le peuple se eslevera contre les Gouverneurs’ (N. Camusat, Meslanges
historiques, fo. 21v).
64
Chapuys to Hannart, 24 Dec. 1535, HHSA, Frankreich, Varia, 4, fos. 142v–43r,
passage in cipher 138r–v: ‘car comme les ungs et les autres sont soudains en leurs
aaires, si ne peullent exploytter incontinent leur vehemence et ardeur se convertit en
desdain et indignation, mesmement ny ayant comme vous dictes entre eulx grainde
sincere amitié et benivolence et pense chascun d’eulx genner son compagnon, luy
donnant d’entendre le dangier où il est pour la poyssance de Sa Magesté.’
16 introduction
Henry was the best Frenchman in England, surrounded as he was by
counsellors and people who were inclined to favour the Emperor.
65
Henry’s relations with Charles V were bleaker, shaped by the Break
with Rome, the annulment of Catherine of Aragon’s marriage and
a perceptible move towards religious reform. Relations with Charles
were more or less edgy throughout the 1530s. Yet, if Henry were to
re-embark on the turbulent seas of European conict, Charles pro-
vided a more sure alliance in the sense that the house of Habsburg
had inherited the role of the house of Burgundy in English views of
European politics, while the economic links between England and
the Low Countries predisposed English statesmen to view them as a
natural ally. Charles was nevertheless an equivocal gure in England.
omas Wriothesley expressed the view in 1546 that ‘he sometimes
does things of his own head without consulting his friends,’ another
way of saying that the range of Charles’ interests was dicult to cope
with by an ally.
66
For Francis I, the problem of England was much more than an
irritant but still not to be viewed on the same plane as that of the
Emperor Charles V. It was complemented by French relations with
Scotland, long established and useful as a diversion for the English.
Francis had established a certain rapport with Henry in 1520 and 1532
but this concealed underlying problems. Francis needed the neutrality
or alliance of Henry and from 1514 to 1521 and then from 1525 to
1534 had spent substantial sums in the form of the French pension to
assure this. Yet this was vexatious and there were always other calls on
French cash which might divert the payments to England, as in 1534.
In January-March 1532, the French crown had paid out 1,234,735 lt. in
pensions, of which 513,594 went to foreign princes (English, German
and the Swiss cantons) and other persons. Of this, 259,594 lt. went to
England. By 1532, the normal half-yearly payments to Henry for the
accumulated debt and salt equivalent were 52,368 écus.
67
For France,
65
Dinteville to Chancellor Dubourg, 9 April [1537], AN J 967, no. 69: ‘de mon
retour d’Angleterre . . . j’ay lessé les personnes disposez à continuer ceste annee en neu-
tralité comme la passee et me semble que le meilleur Françoys, Anglois qu’il soit, par
deça c’est le Roy d’Angleterre. Tous messeigneurs de son conseil et ordinairement le
peuple vouldront plus la prosperité de l’Empereur.’
66
Odet de Selve to Francis I, 10 July 1546, G. Lefèvre-Pontalis (ed.), Correspon-
dance politique de Odet de Selve, (Paris, 1888), no. 6: ‘ledict seigneur faisoyt quelques
foys des choses de sa teste sans le conseil de ses amys.’
67
BnF, fr. 20502, fos. 108–110. AN J 923, no. 8/4 – Nov. 1532 saw the last payment
introduction 17
the justication for these pensions was always simply a matter of real-
politik. President Charles Guillart had defended the payments in a
speech on the Treaty of e More before the Parlement of Paris in
August 1525. He did so by arguing that the restoration of the English
pensions induced Henry, confronted by rebellion at home, to make
peace with France and force the Emperor to release Francis from cap-
tivity.
68
Henry’s leading councillors also received pensions and this
was only reciprocated from 1532 when Francis gave his consent to
pensions from Henry to Cardinal Duprat, Montmorency and Chabot.
Payments ceased aer November 1533.
69
Henry remitted the term of
May 1534 and it was not renewed the following November. It was
reported to Henry that the money had been reallocated to German
princes in order to stir up trouble for the Emperor.
70
ere is some
reason to believe that pension payments continued to Henry’s coun-
cillors; Norfolk was probably still receiving his in 1540 and Cromwell
(who, as far as we can tell, never received a pension from France) told
of the 49,285 écus for the Emperor’s debts to Henry, which Francis had taken on, and
7500 in salt arrears. e ve payments made by Jean-Joachim de Passano 1525–1527
amounted to 672,100 lt. in money of account (AN J 923, no. 8/7) but in fact terms
May 1527 to May 1529 were remitted to Francis for his military expenditure ( J 923,
no. 8/2).
68
A. Pommier, Chroniques de Souligné-sous-Vallon et Flacé (Angers, 1889), pp.
140–142.
69
18 March 1534, AN J 651B, no. 22, Ordonnances des rois de France: règne de
François Ier, 9 vols. (Paris, 1902–1992), VII, p. 115.
70
L&P, VII, 1554. e documentation for reallocation of the pension seems to be
conned to AN J 923 no. 8/5 in which the payments are diverted to Jean Baptiste Myun-
telly (?) Antoine Bonvisi and François Sauvaige, London bankers. On the French pen-
sions, see C. Giry-Deloison, ‘Money and early Tudor diplomacy: the English pensioners
of the French King,’ Medieval History 3 (1993–1994), 128–146. Idem, ‘Henri VIII,
pensionnaire de François Ier’ in his François Ier et Henri VIII. Deux princes de la
Renaissance (1515–1547) (Lille, 1995), pp. 121–143. Regular payments of the French
pensions had ceased aer the rst term of 1534 (L&P, V, 222, 1065, 1504, 1554) e
arrears were computed at 880,256 crowns (at 4/8d per crown = £205,393.1.4) in 1542
(St.P. VIII, p. 717, L&P, XVII, 288). is crept up to 994,737 by the start of the war.
e French denied liability to payments during the war and in 1544 even argued
that half the 2 millions the pension was originally based on had been paid up to
1534 and that the other half was unfounded, added to which they argued that since
Henry had not come to the aid of Francis in 1536, he had infringed his obligations.
So, there was ambiguity about the exact amount owed by 1546. e issue of the pen-
sions was argued out in the negotiations that took place during the siege of Boulogne
in Sept. 1544 (G. Ribier, Lettres et mémoires d’estat 2 vols. (Paris, 1666), I, pp. 572–
578) and outlined in the Instructions made out to du Bellay and Remon, St. Fuscien,
10 Oct. 1544 (BnF, fr[ançais],17889, fos. 76–77). At this point the French were oering
to pay o the arrears at 25,000 écus p.a.
18 introduction
the Imperial ambassador in late 1535 that all Henry’s councillors were
uniformly favourable to the Emperor, ‘except that there are some as
he said who were pensioners of France.’
71
Admiral Chabot came to England on a grand embassy in November
1534 and, although the pension was not discussed, he reminded Henry
of the suggestion put forward by Francis at their Boulogne meeting in
1532: that Henry should abandon his title to France in return for key
ports and territories in the Emperor’s Low Countries. When Chabot
the following year demanded the abolition of the pension, Henry
exploded in anger.
72
In fact, it is no surprise that the pensions ceased
at this time. Henry’s negotiating stock had plummeted and, as Eustace
Chapuys astutely pointed out, the king of France was not sorry that
Henry should continue in his folly, thus making any Anglo-Imperial
agreement impossible.
73
Francis had been heard to remark by late 1534
that he had lost trust in Henry and the blank response of the English
to demands for help in the spring of 1536 only conrmed this.
74
Henry
formally responded to Francis’ demands of 500,000 crowns aid in
March 1536 with the statement that, since Francis was neutral between
him and the Pope, so he, Henry, would be neutral between Francis and
the Emperor.
75
e participation of any kind of public opinion in the making of pol-
icy and war in this period is complex. I have argued elsewhere that
the French monarchy in the period was highly attuned to the need
to garner support and justify it policies. It required a complex net-
71
Chapuys to Hannart, 25 Feb. 1535/6, HHSA, Frankreich, Varia 4, fo. 101r (102r
decipher): ‘oires qu’il en y ayt comme il disoyt des pensionnaires de France et de ceulx
de la parcialité de la dame.’ Norfolk to Cromwell, 11 March [1540], SP1/158, fo. 23
(L&P, XV, 329).
72
Henry VIII’s reply to Chabot, Nov. 1534, St.P., VII, p. 584 (L&P, VII, 1483);
Palamèdes Gontier to Chabot, 5 Feb. 1535, J. Le Laboureur, Mémoires de M. De Castel-
nau 3 vols. (Brussels, 1731), I, 405 (L&P, VIII, 174). Some time in 1535, Cromwell
made a note ‘to know your highness pleasure and gratuyte to be shewed unto the
Frensh king in remission of the pension viager and salte.’ (NA SP1/91, fo. 56, L&P,
VIII, 344).
73
Chapuys to Charles V, 5 Dec. 1534, L&P, VII, 1507.
74
In October 1534, Francis was reported ‘mal content dud. Roy d’Engleterre et dit
qu’il ne ce fyera jamaiz à luy et qu’il luy a cuydé faire ung mauvais tour et que jamaiz
à luy ne aura ance.’ (NA SP1/86, fo. 87, (L&P, VII, 1303); Hannart to Empress, 29
March 1536, L&P, X, 586.
75
Bishop of Tarbes to Francis I, 3 March 1536, (L&P, X, 410).
introduction 19
work of publicists and local agents to put its policies across.
76
In both
countries, poetic criticism of war could sometimes be savage, as in
the case of Clément Marot’s coqs-à-l’âne of the 1530s or sceptical as
in the case of John Skelton’s Speke, Parrott of 1521.
77
In the England
of Henry VIII, the assembly of the Parliament in 1523 could occasion
Cromwell’s carefully critical speech. As George Bernard has pointed
out, the evidence for popular opinion on Henry’s supposed claims to
France is contradictory. e chronicler Hall sought to record enthusi-
asm for the war in 1523–1524 but there were grumbles in Kent in 1525
that a campaign in France would be a waste of money.
78
In the Paris of the late 1540s, preachers looked back at the invasion
of 1544 as punishment of God for the sins of the people and found
little to celebrate in the peace of 1544. e preacher François Le Picart
later declared:
Do we not have great cause and reason to return to God, seeing all parts
of the earth are engaged in war and that misery and poverty are every-
where? Is this not a great advertisement to convert to God and to ask his
pardon and grace for our sins?
He argued in one sermon that the fall of Boulogne was a signal to
recognize the sins of the French. In another he argued of the peace
of Crépy:
Have you not seen that for thirteen or fourteen years we ed with fear
from our enemy? And those who were supposed to protect the city le
the rst. In despair at having peace, peace was made. Who made it? God.
God permitted things to get to the point of despair, in human terms, in
order that He could intervene and it would be said: ‘God did that. is
is not the work of men.’
79
Clearly, then, the pulpit was not a vehicle for the straightforward dis-
semination of the royal view of war and foreign aairs.
76
D. Potter, Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and Society, c. 1480–1560
(Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 255–286.
77
Ibid., pp. 312–315; G. Walker, John Skelton and the Politics of the 1520s (Cam-
bridge, 1988).
78
G. Bernard, War, Taxation and Rebellion in Early Tudor England: Henry VIII,
Wolsey and the Amicable Grant of 1525 (Brighton, 1986), pp. 3–7; Hall, ed. Whib-
ley, II, pp. 123–125; S. Gunn, ‘Wolsey’s foreign policy and the domestic crisis of
1527–1528’ in S.J. Gunn and P. Lindley (eds.), Cardinal Wolsey, Church, State and
Art (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 149–177.
79
L. Taylor, Heresy and Orthodoxy in Sixteenth-century Paris (Leiden, 1999), p. 196.