1545 ENGLAND AND GERMANY. 465 with instructions to unite Charles and Francis against the CHAP. English heretic. To meet such a combination it was necessary to renew relations with the German protestants. In 1543 Henry had tried to impress the emperor with his catholic orthodoxy. In 1545, opening out negotiations with the Landgrave of Hesse with a view to the formation of a defensive league which should comprise Denmark and Holstein and as many German towns and provinces as should care to join, he spoke of the points of contact between the Anglican Church and the Lutheran communion. "We have," he wrote in February, " one common and certain enemy, the Bishop of Rome, and a like zeal and meaning for the right and sincere setting forth of God's glory and His holy word;" and he suggested that a joint commission upon religion might find a basis of agreement, "either party somewhat relenting from extremities and framing themselves to a godly indifferency and moderation". The alliance was a pis aller to be used in the event of a breach with Charles, and there was a moment early in 1545 when the friction was so great between London and Brussels as to threaten a rupture. That moment passed away. An irritating dispute, arising out of the arrest of certain Flemish ships which had been carrying merchandise to France, was composed on April 6; and it became more and more evident that Charles, so far from desiring to quarrel with England, was only anxious to terminate the struggle between England and France. The spectre of the Anglo-Lutheran union faded gradually into the background, though Henry continued to keep up friendly relations with the protestant courts. Though the circle of the war had been contracted by the peace of Crespy, it continued to be waged by England, Scotland, and France. That he might create a Scottish party to balance Cardinal Beaton, Henry signed a treaty with the Earl of Lennox on June 26, 1544, married him to his niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Queen Margaret and James IV., and promised to appoint him governor of Scotland when that kingdom should fall into his hands. But a repulse before the walls of Dumbarton showed Lennox to be no more effectual an instrument than Arran, and a defeat of Sir Ralph Evers at Ancrum Moor on February 27, 1545, proved that the Scots XVII. CHAP. were undismayed by Hertford's devastations and still able to XVII. hold their own upon the border. With these evidences of Scottish pertinacity before him, and encouraged by the withdrawal of the emperor, Francis elaborated in May a scheme of offensive operations, the ultimate purpose of which was the recapture of Boulogne. A great fleet was gathered in the Norman harbours, which was to make a descent upon some point upon the English coast, attack and capture the English navy, and hold the Channel till the middle of August. In the meantime Marshal du Biez was to build a fort opposite the mouth of Boulogne harbour, so contrived as to command the entry and to prevent sea-borne supplies from being conveyed to the English garrison. It was calculated that a fort large enough to hold 4,000 or 5,000 men would be ready by the time of the return of the fleet, and that Boulogne would be completely cut off from the sea. Then while Du Biez was holding the English garrison on the coast, Francis himself with a large army would take Guisnes, ravage the Terre d'Oise, and throwing himself between Calais and Boulogne, effectually prevent assistance reaching the beleaguered garrison from the east. The fleet, consisting of 150 large sailing ships, sixty pinnaces, and twenty-five galleys, was collected early in July and placed under the command of Admiral d'Annebault.1 The French found the country well prepared to receive them. The Scottish fleet had been swept out of existence, and the two royal galleons taken at Leith were now incorporated into the English navy. An English army watched the borders, and by the middle of June three other armies, each 30,000 strong, were in readiness south of the Trent. The coast fortifications had been carefully reviewed and strengthened. The garrison of the Isle of Wight was reinforced; artillery was sent into Thanet; bulwarks were ordered for Yarmouth and Lowestoft; the beacons and signals which might guide an enemy's fleet up the Thames were carefully removed. A commission of array for the western counties was sent to Lord Russell, who having come into possession of the abbey lands of Tavistock, was one of the leading magnates of Devonshire; and it was his duty to see that the royal fleet at Portsmouth 1 Mémoires de Martin du Bellay, liv. x., pp. 560 82. 1545 THE FRENCH IN THE SOLENT. 467 XVII. did not lack for the west-country crews, who then, as now, were CHAP. the backbone of our naval strength. On July 17 a fleet of eighty sail," forty of the ships large and beautiful," lay in Portsmouth harbour under the command of John Dudley, Lord Lisle, son of the ill-famed extortioner. Some sixty more vessels were shortly expected from the west, and the king was in the town, anxious to make trial of his new invention, a long and narrow row-boat, armed not only with a bowchaser, but with two short guns in the broadside under the half-deck. On the 18th the French fleet appeared in the Solent. A light breeze blew from the land, and Lisle came out in the hope that he might draw his adversary after him under range of the shore guns. The French admiral saw the trap, and was too wary to walk into it; but as the wind dropped on the morrow, he sent his galleys into the harbour. Propelled by oars, and consequently possessing a maximum of mobility at the very time at which the sailing vessel is deprived of mobility altogether, the galley with its bowchaser and formidable ram was always likely to be dangerous in calm weather; and where heavy sailing vessels were crowded in a narrow space, a welldirected galley attack was a thing particularly to be dreaded. In 1513 English ships had met the Mediterranean galleys, and had suffered a repulse; and it must have seemed for a time on Monday, the 19th, as if history would repeat itself, save that on this occasion the galleys were the attacking, and not the defending force. The Mary Rose, attempting to turn round, heeled over, and went to the bottom with Sir George Carew, her captain, and more than 500 of her crew. The Great Harry was saved with difficulty, and a few more hours of calm might have made the situation anxious. Suddenly a land wind rose ; and the English, seizing the advantage of wind and tide, slipped cable and bore down on the galleys. So sudden was the change, that the Frenchmen had the greatest difficulty in making good their escape, molested by the artillery of the rowboats which pursued with great celerity, and poured in a fire to which the galleys were unable to reply. But again it was not Lisle's intention to draw on a general engagement in the Solent. For the second time the English fleet came out, tempted the French to battle, and then retreated to the harbour. Having the superior force, D'Annebault was anxious XVII. CHAP. to fight the English outside the harbour, and accordingly on the following day landed troops on the Isle of Wight, with instructions to fire the villages, in the hope that the flame and smoke would spur Lisle to indiscretion. But the French landing parties were beaten back with some loss, and the columns of smoke, which were easily descried from Portsmouth, failed to elicit a response from the English fleet. carried. Lisle would not fight in the open. reported that without knowledge of the banks, it would be rash to attempt the entry of Portsmouth harbour, and weighty reasons were adduced against leaving a force in the Isle of Wight. On the 24th the French fleet drew away and shaped its course for the narrow seas. The plan misThe French pilots currents and sand Portsmouth was safe, but the last had not been seen of the French armada. Having landed 4,000 troops and 3,000 pioneers at Boulogne, D'Annebault was driven across the Channel by force of weather, and on August 15 Lisle reported that the French fleet was off Shoreham. The sea was calm; a light air blew from the south-east; and under conditions favourable to the galleys and unfavourable to the great ships, the French admiral prepared to attack. The English fleet numbered 104 sail, 24 in the van under Sir Thomas Clere, 40 in the main battle under the admiral, and 40 in the wing under Tyrell. The force dependent upon oars had been strengthened at the expense of the force dependent upon sails alone. An engagement took place between the French galleys and the English "wing," in which the advantage lay with the English. "The Mistress," reported Lisle, "the Anne Gallaunt, the Greyhound with all your majesty's shallops and rowing pieces did their parts right well; but especially the Mistress and the Anne Gallaunt did so handle the galleys as well with their sides as their prows that your great ships had little to do." In the evening D'Annebault drew up and the two fleets came to anchor within a league of one another. But in the night the wind freshened, and when morning broke Lisle descried from the maintop a line of sail five miles long scudding away upon the horizon. The great enterprise had failed, and D'Annebault's fleet, which was to have brought the English to their senses, broke up before August was out, its crews decimated by plague, and 1545 THE COST OF WAR. 469 XVII. its purpose unaccomplished. "The poor fishermen," reported CHAP. Lisle, "say that there was never journey so costly to France as this has been for so short a voyage, nor more shame spoken of amongst themselves." Nor was the remainder of the French military programme more successful. A fort was indeed built opposite Boulogne, but it was neither ready by mid August nor was it so placed as to command the harbour, and though Du Biez raided the Terre d'Oise, the communications of the English garrison both with Calais and the sea remained unimpaired. The Channel was in the command of England, and while Lisle raided and burnt Tréport, the west-country adventurers-" some of them naming themselves Scots and some with vizors"-plundered every Spanish, Portuguese, and Flemish vessel which came up out of the bay. "You Meanwhile the cost of the war had been tremendous. see," wrote Wriothesley to Paget, "the king's majesty hath this year and the last year spent £1,300,000 or thereabouts, and his subsidy and benevolence ministering scant £30,000 thereof, as I muse sometime where the rest being so great a sum hath been gotten." Wheat, save in Norfolk, was up to 20s. a quarter; plate had been melted and coined; the currency had been enhanced; a loan had been raised in Antwerp. "I am at my wit's end," wrote Wriothesley in November, "how we shall possibly shift for the next three months." An estimate of the revenues of the court of augmentations was unobtainable, but not more than £100,000 was still to come in from all the sales, and only £3,000 was immediately available. "The mints, our holy anchor, doth prepare £15,000"; £1,000 could be raised from the duchy, a like sum from the wards. Ten thousand pounds was still due from the subsidy, but would not come in till Candlemas. Four or five thousand pounds might ultimately be wrung from the surveyors. Norfolk and the council were anxious for peace, and a rebuke was conveyed to Surrey for his vehemence in urging that Boulogne should be retained. Gardiner, who was sent over to press the negotiations at Brussels, was of the same opinion. "Master Secretary," he wrote to Paget, on November 7, "if we take peace now, we establish the valiantness of England for ever; if we leave game now, we be esteemed to have treasure infinite, and to exceed all other in valiantness." |