attempted to get possession of Damme, thus both to cut off Bruges from the sea, and Ravensteyn from the resources of that great and flourishing city; but he had failed in all his attempts. Albert, duke of Saxony, now interfered, ostensibly as an umpire between Maximilian and his subjects, but, in truth, a fast friend to the former. Upon this pretext he repaired to Bruges, and, desiring to communicate with the states upon matters of great importance for their good, desired peaceable entrance for himself and a retinue of men-atarms fit for his estate, though somewhat the more numerous, he said, the better to guard him in a disturbed country. This having been granted, his carriages were sent before him, and harbingers to provide his lodging. The men entered peaceably, and he followed, they that went before still enquiring for inns and lodgings, as if they would have rested there, and so going on till they came to the gate that leads towards Damme, they of Bruges the while only looking on, and giving them passage. At Damme, no danger was apprehended from the side of Bruges. The captains, who knew that some fresh attempt was likely to be made against them, supposed this body of men to be succours sent them by their friends; and so, mistrusting nothing till it was too late, allowed them to enter. By this kind of sleight rather than stratagem was Damme "attrapped and taken, to the great discouragement and detriment of Bruges, which, it was thought, while it had no recourse to the sea, must needs fall in ruin and utter extermination." *

Duke Albert immediately sent to the king of England to certify him of this success. He said that the rebellion in Flanders was kept alive chiefly by Sluys and Ravensteyn; and that, if the English would besiege it by sea, he would besiege it by land, and "so cut out the core of those wars." Henry, who was at all times distinguished for his forecast, and who wished to uphold the authority of Maximilian, readily assented to the wish

* Hall, 451, 452. Holinshed, 497. Bacon, 263, 264.

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of his merchants that he should act against this den of thieves, for such it was to all that traversed those seas. He therefore despatched sir Edward Poynings, a man of approved worth, with twelve ships, well manned, and furnished with " strong artillery." With this force Poynings cooped up Ravensteyn in his fort, and held in strait siege the maritime part of the town. Duke Albert besieged the greater castle, having taken up his quarters in a church over against it. The English assailed the lesser one, issuing every day out of their ships at the ebb, and sometimes fighting up to their knees in water. This sort of war, in which there seems to have been abundant courage and skill on both sides, continued for twenty days, with less loss than might have been expected, that of the English amounting to some fifty men, among whom was a brother of the earl of Oxford. At length the English set fire to the bridge of boats by which the two castles communicated. Ravensteyn saw then that he could no longer resist with any hope of success ; he capitulated, and surrendered the forts to Poynings and the town to the duke. When the duke and the English captain met in the town, "there was between them," says Hall, great salutation.” Something less agreeable occurred with the Germans in the duke's service; for, as the duke had nothing to pay them with, they demanded their wages of sir Edward. There was, however, a third party upon whom the expense was made to fall, with no injustice as regards the case between Maximilian and the town of Bruges, but with no honour to duke Albert, who had gained his first advantage by a breach of faith. The two commanders "so handled them of Bruges," that they submitted themselves to Maximilian, and paid enough of the charge of the war for dismissing the Germans and other foreign troops. Ghent and the other revolted towns followed the example of Bruges, and Poynings continued at Sluys till all things were settled.” *

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* Hall, 452, 453. Holinshed, 497. Bacon, 265, 266.

Maximilian's first thought, after the restoration of his authority in Flanders, was to take vengeance upon the French king for marrying the duchess of Bretagne, in breach of the contract with his daughter. He urged Henry, therefore, to cross the sea with all speed, and pursue the war with fire and sword. Henry was not ignorant that the king of the Romans was more quick in resolve than prompt in execution or firm in purpose; and though in this case he hoped, or rather expected, that policy and passion united might hold him to his intentions, he ordered a muster to be made throughout the realm, and his navy to be rigged, manned, and victualled, ready to set forward at any hour. Couriers were sent into every shire to hasten the soldiers to the sea side. "Then came without delay a huge army, as well of the low sort and commonalty as noblemen, harnessed and armed to battle; partly glad to help their prince," says the chronicler," and to do him service, and partly to buckle with the Frenchmen, with whom the English very willingly desire to cope and fight in open battle. And immediately as munition was given, every man with his band of soldiers repaired to London." All being prepared, he despatched ambassadors to let Maximilian know that the English would set forth as soon as he was ready to join them; but Maximilian could draw no supplies from his own country, Austria, because his father was then living, nor from his matrimonial territories of the Low Countries, part being held in dowry by his mother-in-law, the duchess Margaret, and part exhausted by the late rebellion. The ambassadors represented in their letters that no prince could be more unprovided; that "he lay lurking in a corner, sore sick of the flux of the purse;" so that he had neither men, horses, munition, arms, nor money: that his will was good, if his power had been correspondent; but that no trust was to be put in his aid. Henry had doubted that it might prove thus: he commended his ambassadors for having sent him intelligence, instead of returning with it; and instructed them to keep the

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His

matter secret till they heard further from him. care was how to retreat with honour from a contest which, on the failure of such an ally, he could not prosecute with any reasonable hope; and how to avert the unpopularity which would be brought upon him, if the people should suppose that he had never seriously intended war, but had made use of it only as a pretext for exacting money. His council agreed with him that it was best manfully to proceed with the enterprise which they had begun; and he, still dissembling the state of Maximilian's affairs, lest it should dishearten the army, departed, in the second week of September, from Greenwich, towards the sea, "all men wondering that he took that season, being so near winter, to begin the war; and some thereupon gathering it was a sign the war would not last long."*

The king, however, gave out, that, seeing "he intended not to make a summer business of it, but a resolute war, without term prefixed, until he had recovered France, it skilled not much when he began it, especially having Calais at his back, where he might winter, if circumstances should so require." Nevertheless, he lingered on his journey toward the coast, and so much the more, because he had received letters from the sieur des Cordes, “who, the hotter he was against the English in time of war, had the more credit in a negotiation of peace, and, beside, was held a man open and of good faith." The overtures were not such as he could dislike; but the utmost secrecy was still preserved, and on the 6th of October he embarked at Sandwich, and landed the same day at Calais, the rendezvous where all the forces were assigned to meet. No sooner had he arrived there, than "the calm winds of peace began to blow." For, first, the ambassadors arrived from Flanders, and their news was made known that Maximilian could make no preparations for lack of money, and therefore there was no succour to be expected at his hand. At this the English were nothing abashed, trusting so much to their

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* Bacon, 269. Hall, 456. Holinshed, 501.

own puissance and company; but yet "they marvelled greatly that Maximilian, receiving such great villainy not long before at the hand of king Charles, was not present to prick them forward, to cry and call, to move and exalt the Englishmen ; yea," says the chronicler, and, if he had 600 bodies, to put them all in hazard, rather than to leave the English now setting upon his daily enemies and deadly adversaries."* This

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intelligence, however, bravely as the army received it, acted to the king's wish as a kind of preparative for peace; and peace was earnestly desired by the king of France, that he might pursue his ambitious projects in Italy, on which account he had just concluded a peace with Ferdinand and Isabella, purchasing it, as it were, by the free restoration of Roussillon and Perpignan, which had been mortgaged to France by Ferdinand's father for 300,000 crowns. This news came also handsomely to forward Henry's hopes; "both because so potent a confederate was fallen off, and because it was a fair example of a peace bought, so that he should not be the sole merchant." His care now was only to save appearances: he appointed, therefore, the bishop of Exeter and the governor of Calais to negotiate with the sieur des Cordes; and, moving from Calais nine days after his landing there, pitched his camp before Boulogne, as if with the intention of besieging it. t

That town was well fortified and well manned; and the siege, which continued nearly a month while the treaty went on, was, though only a feint on Henry's part, serious to the besieged, whose walls were broken and sore defaced by the daily shot of his battering pieces. Few of the besiegers fell, of whom the only man of note was sir John Savage. This valiant captain was riding with sir John Risely to reconnoitre the

*Hall has before observed how Judasly Maximilian had deceived the king here, however, he admits that "he lacked no heart and good will to be revenged;" but that "he could neither have money nor men of the drunken Flemings, nor yet of the crakyng Brabanters, so ungrate people were they to their sovereign lord."

† Hall, 457. Holinshed, 501. Bacon, 271.