was greater than would have been the advantage of taking the whole French fleet; and the young king for a short time deplored his fate. But he soon consoled himself by appointing his brother, the Lord Thomas Howard, to succeed him, telling him to revenge his death. The new admiral took the sea immediately, upon which the French retired to their old position at Brest, and left the English in undisturbed possession of the Channel.t

At this moment King Ferdinand, who had led Henry into this absurd war, made a separate truce for himself with France, which, among other things, recognised his seizure of Navarre. Some of the English ministers thought that, as the strength of the league had thus received a mortal wound, it would be better to postpone the invasion of France; but Henry, the willing dupe of those who flattered him as the most warlike monarch and most perfect knight in Christendom, would not forego his purpose, and pretended that a new alliance which he had formed with Maximilian "the Moneyless," who was now emperor, would more than compensate for the secession of his father-in-law Ferdinand. His army was ready; his people from one end of the land to the other were singing beforehand the glory which should attend "the red rose," "the royal rose," in France.‡ To desist at this stage would have been a marvellous effort, but Henry soon showed that he had not a particle of the military genius of his predecessors, and that he loved war for its pomp and parade rather than for its grand operations in the field. In the month of May he despatched his vanguard to Calais, under the command of Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Herbert, both members of his privy council: he cut off the head of the Earl of Suffolk in the Tower § (a cowardly mode of beginning a campaign); and then, "when all things were prest, accompanied with many noblemen and six hundred archers of his guard, all in white haberdines and caps, he departed from his manor royal of Greenwich the 15th day of June, and so he and the queen, with small journeys, went to Dover Castle and there rested... And he made the queen governor of the realm in his absence, and commanded Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sir Thomas Lovel, a sage knight, and divers others, to give their attendance to the queen... Then the king took leave of the queen and of the ladies, which made such sorrow for the departing of their lords and

Sir Henry Ellis's Collection. + Lord Herbert.-Hall.-Stow.

The rosse wille into Frawnse spring,
Almythy God hym thyder bryng,
And save this flowr wiche ys our kyng,
Thys rosse, thys rosse, this Ryall Rosse.
Popular song of the time.

For Suffolk's strange adventures see the preceding reign. It was one of the dying commands of Henry VII. that Suffolk, "for safety, should be put to death; but his fate was probably hastened by the conduct of his brother Richard de la Pole, who had entered the service of Louis XII. and assumed the appellation of " the White Rose." Henry pretended that there was a treasonable correspondence between the two brothers; but, as Suffolk was jealously guarded in the Tower, this is not very likely..

husbands that it was great dolor to behold." 99* Instead of steering straight for Calais, Henry ran down the Channel as far as Boulogne, to regale the French coast with a mighty firing of great guns. Having thus announced to France that the majesty of England was coming, he put about his fleet and landed at Calais, on the last day of June, amidst such a roar of artillery from ships and batteries as had never been heard in the memory of man.t Lord Herbert had already taken the field and begun the siege of Terouenne, but Henry was in no great hurry to join him, passing his time very pleasantly at Calais with his courtiers and favourites, among whom Thomas Wolsey, his almoner, was already the most prevalent.

The news that a French army, under the command of the Duke de Longueville and the farfamed Bayard, Le Chevalier sans peur, et sans reproche, was moving to the relief of Terouenne, caused the young king to mount his war-horse; and on the 21st of July he marched out of Calais with a magnificent army amounting to about fifteen thousand horse and foot, without counting the besieging force under Lord Herbert, or the detachment under the Earl of Shrewsbury, sent to support that nobleman. Sir Charles Brandon, recently created Viscount Lisle, and the Earl of Essex, lieutenant-general of the spears, led the van; Henry marched with the main body, being placed in the midst of a choice guard of twelve hundred men, commanded by the Duke of Buckingham and Sir Edward Poynings; and his minister, and his prime favourite, Bishop Fox and Wolsey, followed in the rear, in the midst of spears and cannon. They had scarcely got beyond Ardres when they saw a strong detachment of French cavalry manoeuvring in their front. Expecting a battle, Henry dismounted, and threw himself into the centre of his lansquenets, to fight on foot like the Henries and Edwards of former times. brilliant Bayard, who was with the French horse, would have charged, but his superiors in command reminded him that King Louis had given orders that they should most carefully avoid fighting the English in open battle; and, after reconnoitring the invaders, the French withdrew, having already succeeded in another part of their commission, which was to throw provisions and gunpowder into the besieged town. The English believed that they had fled out of fear of their great guns. 'Without let or hindrance" they joined the divisions under Herbert and Shrewsbury, and the siege was then pressed with some vigour. Henry caused a magnificent pavilion, bedecked with silks and blue damasks, and cloths of gold, to be pitched in front of Terouenne, but the bad weather soon drove him from this fantastical lodging, and he then inhabited a house built of wood. The besieged garrison was numerous, brave, and skilful:

• Hall.

Tytler, Life of Henry VIII.-Herbert-Holinshed.

The

At this time we find Queen Catherine writing very humbly and affectionately to the rising Wolsey, and entreating him to send her frequent news of her husband, his grace the king. See Sir Henry Ellis.

From the Ancient Picture in the possession of the Royal Society of Antiquaries.

they countermined a mine attempted by Baynam, the English engineer; and their artillery, though it made less noise, did more mischief than that of the besiegers. At the same time, the Count of Angoulême (soon after Francis I.) advanced with a considerable army from Amiens, and threw out detachments of stradiotes (an active description of light cavalry), which scoured the whole country, frequently cutting off the convoys and foraging parties of the English. In this state of affairs the Emperor Maximilian, who had received an advance of one hundred and twenty thousand crowns from the English treasury, to enable him to raise troops, came to Terouenne with nothing but a small escort. Henry put on all his magnificence for this reception; for, nominally, the emperor was the first of Christian princes. He equipped himself and his principal nobles in the most costly dresses of gold and silver tissue; he made a display of all the jewels and goldsmiths' work that his camp furnished; and both men and horses were glittering masses of riches and finery. The emperor and his companions, on the other hand, were attired in plain black cloth, for the empress was recently dead. The two potentates met in a tremendous storm of wind and rain (which must have deranged the white silk jackets of the English courtiers) in the midst of a plain between Aire and the camp. The broad way to Henry's heart had been discovered by all his royal brothers, and, his vanity being once satisfied,-for Maximilian assured him that he, the Emperor of the West, was come to serve under him in quality of volunteer, he seems to have overlooked the omission of which he had been guilty in not bringing an army with him. The emperor had scarcely arrived at head-quarters when Henry received a much less flattering visitor. This was Lyon King-at-arms, bringing him the defiance and declaration of war of the King of Scotland, who had already taken the field, and sent his fleet to co-operate with his ally the King of France. Henry, however, had been prepared by Dean West: Surrey was in the marches, and he told the messenger that that earl would know how to deal with his master.

*

Nearly six weeks had now been wasted in the siege of the insignificant town of Terouenne; and so absurdly had the siege been conducted, that the garrison still continued to receive supplies from the army of the Count of Angoulême. When these communications were interrupted, the main body of the French army, consisting of about twelve thousand men, advanced from Plangy, with a view of throwing in provisions, under cover of a feigned battle. Upon this, Henry and Maximilian crossed the river, and formed in order of battle between it • The reader will remember Walter Scott's odd but picturesque verse in Marmion,

Still is thy name in high account, And still thy verse has charms, Sir David Lindesay of the Mount, Lord Lion king-at-arms!

We are sorry that it is doubtful whether the poetical Sir David was in France on this mission, or engaged in receiving the English envoys before the battle of Flodden Field.

and the town and the French

army. The emperor, who had won a victory over the French on that very ground thirty-four years before, directed the operations of the English, wearing the red cross of England above his armour, and the red rose of Lancaster, Henry's favourite cognisance, in his helmet. All this, according to an old historian, deserves to be recorded to the eternal honour of our nation, as also the fact of the emperor's taking for pay one hundred crowns a-day, besides what was disbursed among his attendants.* The French horse charged in a brilliant manner, but, after throwing some powder within reach of the besieged, they wheeled round, to fall back upon their main body. Being hotly followed by the mounted English archers and a few squadrons of German horse, they quickened their pace to a downright flight, galloped into the lines of their main body, and threw the whole into uproar and confusion. As the English charged with tremendous shouts of "St. George! St. George!" the panic became complete; and every Frenchman that was mounted struck spurs into his horse, and galloped from the field. In vain the bravest of their officers tried to rally them; the attempts, indeed, were worse than vain, for, owing to their not making the same use of their spurs, and flying with the rest, the Duke of Longueville, the illustrious Bayard, Bussy d'Amboise, Clermont d'Anjou, La Palisse, La Fayette, and many other captains of high rank, were taken prisoners by the English. Henry could not help congratulating his captives on the great speed their men had put into their horses : the light-hearted Frenchmen joined in his laugh, and said that it had been nothing but a battle of spurs. By this name, accordingly, the affair came afterwards to be popularly known. The panic, however, was both real and lasting; and if Henry had taken advantage of it, and of other circumstances, he might have inflicted a much more serious blow. The Swiss, to whom he had sent some money, had crossed the Jura mountains in great force, and had penetrated into France as far as Dijon, the capital of Burgundy, which they were now besieging. With a Swiss army of twenty thousand men on one side, aud an English army on the other, Paris began to betray symptoms of alarm. But, to the great joy of Louis, Henry, instead of advancing, permitted himself to be amused another whole week by the siege of Terouenne, catching at the mere straws of a campaign, instead of concerting a grand scheme with the Swiss. At the end of August the French garrison capitulated, and were allowed to march out with all the honours of war: the town, by the advice of Maximilian, who had an interested and evident motive for this advice, was dismantled and burned. That the destruction might be complete, without any labour to the English, the Flemings in the neighbourhood, the subjects of the emperor's

⚫ Bishop Godwin.

+Paolo Giovio.-Du Bellay, Hist. de Chev. Bayard.—Hall,— Villaret.

grandson the Archduke Charles, were let loose upon the devoted place, and, being animated with the old enmities usual to bordering nations, razed the walls, filled up the ditches, set fire to the houses, and scarcely left one stone standing upon another, except in the cathedral church and the house of the canons.

The weather continued to be very rainy, and Henry, by this time, "had so much of war that he began to be weary of the toil thereof, and to cast his mind on the pleasures of the court."* But still it was only the beginning of the month of September, and military etiquette required that something more should be done before going into winter quarters. What Henry did was a military absurdity; but he continued to be guided by Maximilian, who was still working for the profit. of the Flemings and his grandson Charles. Instead of advancing into France he turned back to lay siege to Tournay, which belonged to France, though it was enclave in the territory of Flanders, over the trade of which it exercised a bad influence, while it gave a passage to the French into the heart of the country. As far as the Flemings were concerned it was altogether an unpleasant neighbour; and the emperor was wise in getting possession of it without cost or risk. But what interest Henry could have in such an enterprise was not very apparent. His favourite Wolsey, however, had an interest, and a great one ;Maximilian had promised him the rich bishopric of Tournay, which was then vacant, and this prevailing favourite no doubt recommended the siege. The French citizens of Tournay refused the assistance of a garrison of the royal troops, and sacrificed themselves to a bad pun. Upon being summoned they made a bold show of resistance, but, as soon as the English artillery got into play, they changed their tone, and in a few days capitulated. On the 22nd of September Henry rode into Tournay with as much pomp and triumph as if he had taken the capital of France. Ten days before this inglorious conquest the Swiss, who saw what sort of an ally they had in the English king, concluded a treaty highly advantageous to themselves with the King of France, and marched back to their own mountains. Louis was thus enabled to concentrate his forces in the north, and the grand plan of the allies vanished in air. Wolsey got the rich bishopric, Henry spent some money in jousts and tournaments, and then returned well satisfied to England, where he arrived safe and sound on the 22nd of October. Although he did not gain quite so much by it, Maximilian had duped the vain-glorious king almost as much as Ferdinand had done before. The money which Henry had expended amounted to an enormous sum. But his confidence in the Earl of Surrey had not been misplaced, and during his absence on the continent that nobleman had gained one of the most remarkable victories on record. Following up his defiance,

the Scottish king put himself at the head of a numerous and gallant, but somewhat undisciplined army, and, contrary to the advice of most of his ministers, crossed the Tweed and began hostilities. The unfortunate issue of the campaign disposed men to judge harshly of his policy, but there was political wisdom as well as chivalrous generosity in making a diversion in favour of the French king, who, at the moment, seemed on the brink of destruction. France was the only ally upon whom the Scots could count, and it was natural enough to apprehend that her ruin would be followed by the subversion of Scottish independence. The management of the campaign is another consideration; and here the unfortunate James seems liable to heavy censure, though here, again, his imprudence and misconduct have been pretty generally exaggerated both by Scottish and English historians.

The most received version of the fatal field of Flodden is so striking and romantic that we scarcely hope to rectify what is incorrect in the impressions it has made; but the following appear to have been the real circumstances which preceded and attended that battle.

Although undertaken against the advice of the majority of the nobility, the war was very popular with the Scottish people, who flocked in such numbers to the royal standard that James was enabled, on the 22nd of August, to cross the borders with one of the most formidable armies that had ever invaded England. His artillery and appointments were also superior to what had hitherto been seen in the Scottish armies. Instead of advancing, however, he lingered on the right bank of the Tweed, besieging Norham Castle which did not surrender till the 29th of August. He then marched up the Tweed to Wark Castle, which detained him a day or two. From Wark he went to Etall, and thence to Ford, another border fortress of no great consequence, but which he attacked out of spite to the family of the Herons (to whom it belonged), a member of which, John Heron, was suspected of having murdered his favourite, Sir Robert Ker, the warden of the Scottish marches. William Heron, the head of the family and real owner of the castle, was a prisoner in Scotland, and Elizabeth, his wife, had passed southward to the Earl of Surrey, at York, in order to make arrangements by which the castle might be spared from the fury of the Scots, and her husband liberated from his captivity. James, how

Though a different account is commonly given, there is good reason for believing that the 'Dame Heron,' or 'Mistress Ford,' whose beauty is said to have detained the amorous monarch on the Tweed, "dissolved in indolence and love," when he ought to have been marching against Surrey, was not in Ford Castle, or anywhere near it, when it was taken,-that she fled to the south when he first crossed the Tweed, and that she merely saw James for a short time on or about the 3rd of September, when, like a good wife and prudent woman, she implored him to save the castle "and deliver her husband out of Scotland;" for which favours she was authorised by the Earl of Surrey, who, on the 4th of September, repeated the promise in a letter to James, to offer the liberation of the Lord Johnstone and Alexander Home, then prisoners in England. If, as Pitscottie asserts, the king did really "meddle" with the fair dame, it must have been for a very short time. The old notion that the lady, by going and coming between the two armies, betrayed the Scottish king, is scarcely worthy of a moment's attention.