Henry VIII meets the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1513. The top
of the painting shows the battle of the Spurs, in which Henry and Maximilian’s
combined forces routed their French foes.
To the young Henry VIII, the pursuit of glory on the
battlefield was the key to his achievement of `true majesty’. In a document
dated 20 March 1512, Pope Julius II had stripped Louis XII of his title, `Most
Christian king of France and of his kingdom’ and offered it to Henry in return
for the prosecution of a successful campaign against the French king. This was
a rare `carrot’ indeed for a king so eager to emulate the deeds of his
illustrious ancestor and namesake, Henry V. Throughout 1512 the royal
propagandists sought to present the French king as a usurper of Henry’s
rightful claim to the crown of France and the lands of Anjou, Maine, Gascony,
Guyenne and Normandy. Early in the year “it was concluded, by the body of
the Realme in the high Courte of Parliament assembled, that warre should be
made on the Frenche Kyng and his dominions.” The formal declaration of war
was delivered in April and, by the end of the month, the English fleet, under
the command of Edward Howard, had embarked to raid the French coast.
Lord Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset was appointed to lead
the main English army. Dorset was to join up with Ferdinand’s forces and invade
Guyenne. It was agreed prior to departure that Ferdinand would supply the
English with ordnance, cavalry and carriage for supplies. However, Ferdinand,
who had now changed his mind and wanted to attack Navarre before turning to
Guyenne, made no such preparations. Dorset’s proposal to attack Bayonne as a
base from which to assault Aquitaine was refused. It soon became apparent that
Ferdinand simply wished to use the English force to act as a cover for his
seizure of the Kingdom of Navarre, which he quickly defeated and annexed.
Ferdinand’s failure to follow the agreement laid down before the departure of
Henry’s army effectively destroyed any hope of Dorset achieving anything
meaningful. In the context of the military history of Henry’s reign, the
campaign was relatively insignificant, so much so that Vergil insisted that,
“nothing worth recording was done in these parts.” However, considerable
sums of money were expunged on the campaign, in a series of payments executed
by William Sandes in his role as treasurer of the army. Guyot Heull, Captain of
the Almayns was paid for six weeks wages, cloth for coats and
“houses,” and total payments for the wages, victuall and other costs
incurred in the execution of this minor campaign totaled 80,857li. 17s. 4d.
More symbolic of developments in the rest of Henry’s reign
was his manipulation at the hands of an ally with a hidden agenda. Ferdinand’s
failure to provide the ordnance and equipment determined in the negotiations
before the campaign, and his alteration of the campaign objective, destroyed
any hope of success – not simply the quality of the English troops.
The ignominious failure of this campaign did not discourage
the young king. By 5 April 1513 he had again committed himself to war “on
the part of England, with the Pope, Margaret of Savoy (on behalf of the
Emperor) and Ferdinand of Aragon, against Louis XII King of France.” In
signing this `Holy League’ Henry committed himself to an invasion of
“Aquitaine, Picardy, and Normandy… within two months,” and even
Ferdinand’s withdrawal from this great coalition could not discourage Henry
from leading his army personally. It was his opinion that “his English
subjects were of such high spirits that they tended to fight less willingly and
less successfully under any commander other than their king.” Moreover he
maintained that:
it behoved him to
enter upon his first military experience in so important and difficult a war in
order that he might, by a signal start to his martial knowledge, create such
fine opinion about his valour among all men that they would clearly understand
that his ambition was not merely to equal but indeed to exceed the glorious
deeds of his ancestors.
Whether Henry was indeed determined to exceed the deeds of
his ancestors, and the extent to which he did so, remain beyond the remit of
this thesis. It does however seem clear that the pursuit of glory, through military
adventure and more importantly victory, weighed heavily in the mind of Henry
VIII. Although Henry fought for tangible gains, diplomatic and territorial,
“he also fought in the shadow of his ancestors. for an honourable place in
the history of his country.” Indeed, his reign was to end with England at
war with Scotland and France: the 1540s saw domestic concerns firmly
subordinated to Henry’s pursuit of military renown.
These concerns aside, in 1513, Henry agreed to “cross
the sea with 30,000 men,” and offered to negotiate with the Venetians and
urge them to peace with the Emperor, so that the Spanish in Italy could turn to
attack southern France. The Emperor would attend in person and retain an army
of 3,000 horses, 6,000 Swiss and 2,000 Landsknechts, to be paid for by Henry.
This represented Henry’s first personal venture onto the battlefields of
Europe. In the company of such an auspicious ally, the king was determined that
the campaign should be a successful one, so extensive preparations were made.
Polydore Vergil claimed that “there had almost never been seen in England
so redoubtable an army, whether in the toughness of the soldiers or the
excellence of their equipment.” This statement is almost certainly guilty
of the same hyperbole that characterises much of Vergil’s chronicle; however,
the `Army Royal’ of 1513 was excellently equipped and well organised.
The forward crossed to
Calais in mid-May, followed at the end of the month by Lord Herbert with the
rearward. Henry himself arrived with the middle-ward as late as 30 June, by
which time both the forward and rearward had departed Calais and encamped at
Therouanne. Henry set out from Calais with the `middleward’ on 21 July and
“notwithstandyng that the forward and the rerewarde of the kyngs great
army were before Tirwyn, the King of his awne battayle made 3 battailles after
the fasshion of the warre.”
Whilst in France, the army besieged and destroyed the town
of Therouanne and seized Tournai (granted to the English in the peace of 1514
and garrisoned until 1519). They were also victorious in the grandly christened
‘Battle of the Spurs’.
Occurring on 16 August 1513, during Henry VIII’s first
French campaign, the Battle of the Spurs was a running engagement between
French and English cavalry before the walls of the besieged French town of
Thérouanne. The name derives from the nature of the encounter, which was not a
planned, set-piece battle, but a spontaneous pursuit by the English of French
cavalry surprised in an attempt to resupply the town’s garrison.
Also known as the Battle of Bomy for the French village
nearest the action, the Battle of the Spurs began when French cavalry made a
dash for Thérouanne intending to throw sides of bacon to waiting members of the
hungry garrison. All went awry when the middle ward of the English army
suddenly appeared directly in the path of the Frenchmen. The English deployment
appears to have been entirely fortuitous, and not the result of any advance
intelligence concerning French intentions. Besides the English cavalry to their
front, the French also found themselves assailed on their flanks by a
detachment of English archers and a battery of light artillery deployed by
Henry’s Imperial ally, Emperor Maximilian I. In danger of being outflanked and
encircled, and coming under a galling fire from the archers, the French
cavalrymen put spur to horse and fled, discarding weapons and horse armor to
facilitate their escape.
Joined by their Burgundian allies, the English cavalry
pursued the fleeing enemy across the flat fields of Guingates east of
Thérouanne. Desperate French officers tried to turn their men and make a
fighting retreat, but only a few Frenchmen under the Chevalier Bayard were able
to make a stand before a narrow bridge. Their action did not stem the rout, but
it did buy time for the main force to reach safety. Nonetheless, the pursuing
allies captured six French standards and a distinguished group of prisoners,
including such nobles as the duc de Longueville and the vice admiral of France.
Although not much of a battle in military terms, the encounter near Bomy was a
glorious triumph for English honor and a marvelous enhancement to the military
reputation of the English king. Although later reports said that Henry shared
in the glory of pursuing the fleeing foe, he was well to the rear when the
skirmish began and is unlikely to have had much of a personal role in it. This
fact did not prevent Henry from taking credit for a great victory, which he was
shortly thereafter to describe in glowing terms to Archduchess Margaret of
Savoy. The surrender of Thérouanne on 22 August added further luster to the
Battle of the Spurs, although the encounter soon paled in significance next to
the victory over James IV of Scotland won a few weeks later at Flodden Field by
Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey.
However, the “strategic value of Henry’s gains was
negligible,” and the campaign has come in for extensive historical
criticism. The Emperor, not Henry, enjoyed “tangible,” strategic
advantages “when Therouanne was put out of action and Tournai was occupied
by a friendly power.” Henry’s manipulation at the hands of his allies was
completed when Ferdinand and Maximilian abandoned plans for a second invasion
of France and made a separate peace with Louis XII. By August 1514 Henry had
also concluded a peace, which, although outwardly beneficial (allowing him the
retention of Tournai, the reinstatement of his French pension and assuring the
marriage of his sister, Mary, to Louis), in reality left him with little more
than empty coffers and an expensive, isolated outpost.
