Charles V was detained at the town of Dizier or St Didier for seven weeks, thus losing half the time that had been calculated for the march upon Paris itself. But the emperor then pressed forward, even though in the process his communications were broken and his supplies cut off. The advance surprised Henry, but the king could not have foreseen the duplicity of his ally. Francis and Charles had settled the terms of a separate peace, leaving out Henry, and needed only an excuse to enact it. With Charles’s army in perilous circumstance, the emperor declared himself obliged to make a treaty. The Spaniards and the French once more joined hands in the diplomatic dance.
The siege of Boulogne had been protracted beyond anticipation. The valour of the defenders of the town provoked even the king’s admiration. ‘They fought hand to hand,’ he wrote to the queen, ‘much manfuller than either Burgundians or Flemings would have done …’ Yet finally he prevailed, and the people of the town marched out in surrender. Montreuil still held out, however, and it was clear to all that the English army would never reach the gates of Paris. At this juncture Charles sealed the treaty with Francis, leaving Henry the only belligerent. The king’s anger and incredulity at the treachery of his ally are understandable, but the relative failure of the invasion is not in doubt. He had taken Boulogne, but not Paris, at an estimated cost of some £2 million; that was roughly equivalent to ten years of normal spending. The bulk of the crown lands, acquired from the Church, were sold off. This led directly to the frailty of the royal finances in subsequent years, and was one of the contributing factors to the Civil War. Yet this is to move too far forward. In the immediate context of 1544 the treasury was exhausted and Stephen Gardiner was moved to write, in emulation of Colet thirty-three years before, that ‘the worst peace is better than the best war’. On the last day of September Henry sailed back to England.
The threat from France remained, more dangerous than ever after the peace with Spain. It became clear by the spring of the following year that Francis was planning an invasion and was gathering a large fleet of ships for the purpose; galleys were even being brought overland from the Mediterranean to join the flotilla. The fortifications along England’s shores were strengthened further and the trained bands of local fighters were put on alert. In the event the French force got precisely nowhere; inclement winds propelled the ships back to their own coastline, and the supplies of food began to run low. So the French commanders ordered a retreat. An attempt was made at battle near Portsmouth, when some French galleys fired at the English ships, but once more an unfavourable wind forced them back. A French fleet was sighted off Shoreham, but again it turned around; an outbreak of disease had felled the sailors. In the course of this flurry of maritime activity one ship, the Mary Rose, managed to sink itself in Portsmouth harbour. This can be taken as a symbol of the armed struggle between England and France.
15
A family portrait
In 1545 a family portrait had been commissioned by the king from an unknown artist. It displays Henry in full might, sitting on his throne between his heir and the long-dead Jane Seymour; on the right stands Lady Elizabeth, and on the left Lady Mary. Henry’s hand rests upon his son’s neck. The setting is the king’s lodging on the ground floor of the royal palace at Whitehall. Katherine Parr is not a part of this dramatic tableau, but she was now very much part of the family. During the king’s absence in France, she had become the regent of England. She stayed generally at Hampton Court, where Mary and then Elizabeth resided with her. They were educated in the broadly based humanism associated with the name of Erasmus that soon became an aspect of early Protestantism.
Katherine also helped to guide the studies of the young Prince Edward. He called her ‘his most dear mother’, and told her that ‘I received so many benefits from you that my mind can hardly grasp them’. She herself was receiving instruction and Edward wrote that ‘I hear too that your highness is progressing in the Latin tongue … wherefore I feel no little joy, for letters are lasting’. This is a conventional expression, and need not necessarily reflect Edward’s real sentiments. Yet he did persevere with his classical studies. He had read and memorized, for example, four books of Cato. He read Cicero in Latin and Herodotus in Greek. Soon enough he began the study of French; he was, at least in theory, one day to become the king of France. He also became immersed in geography and history as a way of preparing himself for sovereign rule. He informed his tutor, John Cheke, that ‘I have only done my duty’. In such a position of eminence, and with such an overweening father, his sense of his role and responsibilities was already immense. It was remarked that, even as a young boy, he had the mannerisms of an adult.
His caps were decorated with diamonds and sapphires, his garments woven from cloth of gold; he possessed a dagger of gold that hung from a rope of pearls, its sheath covered in diamonds, rubies and emeralds. He shone as he walked or rode. A painting of him, from 1546, survives. He stands between a pillar and a window, dressed in all the robes of state. He holds the golden dagger in his right hand while his left hand significantly touches his codpiece as a symbol that the dynasty would continue.
Yet he also had time for the sports of kings. Among his possessions were gloves for hawking, rods for fishing, and swords for fencing. He owned greyhounds and horses. He loved to hunt and draw the longbow; he played rackets and engaged in the noble art of tilting. He also performed upon the lute, like his father.
He had an especial affection for his half-sister Mary, but his love was not unmixed with the same sense of duty. He asked Katherine Parr to ensure that Mary no longer attended ‘foreign dances and merriments which do not become a most Christian princess’. He was eight at the time he issued this warning. At a later date the siblings would disagree about the purport of being a ‘Christian’. Yet his anxiety suggests a picture of Mary quite different from that of the sour and zealous burner of heretics; she loved dancing; she had a taste for finery and liked to gamble at cards. She had a passion for music, just like her father and her siblings. Music is a key to the Tudor age. An image of Elizabeth survives, dining to the sound of twelve trumpets and two kettledrums together with fifes, cornets and side drums. Everybody sang in the streets or at their work, ‘the mason at his wall, the shipboy at his oar, and the tiler on the housetop’. A lute was placed in many barber shops, for customers to while away the time.
But Mary also had a reputation for her studies, and another royal, Mary of Portugal, praised ‘the fame of her virtue and learning’. In the last months of 1545, under the supervision of Katherine Parr, she was translating a paraphrase by Erasmus of the Gospel according to St John that was published in the following year.
Edward was matched in his zeal for learning by his other half-sister, who was a precocious student of languages. Elizabeth mastered Greek and Latin with ease, studying Greek in the morning and Latin in the afternoon; late in her realm, when she was by the standards of the time an old woman, she managed an extempore oration in Latin that delighted her court. She also learned Spanish, Italian, Flemish and a little Welsh. At the age of eleven she presented her stepmother with her translation from the French of Margaret of Navarre’s long poem, The Mirror of the Sinful Soul; her English prose covers twenty-seven pages. Her principal tutor, Roger Ascham, reported that at the age of sixteen ‘the constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endowed with a masculine power of application. No apprehension can be quicker than hers, no memory more retentive …’ A childhood companion of Edward, Jane Dormer, took a less sanguine view of the girl; at the age of twelve or thirteen Elizabeth was ‘proud and disdainful’. So we have a fine example of two young women granted a humanist education that rivalled any being offered at the schools or universities. It was not unique – Thomas More had provided the same tuition for his own daughters – but it was unusual.