Great Harry
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Supplying some ten thousand courtiers, their servants and their horses with fresh and well-prepared food would have been difficult enough in the vicinity of London or Paris; the little towns of Guines and Ardres were hardly able to supply a fraction of the needed foodstuffs. Thousands of cows and sheep, lambs and chickens, pheasants and herons would have to be brought to huge temporary cookhouses to be slaughtered, cleaned and dressed, and served with the heavily spiced sauces that both the English and the French loved. Fish too would have to be brought in in large quantities, thousands of loaves of bread baked by a cohort of bakers,
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thousands of pounds of sugar and nuts and spices and fresh cream supplied to the pastrycooks who would make the cakes and comfits for the kings' tables. Oats for the horses and straw for their stalls were an additional burden, and both royal retinues included more grooms of the stable than guardsmen at arms.
These complications mattered less to Henry and Francis, though, than the points of precedence and time-honored usage that governed the jousts themselves. The tiltyard had to be built at a point equidistant from the kings' camps—otherwise one side or the other would appear to have the advantage. The shields and banners of the combatants had to be displayed with meticulous attention to their ranks and nations, again without favoritism, and their arming stations assigned with the same care. How and where each knight would enter and leave the lists had to be decided in advance, to prevent collisions and to ensure that no combatant would have to yield the right of way to an equal or an inferior. The all-important matters of weaponry and the rules of combat were settled by a combined contingent of French and English knights who determined that no "sharp steel" or two-handed swords would be allowed, and that the use of heavy swords would be severely limited. All swords and lances would of course be blunted.
These precautions were intended to prevent injuries, but they also served to disguise a sensitive point: the English were, man for man, taller and heavier than the French, and in the use of the heavy medieval weapons they would have held an overwhelming advantage. Precise sizes and weights for all weapons were agreed on along with the number of courses each knight might run and the number of strokes he might deliver. Fighting at close range was disallowed unless the parties themselves desired it, and jousters were not to be fastened into their saddles, to ensure that they could mount and dismount with ease. Finally rules governing mishaps—knights disarmed, bolting or wounded horses, jousters who missed their turns—were decided on and published, and the business of forging and garnishing arms began to preoccupy both courts.
They preoccupied the two young kings as well. For months before the meeting at the Golden Valley Henry and Francis carried on a running exchange of information, through their diplomatic intermediaries, about the finer points of arms and armor. Through the new English ambassador at the French court. Richard Wingfield. Henry sent Francis an unusually heavy sword. Wingfield explained to the French king that Henry was able to wield it by means of a gauntlet made according to a certain design, and Francis eagerly asked Henry to send him one, promising in return to have his armorers make Henry the newest kind of cuirass which took much of the weight of the armor off the shoulders and allowed easier movement of the arms.'®
Both Henry and Francis made a great show of concern about each other's panoply, but in fact the entire exchange was little more than an exercise in politeness, intended to cover the intense desire of each man to overthrow and ridicule the other in the lists. Both nations conceded the general superiority of the English in combat; the ferocity of English
knights was legendary, and an unbiased observer, Giustiniani's son Merino, remarked that any ten EngHshmen were a match for twenty Frenchmen.^^ But when it came to the kings themselves the issue was less clear, for they were well matched in size and skill, and at twenty-six Francis had the advantage of being three years younger than Henry. The two men had never met, but there had been plans for a meeting between them for years. In the first months of Francis' reign they had agreed to meet at Calais, and Henry had immediately sent messengers to Florence for great quantities of silk and cloth of gold, "so as to meet this most Christian king with honor."^^
Five years were to pass before the costly stuffs were used, years which saw Francis gain diplomatic and military stature—though Henry still referred to him as "this youth"—and which brought about a comprehensive, if precarious, settlement of their political disputes. Wolsey had brought together all the continental states in a treaty of universal peace in the fall of 1518; as part of those negotiations England and France came to terms over Toumai, the "Unsullied Maiden" still in English hands. The town had been in a miserable state ever since Henry took it, blemished by destruction, its population made wretched and rebellious by plague and high debts imposed by the English conquerors. Much the worse for its years under English rule, Toumai was finally sold to the French for 600,000 crowns.^^
If it did nothing else the meeting of the two kings would satisfy Henry's curiosity about his rival. Francis was reputed to be flamboyant, ambitious, magnificent in his dress and bearing—in short, much like Henry himself. His portraits show a handsome man with a habitually sanguine, slightly disdainful expression. In person he was said to look like the devil; his courtiers called him "Long-Nose" and were wary of the fire in his eyes. Detractors remarked that Francis had an overly large belly, and was "much inclined to corpulence," but even the most hostile observer found him kingly, especially in his coronation crown of uncut rubies and sapphires and his massive gold scepter and tall royal staff of beaten gold surmounted by its orb and cross.^^ Certainly the women of his court found Francis irresistible. Heedless of his wife, the "impotent, halt and naturally deformed" Queen Claude, the French king gathered beautiful women around him and wooed them untiringly. In the words of one courtier he was "of such slight morals that he slips readily into the gardens of others and drinks the waters of many fountains."
Francis was as renowned a hunter as he was a lover. Devoted to his dogs (when his favorite hound Hapeguai died he mourned for days and then ordered the dog skinned and the skin made into gloves to remember him by), he cherished his horses as gready as his brother monarch of England. It was said that no nobleman in France rode with such incredible speed as the king did when he galloped headlong across country in pursuit of a deer or stag, crossing hills and rushing through thick forests with nothing but his upraised arm to protect him from low-hanging branches.
As mighty as Orion himself in facing the deadly wild boar, Francis had proven his unparalleled bravery before the entire court at Amboise early
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in his reign. The royal huntsmen were commanded to capture a ferocious boar and bring him to the castle so that the king could "fight him, man against boar, in front of the ladies." Francis' mother, Louise of Savoy, was horrified at the risk to her son, and to please her the king had the castle courtyard filled with life-sized mannequins and the boar released among them instead. The beast charged the statues one after another, running madly around the enclosure in ever-widening circles while the king and his courtiers looked on from overhanging balconies. Suddenly the boar rushed up one of the stairwells leading to the balcony where Francis stood surrounded by a number of ladies. Lowering his head, he charged straight for the king: five or six gentlemen ran to help Francis but he waved them aside, drawing his "good strong sword" and sweeping the ladies into a terrified huddle behind him. His sword poised, his features composed, he watched the oncoming boar "with as complete an assurance as if he had seen coming toward him a demoiselle." Just as the sharp tusks were about to tear into his thigh he leaped to one side and thrust his sword through the beast's heart. The bleeding boar fell heavily back down the stairway and died, as the relieved courtiers cheered and clapped for the king.-"*
Francis showed the same unruffled confidence in the face of his English enemies. "He is young, mighty, insatiable." the English ambassador Wingfield wrote. He talked constantl
y, and always of his plans for military glor. His continual preoccupation was to restore to France the possessions and rights squandered by his "ignoble predecessors," Wingfield said, and he boasted he would not rest until "the monarchy of Christendom shall rest under the banner of France, as it was wont to do." As always, Henr> 's talk was equally bellicose. He took delight in telling all who came to his court that it was Francis' dread of English arms that kept the French king from venturing beyond his own borders. Francis hated Henry and all other Englishmen, he explained, but kept up an appearance of cordiality out of fear. Walking hand in hand with Giusti-niani and Sagudino one day in the spring of 1518 Henry spoke of Francis* ill-disguised enmity. "I know for certain that he wishes me worse than he does the devil himself." Henr> confided to the envoys, "yet you see what kind of friendly language he employs toward me. I prefer peace." he added, "but I am so prepared, that should the king of France intend to attack me, he will find himself deceived. He will fall into his own pit.""
Henry had good evidence of Francis' murderous intentions toward him. The bishop of Worcester, traveling on the continent, sent back to England an account of his visit to an astrologer Francis consulted: while they talked, three tall men—English, as he supposed—came into the astrologer's chamber on some mysterious errand, stayed there briefly, and then left by a secret way. Later he heard that they uent to Francis and offered to kill King Henry for him.-*^ The following year a spy sent a report to the English court describing how he had seen the pretender Richard de la Pole with the French king at Lyons, both men riding together on a mule, deep in conversation. According to the best intelligence the man could piece together, Francis had determined to send four
assassins to Henry's court "to set fire by crafty and cautelous means within the house wherein his grace shall be abiding, to the intent (which God forbid) to destroy his most noble person and all other there being present." De la Pole had promised the evildoers a reward of four thousand francs.^^
It was amid this atmosphere of hostility and secret treachery that that most spectacular gesture of good will, the Field of Cloth of Gold, was planned. Many on both sides believed that the mock combats to be held in Flanders would turn into a real battle through perfidy. The English sent more spies than usual to watch the movements of the French captains and munitions, and the stories they sent home were alarming. John Pechy reported from Paris that his informers had definite evidence of a planned French attack at the Golden Valley. Francis, they said, was sending some fifteen thousand men toward Ardres and had already dispatched nine ships full of gunpowder to supply them there.^^ This account, and others like it, were more than enough to convince Queen Katherine that the royal meeting was an ill-fated mistake. Early in April of 1520 she called her Council together to discuss it, leading the discussion herself and putting forward, in cogent detail, a list of excellent arguments against it. By the time Henry arrived and inquired what was going on she had persuaded her councilors of the folly of the undertaking. They in turn made fresh protestations to the king, but planning for the Field proceeded. For her display of adroit reasoning Katherine was thereafter "held in greater esteem by the king and his Council than ever she was," the imperial ambassador reported, though her reasoning fell on deaf ears. Though most of the nobles and the majority of her subjects agreed with Katherine, the king did not.
The one hope of opponents of the meeting lay in another royal meeting: between Henry and his nephew by marriage, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
The most resolute and most potent enemy of the French, the twenty-year-old Charles had been emperor only a year (he had been king of Spain for nearly four) but was already showing the intelligence and grasp of affairs which were to mark his long and astonishing reign. His appearance was against him. A prominent, misshapen jaw and irregular teeth disfigured his features and detracted from the considered judgment he showed in his speech. With his pale blue eyes and dead-white complexion he was far short of handsome, but he had finally managed to grow a beard and was said to possess the vigor of a grown man.^^ To the English, who held none of his imperfections against him, Charles V was the nephew of their beloved queen, master of the Low Countries—chief entrepot for English goods and a major source of English wealth—and nominal overlord of Christendom. It was impossible to describe their delight, Thomas More wrote, when the news came that he was on his way to England.^^
Charles was convinced that a visit to England could only advance the imperial cause. Henry had been a reliable ally of the empire for the first ten years of his reign, but his recent rapprochement with France left room for doubt about the future. The emperor did not hope to disrupt the
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upcoming meeting between Henry and Francis, only to disquiet the French and ingratiate himself with his royal uncle. A personal visit could serve the invaluable purpose of strengthening his most enduring ties to England: ties of blood.
Toward the end of May, amid the confusion and activity of last-minute packing and boarding of the ships that would take Henry and his courtiers to Flanders, Charles landed at Dover, where Henry waited to embrace him. The following three days were crowded with feasting and dancing and, for a few hours, serious diplomacy. But for the young emperor the emotional high point came on the second day, when for the first time he saw his mother's sister. Queen Katherine.
He went early that morning to Canterbury, to the archbishop's palace, to meet her.^^ Twenty-five of her loveliest ladies greeted him at the door of the palace, and escorted him inside and down a long corridor guarded by twenty of her pages dressed in gold brocade and crimson satin. Finally he came to a wide marble staircase and, looking up, saw the smiling queen seated on the landing halfway up. She wore robes of cloth of gold lined with ermine, with a beautiful string of pearls wound around her neck. Katherine was not as comely as his mother Joanna; she was plump and matronly, though her face was glowingly alive and her eyes bright and keen. Next to his mother and his sisters, Katherine was his nearest relative, and as soon as he saw her Charles took her to heart. Her sweetness and charm won him over completely as, '*not without tears," they embraced one another tenderly and walked arm in arm up the stairs to breakfast.
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Saint George he was for England; Saint Dennis was for France. Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
King Henry set sail for Flanders in his grandest ship, the Great Harry, on the last day of May, 1520. The Great Harry —familiar name of the thousand-ton warship Henry Grace a Dieu —was "admiral ship," or flagship of the "king's great army on the sea," and had been built some seven years earlier to the king's exacting specifications by twelve dozen shipwrights working on eighteen hundred tons of timber. It took nine hundred mariners to sail the great ship, and many gunners to man her heavy guns, so formidable it was doubtful "whether any fortress, however strong, could resist their fire." The Great Harry was newly fitted for the journey, with banners and pennants flying from every mast and sumptuous sails of cloth of gold. Henry's pleasure in his impressive namesake was enhanced by his knowledge that Francis had nothing like her in his navy, and he was only sorry that the French king would not be in Calais to see him disembark.
On June 11 the two kings installed their households and courtiers on opposite sides of the Golden Valley—the French in some four hundred tents pitched beside a small river at Ardres and the English in some twenty-eight hundred tents stretching away behind Guines. Francis' huge gold brocade tent, some sixty feet around, had a canvas roof decorated with astrological motifs and stars made from gold foil. Ivy bushes and freshly cut tree branches were fastened around the interior walls of the pavilion, which was crowned with a large gilt statue of Saint Michael that shone brightly in the sun. Several ship masts had been lashed together to form the central support of this structure, which one French observer called "the most beautiful tent ever seen."
The elegance of Francis' pavilion was more than matched by the festive Italianate palace built by six thousand Eng
lish and Flemish masons, carpenters, bricklayers, glaziers and tilers over a period of months for Henry and his party. A long rectangle of stonework supported by tall brick columns and decorated with battlements, crenellations and a band of ornamental tile work, the compact structure was dignified yet gay, with its fan-shaped stone and ironwork ornaments and its life-size statues of antique heroes posturing in every niche. Large heraldic animals in stone adorned the comers of the roof, from whose center rose a six-sided cupola
surmounted by more animals and a gilt angel. All who saw the exquisite palace praised its proportions and design—one Italian remarked that Leonardo himself could not have made a finer one—and admired in particular the high arched windows which lined the length of the upper floor and, at night, turned the entire building into a blazing landmark. Thousands of feet of glass had been imported to Guines for these windows, which ''lumined the eyes of beholders" and contrasted with the narrow slits in the walls of the old castle of Guines nearby and the windowless tents of the French.
Inside the palace every surface was decorated, the windows framed in gold inlay, the walls lined in silk hangings and tapestries, or studded with the roses of the Tudor livery, the corridors filled with warlike busts with "images of sore and terrible countenances." Henry's most beautiful tapestries and carpets were brought from Greenwich and Richmond to cover the walls and floors of this palace, and to give it the air of an authentic court. Its little chapel was furnished with candlesticks and chalices brought from Westminster Abbey, and its altar cloths were of cloth of gold tissue embroidered with pearls. Golden statues of the twelve apostles as large as small children astonished the guests who came to hear mass in the palace, but even more astonishing were the two fountains in its courtyard, which poured forth claret, hippocras and beer for all who cared to drink.