Mary Rose (16 page)

There is some doubt how many attendants Mary took with her to France. The Duke of Suffolk was limited to seventy, so we may assume that the Queen took rather more, but no list survives. The royal lists include the Duke as attendant upon the King, but not the French Queen, who presumably had her own establishment. She does not feature on the Queen’s ‘side’, which includes only the Duchess of Buckingham among fifty-seven noblewomen and gentlewomen. Catherine’s total entourage numbered 1,260 persons, including servants, while Henry’s totalled a magnificent 4,544, including 133 knights and noblemen. It was reckoned that 3,223 horses would be needed to mount and transport this multitude and their goods.
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Shortly after their arrival in France it was noted that the royal family rode in a procession, with the Queen following the King, and her ladies, who numbered twenty in all, including the Queen of France attendant upon her. Her English contingent (slightly seasick) arrived at Calais on 31 May to find the French awaiting them with some impatience. They should have been at Guisnes by 1 June, but Henry pleaded for some delay, and they eventually arrived on the 7th, at which point the kings ceremoniously met, with much spurious bonhomie.
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They then proceeded to the ‘feats of arms’, the challenge for which had been issued in mid-April and the site chosen a month later. This had been most carefully prepared, ‘appareled, ditched, fortified and kepte of the one and of the other partie by equall number’ so that neither side could claim an advantage. On the ‘tree of honour’ which dominated the tiltyard, the kings’ shields were placed tactfully side by side, and in the jousts which followed each rode the same number of courses, and broke the same number of lances, a feat which must have required great skill on both sides.
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The Duke of Suffolk, who had been the leading English delegate in the setting up of this tournament, did not, apparently, distinguish himself as much as had been expected. Some believed that this was out of a desire not to outshine his king, but in fact he had sustained a minor injury to one of his hands. There was also the consideration that this was an occasion which belonged to his wife, who was borne in state to the tiltyard on 11 June in a litter of cloth of gold, emblazoned with monograms of L and M, supported by Louis’ emblem of the porcupine. The French welcomed their own Reine Blanche, a genuine French Englishwoman, to be preferred to Henry’s Spanish wife, and so much more beautiful than their own Queen Claude, a sad little creature by comparison,
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although magnificently attired. More imposing on the French side was the Queen Mother, Louise of Savoy, who was supported by an ‘infinite number of ladies’ all clad in crimson velvet and cloth of gold. There was clearly an unofficial beauty competition between the ladies, because Mary was similarly supported, and this was taken as seriously as the martial emulation of the gentlemen by the spectators. The Italians, who may not have been impartial observers, awarded the palm to the French, but Mary was always excepted from this generalisation. She was beyond comparison the most lovely lady on view.
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Catherine might win admiration for her exotic Spanish headdress, because a fashion show was all part of the fun, but because there was no distinctive English style, the French again carried off the palm, and Mary in cloth of gold was again the exception.

On Saturday 16 June Francis went to Guisnes to be entertained to dinner by Catherine, and on the 17th Henry returned the compliment, going to Ardres to the hospitality of Queen Claude. Beyond the fact that Francis was accompanied by his mother, and was clad in cloth of gold, we do not know much about his advent, but at dinner he sat opposite the Queen at a table which was shared by Cardinal Wolsey and Mary, the French Queen.
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The company was entertained by musicians drawn from the King’s Musik and the Chapel Royal, although it is doubtful whether Francis (who was tone deaf) was as appreciative as he should have been. This entertainment was not held at Guisnes Castle, which was too small, but at the King’s temporary palace just outside the town, and was a sumptuous occasion, several banquets proceeding simultaneously. The great hall was occupied by tables hosting some 130 ladies, waited on by 20 gentlemen, a custom which seems to have been peculiar to the English. Elsewhere 200 gentlemen were feasted, while in yet another room were entertained those French nobles who had accompanied their king – the Admiral, the Duke of Bourbon and others.
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When Henry went to dine with Claude, he was accompanied by his sister, her husband, and by a party of masquers, nineteen gentlemen in elaborate disguises. It was apparently intended that the King should dine alone, as an especial mark of honour, but it is not clear that he did so, since he summoned several French nobles to keep him company. The Queen, and the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk meanwhile dined at a separate table, both women, it was noted, wearing the most sumptuous pearls. Presumably the subject of the Mirror of Naples was not raised!
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Other banquets were held elsewhere for the respective retinues, and afterwards there was dancing, led by Mary as the principal female guest, and also, probably, the most accomplished performer. The King then led his gentlemen in a masque of youth and age to entertain his hosts, which was followed by more dancing and the company returned to Guisnes still in their masquing apparel, with their minstrels playing them through the streets. It is not known how Henry performed in the dances, but if his reputation is anything to go by, it would have been boisterously. After a mass of peace, at which Wolsey preached, and an exchange of costly presents, on 25 June the English withdrew to Calais, most of their overlarge retinues were disbanded, and the King’s temporary palace was demolished.
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Henry waited at Calais until 10 July, and then went to his second scheduled meeting with the Emperor at Gravelines. In spite of the expressions of goodwill, nothing had transpired at the Field of Cloth of Gold which had changed his mind about the desirability of a deal with Charles. In fact the competitive edge which he had been constrained to maintain had probably reinforced his desire for an understanding with this unassuming but tough young man.

There had been some serious political discussion at the Anglo-French meeting, conducted mostly by Wolsey with Francis’s council, which had resulted in the confirmation of the existing treaties between the countries, and an agreement that the King’s daughter Mary, then aged five, should in due course marry the newly born dauphin, Francis, an understanding which sealed a friendship, but nothing more.
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Henry, in other words had been faithful to the undertakings which he had made at the Treaty of London. Nor was he to break that faith in the discussions which now ensued. This time he realised that Charles would be accompanied by his aunt, Margaret of Austria, and decided to take his sister with him. That he chose Mary rather than Catherine for this role is curious, because Charles was equally his wife’s nephew, while the Duchess of Suffolk could command no blood tie at all. It may have been that what he really wanted was the companionship of his friend, Charles Brandon, and that Mary was invited as an ‘accompanying person’, but it does not look that way.
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What happened was that she met for the first time that ‘dear aunt’ with whom she had corresponded as Princess of Castile, and the man who had almost become her first husband. It must have been a curious meeting, but we know nothing very much about it. Henry stayed in Gravelines barely forty-eight hours, time for some serious talking, but not much time for entertainment; nor is there any record of the ladies putting on a show, as might have been expected with Mary on the scene. On 12 July he returned to Calais, accompanied by the Emperor and his aunt. This time an opportunity was found for at least one banquet, held in the newly built hall of the palace, but again, apart from diplomatic discussions we do not know what transpired. Since Catherine was in Calais at the time, presumably Mary faded into the background. There was no treaty as a result of these meetings, but a good working relationship had been established which was to bear fruit in the following year. Meanwhile King Henry was ostensibly on good terms with both his powerful neighbours, a situation which was not likely to endure in face of the fact that Francis and Charles were already squaring up to each other in Italy, and that the Emperor’s territories virtually surrounded France.
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The Gravelines and Calais meetings had, however, made it more likely that Henry would side with Charles, a situation which the Francophile Duke and Duchess of Suffolk can only have regarded with trepidation.

Mary was the better educated of the two, and may well have been the more intelligent. While the Duke maintained a pro-French stand in the Council, when he bothered to attend, his wife was a channel for French cultural influences. She dressed in the French fashion, and patronised French artists and scholars, notably ‘Master Ambrose’, who was a painter in the service of Cardinal Duprat. Ambrose produced some of the finest work ever seen in England, and that probably stimulated the King to patronise Lucas Horenbout and Hans Holbein, not wishing to be outshone by his sister’s protégé.
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The gardens at Suffolk Place in Southwark and at Westhorpe were laid out in the French fashion under Mary’s influence and the houses were among the best decorated of any in England. Such a style was not always popular, and it should be remembered that it was for their ‘French touches’ that the King’s minions were disciplined in 1519, a move which used to be attributed to Wolsey, but is now thought to have been the work of the whole Council.
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There were certainly many councillors, including the Duke of Norfolk, who were opposed to Wolsey’s pacific policy with regard to France, and who welcomed the King’s decision to ally with the Emperor which was negotiated in August 1521. The Cardinal was entrusted with the negotiation, not because he sympathised with the intention but simply because he was by far the most experienced international diplomat that England possessed, and because he would always do the King’s bidding once that had been made clear to him. One of the features of this agreement was that Charles agreed to marry the King’s five-year-old daughter, who was thus transferred from the Dauphin to the Emperor. In view of the age difference between them, it is unlikely that Charles took this commitment very seriously, although Henry did (or pretended to).
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The idea of the Treaty of Bruges was the Emperor’s, but Henry accepted it and Wolsey had no option. At first its true purpose was disguised under a screen of mediation, but this was abandoned when Charles paid another visit to England in May 1522. Again there were lavish entertainments and banquets, and when he reached London on 6 June, he was received by the King and it was noted that places of honour were reserved for the Duke of Suffolk and Marquis of Brandenburg, both of whom were the husbands of Queen Dowagers. Mary played her usual part in the courtly entertainments which accompanied the visit, and her namesake the princess danced, although Charles’s entourage does not seem to have included any women on this occasion. The Emperor stayed for just over a month, and by the time that he left Henry had committed himself to war with France, a commitment which was to be fulfilled in the following year because it was already too late for a campaign of sufficient scale to be prepared during that season.
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Wolsey, who had maintained the peace against the King’s intermittent bellicosity for eight years, had at last been overpowered by the logic of events, and the Duke of Suffolk found himself committed to a leading military role against his old friends. Mary faced the suspension of her dower payments, and must have been profoundly relieved by the let-out clause in her agreement with the King, because there was no way in which she could have maintained her repayments in the absence of her principal source of revenue. It would be difficult enough to manage her regular expenditure, and further indebtedness loomed.

It was June 1523 before Henry was sufficiently convinced by the Duke of Bourbon’s threatened rebellion against Francis I to commit an army to the field, and the end of July before a fresh treaty was signed between the King, the Emperor and the Duke for a joint attack.
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Despite his poverty and the lateness of the season, it was therefore the end of August when Henry launched 10,000 men, commanded by the Duke of Suffolk from Calais, into Normandy. At first the strategy was to capture Boulogne, but by the middle of September Wolsey had changed his mind, and began to urge upon the King a direct attack on Paris. This was because Bourbon had convinced him of the feasibility of a co-ordinated assault, involving himself, Suffolk and the Emperor, which would settle the issue at a single blow, rather than the ‘dribbling war’ which had hitherto been envisaged.
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Eventually Wolsey convinced Henry, and on 26 September the siege of Boulogne was called off, and Suffolk was ordered to lead his men direct to Paris. At first all went well, and they advanced 75 miles in three weeks, encountering only light resistance. The King was enthusiastic, and started to organise reinforcements to keep the campaign going through the winter. Margaret of Austria was pleased because her southern borders were protected while she annexed Friesland. And then things started to go wrong. A Spanish force had indeed crossed the Pyrenees, but were so demoralised that the French had no difficulty in containing them. The Imperial thrust from the east did not materialise at all, and Bourbon’s rebellion collapsed in a matter of days.
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As a result Paris was strengthened against any possible attack, and Suffolk was isolated and exposed. Margaret was unable to provide either money or the horsemen which had been promised, and the Burgundian forces under van Buren, upon whom the Duke had been heavily dependent for strategic advice, began to melt away. Suffolk was left with no option but to retreat, and a spell of freezing cold weather in November completed his misery. With his men dying of disease and frostbite, his disciplinary system, which up until then had functioned well, broke down, and it was a disorganised rabble that arrived back at the Channel ports in early December.
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Henry was mortified by this news, and would not at first accept it, until confirmatory detail persuaded him of its truth. Suffolk had done his best in impossible circumstances, and in the wake of Margaret’s failure to support him had declined to place garrisons in her border fortresses to protect her against French reprisals. Until the November frosts ruined his control, he had been a wise and responsible commander, and the King did not blame him for the failure. Generous rewards would not have been appropriate, but the Duke emerged from his French adventure with his reputation for loyalty and generalship undiminished, and his martial enthusiasm undimmed.
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