* Herbert. Stowe, p. 588. Baker, p. 292.
** Goodwin’s Annals. Stowe, p. 588.
*** Rymer, vol. xv. p. 28, 29.
Henry’s policy was blamed in this sudden and violent incursion, by which he inflamed the passions of the Scots, without subduing their spirit; and it was commonly said, that he did too much, if he intended to solicit an alliance, and too little, if he meant a conquest.[*] But the reason of his recalling the troops so soon, was his eagerness to carry on a projected enterprise against France, in which he intended to employ the whole force of his kingdom. He had concerted a plan with the emperor, which threatened the total ruin of that monarchy, and must, as a necessary consequence, have involved the ruin of England. These two princes had agreed to invade France with forces amounting to above a hundred thousand men: Henry engaged to set out from Calais; Charles from the Low Countries: they were to enter on no siege; but leaving all the frontier towns behind them, to march directly to Paris, where they were to join their forces, and thence to proceed to the entire conquest of the kingdom. Francis could not oppose to these formidable preparations much above forty thousand men.
* Herbert. Burnet.
Henry, having appointed the queen regent during his absence, passed over to Calais with thirty thousand men, accompanied by the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Fitzalan earl of Arundel, Vere earl of Oxford, the earl of Surrey, Paulet Lord St. John, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, Lord Mountjoy, Lord Grey of Wilton, Sir Anthony Brown, Sir Francis Bryan, and the most flourishing nobility and gentry of his kingdom. The English army was soon joined by the count de Buren, admiral of Flanders, with ten thousand foot and four thousand horse; and the whole composed an army which nothing on that frontier was able to resist. The chief force of the French armies was drawn to the side of Champagne, in order to oppose the imperialists.
The emperor, with an army of near sixty thousand men, had taken the field much earlier than Henry; and not to lose time while he waited for the arrival of his confederate, he sat down before Luxembourg, which was surrendered to him: he thence proceeded to Commercy, on the Meuse, which he took: Ligny met with the same fate: he next laid siege to St. Disier, on the Marne, which, though a weak place, made a brave resistance under the count of Sancerre, the governor, and the siege was protracted beyond expectation.
The emperor was employed before this town at the time the English forces were assembled in Picardy. Henry either tempted by the defenceless condition of the French frontier, or thinking that the emperor had first broken his engagement by forming sieges, or, perhaps, foreseeing at last the dangerous consequences of entirely subduing the French power, instead of marching forward to Paris, sat down before Montreuil and Boulogne. The duke of Norfolk commanded the army before Montreuil; the king himself that before Boulogne. Vervin was governor of the latter place, and under him Philip Corse, a brave old soldier, who encouraged the garrison to defend themselves to the last extremity against the English. He was killed during the course of the siege, and the town was immediately surrendered to Henry by the cowardice of Vervin, who was afterwards beheaded for this dishonorable capitulation.
During the course of this siege, Charles had taken St. Disier; and finding the season much advanced, he began to hearken to a treaty of peace with France, since all his schemes for subduing that kingdom were likely to prove abortive. In order to have a pretence for deserting his ally, he sent a messenger to the English camp, requiring Henry immediately to fulfil his engagements, and to meet him with his army before Paris. Henry replied, that he was too far engaged in the siege of Boulogne to raise it with honor, and that the emperor himself had first broken the concert by besieging St. Disier. This answer served Charles as a sufficient reason for concluding a peace with Francis at Crepy, where no mention was made of England. He stipulated to give Flanders as a dowry to his daughter, whom he agreed to marry to the duke of Orleans, Francis’s second son; and Francis, in return, withdrew his troops from Piedmont and Savoy, and renounced all claim to Milan, Naples, and other territories in Italy. This peace, so advantageous to Francis, was procured partly by the decisive victory obtained in the beginning of the campaign by the count of Anguyen over the imperialists at Cerisolles in Piedmont, partly by the emperor’s great desire to turn his arms against the Protestant princes in Germany. Charles ordered his troops to separate from the English in Picardy; and Henry, finding himself obliged to raise the siege of Montreuil, returned into England. This campaign served to the populace as matter of great triumph; but all men of sense concluded, that the king had, as in all his former military enterprises, made, at a great expense, an acquisition which was of no importance.
The war with Scotland, meanwhile, was conducted feebly and with various success. Sir Ralph Evers, now Lord Evers and Sir Bryan Latoun, made an inroad into that kingdom; and having laid waste the counties of Tiviotdale and the Merse, they proceeded to the abbey of Coldingham, which they took possession of, and fortified. The governor assembled an army of eight thousand men, in order to dislodge them from this post; but he had no sooner opened his batteries before the place, than a sudden panic seized him; he left the army, and fled to Dunbar. He complained of the mutiny of his troops, and pretended apprehensions lest they should deliver him into the hands of the English; but his own unwarlike spirit was generally believed to have been the motive of this dishonorable flight. The Scottish army, upon the departure of their general, fell into confusion; and had not Angus, with a few of his retainers, brought off the cannon, and protected their rear, the English might have gained great advantages over them. Evers, elated with this success, boasted to Henry, that he had conquered all Scotland to the Forth; and he claimed a reward for this important service. The duke of Norfolk, who knew with what difficulty such acquisitions would be maintained against a warlike enemy, advised the king to grant him, as his reward, the conquests of which he boasted so highly. The next inroad made by the English showed the vanity of Evers’s hopes.
1545.
This general led about five thousand men into Tiviotdale, and was employed in ravaging that country; when intelligence was brought him that some Scottish forces appeared near the abbey of Melross. Angus had roused the governor to more activity; and a proclamation being issued for assembling the troops of the neighboring counties, a considerable body had repaired thither to oppose the enemy. Norman Lesly, son of the earl of Rothes, had also joined the army with some volunteers from Fife; and he inspired courage into the whole, as well by this accession of force, as by his personal bravery and intrepidity. In order to bring their troops to the necessity of a steady defence, the Scottish leaders ordered all their cavalry to dismount, and they resolved to wait, on some high grounds near Ancram, the assault of the English. The English, whose past successes had taught them too much to despise the enemy, thought, when they saw the Scottish horses led off the field, that the whole army was retiring; and they hastened to attack them. The Scots received them in good order; and being favored by the advantage of the ground, as well as by the surprise of the English, who expected no resistance, they soon put them to flight, and pursued them with considerable slaughter. Evers and Latoun were both killed, and above a thousand men were made prisoners. In order to support the Scots in this war, Francis some time after sent over a body of auxiliaries, to the number of three thousand five hundred men, under the command of Montgomery, lord of Lorges.[*] Reënforced by these succors, the governor assembled an army of fifteen thousand men at Haddington, and marched thence to ravage the east borders of England. He laid all waste wherever he came; and having met with no considerable resistance, he retired into his own country, and disbanded his army. The earl of Hertford, in revenge, committed ravages on the middle and west marches; and the war on both sides was signalized rather by the ills inflicted on the enemy, than by any considerable advantage gained by either party.