Hall states that the Howards sailed in separate vessels and were parted by chance of weather. Lord Thomas Howard fell in with Barton in the Downs, and chased him until he brought him to action. Barton, in the Lion, defended himself bravely, blowing his whistle to encourage his men; but at length the English boarded, and the Scots made their last stand on the hatches. Barton was taken prisoner, so sorely wounded that he died soon after, and the remnant of his crew surrendered. In the meantime Sir Edward Howard had chased and taken the Jennet Purwyn, which surrendered after an equally desperate resistance. The two prizes were brought to Blackwall on August 2, 1511, and were both added to the navy. The prisoners were released on acknowledging their piracy. James IV was ‘wonderfull wrothe’ on hearing of this action, and it was one of the causes which determined him to make war on England two years later. On the eve of Flodden, Lord Thomas Howard, who was then serving with the army, sent him a message to the effect that he had come to render him an account of the death of Andrew Barton.
In January 1512, king and Parliament decided on war with France, and preparations for equipping a fleet were at once entered upon. Its first duty was to keep the sea passage open for the transit of the land army to the north-east of Spain, whence it was intended to launch an invasion of Aquitaine. By an arrangement with Ferdinand of Spain it was agreed that the English Navy should hold the sea from Calais to Brest, while that of Spain should blockade the remainder of the western coast of France down to the Pyrenees. Sir Edward Howard, the younger of the two brothers who had accounted for Andrew Barton, was appointed admiral, his command to consist of 18 ships and 3,700 men.[[355]] He was under twenty-four years of age and endowed with dauntless spirit and energy, marred, however, by a lack of patience and ability to play the waiting game which circumstances were eventually to demand of him. His subordinate captains were his equals in courage, but, as was inevitable in a hastily improvised force, they did not at all times work in concert; although the latter defect was not apparently due to any lack of goodwill.
Before the fleet put to sea, the king made a banquet to all the captains, who took oath to perform their duty faithfully.[[356]] The French were not yet ready, and the first cruise was an unopposed parade through the Channel, resulting in the capture of fishing-boats and merchantmen. In June the army left for Spain under the Marquis of Dorset, Howard proceeding to the neighbourhood of Brest to beat down any attempt at interception. Far from any such intention, the French were unable to preserve their own coast from insult, the English landing and marauding on three successive days. When the army had completed its passage to San Sebastian the fleet returned once more to Portsmouth at the end of July.
By this time the French had made some progress with their preparations, and early in August had concentrated a fleet of twenty-two sail at Brest. Howard sailed again to look for them, and a general action, the only one of the war, took place on August 10, 1512, in Bertheaume Bay. The largest French ships were the Louise, in which was the admiral, René de Clermont, and the Cordelière, commanded by a Breton gentleman, Hervé de Porzmoguer. On the English side were the Regent, commanded by Sir Thomas Knyvet, with Sir John Carew as his chief subordinate; the Mary Rose, in which Howard sailed in person; and twenty-three others. After a preliminary cannonade René de Clermont and the majority of his captains turned tail and fled back to Brest, only the Cordelière and another vessel called the Nef de Dieppe remaining to retrieve the honour of their flag. The latter vessel retired after fighting for seven hours; but the Cordelière, grappled by the Mary James, the Sovereign, and the Regent, fought to a finish. The unequal combat was drawing to its inevitable close when by some means, which eye-witnesses are not agreed upon, the Cordelière took fire. The Regent, closely locked with her foe, shared the same disaster, and the two mightiest ships of England and France were destroyed together. Porzmoguer, Knyvet, and Carew all perished, together with the majority of their men. Of the 700 in the Regent, 180 were saved; of the Frenchman’s crew, probably superior in numbers, only six survived. Perhaps the most intelligible and—from the circumstances of author and recipient—most trustworthy account of the affair is that written by Wolsey to the Bishop of Worcester on August 26:
‘And to ascertain you of the lamentable and sorrowful tidings and chance which hath fortuned by the sea, our folks, on Tuesday was fortnight, met with 21 great ships of France, the best with sail and furnished with artillery and men that ever was seen. And after innumerable shooting of guns and long chasing one another, at the last the Regent most valiantly boarded the great carrack of Brest, wherein were four lords, 300 gentlemen, 800 soldiers and mariners, 400 crossbowmen, 100 gunners (these figures are undoubtedly exaggerated), 200 tuns of wine, 100 pipes of beef, 60 barrels of gunpowder, and 15 great brazen curtaulds with a marvellous number of shot and other guns of every sort. Our men so valiantly acquitted themselves that within one hour’s fight they had utterly vanquished with shot of guns and arrows the said carrack, and slain most part of the men within the same. And suddenly as they were yielding themselves, the carrack was (at) once a flaming fire,[[357]] and likewise the Regent within the turning of a hand. She was so anchored and fastened to the carrack that by no means possible she might for her safeguard depart from the same, and so both in fight within three hours were burnt, and most part of the men in them. Sir Thomas Knyvett, which most valiantly acquit himself that day, was slain with a gun. Sir John Carew, with divers others whose names be not yet known, be likewise slain.... Sir Edward hath made his vow to God that he will never see the King in the face till he hath revenged the death of the noble and valiant knight Sir Thomas Knyvett.’[[358]]
There was no pursuit of the remainder of the French, but, although the English had suffered as much material loss as their foes, their command of the sea was assured, and the fruits of victory thus remained with them. After ravaging the environs of Brest and scouring the Channel for prizes, the English fleet returned to port at the end of August, and was for the most part demobilized for the winter. In the late autumn Dorset’s expedition, having achieved nothing, returned from Spain, again without molestation. Its failure was due to bad organization, lack of discipline, and the failure of Ferdinand to fulfil the lavish promises which he had made at the commencement of the undertaking.
During the winter some of the minor ships were kept cruising in the Channel, while the dockyards were busy in repairing the remainder and constructing new vessels, one of which was the famous Henry Grace à Dieu. The latter was not finished in time to take part in this war. The French also made efforts to strengthen their Channel fleet. At some time in the autumn of 1512 a squadron of galleys arrived at Brest from the Mediterranean, under the command of Prégent de Bidoux. After completing his crews Prégent set out for a raid on the English coast, but was driven by various misfortunes to give up the design and put into St. Malo. While he was still there, Sir Edward Howard put to sea (April 10, 1513) and speedily drove the French sailing fleet into Brest, thus separating it from the galleys.
A strict blockade of Brest was now instituted under circumstances of great difficulty and danger for the English. The fleet was very poorly supplied with food, and the sailing of the victuallers with replenishments was unreasonably delayed. In addition the French were riding securely in the harbour and refused to come out and fight, while reinforcements from other ports, together with Prégent’s galleys, were daily expected. Thus at any time the blockaders might find themselves in decisively inferior force. More important still, a strong westerly gale would entail the ruin of the fleet, driving under the guns of Brest such vessels as might escape destruction on the coast. Howard’s letters, while exposing to the full the disadvantages under which he laboured, breathe a spirit of confidence and assurance of victory. Hall states, although the story lacks documentary corroboration, that when the French were securely bottled up in Brest, the Admiral wrote to King Henry, ‘to come thither in person, and to have the honour of so high an enterprise: which writing the King’s council nothing allowed, for putting the King in jeopardy upon the chance of the sea. Wherefore the King wrote sharply to him to accomplish that which appertained to his duty.’[[359]] True or false, the story is quite characteristic of Howard’s temperament. He treated war as the field for the display of the fantastic knight-errantry of the mediaeval romances rather than as the struggle between two nations for material advantages.
As time went on it became apparent that, unless the English could get at their enemy, the unfavourable conditions described above would force them to relinquish the blockade. An attempt was made to sail into the harbour and engage the French even under the guns of the forts; but one ship was lost by striking a submerged rock, and the others drew back. The captain of the wrecked vessel, Arthur Plantagenet, an illegitimate son of Edward IV, called upon our Lady of Walsingham when in danger of drowning, and made a vow that if he escaped he would eat neither fish nor flesh till he had seen her. As he must have subsisted exclusively on bread and beer if he had remained with the fleet, Howard made him the bearer of dispatches to the king, and thus put him in the way of fulfilling his vow.[[360]]
The next incident was the sudden appearance of Prégent de Bidoux with his six galleys and four smaller craft. In spite of instructions given in anticipation of the event, he forced the blockade and made his way, not into Brest itself, but into Blancs Sablons Bay, after sinking one English ship and disabling another. It is evident that the fighting powers of the galleys had been under-estimated. Prégent anchored his galleys in a narrow cove with rocks on either hand. Batteries were mounted on the rocks, and the water was so shallow that only rowing boats could approach. Two plans for capturing this position suggested themselves. The first was the landing of a large force on an unprotected part of the coast, which force should march overland ‘and so come unto the backside of the galleys’. Orders had actually been given for this enterprise when a long-expected fleet of victuallers was seen approaching, and the captains, probably because they had no choice in the matter, immediately set their starving men to work in transferring the supplies. For some reason unknown, Howard did not return to his original intention, but decided instead to make a frontal attack on the galleys by dashing into the narrow bay with all the small craft and ships’ boats at his disposal. Once in, he relied upon his luck and his leadership to expel the enemy from their ships, to get the latter under way, and to bring them out in the teeth of the cross-fire from the batteries. Without a full knowledge of all the conditions it is unjust to condemn him for rashly giving away his life and those of his men. Much more impossible-sounding things have been done by English sailors, achievements which have owed their success to their very audacity, but it must be admitted that in Howard’s case there is ground for suspicion that pique rather than sober judgement actuated him. An English captain tried to dissuade him, while a Spaniard, Alfonso Charran, urged him on; and one can imagine that Howard’s fiery temper may have been stung by an insinuation that the English dared not do what Spaniards had the courage for.