The French, however, missed their opportunity, and did nothing in the Channel. In July 1522 Surrey got to sea, and sacked Morlaix. In August he landed at Calais and ravaged the Boulogne district to the accompaniment of horrible atrocities. Every farm, village, church, and castle in the Boulonnais was destroyed.[[366]] But for Francis the main interest in the war was elsewhere, and there was practically no opposition. In spite of this Surrey was unable to capture Boulogne itself. By the middle of October the raid was over, and he was back at Calais.
In 1523 the fleet was better able to keep the sea, and in the autumn another feeble invasion of Picardy was attempted, this time under the king’s brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk. After a perfectly futile march into the interior, ending in the capture of an unimportant town, which could not be permanently held, Suffolk returned as Surrey had done in the previous year. Scarcely ever has the military art descended so low in England as during this war of 1522–5. Meanwhile Henry and Wolsey had been experiencing the greatest difficulty at home in raising money for the inefficient army. After 1523 the war, as far as England was concerned, perished of sheer inanition. The one side was supreme at sea, but weak on land, the other was able to fight on land, but powerless at sea; and neither possessed the means of bringing its strength to bear upon the other. In 1524 nothing was done; and in 1525 peace was signed with France, bringing to a close the most purposeless war in English history.[[367]]
The third and final maritime war of Henry’s reign opened with hostilities against Scotland in 1543. In the latter half of that year naval actions occurred in the North Sea involving the capture of several merchantmen. War with France was also imminent. In April Henry refused licence for twenty shiploads of wine to pass from Bordeaux to the Netherlands; but serious fighting did not take place until 1544. In May of that year a great English fleet under Lord Lisle, with land forces commanded by Hertford, appeared in the Forth. It took and burnt Leith and disembarked the army, which thereupon captured and partially destroyed the city of Edinburgh, although the castle held out. Scotland being thus for some time to come put out of action, Henry himself crossed to France with a large army. Assisted by Lisle’s fleet, he laid siege to Boulogne, which surrendered in September. Desultory naval operations continued in the Channel almost to the end of the year.
But the English were not to hold undisputed the command of the sea. For the first time in modern history, France made a supreme effort and, by the summer of 1545, had concentrated in the Channel a fleet which was indubitably stronger in material than that of her enemy. All the fighting ships, both royal and private, of the northern and western coasts of France were collected in the Seine ports, and a strong squadron of twenty-five galleys was ordered round from the Mediterranean. The admiral of the whole fleet was Claude d’Annebaut, Baron de Retz, the galleys being commanded by Polain, Baron de la Garde, and Strozzi, Prior of Capua. England was certainly in a critical position, for Charles V, who had been her ally in the previous year, had made a separate peace with France at about the same time as Boulogne fell, and was now, owing to the irrepressible activity of the English privateers, distinctly hostile in his attitude. In retaliation for depredations suffered by his subjects at sea he had ordered the arrest of all English merchants and ships in his dominions.
The French plan was to sweep the Channel by superior force, to occupy the Isle of Wight, and use it as an advanced base for the blockade and destruction of Portsmouth and with it the English fleet. In the meantime Francis I himself with the land forces of France was to retake Boulogne, cut off in this manner from all hope of succour from England. If Boulogne fell, there appeared to be nothing to prevent a similar reduction of Calais and the enforcement of a humiliating peace upon England. The destination of the great armament was kept secret: Henry could not guess whether it was intended for Scotland, the Thames, Portsmouth, or any intermediate point on his coast. Consequently he was obliged to disperse his forces over the whole country and postpone concentration until the blow actually fell. With regard to Scotland he was particularly uneasy, more especially as a strong body of French troops had already been sent to that country to operate upon the northern border of England. It has been calculated that the land troops under arms in England during the summer of 1545 numbered more than 120,000 men.[[368]]
The weather during the early summer was rough and stormy and unsuited for the use of the great ‘high-charged’ battleships which formed the principal hope of England’s defence. Indeed, until the French should put to sea, there was no service upon which they could be wisely employed; for the casualties inevitable in a sustained blockade of the Seine would but increase their original inferiority in numbers, and such a blockade would not have prevented the great French fleet from leaving harbour when ready. Accordingly, the king’s ships were concentrated at Portsmouth, while the lighter and more seaworthy privateers of the western ports ranged the Channel and the Bay of Biscay down to the coasts of Spain itself. Their commissions empowered them to ‘annoy the enemy’, which they did very effectively, almost contriving in the process to convert the neutral Spaniards and Netherlanders into allies of the French. Only one enterprise was undertaken by the regular navy against the fleet in the Seine, and that—an attempt to damage it by means of fireships—failed owing to misadventures and change of weather.[[369]]
At length the French armada was complete. It set sail from Havre on July 16, after losing one of its greatest ships, the Caraquon, by an accidental fire.[[370]] Martin du Bellay, a contemporary observer, says it consisted of 150 ‘gros vaisseaux ronds’, 60 auxiliary craft, and the 25 Mediterranean galleys. In addition to the normal ships’ companies, there were a number of soldiers for the occupation of the Isle of Wight, and of siege troops presumably for use against Portsmouth.
In England the fleet had been made ready with the greatest energy, although the unexpected defection of the emperor in the previous year had left it to face a foe conscious of superiority and certain of victory. A list of ships drawn up in April 1545 shows that there were then available twenty-nine king’s ships, five prizes taken in the Narrow Seas, two ships belonging to Lord Lisle and one to Sir Thomas Seymour, and twenty hired merchantmen, of which three were supplied by the Reneger family of Southampton.[[371]] This total of fifty-seven sail had been increased by the middle of July to about eighty. The imperial minister, writing on July 24, says there were that number at Portsmouth, forty of them being ‘large and beautiful’.[[372]] Thus the French armament, exclusive of the galleys, was quite double as strong as that of England; and in certain circumstances, as the event was to prove, the galleys were capable of hitting very hard.
At the time the French set sail the weather fell very calm and hot, and so continued for several days. On the evening of the 18th they were seen sailing round the eastern end of the Isle of Wight, the galleys in advance and the sailing-ships behind. Four of the galleys were sent forward to reconnoitre, but were driven back by a force of small craft sent out from Portsmouth. The French then anchored for the night, most probably in the neighbourhood of Ryde. The position occupied by the English is somewhat difficult to determine. There are two detailed accounts of the battle of the following day; one, written from the French side, by Du Bellay, and the other from the English, by Van der Delft, the imperial ambassador. In addition there is an engraving in the British Museum from a contemporary painting, now destroyed, giving a panoramic representation of the scene.[[373]] From these sources it would appear that the English fleet was at anchor outside the inner harbour of Portsmouth, in a position covered on the left by forts and batteries on the shore towards Southsea, and on the right by shoals. The only approach was from the front by a narrow channel.
On the morning of July 19 there was no wind, and the French galleys were sent forward to cannonade the anchored English fleet. Some of them entered the outer harbour and for more than an hour kept up a hot fire, doing considerable damage. Du Bellay claimed that the Mary Rose was sunk by their fire, and that the Henry Grace à Dieu was so knocked about as to be kept afloat with difficulty. Neither of these statements was correct. The Mary Rose was sunk by accident, and the Henry was at sea shortly afterwards none the worse for the fight. But undoubtedly the situation, if prolonged, would have been most serious for the English. Their ships were becalmed at anchor, while the galleys, with free power of movement, were extremely difficult to hit. The method of mounting the big guns of the time allowed for very little lateral adjustment, and no elevation or depression, so that unless the ship could be manœuvred the enemy might take up a position in which it would be impossible to bring guns to bear on him. Fortunately a land breeze sprang up and the lighter English sailing craft immediately dashed out upon the galleys. The latter had outstayed their welcome, and just missed suffering severely for it. The English row-barges were among them before they could get clear of the harbour. Once a sailing craft could range alongside a galley, that galley was doomed, for her oars would be smashed without the least damage to her opponent. Accordingly, there was nothing for it but instant flight. Since the galleys carried no guns pointing astern, they were at a great disadvantage, and the French sailing fleet had to advance to their rescue.