Note (back) — Chapter III

Henry's temper required no spur. Tudors never flinched in the face of danger, and nothing could have made Henry so resolved to go on as Ferdinand's desertion and advice to desist. He was prepared to avenge his army in person. There were to be no expeditions to distant shores; there was to be war in the Channel, where Englishmen were at home on the sea; and Calais was to be the base of an invasion of France over soil worn by the tramp of English troops. In March, 1513, Henry, to whom the navy was a weapon, a plaything, a passion, watched his fleet sail down the Thames; its further progress was told him in letters from its gallant admiral, Sir Edmund Howard, who had been strictly charged to inform the King of the minutest details in the behaviour of every one of the ships.[127] Never had such a display of naval force left the English shores; twenty-four ships ranging downwards from the 1,600 tons of the Henry Imperial, bore nearly 5,000 marines and 3,000 mariners.[128] The French dared not venture out, while Howard swept the Channel, and sought them in their ports. Brest was blockaded. A squadron of Mediterranean galleys coming to its relief anchored in the shallow water off Conquêt. Howard determined to cut them out; he grappled and boarded their admiral's galley. The grappling was cut away, his boat swept out in the tide, and Howard, left unsupported, was thrust overboard by the Frenchmen's pikes.[129] His death was regarded as a national disaster, but he had retrieved England's reputation for foolhardy valour.