Note (back) — Chapter VI

Nothing came of this last nefarious suggestion. In July Surrey captured and burnt Morlaix;[443] but, as he wrote from on board the Mary Rose, Fitzwilliam's ships were without flesh or fish, and Surrey himself had only beer for twelve days. Want of victuals prevented further naval successes, and, in September, Surrey was sent into Artois, where the same lack of organisation was equally fatal. It did not, however, prevent him from burning farms and towns wherever he went; and his conduct evoked from the French commander a just rebuke of his "foul warfare".[444] Henry himself was responsible; for Wolsey wrote on his behalf urging the destruction of Dourlens and the adjacent towns.[445] If Henry really sought to make these territories his own, it was an odd method of winning the affections and developing the wealth of the subjects he hoped to acquire. Nothing was really accomplished except devastation in France. Even this useless warfare exhausted English energies, and left the Borders defenceless against one of the largest armies ever collected in Scotland. Wolsey and Henry were only saved, from what might have been a most serious invasion, by Dacre's dexterity and Albany's cowardice. Dacre, the warden of the marches, signed a truce without waiting for instructions, and before it expired the Scots army disbanded. Henry and Wolsey might reprimand Dacre for acting on his own responsibility, but they knew well enough that Dacre had done them magnificent service.[446]