“No one doubts your bravery, and my fleet needs an admiral,” she told him. “I want the same admiral for many years. I need my champion at the next joust. I need my partner to dance with me. You come home safely, Edward Howard!”
The king was uneasy at his friend Edward Howard setting sail against the Scots, even against a Scots privateer. He had hoped that his father’s alliance with Scotland, enforced by the marriage of the English princess, would have guaranteed peace.
“James is such a hypocrite to promise peace and marry Margaret on one hand and license these raids on the other! I shall write to Margaret and tell her to warn her husband that we cannot accept raids on our shipping. They should keep to their borders too.”
“Perhaps he will not listen to her,” Katherine pointed out.
“She can’t be blamed for that,” he said quickly. “She should never have been married to him. She was too young, and he was too set in his ways, and he is a man for war. But she will bring peace if she can. She knows it was my father’s wish, she knows that we have to live in peace. We are kin now, we are neighbors.”
But the border lords, the Percys and the Nevilles, reported that the Scots had recently become more daring in their raids on the northern lands. Unquestionably, James was spoiling for war; undoubtedly he meant to take land in Northumberland as his own. Any day now he could march south, take Berwick, and continue on to Newcastle.
“How dare he?” Henry demanded. “How dare he just march in and take our goods and disturb our people? Does he not know that I could raise an army and take them against him tomorrow?”
“It would be a hard campaign,” Katherine remarked, thinking of the wild land of the border and the long march to get to it. The Scotsmen would have everything to fight for, with the rich southern lands spread before them, and English soldiers never wanted to fight when they were far from their villages.
“It would be easy,” Henry contradicted her. “Everyone knows that the Scots can’t keep an army in the field. They are nothing more than a raiding party. If I took out a great English army, properly armed and supplied and ordered, I would make an end of them in a day!”
“Of course you would.” Katherine smiled. “But don’t forget, we have to muster our army to fight against the French. You would far rather win your spurs against the French on a field of chivalry which will go down in history than in some dirty border quarrel.”
Katherine spoke to Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, Edward Howard’s father, at the end of the Privy Council meeting as the men came out of the king’s rooms.
“My Lord? Have you heard from Edward? I miss my young chevalier.”
The old man beamed at her. “We had a report this day. The king will tell you himself. He knew you would be pleased that your favorite has had a victory.”
“He has?”
“He has captured the pirate Andrew Barton with two of his ships.” His pride shone through his pretense of modesty. “He has only done his duty,” he said. “He has only done as any Howard boy should do.”
“He is a hero!” Katherine said enthusiastically. “England needs great sailors as much as we need soldiers. The future for Christendom is in dominating the seas. We need to rule the seas as the Saracens rule the deserts. We have to drive pirates from the seas and make English ships a constant presence. And what else? Is he on his way home?”
“He will bring his ships into London and the pirate in chains with him. We’ll try him and hang him on the quayside. But King James won’t like it.”
“Do you think the Scots king means war?” Katherine asked him bluntly. “Would he go to war over such a cause as this? Is the country in danger?”
“This is the worst danger to the peace of the kingdom of any in my lifetime,” the older man said honestly. “We have subdued the Welsh and brought peace to our borders in the west; now we will have to put down the Scots. After them we will have to settle the Irish.”
“They are a separate country, with their own kings and laws,” Katherine demurred.
“So were the Welsh till we defeated them,” he pointed out. “This is too small a land for three kingdoms. The Scots will have to be yoked into our service.”
“Perhaps we could offer them a prince,” Katherine thought aloud. “As you did to the Welsh. The second son could be the Prince of Scotland as the firstborn is the Prince of Wales, for a kingdom united under the English king.”
He was struck with her idea. “That’s right,” he said. “That would be the way to do it. Hit them hard and then offer them a peace with honor. Otherwise we will have them snapping at our heels forever.”
“The king thinks that their army would be small and easily defeated,” Katherine remarked.
Howard choked back a laugh. “His Grace has never been to Scotland,” he said. “He has never even been to war yet. The Scots are a formidable enemy, whether in pitched battle or a passing raid. They are a worse enemy than any of his fancy French cavalry. They have no laws of chivalry, they fight to win and they fight to the death. We will need to send a powerful force under a skilled commander.”
“Could you do it?” Katherine asked.
“I could try,” he replied honestly. “I am the best weapon to your hand at the moment, Your Grace.”
“Could the king do it?” she asked quietly.
He smiled at her. “He’s a young man,” he said. “He lacks nothing for courage—no one who has seen him in a joust could doubt his courage. And he is skilled on his horse. But a war is not a joust, and he does not know that yet. He needs to ride out at the head of a bold army and be seasoned in a few battles before he fights the greatest war of his life—the war for his very kingdom. You don’t put a colt into a cavalry charge on his first outing. He has to learn. The king, even though a king, will have to learn.”
“He was taught nothing of warfare,” she said. “He has not had to study other battles. He knows nothing about observing the lie of the land and positioning a force. He knows nothing about supplies and keeping an army on the move. His father taught him nothing.”
“His father knew next to nothing,” the earl said quietly, for her ears only. “His first battle was Bosworth and he won that partly by luck and partly by the allies his mother put in the field for him. He was courageous enough, but no general.”
“But why did he not ensure that Henry was taught the art of warfare?” asked Ferdinand’s daughter, who had been raised in a camp and seen a campaign plan before she had learned how to sew.
“Who would have thought he would need to know?” the old earl asked her. “We all thought it would be Arthur.”
She made sure that her face did not betray the sudden pang of grief at the unexpected mention of his name. “Of course,” she said. “Of course you did. I forgot. Of course you did.”
“Now, he would have been a great commander. He was interested in the waging of war. He read. He studied. He talked to his father, he pestered me. He was well aware of the danger of the Scots, he had a great sense of how to command men. He used to ask me about the land on the border, where the castles were placed, how the land fell. He could have led an army against the Scots with some hopes of success. Young Henry will be a great king when he has learned tactics, but Arthur knew it all. It was in his blood.”
Katherine did not even allow herself the pleasure of speaking of him. “Perhaps,” was all she said. “But in the meantime, what can we do to limit the raids of the Scots? Should the border lords be reinforced?”
“Yes, but it is a long border, and hard to keep. King James does not fear an English army led by the king. He does not fear the border lords.”
“Why does he not fear us?”
He shrugged, too much of a courtier to say any betraying word. “Well, James is an old warrior; he has been spoiling for a fight for two generations now.”
“Who could make James fear us and keep him in Scotland while we reinforce the border and get ready for war? What would make James delay and buy us time?”
“Nothing,” he declared, shaking his head. “There is no one who could hold back James if he is set on war. Except perhaps only the Pope, if he would rule? But who could persuade His Holiness to intervene between two Christian monarchs quarreling over a pirate’s raid and a patch of land? And the Pope has his own worries with the French advancing. And besides, a complaint from us would only bring a rebuttal from Scotland. Why would His Holiness intervene for us?”
“I don’t know,” said Katherine. “I don’t know what would make the Pope take our side. If only he knew of our need! If only he would use his power to defend us!”
Richard Bainbridge, Cardinal Archbishop of York, happens to be at Rome and is a good friend of mine. I write to him that very night, a friendly letter as between one acquaintance to another far from home, telling him of the news from London, the weather, the prospects for the harvest and the price of wool. Then I tell him of the enmity of the Scottish king, of his sinful pride, of his wicked licensing of attacks on our shipping and—worst of all—his constant invasions of our northern lands. I tell him that I am so afraid that the king will be forced to defend his lands in the north that he will not be able to come to the aid of the Holy Father in his quarrel with the French king. It would be such a tragedy, I write, if the Pope was left exposed to attack and we could not come to his aid because of the wickedness of the Scots. We plan to join my father’s alliance and defend the Pope; but we can hardly muster for the Pope if there is no safety at home. If I have my way, nothing should distract my husband from his alliance with my father, with the emperor and with the Pope, but what can I, a poor woman, do? A poor woman whose own defenseless border is under constant threat?
What could be more natural than that Richard, my brother in Christ, should go with my letter in his hand to His Holiness the Pope and say how disturbed I am by the threat to my peace from King James of Scotland, and how the whole alliance to save the Eternal City is threatened by this bad neighborliness?
The Pope, reading my letter to Richard, reads it aright and writes at once to King James and threatens to excommunicate him if he does not respect the peace and the justly agreed borders of another Christian king. He is shocked that James should trouble the peace of Christendom. He takes his behavior very seriously and grave penalties could result. King James, forced to accede to the Pope’s wishes, forced to apologize for his incursions, writes a bitter letter to Henry saying that Henry had no right to approach the Pope alone, that it had been a quarrel between the two of them and there is no need to go running behind his back to the Holy Father.
“I don’t know what he is talking about,” Henry complained to Katherine, finding her in the garden playing at catch with her ladies-in-waiting. He was too disturbed to run into the game as he usually did and snatch the ball from the air, bowl it hard at the nearest girl, and shout with joy. He was too worried even to play with them. “What is he saying? I have never appealed to the Pope. I did not report him. I am no talebearer!”
“No, you are not, and so you can tell him,” Katherine said serenely, slipping her hand in his arm and walking away from the women.
“I shall tell him. I said nothing to the Pope, and I can prove it.”
“I may have mentioned my concerns to the archbishop and he may have passed them on,” Katherine said casually. “But you can hardly be blamed if your wife tells her spiritual advisor that she is anxious.”
“Exactly,” Henry said. “I shall tell him so. And you should not be worried for a moment.”
“Yes. And the main thing is that James knows he cannot attack us with impunity, His Holiness has made a ruling.”
Henry hesitated. “You did not mean Bainbridge to tell the Pope, did you?”
She peeped a little smile at him. “Of course,” she said. “But it still is not you who has complained of James to the Pope.”
His grip tightened around her waist. “You are a redoubtable enemy. I hope we are never on opposing sides. I should be sure to lose.”
“We never will be,” she said sweetly. “For I will never be anything but your loyal and faithful wife and queen.”
“I can raise an army in a moment, you know,” Henry reminded her. “There is no need for you to fear James. There is no need for you even to pretend to fear. I could be the hammer of the Scots. I could do it as well as anyone, you know.”
“Yes, of course you can. And, thank God, now you don’t need to do so.”
AUTUMN 1511
Edward Howard brought the Scots privateers back to London in chains and was greeted as an English hero. His popularity made Henry—always alert to the acclaim of the people—quite envious. He spoke more and more often of a war against the Scots, and the Privy Council, though fearful of the cost of war and privately doubtful of Henry’s military abilities, could not deny that Scotland was an ever-present threat to the peace and security of England.
It was the queen who diverted Henry from his envy of Edward Howard and the queen who continually reminded him that his first taste of warfare should surely be in the grand fields of Europe and not in some half-hidden hills in the borders. When Henry of England rode out it should be against the French king, in alliance with the two other greatest kings of Christendom. Henry, inspired from childhood with tales of Crécy and Agincourt, was easy to seduce with thoughts of glory against France.
SPRING 1512
It was hard for Henry not to embark in person when the fleet sailed to join King Ferdinand’s campaign against the French. It was a glorious start: the ships went out flying the banners of most of the great houses of England, they were the best-equipped, finest-arrayed force that had left England in years. Katherine had been busy, supervising the endless work of provisioning the ships, stocking the armories, equipping the soldiers. She remembered her mother’s constant work when her father was at war, and she had learned the great lesson of her childhood—that a battle could only be won if it were thoroughly and reliably supplied.
She sent out an expeditionary fleet that was better organized than any that had gone from England before, and she was confident that under her father’s command they would defend the Pope, beat the French, win lands in France, and establish the English as major landowners in France once more. The peace party on the Privy Council worried, as they always did, that England would be dragged into another endless war, but Henry and Katherine were convinced by Ferdinand’s confident predictions that a victory would come quickly and there would be rich gains for England.
I have seen my father command one campaign after another for all of my childhood. I have never seen him lose. Going to war is to relive my childhood again, the colors and the sounds and the excitement of a country at war are a deep joy for me. This time, to be in alliance with my father, as an equal partner, to be able to deliver to him the power of the English army, feels like my coming-of-age. This is what he has wanted from me, this is the fulfillment of my life as his daughter. It is for this that I endured the long years of waiting for the English throne. This is my destiny, at last. I am a commander as my father is, as my mother was. I am a Queen Militant, and there is no doubt in my mind on this sunny morning as I watch the fleet set sail that I will be a Queen Triumphant.
The plan was that the English army would meet the Spanish army and invade southwestern France: Guienne and the Duchy of Aquitaine. There was no doubt in Katherine’s mind that her father would take his share of the spoils of war, but she expected that he would honor his promise to march with the English into Aquitaine and win it back for England. She thought that his secret plan would be the carving up of France, which would return that overmighty country to the collection of small kingdoms and duchies it once had been, their ambitions crushed for a generation. Indeed, Katherine knew her father believed that it was safer for Christendom if France were reduced. It was not a country that could be trusted with the power and wealth that unity brings.
MAY 1512
It was as good as any brilliant court entertainment to see the ships cross the bar
and sail out, a strong wind behind them, on a sunny day; and Henry and Katherine rode back to Windsor filled with confidence that their armies would be the strongest in Christendom, that they could not fail.
Katherine took advantage of the moment and Henry’s enthusiasm for the ships to ask him if he did not think that they should build galleys, fighting ships powered with oars. Arthur had known at once what she had meant by galleys; he had seen drawings and had read how they could be deployed. Henry had never seen a battle at sea, nor had he seen a galley turn without wind in a moment and come against a becalmed fighting ship. Katherine tried to explain to him, but Henry, inspired by the sight of the fleet in full sail, swore that he wanted only sailing ships, great ships manned with free crews, named for glory.
The whole court agreed with him, and Katherine knew she could make no headway against a court that was always blown about by the latest fashion. Since the fleet had looked so very fine when it set sail, all the young men wanted to be admirals like Edward Howard, just as the summer before they had all wanted to be crusaders. There was no discussing the weakness of big sailing ships in close combat—they all wanted to set out with full sail. They all wanted their own ship. Henry spent days with shipwrights and shipbuilders, and Edward Howard argued for a greater and greater navy.
Katherine agreed that the fleet was very fine, and the sailors of England were the finest in the world, but remarked that she thought she might write to the arsenal at Venice to ask them the cost of a galley and if they would build it as a commission or if they would agree to send the parts and plans to England, for English shipwrights to assemble in English dockyards.
“We don’t need galleys,” Henry said dismissively. “Galleys are for raids on shore. We are not pirates. We want great ships that can carry our soldiers. We want great ships that can tackle the French ships at sea. The ship is a platform from which you launch your attack. The greater the platform, the more soldiers can muster. It has to be a big ship for a battle at sea.”