Chapter 1. Tragedy at Thérouanne
I can't even remember the last time I've posted here. To be honest, I lost interest in writing and alt. history for quite some time, but over the last year I've gotten back into it. I've slowly been starting to write again... I've had quite a few ideas, but nothing has really kept my interest up until now. I mess a lot with PODs that involve people living or dying, and sort of playing out the effects from here. This is one idea that I've had in my mind for some time and have even written out some chapters for. Hope you all enjoy, and looking forward to comments and any suggestions!
“Nature wronged in making her a woman.
But for her sex, she could have
surpassed all the heroes of history.”
— Thomas Cromwell
Chapter 1. Tragedy at Thérouanne
1513 – England & France.
At Thérouanne, England’s hopes and dreams were ruined.
— Anonymous
Music Accompaniment: Contentez-vous
King Henry VIII of England and Emperor Maximilian meet outside Thérouanne — 1513.
Thirteen years into the new century had seen little changed from the years preceding it—France continued to pursue a policy of conquest in Italy, where Louis XII sought to lay claim to the dominions of Milan and Naples which he believed belonged to the Crown of France as his birthright. Opposition to French claims in Italy were spearheaded by Pope Julius II, the so-called Warrior Pope who wore his armor as confidently as he wore his clerical vestments. Having formed an alliance in 1508 called the League of Cambrai with Ferdinand of Aragon and Emperor Maximilian, this league in 1511 had grown into the Holy League—augmented by the participation of England, the Republic of Venice, and the Swiss Confederacy.
Henry VIII, the King of England, had succeeded his father, Henry VII in 1509. He was a king who was popularly acclaimed, beloved by his people, and adored by his wife—Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. While his father had been cautious—plotting, scrimping, and saving, doing all that he could to leave England prosperous and secure, the son was made of more frivolous stuff. Henry VIII dreamed of nothing more than to be the hero-king, leading his armies to victory in the reconquest of France. He saw himself as Henry V reborn; eager to revenge the slights poured upon England since the end of the Hundred Years War. Such dreams were readily exploited by Henry’s father-in-law, Ferdinand of Aragon, who promised to aid Henry VIII in his conquest of the Duchy of Guyenne. In 1512, England’s first foray into France was launched, where 10,000 troops under the Earl of Dorset landed at Hondarribia, ferried by Admiral Edward Howard. This army, eventually quartered at Bayonne, mainly served to support Ferdinand’s conquest of the Kingdom of Navarre—though it continued to maintain possessions north of the Pyrenees, those in the south which formed the ancestral core of the kingdom were lost to the Spanish armies.
The English forces under Dorset, underfunded and undersupplied, had accomplished none of their goals, with many of the soldiers perishing from both hunger and disease. A mutinous mood amongst the troops forced Dorset to bring the invasion force back to England—a mere shadow of the troops that had left in the previous year. Dorset himself returned to England in his sickbed, close to death. He was heavily rebuked by Henry VIII for the failure of his troops—but he eventually received clemency following the intervention of Queen Catherine. Henry VIII reserved most of his anger for his father-in-law; Ferdinand was the one who had made promises and had failed to follow through. Dorset could not be held wholly responsible for what had occurred; was it not more appropriate for the king himself to lead his troops in a war of conquest? Whispers also spoke at court of a possible fracture in the relationship between the king and queen—not only owing to Ferdinand of Aragon’s duplicity, but also their continuing lack of children. Catherine had suffered a miscarriage in 1510, and though she had given birth to a son in 1511, the young boy had lived for only a little over a month. An heir—a male heir, was paramount for the continuance of the Tudor dynasty, lest England once more devolve into warring amongst rival claimants seeking to take the throne. For whatever the rumors might be, the king still seemed taken with his Spanish wife—and in the spring of 1513, it soon became common knowledge that the queen was once more expecting, with both she and the king making prayers that this pregnancy would come to fruition.
Henry VIII of England, circa 1509.
Henry VIII continued his plans to prepare for an invasion of France from the north—from the sole remaining English outpost in France, the port city of Calais. Parliament gladly voted their king needed subsidies to continue the war against France, and fresh troops were dispatched to Calais to join those forces commanded there by the Earl of Shrewsbury. It was in May of 1513 that Henry VIII announced that he would be joining the invasion force in person and named Queen Catherine as Regent of England during his absence. Catherine would be assisted by her husband’s council and advisors, including Thomas Wolsey—a cleric whose influence within the royal government was slowly beginning to grow. Throughout June the English army at Calais continued to swell in size—Shrewsbury commanded the vanguard of 8,000, while Lord Herbert commanded the rearward with 6,000 troops. Henry VIII himself set sail from Dover with another 11,000 troops under his command—with provisions provided by Thomas Wolsey in his role of almoner. The English force included cavalry, artillery, infantry, and the famed longbowmen—equipped with arrows with hardened steel heads meant to penetrate heavy armor more effectively. At the end of June, the English forces set out for Thérouanne, though they made little progress in seizing the city. The siege stalled throughout July and August, and English forces were soon augmented by the arrival of Emperor Maximilian with a small entourage of 4,000 cavalrymen. Henry VIII hosted the emperor at the small hamlet of Aire-sur-la-Lys, in a tent made of cloth of gold—a splendid show despite the foul weather upon the day of their meeting. With the French attempting to resupply Thérouanne, Henry VIII soon moved his headquarters to Guinegate after displacing French cavalry holding the tower there—made possible by English engineers having built bridges overnight to cross the Lys.
Though Emperor Maximilian had a battle plan in mind before he had even arrived, Henry VIII had his own plans in mind, and sought to lead the cavalry charge, despite others who believed that the emperor should do so. What played out next would become part of what would be known as the Tragedy of Thérouanne. As English forces under the Earl of Essex harried French troops under the Sieur de La Palice and began to put them to rout, Henry VIII led the cavalry charge in tandem with the Imperial cavalry. Henry VIII’s cavalry encountered fierce resistance, and the king soon found himself unhorsed amid the charge. During the chaos, few are sure of who landed the mortal blow, but it was done: Henry VIII was struck down as the French cavalry attempted to press back the English forces before their line broke completely. The collapse of the king delivered a terrible blow upon the English morale—though the French troops were deflected and unable to resupply Thérouanne, the remaining English commanders were unable to move forth to take advantage of the shattering of the French forces—they could only watch glumly as they faded into the distance, with the English now forced to reckon with what had occurred. Only the Imperial cavalry had saved the English troops from a complete dissolution. Their young king—the light of the kingdom and their daring monarch, now lie dead—perhaps the Tudor dynasty with it. The king had no son—there remained only his sisters: Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and the Princess Mary, betrothed to Charles of Ghent, grandson of the Emperor Maximilian. There also remained Queen Catherine—Regent of England and pregnant. All hope rested upon the queen coming through this travail successfully: could England afford to elevate Margaret, wed to the Scottish king, or Princess Mary, a young girl, as their sovereign? Both seemed unthinkable. How would this news be sent home? As the English commanders quibbled amongst themselves, Maximilian volunteered to pen a letter to the queen personally.
Your Grace,
It is with great sadness that I must write to you regarding the events that have taken place here at Thérouanne. Though we have had what some might call a victory, it has come at a terrible, terrible cost. I am sure you will receive this letter with great curiosity, but I beseech you to read this letter most carefully. It with a heavy heart and deep regret that I must write to you of your husband—I am afraid he is no more. He perished leading the English cavalry. I know that this news will come to you as a great shock; I hope that your attendants and dearest friends may be of some comfort to you, as well as this—your lord husband’s death was not in vain. He died as a man ought to die, as so many men wish to die: in battle, as a hero. He will always be remembered as such—his golden youth shall last now forever, and Our Lord shall ensure he shall always be a comfort. Let this memory and this faith nurture you.
We pray most fervently for you and your child.
I remain your devoted friend and ally.
MAXIMILIAN.
The news of the king’s death could not be kept from the troops—and the news would slowly filter back to England via Calais, though messengers bearing the news for both the queen and the Privy Council were delayed for nearly a week because of bad weather preventing the crossing. The English armies, now in complete disarray, were forced to lift the siege of Thérouanne—they slowly filtered back across the frontier to Calais, where the English fleet laid in wait to ferry the troops back home. The king’s body was brought with them. Henry’s dreams of a reconquest of France had died with him—and one could only wonder what might happen next.
Anno Obumbratio
An Alternate History of the 16th Century
An Alternate History of the 16th Century
“Nature wronged in making her a woman.
But for her sex, she could have
surpassed all the heroes of history.”
— Thomas Cromwell
Chapter 1. Tragedy at Thérouanne
1513 – England & France.
At Thérouanne, England’s hopes and dreams were ruined.
— Anonymous
Music Accompaniment: Contentez-vous
King Henry VIII of England and Emperor Maximilian meet outside Thérouanne — 1513.
Thirteen years into the new century had seen little changed from the years preceding it—France continued to pursue a policy of conquest in Italy, where Louis XII sought to lay claim to the dominions of Milan and Naples which he believed belonged to the Crown of France as his birthright. Opposition to French claims in Italy were spearheaded by Pope Julius II, the so-called Warrior Pope who wore his armor as confidently as he wore his clerical vestments. Having formed an alliance in 1508 called the League of Cambrai with Ferdinand of Aragon and Emperor Maximilian, this league in 1511 had grown into the Holy League—augmented by the participation of England, the Republic of Venice, and the Swiss Confederacy.
Henry VIII, the King of England, had succeeded his father, Henry VII in 1509. He was a king who was popularly acclaimed, beloved by his people, and adored by his wife—Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. While his father had been cautious—plotting, scrimping, and saving, doing all that he could to leave England prosperous and secure, the son was made of more frivolous stuff. Henry VIII dreamed of nothing more than to be the hero-king, leading his armies to victory in the reconquest of France. He saw himself as Henry V reborn; eager to revenge the slights poured upon England since the end of the Hundred Years War. Such dreams were readily exploited by Henry’s father-in-law, Ferdinand of Aragon, who promised to aid Henry VIII in his conquest of the Duchy of Guyenne. In 1512, England’s first foray into France was launched, where 10,000 troops under the Earl of Dorset landed at Hondarribia, ferried by Admiral Edward Howard. This army, eventually quartered at Bayonne, mainly served to support Ferdinand’s conquest of the Kingdom of Navarre—though it continued to maintain possessions north of the Pyrenees, those in the south which formed the ancestral core of the kingdom were lost to the Spanish armies.
The English forces under Dorset, underfunded and undersupplied, had accomplished none of their goals, with many of the soldiers perishing from both hunger and disease. A mutinous mood amongst the troops forced Dorset to bring the invasion force back to England—a mere shadow of the troops that had left in the previous year. Dorset himself returned to England in his sickbed, close to death. He was heavily rebuked by Henry VIII for the failure of his troops—but he eventually received clemency following the intervention of Queen Catherine. Henry VIII reserved most of his anger for his father-in-law; Ferdinand was the one who had made promises and had failed to follow through. Dorset could not be held wholly responsible for what had occurred; was it not more appropriate for the king himself to lead his troops in a war of conquest? Whispers also spoke at court of a possible fracture in the relationship between the king and queen—not only owing to Ferdinand of Aragon’s duplicity, but also their continuing lack of children. Catherine had suffered a miscarriage in 1510, and though she had given birth to a son in 1511, the young boy had lived for only a little over a month. An heir—a male heir, was paramount for the continuance of the Tudor dynasty, lest England once more devolve into warring amongst rival claimants seeking to take the throne. For whatever the rumors might be, the king still seemed taken with his Spanish wife—and in the spring of 1513, it soon became common knowledge that the queen was once more expecting, with both she and the king making prayers that this pregnancy would come to fruition.
Henry VIII of England, circa 1509.
Henry VIII continued his plans to prepare for an invasion of France from the north—from the sole remaining English outpost in France, the port city of Calais. Parliament gladly voted their king needed subsidies to continue the war against France, and fresh troops were dispatched to Calais to join those forces commanded there by the Earl of Shrewsbury. It was in May of 1513 that Henry VIII announced that he would be joining the invasion force in person and named Queen Catherine as Regent of England during his absence. Catherine would be assisted by her husband’s council and advisors, including Thomas Wolsey—a cleric whose influence within the royal government was slowly beginning to grow. Throughout June the English army at Calais continued to swell in size—Shrewsbury commanded the vanguard of 8,000, while Lord Herbert commanded the rearward with 6,000 troops. Henry VIII himself set sail from Dover with another 11,000 troops under his command—with provisions provided by Thomas Wolsey in his role of almoner. The English force included cavalry, artillery, infantry, and the famed longbowmen—equipped with arrows with hardened steel heads meant to penetrate heavy armor more effectively. At the end of June, the English forces set out for Thérouanne, though they made little progress in seizing the city. The siege stalled throughout July and August, and English forces were soon augmented by the arrival of Emperor Maximilian with a small entourage of 4,000 cavalrymen. Henry VIII hosted the emperor at the small hamlet of Aire-sur-la-Lys, in a tent made of cloth of gold—a splendid show despite the foul weather upon the day of their meeting. With the French attempting to resupply Thérouanne, Henry VIII soon moved his headquarters to Guinegate after displacing French cavalry holding the tower there—made possible by English engineers having built bridges overnight to cross the Lys.
Though Emperor Maximilian had a battle plan in mind before he had even arrived, Henry VIII had his own plans in mind, and sought to lead the cavalry charge, despite others who believed that the emperor should do so. What played out next would become part of what would be known as the Tragedy of Thérouanne. As English forces under the Earl of Essex harried French troops under the Sieur de La Palice and began to put them to rout, Henry VIII led the cavalry charge in tandem with the Imperial cavalry. Henry VIII’s cavalry encountered fierce resistance, and the king soon found himself unhorsed amid the charge. During the chaos, few are sure of who landed the mortal blow, but it was done: Henry VIII was struck down as the French cavalry attempted to press back the English forces before their line broke completely. The collapse of the king delivered a terrible blow upon the English morale—though the French troops were deflected and unable to resupply Thérouanne, the remaining English commanders were unable to move forth to take advantage of the shattering of the French forces—they could only watch glumly as they faded into the distance, with the English now forced to reckon with what had occurred. Only the Imperial cavalry had saved the English troops from a complete dissolution. Their young king—the light of the kingdom and their daring monarch, now lie dead—perhaps the Tudor dynasty with it. The king had no son—there remained only his sisters: Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and the Princess Mary, betrothed to Charles of Ghent, grandson of the Emperor Maximilian. There also remained Queen Catherine—Regent of England and pregnant. All hope rested upon the queen coming through this travail successfully: could England afford to elevate Margaret, wed to the Scottish king, or Princess Mary, a young girl, as their sovereign? Both seemed unthinkable. How would this news be sent home? As the English commanders quibbled amongst themselves, Maximilian volunteered to pen a letter to the queen personally.
Your Grace,
It is with great sadness that I must write to you regarding the events that have taken place here at Thérouanne. Though we have had what some might call a victory, it has come at a terrible, terrible cost. I am sure you will receive this letter with great curiosity, but I beseech you to read this letter most carefully. It with a heavy heart and deep regret that I must write to you of your husband—I am afraid he is no more. He perished leading the English cavalry. I know that this news will come to you as a great shock; I hope that your attendants and dearest friends may be of some comfort to you, as well as this—your lord husband’s death was not in vain. He died as a man ought to die, as so many men wish to die: in battle, as a hero. He will always be remembered as such—his golden youth shall last now forever, and Our Lord shall ensure he shall always be a comfort. Let this memory and this faith nurture you.
We pray most fervently for you and your child.
I remain your devoted friend and ally.
MAXIMILIAN.
The news of the king’s death could not be kept from the troops—and the news would slowly filter back to England via Calais, though messengers bearing the news for both the queen and the Privy Council were delayed for nearly a week because of bad weather preventing the crossing. The English armies, now in complete disarray, were forced to lift the siege of Thérouanne—they slowly filtered back across the frontier to Calais, where the English fleet laid in wait to ferry the troops back home. The king’s body was brought with them. Henry’s dreams of a reconquest of France had died with him—and one could only wonder what might happen next.
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Charles is only thirteen at this point. Ferdinand of Aragon still perhaps nurses hopes of having an heir with Germaine of Foix (thereby severing the union of Castile and Aragon), but time is running out for that. Charles has already been named heir in Castile in both 1506 and 1510. Queen Joanna was recognized as the heiress-presumptive of Aragon in 1502, but at the time the Archbishop of Zaragoza expressed that such an oath did not modify the right of succession: that could only be done with a formal agreement between the king and the Corts. Still, there is no doubt that Ferdinand would prefer to see his namesake (and Spanish reared) grandson raised to the throne over his Flemish grandson. Who's to say?
