CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE OF GRAVELINES (JULY 13, 1558)

AND THE PEACE OF CATEA U CAMBRSIS
(APRIL 2, 1559)

G UISE, after having dismantled Guisnes and repaired the

breaches of Calais, went back in March to the Ardennes
frontier, leaving about a third of his field army, under the
Marshal des Thermes, to protect the newly conquered region
from a probable counter-offensive on the part of King Philip's
force in Flanders. It is surprising that no such attempt was
made-and the English were furious with their ally, holding
(rather unfairly) that the loss of Calais was due to him rather
than to their own neglect. They refused to send an arrnyto
Flanders, and instead dispatched the fieet-mobilized all too
late-to execute a futile descent on the coast of Brittany,
which failed completely. Philip had disbanded a large part
of his army for the winter; by the time that he was beginning
to collect a competent force, the stress of the campaign had
passed away to the side of the Ardennes, when Guise laid siege
to Thionville (May 1558). The place fell by assault, after a
stout resistance, before the King's army was ready to relieve
it. But Guise had then to move westward, for at last a formid-
able Spanish-Netherland-German army had been collected,
and was advancing into Picardy once more, as in the previous
year, leaving Calais unthreatened. By midsummer one of
those surprising deadlocks which had been seen in previous
years occurred. The two armies faced each other behind the
Somme, dug themselves in, and each refused to take the
offensive (J uly- August 1558).1
Meanwhile, however, the last, in a small way one of the most
decisive, battle of this long series of wars was fought, on a side-
issue, and by a detached force on either side. The Marshal Des
Thermes made a sud den incursion into west Flanders, with the
1 Tbere is an excellent account of tbis deadlock in Boivin's J Dumal, under date
September 2.
1558] DES THERMES RAIDS FLANDERS 275
notunimportant detachment which had been left under his com-
mandat Calais. We are assured that this was not done with
tbereasonable object of distracting the enemy's main army by
threateninghis northern flank, by way of a diversion, but purely
becauseDes Thermes was aware that the garrisons of Flanders
hadbeen depleted, and that there was afine opportunity for
raidinga wealthy region, full of ill-fortified or unfortified towns.
Thespecial opportunity offered was that Dunkirk was full of
valuable merchandise, everything that used to pass from
England to Flanders having been shifted in this direction
linceCalais fell into French hands.! To get to Dunkirk he
reuld have to march past Gravelines, the Spanish frontier
rtronghold,which was properly fortified and not undermanned
likeother places. But he resolved to take this risk, knowing
iliatthe garrison would be too weak to meddle with an army :
and,if he prospered in this raid, he may have intended to make
adashat Gravelines on his way back to Calais." Des Thermes
hasleft a very unconvincing report of his campaign in a dis-
atchaddressed to the Duke of Guise." He alleges that it
Iadbeen his first intention to lay formal siege to Gravelines,
thoughthere were ten companies of foot in the garrison-
nearly4000 men-but that he dropped the idea, because he
iadreceived orders from Picardy not to tie himself up in
tngthyoperations, but to hold his army in hand, so that it
oould easily be recalled. 'Wherefore,' he writes, though he
oould more honestly have written 'in spite of which orders, ,
heproceededto do precisely what he had been told not to do.
Re had marched from Calais on June 30 with 500 gen-
wes, three companies of light horse, and eighteen German
IlIdfourteen French foot companies- 1500 horse and 9000 foot.
Hewentpast Gravelines, leaving it untouched, and spent twelve
iaysin his raid, taking Dunkirk ' which,' as he owns, ' was no
:ortress,
, after two days' bombardment of its feeble defences.
Theplace was sacked and proved a most rich prize. Des
llermesthen turned against the wealthy open town of Bergues,

'Thisis expressly stated by Bussy Rabutin: 'Etant adverti que la pluspart

i1svilles selonla Coste de la Mer estoient mal pourveus et garnies de gens de guerre,
fit l'enterprisede s'aller amperer d'une fort belle ville appelle Duinkerke, ou il
ufortbeau et riche port ' (xi. p. 237).
I'Dliberantencore d'entreprendre et essayer Gravelines, s'il en offroit quelque
llasion'(Bussy, ibid.).
IThismay be iound in extenso in the end of the edition of Bussy Rabutin's
IlfIIirs, pp. 339-52.
276 THE WARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY [JULY 13

from which the inhabitants fled in the night, leaving their

goods behind them. Here also much plunder was taken.
, The soldiers in our camp before Dunkirk,' says the Marshal,
'were so clogged up with the spoil that they had got that we
could not keep them to their standards, so to prevent general
disbandment, we had to allow the booty to be taken back to
Calais, which was done under the escort of M. de Senarpont and
a body of cavalry. Such good haste was made that they were
back to our camp at Dunkirk in two days.' There was some
idea of going forward again to Nieuport, but this would only
have led 'to getting so much more plunder for the soldiers
that they would have again become unserviceable,' so on the
roth of July he turned back to take a look at Gravelines.!
Meanwhile he was, so he says, smitten with a violent access
of gout, which kept him on his couch for two days, during which
his officers reconnoitred Gravelines. They reported that it
might be breached, but that the garrison was so strong that to
get into the place would be a difficult and lengthy business.
Wherefore Des Thermes resolved to return to Calais, crossing
the river Aa, which flows from St. Omer past Gravelines,
by the fords between that fortress and the sea, which were good
and easy for many hours of the day. On the morning of July
13 the army began to cross the Aa, the cavalry leading, the
infantry following, while Des Thermes brought up the rear
with 500 arquebusiers and two companies of gendarmes, escort-
ing the baggage: he could, as he explains, mount his horse that
day. He took this post for fear that the garrison might make a
sally, when they saw the waggons defiling before their walls.
But the garrison of Grave1ines was not the thing to be
feared. Though Des Thermes seems to have taken no thought
of the possibility, his twe1ve-day raid into Flanders had given
time for the enemy to get together a fie1d force, with which he
would have to deal. And the enterprising commander of this
force was not intending to drive the French out of Flanders by

1 I1 Y avait ceux qui estoient d'advis d'aller [usqu'u Nieuport. Toutes-

os il Y avait une difficult, qui estoist que d'aller la ce n'estoient qu'enricher nos
soldats, pour n'en tirer aprs aucun service, et nous laisser en un inconvenient.'
Des Thermes' dispatch, p. 346. Can any better evidence be wanted of the condition
of the army, and of the fact that tbe wbole matter was a mere raid for plunder?
In tbis account of Des Tbermes' campaign, I bave used bis own dispatcb as tbe
main autbority for dates and designs. It is a disingenuous document, but can only
excuse facts, not rnisdate tbem. From it 1 contradict requently-made statements
tbat tbe Frencb took Bergues before Dunkirk and advanced as far as Nieuport.
1558] EGMONT INTERCEPTS DES THERMES 277
frontalattack on the seacoast route, but to cut in between them
andCalais, and to force them to fight with the water at their
backsand no possible way of retreat.
Lamoral of Egmont, who had so much distinguished him-
rlfin the cavalry fighting at St. Quentin, was now commanding
in Flanders. Without weakening the main army in Picardy,
ke gathered together a miscellaneous force from all the garrisons
oFlanders and Artois, of which a great part was composed of
burgher-rnilitiafrom the big Flemish towns. But there was a
oonsiderablecavalry contingent, including several German
pistoleer' or ' reiter' squadrons, and some of the old Bur-
cundian (t".e. Netherland) gendarme companies, which had
o\Ved their origin to Charles the Bold, and which Charles V
Dad kept regularly in service. Probably the units were frag-
mentary, since they had been gathered together out of garrisons,
butthe mounted arm was formidable, though the infantry was
ieterogeneousand of unequal value. The whole force, how-
!Ver, was numerous, and must have outnumbered Des Thermes'
nders by several thousands-though not by two to one, as he
aIIeged.The whole may have mustered 2000 horse and 10,000
11,000 foot.
The French commander writes, in his dispatch to Guise,
~athisfirst alarm about an enemy from the inland being in his
~hbourhood, was when his camp before Gravelines was raided
IIld hisoutposts driven in on the night of the r zth. On asking
rtxtmorning why he had been left uninformed of this, 'the
aptains answered that it was because there was no order in the
mny, and no one had given them any commands.' 1 More-
lIer, enerny forces could be seen crossing the Aa by fords
.oovethe town, which were dry from the recoil of the tide, a
fOOd hour before the passages at the rnouth of the estuary were
~cticable. It was evident that the cavalry at the head of
e marching columns was airning at getting ahead of the
French on the road along the shore to Calais. Des Thermes,
efore,hurried across the ford in person, leaving the baggage
IKItherearguard to cross where they could, and took cornrnand
Ithegendarmerie, who were at the head of the French column
Iroute.
500nafter he arrived the enemy's horse came into action,
110 bodies,one of Gerrnan reiters, the other of heavy cavalry,
arttinginto the road in front of the French. They were
1 Des Thermes' dispatch, p. 349.
278 THE WARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY [JULY 13

charged and repulsed, so that for a moment Des Thermes

thought that he was having the best of the day.! But the
enemy's main body, his .reserve of horse and his infantry, were
now so close up that there was no hope of renewing the march
on Calais, and getting across the front of the approaching troops.
Des Thermes was constrained to halt, and form up in line of
battle-the German infantry next the sea, the French infantry
more inland, seven guns in the centre, the horse on the left flank,
The rearguard from across the water seems to have got on the
ground very late, possibly after the crisis of the battle was overo
To be forced to fight with his back to the Aa and Gravelines,
the sea on one flan k, and the enemy on the other, meant ruin,
unless a complete victory were obtained, and the enemy thrust
quite out of the way.
Possibly Egmont's first cavalry attack had been made only
with the object of pinning the French to the ground, and forcing
them to draw up in battle array. For his main body, though
approaching, was not available at the moment of this initial
clash. The French had taken up a position with no natural
advantages-as the map shows-the low sandy dunes are only
fifteen or twenty feet above the sea, and their very gently
rolling surface is not broken by any marked dips or gullies
behind which a line could be formed with any utility.
Egmont, having rallied the squadrons which had taken
part in the early unlucky charges, put himself at the head of
bis reserve of gendarmes, with the rest of the cavalry behind
him, and waited till his infantry had come up and formed
themselves ready to join in the general advance. He then
attacked a l'outrance, broke the much inferior French horse,
of which some units are accused of having failed to support
Des Thermes at the critical mornent.P and then fell with all
arms upon the French infantry. There was some hot fighting,
in which Egmont himself was unhorsed, for the native French
companies on the left, who had covered their fiank hastily
with wagons full of hackbutteers, held out resolutely for some
time in solid blocks. But the landsknecht companies, who
formed more than half of the army, made little resistance;
they threw up their pikes instead of levelling them, in sign of

1 Des Thermes' dspatch, p. 351; cf. Bussy, X. p. 240.

Bussy Rabutin says that Des Thermes was 'mal secouru du surplus de notre
gendarmere, et on accuse certains des chefs et quelques compagnies d'avoir fait
mauvais devoir.' Book xi. pp. 240-1.
1558] INTERVENTION OF ENGLISH SHIPS 279
surrender, and broke Up-' which was thought strange and
disgraceful,'
1 for the reputation of this German mercenary
infantryin the French service had hitherto been high. The
oollapse
of this wing of the French army is explained by a fact
mentioned by Holingshed 2 and (oddly enough) by Guicciar-
dini,
thoughit is not cited either by Des Thermes in the meagre
edofhis dispatch, nor by Bussy, the best French narrator of
thefight. There was a small squadron of the English war-
ships,which (though the fleet had gone to Brittany) was
hanging about the Flemish coast, and endeavouring to com-
municate with the garrison of Gravelines. This it had not
beenableto do, for that fortress is a mile from the sea, and the

N-O-R-T-H- ffieapurt

Sca1e 07 Miles
o 5 10
St.Omer .R.. e

LoCALITIES
OF THE CAMPAIGN OF GRAVELINES, JUNE 31-JULY 13, 1558.

French were in force on the estuary of the Aa. But seeing and
hearing a battle in progress on the low dunes, the commander
ofthissquadron (his name is unfortunately lost) pushed as far
toward the land as the shallowness of the water permitted, and
began trying long shots at the wing of the French army which
restedon the sea. This was done, no doubt, from a memory
ofwhathappened at Pinkie, where the English ships had so
bombarded the Scottish left wing that it flinched inland and
gol outof range. Cannon-balls, from the unexpected side of
!hesea,plunged into the massive blocks of German pikemen
atthewater's edge, and so demoralized them, at the moment
ofEgmont's general attack on the French line, that they threw
l' Lesallemands ne firent aucun resistence, serompant d'eux mesmes, et hausserent
fur picques,ce qu'n a trouve trange et mauvais.' [bid. p. 241.
IWhowas writing in 1577, only nineteen years after the battle, and must have
been familiarwith the facts. See v. p. II9.
280 THE WARS OF THE SIXTEE TH CENTURY [APRIL 12

Up their pikes and asked for quarter, when attacked by the

hostil e infantry.
The French army was absolutely annihilated. Only a few
individual horsemen, who had somehow got round the fiank
of the mele, escaped to bring the bad news to Calais. Des
Thermes himself, wounded in the body, Senarpont, the governor
of Boulogne, and all the other French commanders, d'Anne-
bault, Villebon, Morvilliers, and de Chaubrun, were taken
prisoners-a valuable asset in ransom money-and of the
rank and file half were dead and the other half captives.
Holingshed remarks that if Egmont and the commander of
the English ships had agreed to move on Calais next morning,
they might have captured it. For only a skeleton garrison had
been left behind when Des Thermes went out: there were no
French ships in the Channel, and succour by land from Picardy
would have taken some days to come up.! But the opportunity
was missed-probably, in the end, not to the detriment of
England. Egmont was content at having, with his improvised
army, completely destroyed the enemy opposed to him.
It is impossible to speak in sufficiently condemnatory terms
of Des Thermes' little campaign. He had been told (as he
confessed himself) not to risk his army. Instead, he went for
a twelve days' raid into a country which promised good plunder,
leaving Gravelines-a strong fortress-in his rear, and taking
no precautions against interruptions from the east. N othing
was easier than to cut off his way of return, and then, unless
he should win a victory over superior numbers, he and all his
army were doomed to destruction. Egmont won a deserved
reputation for the soundness of his strategy, and the resolution
with which he had pushed matters to a quick issue. But for
his preliminary cavalry attack the enemy might possibly have
pushed past his front, and have reached Calais with some
portion at least of his army intacto
This disaster had no small part in bringing the interminable
war of Hapsburg and Valois to an end. King Philip and
King Henry, entrenched opposite each other on the Sornme,
and each refusing to attack, were both at the end of their
financial resources, and disinclined to hazard any general
action. Philip was no soldier, but a fanatic intent on the
suppression of Protestantism throughout Europe. Henry had,
if we trust his admirer, De la Noue, tardily come to the con-
1 Holingshed, iv, p. 120.
ISS9l TREATY OF CATEAU COMBRESIS
clusion that military glory was not a safe career, and was
already somewhat failing in health and energy.s Gravelines
coming on top of Sto Quentin indisposed him for further
risks,and long negotiations were already in progress between
thetwo royal camps before the autumn was out. The inten-
tionsof the two parties were sufficiently shown by the fact that
both the French and the Spanish kings disbanded part o
theirarmies in November, and sent the rest into garrisons far
tothe rear. The peace negotiations, however, dragged on for
manymonths, for there was unlirnited opportunity for haggling
overscraps o land. The French were in possession o the
threebishoprics in Lorraine, o Thionville, o Calais, and o a
largeholding in Piedmont and Savoy. On the other hand,
Philip, besides the complete possession o the long-disputed
Naples and Milan, had a number of the strong towns of Picardy
inhishands. In the end, Henry gave up all his claims on the
Italian lands, and evacuated Savoy and Piedmont, retaining
in the south only the narrow derelict Alpine marquisate o
Saluzzo,when the reigning house had died out in 1548. On
thenorthern side o France Henry kept Metz, Toul, Verdun,
and Calais, while Philip retired from the occupied Picard
fortresses. He was no longer interested in the fate of Calais,
sincehis wife, the English Queen, had died in N ovember 1558,
andthe claims of her enigmatic successor, Elizabeth, whom he
hadevery reason to distrust, were not likely to influence him
overmuch. The English ambassadors at the Congress o
CateauCambrsis were put off with some vague promises o
afuture restoration of Calais, or a war indemnity, neither o
whichdid they really expect to turn into actualities. Elizabeth,
inlater years, found them useful points on which to haggle
withthe French government at one time and another, without
anyvery serious anticipation of success.
Thus the dream of a French Empire in 1taly vanished, and
areal Spanish domination was established there, which was to
lastfor a century and a half, for the Pope and the minor Italian
princeswere helpless before the master o Milan and N aples.
On the other hand, the three bishoprics and Calais, though
theylook small patches on the map, were of the highest im-
portanceto France. N ot only was all future danger from English
invasionin the north removed, but a strangle-hold was secured
1 Boivinin his amusing account of the deadlock on the Somme, tells of the king

beingriddled with chills and gout in his hands, and compelled to le up in his tent.
282 THE WARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY [1559
on the duchy of Lorraine, whose territory was completely
dominated by Metz, Toul, and Verdun, in French hands. The
only marvel is that it did not fall into the power of France till
many generations had passed away. Strategically it was
doomed after 1559.
Henry II was undoubtedly wise to acquiesce in the terrns
settled at Cateau Cambrsis-yet his professional soldiers, who
loved the long wars, grumbled fiercely, with Guise as their
spokesman, and murmured that France was giving up thrice as
much to the enemy as Philip was giving up to France.! They
even proffered the fatuous explanation that the peace was the
work of the Constable Montmorency, who wanted to escape
from his captivity, and to see his rival Guise deprived of further
opportunities of winning military glory! The real governing
cause was that Henry was failing in health and spirit, and
financially ruined-the very large army that he had collected
for his final effort was far too expensive for his resources.
Whether after a few years of rest he would have started again
on his earlier policy must remain an un solved question-for,
only a few months after he had signed the treaty, he was acci-
dentally killed in a tournament (September 1559), and France,
deprived of a governing hand, lapsed into faction-fights and
religious wars. There were those who, like Coligny, thought
that domestic strife might be brought to an end by luring the
whole nation into one more attack on Philip II, when he had
tied himself up in his N etherland troubles. But this was not
to be the solution-the Catholics and the Huguenots had to
settle their con test, before France as a whole was fit once more
to plunge into foreign wars, and make her weight felt in
European politics.
Meanwhile Philip of Spain, with his hands free for the re-
pression of Protestantism in all quarters, was able to work out
his own ruin, without having the whole force of France turned
against him-as it had been against his father the Emperor-
whose troubles had been both more complicated and less self-
sought. Charles failed because France was always distracting
him by sudden and usually improvised attacks-Philip because
he engineered his own disasters without external assistance.
1 See, for example, Montluc's wholly unconvincing remarks on a 'disgraceful
peace.'