TIe InlevnalionaI Mevcenav MavIel in lIe SixleenlI Cenluv AngIo-FvencI Conpelilion in

Oevnan, 1543-50
AulIov|s) Bavid Follev
Souvce TIe EngIisI HislovicaI Beviev, VoI. 111, No. 440 |FeI., 1996), pp. 24-58
FuIIisIed I OxJovd Univevsil Fvess
SlaIIe UBL http://www.jstor.org/stable/577860
Accessed 20/05/2010 1300
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The English
Historical Review.
http://www.jstor.org
English Historical Review
? Addison Wesley Longman Limited 1996 00oo
3-8266/96/2483/0024/$03.oo
The International
Mercenary
Market in the
Sixteenth
Century: Anglo-French Competition
in
Germany, 1543-50
WH EN
Henry
VIII declared war on France inJune
1543,
he was faced
by
the need to build an
army
that could
operate seriously
on the battlefields
of
Europe.
He
quickly found,
as had the
major
European powers,
that
there could be no effective
army
without
professional
mercenaries. The
period
1543-50,
one of hot or cold war between
England
and France,
therefore saw the first serious
English attempt
to establish links with the
mercenary market, especially
in
Germany,
at a time when France and the
Habsburgs
were
already
well
experienced
in it. Historians have often
stressed the
importance
of mercenaries in
European
warfare of the
sixteenth
century.
As both
infantry
and
cavalry,
it is
plain
that
they
were
the
professional
soldiers needed
by every army
to stiffen its attack
capability.1
However,
the
processes by
which
they
were recruited and
the interactions between recruitment and
diplomacy
have
by
no means
been worked out. One of the
problems
has been that a full understand-
ing
of the
process
would involve
study
of the archives of those states
competing
for mercenaries as well as those of the German
princes
who
to some extent dominated the
market;
this is not
always possible.
The
fortuitous survival in
diplomatic
archives of substantial French, English
and German sources for the
engagement
of German mercenaries in the
mid- I
540os
therefore
provides
the convenient
opportunity
for an exam-
ination in
depth
of how the two countries
competed
for the services of
this
military arm,
as well as
throwing light
on the
practical processes
of
recruitment and on the interaction of war and
diplomacy
in the
period.
France was an
early participant
in the
quest
for
military professionals
during
the Renaissance, establishing
close and
lasting
links with merce-
nary captains
and
foreign, particularly
German, princes
for that
pur-
pose.
This had obvious
implications
for her
capacity
to recruit
professionals
in times of
emergency.
The relative weakness of native
French
infantry
formations led the French crown from the late fifteenth
century
to
rely increasingly
on German
lansquenets (landsknechts) and,
regularly
from
151
5,
on Swiss
pikes
for its crack
troops.2
One result of
1. See C. Oman, The Art
of
War in the Sixteenth
Century (London, I937),
and the basic more recent
surveys:J.
R. Hale,
Warand
Society
in Renaissance
Europe, 1450-1620 (London, 1985), pp. I46-52;
A.
Corvisier, Armies and
Society
in
Europe, I494-I789 (Indianapolis, I979).
M. Mallett,
Mercenaries and
their Masters:
Warfare
in Renaissance
Italy (London, 1974), argues
that the condottiere had become an
increasingly
stable and aristocratic, as well as
professional,
force in Italian warfare. On internal
landsknecht
organization:
H.M. Moller,
Das
Regiment
der Landsknechte
(I976);
F.
Redlich,
The
German
Military Enterpriser
and his
Workforce (2 vols., Wiesbaden, i964-5).
2. On the
development
of the French
mercenary
network and its conditions of service,
see D. Potter,
'Les Allemands et les armees fransaises au XVI
e
siecle. Jean-Philippe Rhingrave,
chef de
lansquenets:
EHR Feb.
96
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
this was the
development
of an
exceptionally
well-attuned
diplomatic
network in the
Empire
that was used
by
France both for the
negotiation
of alliances and for the maintenance of links
necessary
to the
raising
of
troops.
Ambassadors often doubled as
high-level
secret
negotiators
for
troop
recruitment. There
was, indeed,
still a desire to create a more
reliable French
infantry, partly,
at
least,
under the influence of the
prevailing nostrum,
more often honoured in the
breach,
that reliance on
foreign troops
was
dangerous.
The idea culminated in the creation of the
'legions'
of
i534.1
Yet for various reasons these did not solve the
problem,
and mercenaries remained central to French
infantry
recruit-
ment: in the I
520S,
German
lansquenets
formed
important components
of all
major
French armies and the French crown was
experienced
in
dealing
with them.
Sometimes these mercenaries were commanded in effect
by
a
single
chief like Wilhelm von
Fiirstenberg (especially
in the Piedmont cam-
paigns
of
1536-7),
but this
brought
its own
problems: Fiirstenberg
proved
difficult to
manage.2
In its extensive use of German
troops
in the
i
540os,
France relied on a number of different colonels. A
large levy
of
lansquenets
had been
planned
for
1542, possibly
as
many
as
21,000,
but
the war in
Hungary
meant that the best men had been recruited for that
campaign, though
Francis
I,
in his
propaganda,
claimed that he could call
upon
the German nobles at need.3 In
1543
there were at least three
German
regiments (probably
of
eight ensigns each)
in French service on
the north-east frontier under
Reckerodt,
von Deben and
Rognac.
The
outbreak of the
Franco-Imperial
war in
1542
was
accompanied by
a
proclamation
in the
Empire against
service with France. The effect of the
Emperor's personal campaign
in
I544
was to make the
position
of
German
captains
even more
difficult,
as
they
could contract for defence
of France but not for direct confrontation with their feudal
superior.
Only
a few remained in French service
during
the war.4
etude suivie de sa
correspondance
en
France, 1548-66',Francia,xx,
2
(I993), 1-20,
and
esp. xxi, 2
(I994),
i-63.
For French
problems
with
infantry formations,
see P.
Contamine, 'Naissance de l'infanterie
francaise (milieu
XV e-milieu XVI
e siecle'),
in
Quatrieme
centenaire de la bataille de Coutras.
Colloque
de
1987 (Pau, I989), pp. 63-88.
I. On the French
army
in this
period:
P. Contamine
(ed.), Histoire militaire de la France (Paris,
I992), pp. 233-56;
G.
Dickinson, Fourquevaux's
Instructions sur le Faict de la Guerre (London,
I954),
pp. xxiii-lxxxi;
D.
Potter,
War and Government in the French Provinces:
Picardy, I470-I56o (Cam-
bridge, I993), pp.
I
55-99.
2.
J.
V.
Wagner, Graf
Wilhelm von
Fiirstenberg, I491-1549,
und die
politisch-geistigen
Machte seiner
Zeit
(Stuttgart, I966).
R.
Peter,
'Les
lansquenets
dans les armees du roi. Le
capitaine general Guillaume
de
Fiirstenberg',
in
Charles-Quint,
le Rhin et la France
(Strasbourg, I973),
pp.
95-109.
3.
Instruction of Francis I for Claude de
L'Aubespine, 9 July
1542,
Vienna, Haus-, Hof- und
Staatsarchiv
[hereafter, HHStA],
P.C.
223,
fos.
54-5, copy; transcript, P[ublic] R[ecord]
O[ffice],
3
I/I
8/3/1, pp. 599-60o; imperfect summary
in
J.
S. Brewer et al. (ed.), Letters and
Papers, Foreign and
Domestic, of
the
Reign of Henry
VIII
(2I
vols. and
Addenda, London,
I862-I932
[hereafter L&P]),
xvii.
517.
4.
For the
problems posed
in
1542
for
mercenary captains by
the
Franco-Imperial war, see the
report
of
Paget, Lyons, 3
I July
I
542,
ibid. xvii.
554,
and the
report
of Cruser to the Duke of Cleves, i May
1542,
SA
Diisseldorf, Julich-Berg II, 1940,
fo.
382v.
The muster rolls for
lansquenets
are
extensively
preserved
for
1543: B[ibliotheque] N[ationale, Paris], fr[ancais]
2579i,
nos.
386-7, 424, 431, 434, 447
EHR Feb.
96
2S
26 THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
Whereas the French crown thus
quickly recognized
that the
legions
would be
inadequate
in serious warfare and continued to
rely
over-
whelmingly
on
mercenaries, England
under
Henry
VIII found this a
difficult course to take. With her
unsatisfactory military organization
and her
very
intermittent
participation
in
European warfare, England
arrived rather late in the field of
raising professionals
abroad.
Henry
relied
heavily
for his limited
campaigns
in France on
specially
com-
missioned noble retinues,
but it is also clear that
England,
like
many
other
European countries, experienced
the need to
produce
an effective
native
infantry. Attempts
to raise a well-trained and reliable militia were
the
preferred option.1
One recent historian has
pointed
out that the
Tudors used mercenaries and auxiliaries from
I485
onwards,
but it is
clear that until the renewal of war with France in
1543
little serious
thought
had been
given
to the
mercenary
market.2 From then on,
however, Henry
turned his attention to the
acquisition
of a substantial
band of mercenaries to reinforce the
army
committed for the joint
campaign
with the
Emperor
in I
544.
John Wallop,
the commander of the initial small
English expedition
in aid of the
Emperor (July-November
I543),
established a list of
captains, especially
of Cleves horsemen, who were
willing
to serve,
including
one
Gymynyck, already
an
English pensioner,
described as 'a
very
honest man'. Count Albrecht III of Mansfeld,
commander of
landsknechts active in north
Germany,
and Alexander
Gonzaga
had also
offered their services,
but
Wallop's
view of the Italians was that 'it is
evyll medling
with
theym, having
had
good experience
therof this
yere'.3
In the event,
Henry's experiences
in
negotiation
with
mercenary
captains during
the
Boulogne campaign
were bleak. The
King
had
needed to find mercenaries to
strengthen
his
English troops
to the
(von Deben's troops
under the Count of
Altembourg);
nos. 428, 43 5-6, 446 (Reckerodt's regiment);
nos.
426-7 (Rognac's regiment).
There are fewer rolls for
1544,
and
they
indicate that Italian and Swiss
formations were relied on more in that
campaign.
French sources on the
army facing
Charles V atJalons
are
poor:
see F. Lot, Recherches sur les
effectifs
des armees
franCaises
des
guerres
d'Italie aux
guerres
de
religion, I494-I562 (Paris, i962),
pp.
102-3.
An official act,
BN
Clair[ambault] 330,
no.
7599,
simply
lists 'les
lansquenets'
in the
avant-garde.
i. The best studies of
English military organization
are
J. Goring,
'The
Military Obligations
of the
English People,
I
51
i-i
5
8'
(Univ.
of London PhD thesis,
I95 5),
C. S. L.
Davies, 'Supply
Services of the
English
Armed Forces, I
509-50'
(Univ.
of Oxford D.Phil.
thesis,
I963),
and C. G.
Cruickshank, Army
Royal:
An Account
of Henry
VIII's Invasion
of France, I513 (Oxford, I969).
On mercenaries in
particular,
see G.
J.
Millar, Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries,
I485-I547 (Charlottesville, I980).
This
work, the first book on the
subject,
is
unfortunately
based on limited archival material and contains
some errors. It is
fairly
full on the events of I
544,
but does not cover
1545-6
in
depth.
2. See ibid., pp. 26-48. Henry
VIII had been in touch with German
mercenary captains
since
1542,
when Thomas
Seymour,
on mission to Vienna, had delivered the
King's
letters to Baron ab Heideck: see
State
Papers of King Henry
VIII
(
I i
vols,
Record Comm., London, I
830-52 [hereafter StP]),
ix.
73.
In
August 1542 Henry
was
hoping
that Heideck would lead his
troops
to Calais
early
in the new
year
(ibid., p. 139).
At the same time, Seymour
was instructed to look into the German
mercenary
market
(ibid.).
This Heideck was the elder brother of a
mercenary
in French service
(ibid.,
viii.
640,
ix.
ioi)
under his cousin Count
Fiirstenberg,
a
phenomenon paralleled by
the
Rhinegrave
in the later
I540S
whose brother was in
English
service. See Potter,
'Les Allemands et les armees
franqaises', 3.
3. Wallop
to
Paget,
26 Oct.
1543,
PRO,
SPi/I
82,
fo.
40 (L&P,
xviii [ii]. 310);
to
Henry VIII, 14
Nov.
1543,StP,
ix.
550-2;
to Council,
n.d.
[Nov. 543],
SPi/i82,fo. 98 (L&P,
xviii
[ii].
385):
'as
touching
the
Clevoys
horssemen the
kinges Majesty
can lack none'.
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
contingent
of
42,000 agreed
with the
Emperor
for their common cam-
paign;
a force of
5 i,ooo optimistically planned
in the
spring
of I
544
was
to include
8,ooo high
German foot and
4,000
German horse. In
practice,
Henry
raised
only
an
English army
of
33,000
and
4,ooo
auxiliaries from
the
Emperor
led
by
Maximilien
d'Egmont,
Count of
Buren; 4,000
mercenary
foot were to be
provided by
Christoff von
Landenberg
and
extra
cavalry
drawn from a number of lesser
captains.1
Money always posed
a
problem
in the relations between 'warlords'
like
Henry
VIII and Francis I and the German colonels
they hired,
because a certain amount of credit was often involved. The colonel
would receive his
Bestallung,
or
contract,
and then hired as
many
captains
as he
thought
he would need to raise the
stipulated
number of
men. Either credit would be advanced
by
the
captains,
or
they
received
money
in advance from the colonel to recruit men under licence
(the
Werbepatente).2
Guarantee of
payment
was therefore crucial as costs
were substantial. For
England,
the
monthly pay
of
6,ooo
foot and
1,000ooo
horse was calculated at ?8,216 7s.
3d.
in March
I544;
landsknechts
would receive i2S.
4d. p.m., but there would be I o
per
cent double
pays,
while the
37s.
received
by
the
cavalry
was doubled for 'barded' horse.3
Francis I was
probably right
to dismiss the seriousness of these
nego-
tiations. As
early
as March
1544, Gymynyck
absconded with his ad-
vance,
but the main
problems
concerned
Landenberg.
The latter had
agreed
to
provide 4,000
foot and i,ooo horse, but when he arrived at
Aachen he
proceeded
to
haggle furiously
over his conditions of
service,
while the
English
commissioners for
payment
and conduct, Fane and
Windebank,
were so fearful that
they
had to flee the
camp
and
Stephen
Vaughan
was threatened with death. The main reason for all this was
that
England simply
did not
yet
have the
advantages
of
proximity
and
the network of
acquaintance necessary
to
play
the market
successfully.
Mansfeld,
for
instance,
was
thought
to be 'too distant' for effective
negotiations.
William
Paget,
in close touch with all these
dealings,
remarked that the German
captains
'like merchantes make their
markettes nowe with
your Majeste
and others for it is their
fayre tyme'.4
I.
Army plan
drawn
up
in
French, spring 1544,
SPI/I84, fo. 228 (L&P, xix
[i]. 273[5]).
On the
planning
of the
Boulogne campaign,
see the
very
full account in L. MacMahon, 'The
English
Invasion
of
France, 1544' (Univ.
of Warwick M.A.
thesis,
1992), pp. 49-75.
2.
Redlich,
The German
Military Enterpriser, pp.
40-I.
3.
Calculation of
wages, probably
for
Landenberg's
force of 6,ooo foot and I,oo000 horse, SPi /184, fo.
24 (L&P,
xix
[i]. 247).
For Buren's articles of
service,
8
Apr.
I
544,
with 2,000 foot in
companies
of 400,
each
including 5o-6o arquebusiers, 30
halberdiers and the rest
pikes,
see SPI/I
85,
fo.
142-3
(L&P, xix
[i]. 308[2]),
article
4
on
pay. Payments
were
usually
accounted in Flemish
money.
The florin of 20
patards/stivers
flemish was then worth
3s.
id. st., the
philippus
of
25 patards
was
3s.
2d. The French ecu
was worth
38
stivers and the daller 28 stivers. The relation of
pounds sterling
to the Flemish
pound
(money
of
account)
was I
5:I9.
Thus the
English
crown was worth 6s. 8d. fl. and
5s.
od. st.
4. Millar,
Tudor
Mercenaries, pp. 76-8
. C. Cottereau to Card. du
Bellay, Apr.
1544,
BN, fr.
392I,
fos.
I04-7:
'Le
Roy
ne crainct
point
ses
ennemys
... et combien
qu'il luy
ait
parle
du Landeberg,
toutesfois il ne croit
que
le
roy d'Angleterre
face rien contre
luy pour
des raisons
que
scavez.'
Paget
to
Henry VIII, Antwerp,
8 June
1544,
SPI/I 88, fos.
75-7
(L&P, xix
[i]. 648): Fane and Windebank 'stande
in dred of their
lyves
whenne
they
be
amonge them, and
sayth
that the Almaynes
sweare that if Mr
EHR Feb.
96
27
28 THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
At this
point Henry
decided to write off the
?9,266
that he had
already
paid Landenberg
without
any
effective service from his
infantry, though
his
cavalry captains
were invited to
join Henry's
forces
independently.1
When
negotiations
between Wotton and Hans von
Sickingen
at
Speyer
for
I,000 heavy cavalry
fell
through, only
Mathies Leuchtmacher
brought any
substantial numbers of
cavalry
to
Henry's army
of in-
vasion,
and then with some
difficulty
because of the
heavy
demands for
men in north
Germany.
Otherwise, the
army
included small detach-
ments of
many
other
origins, including
two
companies
of
Spaniards
as
well as Buren's force.2
In addition to all
this,
it is
likely
that the muster commissioners
appointed
in
1544
were
inexperienced.
The
major English diplomats
in
the
field, Paget,
Wotton and Mont,
were able to co-ordinate infor-
mation,
but much of the burden fell on men like Thomas Palmer and
Thomas Chamberlain,
with
Stephen Vaughan handling
the
provision
of
cash and
Ralph Fane,
Richard Windebank,
Francis Hall,
Thomas Ave-
rey,
Edward
Vaughan, John Brende, John Brygantyn (or Brigenden)
and
John Dymoke acting
as muster commissioners for German
troops
from
1544
to I
550.
Stephen Vaughan
had had
long diplomatic
and financial
experience
in the Netherlands,
and Chamberlain had
spent
time there as
governor
of the
English
merchants at
Antwerp.
None of the rest had
much
diplomatic
experience, though many
of them came from the
milieu of the Calais
garrison.
Hall and Windebank were
military
men
based there. Fane was a
gentleman
of Kent,
a soldier
knighted
at
Boulogne
and
distinguished
in Scotland in
1547
who was later executed
as a
partisan
of Protector Somerset. Brende,
who sometimes used the
alias William Watson on
foreign missions,
was a
military expert
whose
Vaughan
had bene with them
they
woold have hewen him all to
peces.'
R. Fane to Council, Antwerp,
2
5
June 1544,
SPi/i89, fos.
98-IO7 (L&P,
xix [i]. 776);
Windebank and Fane to
Paget,
i6
July I544,
SPI/I90, fo. 66 (L&P, xix [i]. 926). [Fane]
to
Landenberg's captains,
26
June I544,
SPI/I89,
fo. I20
(L&P,
xix [i]. 788).
The
Regent
of the Netherlands was
complaining
about the
non-payment by Henry
of
Landenberg's troops
since
they proceeded
to
rampage
their
way through
the
Emperor's
lands. Cf.
Instruction of
Mary
of
Hungary
to
d'Eyck,
I July 1544,
HHStA,
P.A.
(Belgien) 55,
fos.
I92-3;
and the
Instruction to Jean de
Waudripont,
26 June
1545,
ibid.
Scepperus
to Fane, Liege,
6
July 1544,
SPi/i89,
fo. 2i5 (L&P,
xix
[i].
857):
requiring
the
payment
of
Landenberg's
men
'y joinct que
lesdicts
gens
pourroient
facillement tirer en France, comme aussi c'est une chose de tout
temps
accoustumee de
payer
retour aux
gens
de
guerre.'
I. For Landenberg's receipts
for advance cash as 'Obrister uiber zwelf hundert Pferdt und zehen
Feindlein Landsknecht... das ich von
hochstgedachten
K.M.
Kreigscommissarien
Reinharten Weiden-
banks unde Raffe Fains meinen lieben herrn und frundten ... in
gold pfangen habe',
see
B[ritish]
L[ibrary],
Add. MS
5753,
fos. 182
(4,000 cr.), I83 (i,ooo cr.), I84 (6, I 3 cr.), I85 (2,ooocr.), io-I 5 June
1544
(L&P,
xix [i]. 726).
Cf. ibid., fos. I80-I, payments
to
captains
of
Landenberg's 4,000
foot at
Aachen, 4 June
I
544
'to be rebated owt of there munthes
wages'.
2. Leuchtmacherto Chamberlain, 21
June I544,
SPi/i89, fos.
8-9 (L&P,
xix
[i]. 753):
'tout le
pays
de
Brunswycke
et la ville de Godtleer et la ville de Bremes et
plusieurs
contes et ducs et aultres
grans
singners quy prendent journellement
et amassent
gros
nombres de
gens
de cheval et a
piedt
en telle
maniere
que
nulles
gendarmes
ne a
peydt
ne a cheval ne
puelent paser par
les villes a cause
qu'il
son tenus
comme serre.' See also
receipts
for
payments
of
3
1,000ooo philippus
to Clevois and north German
cavalry
captains
for the
Boulogne campaign,
Oct.
1544,
BL, Add. MS
5753,
fos.
17o-8 (L&P,
xix
[ii]. 401). BL,
Add.
5753,
fo. I86, payment
in
prest
of
?5o
to Leuchtmacher, 29
Oct.
15 44.
L. MacMahon,'The English
Invasion of France,
1544',
pp. 49-6I.
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
friendship
with
Paget got him, too,
into difficulties in
1552.1
Much of
the
negotiation
with the
captains
seems to have been done in French or
Latin,
but we know that Fane had to use an
interpreter
in
dealing
with
the
linguistically gifted
Netherlands
minister,
President Score 'foras-
myche
as I have matter to
saye
to
yowe
and have not sufficient
langage
to
declare the same unto
yowe'. Though they
were all familiar with the
Low
Countries, only Vaughan
seems to have had
any
extensive
dealings
in
Germany
before this time.2
Despite
all
this,
the
year 1545
saw
England seriously
in the market for
mercenaries. The
splenetic
old Welsh soldier of
Calais,
Elis
Gruffydd,
scarcely exaggerated
when he recorded that the
army
around Calais in
the summer of
1545
included
many depraved
brutish
foreign
soldiers from all nations under the sun
-
Welsh, English, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scots, Spaniards, Gascons, Portingals,
Italians, Arbannoises, Greeks, Turks, Tartars, Almains, Germans, Burgun-
dians, Flemings
who had come there from the French
king
who was
very
angry
with them for
going
to have a
good
time under the
king
of
England
who
by
nature was too
hospitable
to
foreigners.3
It is
plain
that
Henry's unsatisfactory experiences
in
1543-4
had not
discouraged
the
English government
from
looking again
to
Germany
in
i. Chamberlain's list of
money paid
and
Paget's
draft list of the muster
commissioners, May 1544,
SPI/i88,
fos.
7-9 (L&P,
xix
[i]. 583) assigns Palmer, Vane and Chamberlain to Buren and Leucht-
macher,
S. and E.
Vaughan
and Windebank to
Landenberg.
Chamberlain became ambassador in the
Low Countries under Edward
VI;
on
Vaughan,
see W. C.
Richardson, Stephen Vaughan,
Financial
Agent of Henry
VIII
(Baton Rouge, 1953);
on
Windebank, see muster of Calais
garrison, 1533,
in
Chronicle
of Calais,
ed.
J.
G. Nicholls
(Camden Soc., I 846)
p.
I
37
-
he went on to be
deputy
of Guines
and member of the council of
Boulogne.
Thomas
Averey
and Edward
Vaughan
were both
royal
pensioners. Brende,
MP for Thetford in
I547,
was
mainly engaged
in the North and Scotland as
fortification
expert
and muster master: S. T. Bindoff
(ed.),
The House
of Commons,
I509-I558
(London, I982),
i.
492-4.
His alias as Watson is clear from the instructions of Dec.
I547
in SP
68/i,
pp. 3 IO-3. Brygantyn, stepson
of Edward
North, Chancellor of
Augmentations,
was to be an
envoy
to
Germany
under Edward VI and MP for
Huntingdon
in
15 58 (ibid., p. 496).
He was half-brother to the
notorious Alice Ardern of
Faversham,
burned at
Canterbury
for
murdering
her husband in I
55
I.
2. Fane to the
Council, 25 June 1544, SPI/I89,
fo.
IO3v (L&P, xix [i]. 776): 'why sayde
le
seigneur
Score,
how shall then the
quenys majeste
understande
yowe?'
On Fane's career, see
Dictionary of
National
Biography.
He is described in the
quittances
of the German
captains, June-Oct.
1544,
as one
of the
'hochtsgedachten
K. M.
Kriegs
Commissarien'
(BL,
Add. MS
5753,
fo.
183 etc.). Francis Hall was
controller of Calais and had some
part
in abortive
peace negotiations
with Saint-Martin, local
representative
of Oudart du
Biez, governor
of
Picardy,
in the summer of
1544.
He was
mainly
responsible
in
544
for
liaising
with the
Regent
of the Netherlands over
transport
and
supplies:
see
L&P,
xix
(i). 766, 83
. For his
exchanges
with
Saint-Martin, see ibid.
291. Brende was a Latin scholar
who had
already
carried out minor missions in
Italy
and
Germany
in the early
I
54os: see H. Davies,
'John
Brende: Soldier and
Translator', Huntington Library Quarterly,
i
(i937),
42i-6.
3. Much-quoted
extract from
Gruffydd's chronicle,
in M. B.
Davies, 'Boulogne
and Calais from
I545
to
55o',
Bulletin
of
the
Faculty of
Arts
of
Fouad I
University, Cairo, xii
(1950), 14-I5.
In fact, the
account
kept by
Sir Thomas
Chaloner,
clerk of the
Privy Council,
for
payments
to
foreign
soldiers and
diplomats, 17 May 545-2
Feb.
155 , PRO,
E
351/43,
indicates not
only
Germans but, especially
among
the
cavalry
in
1549, Italians, Hungarians,
Albanians and
Spaniards.
The Albanians, commanded
by
Petro
Sanga,
were almost
certainly
Christian
refugees
from the Adriatic coast who had settled in
Italy
from the late fifteenth
century.
EHR Feb.
96
29
30
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
1545,
as the renewal of active
campaigning
with France became
likely.
The failure of this renewed
quest
for mercenaries has
long
been known
from
English documents,
but the survival of French and German
archival sources which
parallel
them makes
possible
for the first time a
fully
rounded
analysis
of it. The circumstances of
1545
predisposed
both sides to look toward
Germany
as a source for
fighting
men.
Henry
VIII
certainly
built on his small
Spanish contingent
of
1544.
In
1545
he first
appointed
Pedro de Gamboa 'Master of the
Camp'
over all
Spaniards
in his
service,
but these
troops, mainly
demi-lances and
mounted
arquebusiers
sometimes of
'Burgundian'
or Netherlandish
origins,
were
quarrelsome.1
For solid
foreign infantry,
Germans were
still the best bet. The
Emperor
was now neutral between France and
England and, despite
some noises,
made no real effort to
interrupt
the
recruitment of mercenaries in the
Empire, though
the
English
still
needed his licence for their recruits to
pass through
the Netherlands. For
the
English
in
particular,
it was easier to draw
troops
from
Germany
than, say,
from
Italy,
as 'conduct
money'
would be
cheaper.
For both French and
English,
it was therefore
military
considerations
which conditioned their
approach
to
Germany.
For the German
princes
who controlled the main sources of
supply,
the
question
was
diplo-
matic: how to assure allies for the
coming struggle
with the
Emperor.
The
days
of the
early
I540os,
when the
princes
still felt able to
spurn
French
approaches,
were now
gone.
Two issues were therefore inter-
twined: the intense
diplomatic
and
intelligence struggle
between France
and
England
in
Germany,
and the
problems
of the Schmalkaldic
League
which led the
princes repeatedly
to seek
pacification
between their
potential
allies. After some French reverses and tentative
peace plans,
the
first visible
military preparations
in the summer of
1545
concerned the
transfer of the Mediterranean fleet to the Channel for a
possible
naval
attack on
England.2
The
major
consideration for both countries,
though,
was the land
campaign
for
Boulogne,
and this
required
both a
supply
of mercenaries and the obstruction of access to them
by
the
enemy.3
The main
questions
to be asked are: what were the
origins
of
I. On
Spaniards
in
Henry's service, see M. A. S. Hume (ed.),
Chronicle
of King Henry
VIII
of
England...
Written in
Spanish (London, 1889),
pp.
i 12-214passim. The Spanish captains, who tended
to command bands of horse and
arquebusiers,
were
exceptionally quarrelsome.
Brende in
1548,
from
experience
in Scotland, argued
that
they
were
'chardgeable'
and ill-furnished, prone
to deceit and
should not be allowed to command both horse and foot: see J. Bain et al., Calendar
of Papers Relating
to
Scotland and
Mary Queen of Scots, I547-I603 (12 vols., Edinburgh, i898-i952
[hereafter
Scottish
Calendar]), i, no.
336.
2. We know that Francis I was
considering
an
expedition against England
itself in March: Alvarotti
to Ercole II, 14
Mar.
1545,
Modena, Archivio di Stato, Francia,
B
20,
Fasc.
4,
fo.
83r, deciph.
By June,
a
firm decision had been taken to use all means to reduce
Boulogne
and the crisis was about to break:
ibid.,
fo.
I85, deciph.:
'el Re Christianissimo ha determinato di assediare et
expugnare Bologna
nello
infrascritto modo. Sua Maesta
pretende
di dovere essere
patrona
del mare et della
campagna.'
3.
While
England
was
negotiating
with Maurice of
Saxony
in October-November I
544,
France was
probably doing
the same in
January 1545.
Cf.
Philip
of Hesse to Maurice of
Saxony, I7
Jan. 1545,
in E.
Brandenburg (ed.),
Politische
Korrespondenz
des
Herzogs
und
Kurfiirsten
Moritz von Sachsen
(Leipzig,
1904), ii,
no.
643.
It is clear that France was
again employing lansquenets
in
1545
on a
large
scale. Martin
EHR Feb. 96
1996 ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
English
difficulties and
why
was the attitude of the German
princes
so
equivocal?1
The Diet which met at Worms in the
spring
of
1545
was the occasion
for a renewal of French
diplomatic intrigue
in
Germany.
The mission of
Louis Adhemar de
Grignan,
a
figure high
in favour with the dominant
faction in
France, though ostensibly
for observation at the Diet and
communication with the
Emperor's ministers,
was in
reality designed
partly
to
negotiate
with the Duke of Bavaria and
partly
to stir
up
the
fears of the Protestant
envoys.2
It is
significant,
in this
context,
that the
first
despatch
received
by Grignan,
his
colleague Bassefontaine,
and the
resident
ambassador, Jacques Mesnage,
should have been
largely
con-
cerned with the
problem
of
English
activities
amongst
the German
princes
and the rumours that Maurice of
Saxony
was
preparing
to enter
English
service.
Mesnage,
as resident
ambassador, probably approached
the
Emperor
at the same time to
complain
about the activities of
Maurice,
the comte du Roeulx and Martin van Rossem of
Guelders,
who
were
thought
to be
raising
men for
England.
On
this,
as on other
complaints
that the
Emperor
was
allowing
the
English
to draw mu-
nitions from the
Netherlands,
Charles V
gave
no more than
blocking
answers.3 The other
envoys
were told to ask the Diet 'de voulloir
admonester ledit duc Morice de laisser telle
entreprise,
attendu
que
ledit
Anglois
n'a
envoye
aucune
procuration pour accepter
la
comprehension
qui
a este faicte de
luy par
l'empereur'.4 Grignan was also to make clear
how small was the
profit
to be
gained
from an
English
alliance. The
French, then,
faced two
problems:
the
English might possibly
obtain the
du
Bellay
mentions that there were as
many
landsknechts
employed
in the
siege
of
Boulogne
as French
infantry:
Memoires de Martin et Guillaume du
Bellay,
ed. V.-L.
Bourrilly
and F.
Vindry (4 vols., Paris,
I908-I9),
iv.
307-8.
I. For the essential
diplomatic background
to all
this, see
J.-D. Pariset, Les Relations entre la France
et
l'Allemagne
au milieu du XVIe siecle
(Strasbourg, I98I);
H. Duchhardt and E. Schmitt
(ed.),
Deutschland und Frankreich in der
friihen
Neuzeit
(Munich, 1987); J.-Y Mariotte, 'Francois Ier et la
Ligue
de
Schmalkalde, 1538-44',
in Schweizerische
Zeitschrift fiir Geschichte, xvi
(I966), 232-3, 234,
n.
9I.;
and R.
McEntegart, 'England
and the
League
of
Schmalkalden,
1
531- 547:
Faction, Foreign
Policy
and the
English
Reformation'
(London
School of
Economics,
PhD
thesis, I992).
2. Letter of credence of Francis I to
Strasbourg
for
Grignan, 15
Mar.
I545,
in 0.
Winckelmann,
Politische
Correspondenz
der Stadt
Strassburg
im Zeitalter der
Reformation (Strassburg, i882-92
[hereafter
Pol.
Corr.), iii,
no.
59;
and Sleidan to Jakob Sturm,
13 Apr.
1
545,
in H.
Baumgarten (ed.),
Sleidans
Briefwechsel (Strassburg,
i88
I),
no. 22. The best information on this mission is contained in
Bassefontaine's
Diplomatic Journal, part
of which was
printed by
Louis Paris in his
Ndgociations,
lettres et
pieces
diverses relatives au
regne
de
Francois II tirees du
portefeuille
de Sdbastien de
L'Aubespine, eveque
de
Limoges (Paris, I841).
Some of the documents from the same archive for
I545-6
were
published
in
J.-D. Pariset,
'La France et les
princes
allemands. Documents et com-
mentaires, 1545-57', Francia,
x
(I982), 229-301.
3.
A
memoire of
Mesnage's complaints,
with the
Emperor's replies
in the
margin, was sent to St
Mauris, Imperial
ambassador in France. This is to be found
among
the St Mauris
papers
at
Besan5on
and
was
printed
in C. Weiss
(ed.), Papiers
d'etat du cardinal de Granvelle
(Paris, 1842),
iii. I
04. On the role
of
Mesnage generally
in this
period,
see D.
Potter, 'Foreign Policy
in the
Age
of the Reformation:
French Involvement in the Schmalkaldic
War, 1544-I 547',
Historical Journal, x
(1977), 525-44.
4.
Francis I to
Grignan etc., I9 Apr. 1545, copied into
Bassefontaine'sJournal, in
Paris, Negotiations,
pp.
viii-ix. For the attitude of the Protestants to Maurice and
help
to the
belligerents,
cf.
Phillip
of
Hesse to Maurice of
Saxony, I7 Jan. 1545, Brandenburg,
Politische
Korrespondenz,
no.
643,
and
Maurice to
Philip,
2 Feb. I
545, ibid.,
no.
646.
EHR Feb.
96
3
32 THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
troops necessary
for their summer
operations,
and
they might
even
try
to
supplant
the French as the traditional
patrons
of some of the German
princes.
Both eventualities entailed
dangers
for French
policy
and a
great
effort was
consequently
made to frustrate them. The mission of Jean des
Monstiers, seigneur
du Fraisse,
was a means to this.
Fraisse
began
work in late
July
1545.
Grignan,
one of the foremost
French
experts
on the intricacies of German affairs,
was
again
at the
Imperial
court from
August
and seems to have been
acting
as the
director of his
operations
while
Mesnage
busied himself with the talks
being
held under the
Emperor's
mediation.
Grignan passed intelligence
to
Fraisse, advising
him on the
general strategy
of his
activities,
and
introduced him to the
Landgrave
of Hesse.1 It was
Grignan
who
pointed
out the essential fact that the
Anglo-French
talks in the Nether-
lands could be used to sow doubt in
Germany
and so diminish the
number of
troops likely
to enter
English
service. It was
Grignan, too,
who made clear the French
policy
of
setting
the
Landgrave
and the
Duke of Brunswick
against
each other in order to restrict
troop-raising
opportunities.
Fraisse in turn sent
Grignan
the
important points
of his
negotiations
with the
princes.2
Last but not
least, Grignan
seems to have
played
an
important part
in the
raising
of
money
for Fraisse's activities.3
Fraisse had
already
been
employed
in
Imperial
affairs and was
something
of a skilled hand in this kind of semi-official
diplomatic
work.4 It is clear that his
presence
in the Rhineland
during August
was a
direct
consequence
of the fears which the French court had shown since
April, though
now the main centre of
activity
had shifted to western
Germany
and the area around Bremen and
Hamburg.
Such fears were
well
grounded.5
Bucler and Mont, the
English representatives
at Frank-
I.
Grignan
to Fraisse, 21
Aug. 1545,
inJ. des Monstiers Merinville, Un
eveque
ambassadeurau XVIe
siecle:
Jean
des Monstiers, seigneur
du Fraisse, eveque
de
Bayonne (Limoges, I895
[hereafter Fraisse]),
p. 47; Grignan
to
Landgrave,
I0
Aug. 1545,
Staatsarchiv
Marburg,
Politisches Archiv des
Landgrafen
Philipps
des
Grofimutigen [hereafter Marburg,
Pol. Arch.],
1836,
fo.
27.
2.
Grignan
to Fraisse,
6 and 8
Sept. 1545,
Fraisse, pp.
74-5, 77-8;
Fraisse to
Grignan, 4 Sept. 1545,
ibid., pp. 64-6.
3. Grignan
to Fraisse,
8
Sept. I545,
ibid., pp. 77-8. Grignan
to
Mesnage, I9
Oct.
[I545],
BN,
fr.
I7890,
fo. I
57:
'Monsieur, le
Roy
vous faict
presentement
une
depeche
sur ce
que
vous verrez il sera
besoing que
incontinant vous
envoyes queryr
Pierre Moucheron; ce
que plusamplement
en
respondes
aud.
Seigneur
et sur tout il faut
qu'il
declare en
quel temps
ilz
fournyront l'argent
si
n'estoyt
ceste alarme
des
lansquenetz.'
4.
Fraisse had been
employed
as an
envoy
to Denmark in
August 1543: Catalogue
des actes de
FranCois
I
(io vols., Paris, I887-I908 [hereafter CAF]),
ix.
34;
Memoires du sieur Richer
(Paris, I625),
fos.
4-8.
In the
previous
December he was sent as ambassador to Hesse: cf. Mariotte, 'Francois Ier',
234,
no. 90. When the German
envoy, Lunebourg,
came to the French court in
April
I
543
and was told that
Richer was to be sent back instead of Fraisse,
he was
'gueres
contant car il le
cognoist desja craintif,
et
n'entendant les affaires comme Fresses': Claude Cottereau to Card. du
Bellay, BN,
fr.
392
,
fos.
104-7.
Fraisse had been
employed
with Cardinal du
Bellay
in the
negotiations
with
England
in October
1544:
Fraisse to the Chancellor of Hesse, 4 Sept. 1545,
Fraisse, pp.
66-8. For an official
copy
of the
royal
instructions to him on the occasion of his mission to the
Emperor
in October I
544
to seek the latter's
mediation of a
peace
with
England etc., cf. BN,
fr.
I7888,
fos.
57-8.
For his career in
general,
cf. the
Introduction to Fraisse, and Pariset, Les Relations, passim
and p.
38,
n. 28.
5. Though
his instructions do not survive
among
his
papers, virtually
all his
correspondence
for the
crucial
period
of
August
and
September 1545
does and is
printed
in Fraisse.
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
furt,
were
busy
in
July
and
August negotiating
with the Protestants for
aid
against
the French.1 More useful for the
purposes
of
troop-raising,
though,
were the unofficial contacts made with the Hessian
captain
Friedrich von
Reiffenberg.
The latter had come to Nicholas Wotton at
Cologne
in
May, offering
to raise
twenty ensigns
of foot and a thousand
horse.2 Wotton had
thought
that the
King
was
likely
to have little use for
these,
and the recent
acrimony
of
English dealings
with
Landenberg
did
not
promise
well.3
Reiffenberg's offer, however,
seems to have
brought
a
speedy response.4 By June,
he was summoned to
England,
and
by
the
end of the month the articles
agreed
with him had been
signed, despite
English
observations about his
youth
and
inexperience.5
In
July,
Reif-
fenberg
was
busy obtaining
from
Vaughan
in
Antwerp
the
money
for
which he had letters of credit from the
English government.6
The relative
speed
with which these
negotiations
were
pushed
through
between
May
and
July 1545
testifies to the
anxiety
of the
English government
to set the mercenaries under
way.
In
July also,
the
Fleming
Claes
Taphoren
was
despatched
on a mission from Bois-le-Duc
to Bremen to
negotiate
with the
cavalry
commanders Peter of Guelders
and
Eytel
Wolff de Goetenberch to
bring
men to
join Reiffenberg.7
As
to the exact
English
intentions for these
troops,
it can
only
be assumed
that
they changed
with the
diplomatic
situation.
Thus, though
at the
beginning
the aim
may
have been to
transport
the Germans direct to
Boulogne,
it seems
that, by September,
a
diversionary operation
in
Champagne,
in order to draw French
troops away
from
Boulogne,
had
become the new
policy.8
The French court seems to have been
fully
I. Bucler and Mont to
Henry VIII, 5 Aug. I545, SPI/205,
fos.
87-8 (L&P, xx [ii]. 46). See the
Excursus in Max Lenz
(ed.), Briefwechsel Landgraf Philipps
des
Grofmiithigen
von Hessen mit Bucer,
vol. ii
(Leipzig, 1887),
pp. 3 58-62,
and the
correspondence
of Bucler and Mont with the
Landgrave
in
Marburg,
Pol.
Arch., I8o0,
fos.
99-101, ioo, 14I, I43-4 (May
to
July 1545).
2. Wotton to
Paget, 9 May
I
545, SPI/200,
fos. 220-1
(L&P,
xx
[i]. 693).
On
Reiffenberg,
see Redlich,
The German
Military Enterpriser, pp.
112-I
3.
3.
For
this,
cf. the
important
letter of
Christoph
Haller to Maurice of
Saxony,
Nov.
1544,
in
Brandenburg,
Politische
Korrespondenz,
no.
635.
4. Reiffenberg
to
Henry VIII, I2
May
I
545, SPI/20oi,
fos.
32-3 (L&P,
xx
[i]. 721).
5. Philip
of Hesse to
Henry VIII, 14 June I
S45, SPI/202, fos.
66-7 (L&P,
xx [i].
947):
the
Landgrave
grants
his
permission
for the
raising
of
twenty ensigns
of foot and I,ooo horse. Articles with
Reiffenberg, SPI/203,
fos.
I5-i8 (L&P,
xx
[i]. 1079). Henry
VIII to
Philip
of Hesse,
4 July
I545,
SPI/203,
fos.
i5-i8 (L&P,
xx
[i]. 1079).
6. Cf. the letters of
Stephen Vaughan:
to
Paget,
21I
July, SPI/204,
fos.
82-3;
to
Paget, 24 July,
SPI/204,
fos.
I27-8;
to
Paget
and
Wriothesley, 30 July, SPI/204,
fos.
5
I-2
(L&P, xx [i].
1239,
1266,
I299, 1316, I317).
7.
Council to
commissioners, 30 Aug.
I
545, BL,
Add. MS
5753,
fo.
I62; for
Taphoren's expenses,
2
July-4 Aug. 1545,
ibid. fos.
I63-9 (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 249).
8. Council to the
English commissioners, Sept. 1545, SPi/2o8, fos. 12-I9. The reason was
given
that
'undoubtedly
the
Frenchmen, being
advertised of
your entreprice,
have sent from their
campe
which
leyeth
not far from
Boulloyn
a
good
bande of thorsmen and sum fotemen... for the let of that
entreprise
which
you
should have executed and that is to
destroye
the
cuntrey
three or four
days journey
allaboutes: fo.
I4r- (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 403).
Martin du
Bellay,
who is
exceptionally
reliable at this
point,
being employed by
the
King
in various duties around
Boulogne, says
that the
King,
on
receiving
news
of the
approach
of the
Germans,
removed to La Fere in
Champagne
to
strengthen
the defences there: cf.
Memoires de Martin et Guillaume du
Bellay,
iv.
3 I4-I 5.
EHR Feb.
96
33
34
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
aware of this and took measures
accordingly. Already
concerned in
April
about levies
by
Peter of
Guelders,1
it was even more disturbed in
May by
news that
Hamburg
was about to
supply England
with
ships.2
Papal envoys
at the court
reported
from
July
1545
onwards news that
troops
were
being
assembled
by
the Duke of Cleves, 12,000 infantry
and
2,000 horse,
for service with the
English
at
Boulogne.
The Duke was
apparently thought
to be hostile to France as a result of the
collapse
of
his
marriage
alliance with
Jeanne
d'Albret.
By September,
this estimate
was revised to
6,500oo
foot and
2,000 horse,
but the threat was still
enough
for an
agent
to be
despatched
with
4,000
6cus to
buy
them off.3
Though
it is not certain,
these
reports
could relate to Peter of Guelders or to the
activities of Fraisse and the
leading royal councillor,
M. de
Longueval.
Fraisse was sent in response to news of
Reiffenberg's activities;
despatched
late in
July,
he made his
way through Cologne early
in
August,
whence he
journeyed, despite English attempts
to
waylay him,
to Andernach,
four
leagues
from Coblenz and two from
Reiffenberg's
muster-ground
at
Sayn.4
From Andernach,
held
up by illness,
he sent to
the
Landgrave
and to the Elector Palatine to announce his arrival in the
Rhineland. Next
day, reaching Sayn
with
difficulty,
he discussed the
likely plan
of the muster with some
captains
there. He decided that,
since Hesse was short of
supplies anyway,
the best
way
to
stop
the
passage
of the
troops
was to block the route
through
the
archbishopric
of Trier. Then,
after another visit to
Cologne,
he travelled back
up
the
Rhine and established himself at
Coblenz,
which he
judged
to be the
place
'le
plus propre pour
de toutes cestes entendre ce
qu'il
se
faict,
estant
sus deux
grosses
rivieres et au
mylieu
de tous ces
princes desquelz
nous
avyons
affaire'. He
stayed
there
only
a
night, however,
before
setting
out
for
Trier,
where he
put
three
requests
to the
Archbishop: firstly,
that he
republish
the
Emperor's
edict of
neutrality; secondly,
that he send
horsemen,
even at French
expense,
to
prevent
the
passage
of the levies
through
his
territory;
and
lastly,
that he send to his allies to ensure their
help.
At first the
Archbishop prevaricated, by alleging
illness and the
absence of his
advisers,
but
eventually
seems to have
agreed.5
Once established at
Coblenz,
Fraisse
began
to
exploit
French influ-
ence with the Rhineland
princes
and raise the
spectre
of a threat to the
I. The
King
had received news that Peter of Gueldres was
raising 4,000
foot for the
King
of
England
in north
Germany:
cf. Francis I to
Mesnage, 24 Apr. 1545,
BN,
fr.
I7890,
fo. 62v.
2. The
King's
reaction had been to order the arrest of the
Hamburg ships
in French
ports,
but the
news turned out to be no more than unfounded rumour: cf. Francis I to
Mesnage,
6
May 1545,
ibid. fo.
6ov.
3.
Gherardino to Farnese, 29 July
I
545;
Guidiccione to
same, 4 Aug.
I
545;
same to
same, 30 Sept.
1545: J. Lestocquoy (ed.), Correspondance
des nonces en France
Capodiferro,
Dandino et Guidiccione,
I541-1546
(Acta
Nuntiaturae Gallicae,
vol.
iii, Rome/Paris, 1963), pp.
382, 384, 397.
4.
Fraisse to
Grignan, Coblenz, I4 Sept.
I
545,Fraisse, pp. 83-9, esp. p. 88;
to Francis
I,
undated
[Sept.
1545],
ibid., pp. 63-4.
Heideck had
proposed
to make his
muster-ground
the Coblenz area in
1543:
Seymour
to
Henry VIII, 29
Dec.
1542,
StP, ix.
254.
5.
Fraisse to
Longueval,
I
Sept.
I
545,
Fraisse, p.
53.
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
35
civil
peace
of the
Empire.
The Hessian court was in a difficult
position.
Bing,
the
Chancellor,
denied Fraisse's
allegations,
but tried to assert that
the
Landgrave,
as a
neutral,
could allow his
subjects
to serve France or
England.1
In
fact,
Hesse was
trying
to have the best of both worlds.2 The
main aim of the Protestants remained to reconcile the
adversaries,
not to
declare for one or the
other,
and
Bing
offered his master's services as
mediator.3 Fraisse could not have been satisfied with this,
especially
when another
request
to
Bing
at least to
delay Reiffenberg
as
long
as
possible met with another
equivocal reply;4
but he
probably
realized
that
Philip's growing hostility
to
Henry
of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel
would
discourage
him from
allowing troops
to
go
abroad. French
policy
was
designed,
for this reason, to 'entretenir ce divorse entre led. duc de
Brunsvig
et le
landgrave'.
Both Hesse and Brunswick were anxious for
the
support
of
France,
and in fact the Brunswick war was to come to its
climax with the
capture
of
Henry by Philip's
forces at Northeim on 2
October.5 Fraisse's
dealings
with the Elector Palatine were more
simple:
I. Cf. Fraisse to the
Landgrave, 17 Aug. 1545:
'Nunc cum multorum sermone et literis ad nos
perlatum
sit militem
Regi Angliae
in T. Exc. D. ditionibus conscribi necesse arbitrabamur (et si fidem
cuiquam
nondum
habuerimus) eam cum inveteratae amicitiae tum foederum admonere
neque
eo minus
rogare ne id Exc. D. T. fieri
patiatur quod
et
ego
hisce literis ut maxime facio, petoque
ut is
quem
tui
nominis cum
primis
studiosum multi non
ignorat
et ex
quibusdam scriptis quae
ad Exc. T. D. anno
superiore
misi
cognosci potuit,
ne in eo
spem
nostram fallat cuius fiducia adductus sum ut in me
reciperemn nihil Exc. D.T. in
regem
Christianissimum hostile molituram':
Marburg,
Pol. Arch.,
I836,
fo.
29;
cf. also Fraisse to
Bing,
same date, ibid., fo.
30; Bing
to Fraisse, 2i
Aug.
1545,
Fraisse, pp. 48 -9.
On Fraisse's
strategy
at this
time, see
Pariset,
Les Relations, p. 42.
2. Of
course, Reiffenberg
had to have the
Landgrave's permission:
cf.
Philip
to
Henry VIII, I4 June
1545,
SPI/202,
fos.
66-7 (L&P,
xx
[i]. 947); Philip
of Hesse to
Reiffenberg, [I i] Sept.
1545,
Marburg,
Pol. Arch., I80i,
fo.93-v, draft; Reiffenberg
to
Philip
of Hesse, 14 Sept.
1545,
ibid., fos. 91-2. While the
Landgrave's correspondence
with
Henry
VIII is
decidedly
anti-French in tone
(Philip
to
Henry VIII,
24 Aug. 1545,
SPI/2o6, fos. 21
I7-18 [L&P,
xx
(ii). 207]), he took care to send the Schmalkaldic
diplomat,
Dr Ulrich
Chelius,
to France to
deny
that he favoured
Reiffenberg's
recruitment
campaign:
Pol. Corr.
iii, no.
645.
3.
When
Bruno,
one of the Protestant mediators, reported
French
suspicions
that the
Evangelical
princes
were
aiding
the
levy,
he admitted that he had tried to
assuage
these
suspicions
in order to
safeguard
the
peace negotiations. Nothing
indicated better the intense embarrassment caused to
Protestant
diplomacy by
the
troop-recruitment:
Bruno to
Jakob
Sturm, 21
Sept.
i545,
Pol.
Corr., iv, no.
I.
4.
Fraisse to
Bing, 29 Aug. 1545,
Fraisse, pp.
66-8 (for the
original
of this, cf.
Marburg,
Pol. Arch.,
I836,
fos.
38-9;
Fraisse dates this
wrongly
as 4 Sept.
I545).
Bing
to Fraisse, n.d., reply
to above: 'Literas
tuas ad me
scriptas datasque
Confluentiae
4
Calendae
Septembris, perlegi.
Volo autem ut tum vicissim
non
ignores,
mihi
nequaque
constat
quod princeps
meus dominus
Landgravius Fredericum a Reiffem-
berg,
in conducendo
collegandoque
milites
aliquo
modo
promoverit.'
It was true, he claimed, that the
Landgrave
had ordered
Reiffenberg
to
keep
his men
together, firstly
because he was 'mediator atque
interesset inter duos illos
Reges',
and
secondly
because the
Landgrave
and his allies would have need of
them:
Marburg,
Pol.
Arch., I801,
fo.
42,
draft. Cf. also
Bing
to Fraisse,
3
Sept.
I545,
where he makes it
clear that Hesse was more worried about the
assembly
of men
by
Brunswick and wanted to know
whether the French had
anything
to do with it: ibid., fo.
37,
draft.
5.
Fraisse to Longueval, i Sept, 1545, Fraiss, pp.
53-5;
Fraisse to Cardinal du Bellay, 3 Sept.
1545,
ibid., pp.
59-60.
Similar fears were
expressed by Philip's envoys
at the Diet at Frankfurt
early
in
1546:
Cf. F.
Kiich, Politisches Archiv des
Landgrafen Philipp
des
Groflmiitigen
von Hessen
(Leipzig,
I904-10),
i.
527.
See
Issleib, 'Philipp
von Hessen, H. von
Braunschweig
und M. von Sachsen,
154I-47',
Jahrbuch
des Geschichtsvereins
fur
das
Herzogtum
Braunschweig,
ii
(I903).
EHR Feb.
96
36
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
a
request
for a
delay
to
possible troop
movements elicited
co-operation.1
The
Palatine, though
his
nephew
the
Palsgrave
was
offering
his services
to
England,
was a much closer French
ally
than the
Landgrave,
and the
French
expected
more of him in their interest.2 On Francis I's in-
structions,3
Fraisse took
care, too,
to foster French relations with the
archbishops
of Trier and
Cologne.
These ecclesiastical
princes,
especially,
were in need of
strong support
and would
prove
useful for
the task in hand.4
It was clear
by
this time, however, that
diplomatic pressure
on the
princes
would not be
enough.
In his
report
of i
September
to
Longue-
val,
then
governor
of
Champagne,
Fraisse outlined his task: the frus-
tration of
Reiffenberg's levy
at Coblenz,
a town then
subject
to the
Archbishop
of
Trier,
in the
county
of
Sayn,
and in
Limburg
and the
various lands
subject
to the
Landgrave
of Hesse. The Palatine had
already
'tres bien faict son
debvoir', and both
archbishops
had
promised
not to allow the soldiers
through
their lands. He had not confined his
attention to the
Rhine,
and had
already
sent to Frankfurt to
require
the
cessation of the levies in that area. He had told the authorities at
Frankfurt that it would be
strange
if
they
were to
defy
the
Imperial
edicts and declare themselves
against
the
Emperor,
all for
'ung prince
estranger, duquel
ilz ne
peuvent
rien
esperer'.5
French concern with
English
influence
among
the German
princes
is thus seen in the
policy
of
depicting England
as a useless
ally. Fraisse, though,
was as concerned
about the levies in north
Germany
under Brunswick's
nephew,
Duke
Franz of
Lauenburg,
while Mont
thought
that he was
acting jointly
there with his
colleague,
the Italian Count
Rangone.
Brunswick had
offered to take
up
men around Bremen to avoid their
entering English
services,
but the
Landgrave
was anxious to convince the French that
I.
Grignan
to Fraisse, Brussels,
8
Sept. 1545,
Fraisse, pp. 77-8;
Fraisse to the Palatine, 2
Sept.
I
545,
ibid., pp. 56-7;
Fraisse to the Palatine,
13 Sept.
I
545,
ibid., pp. 82-3. Concerning
the Palatine's defeat of
200 landsknechts, see also the Palatine to Fraisse,
19 Sept. 1545,
ibid., p.
Io2. Mont at Frankfurt was
aware of Fraisse's
negotiations
and admitted that the Palatine had turned back some soldiers: Bucler
and Mont to
Henry VIII, i
5 Sept. 1545,
StP, x.
588-90o, orig. part cipher.
2.
Philip,
Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria, to
Henry VIII, 6
Sept.
I
545, SPI/207,
fo.
o05 (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 317);
Cardinal of Ferrara to Ercole II, I6 Mar.
1546, p.
2, Modena,
Casa e Stato, Carteggio
tre
Principi Estensi,
I360/147, passage
in
cipher.
3.
Francis I to Fraisse, 3 Sept. 1545,
Fraisse, pp. 57-8, making
clear the
importance
attached
by
the
court of the
good disposition
of the ecclesiastical Electors.
4.
The
archbishops
of Mainz and Trier were
frequently reported
ill in the autumn of
1545 (e.g.
Fraisse to Francis I,
3 Sept. 1545,
Fraisse, pp. 59 -6o),
while
Cologne was, of course,
under threat from
the
Emperor
and
Pope
for the reformation of his diocese:
Archbishop
of
Cologne
to
Henry VIII,
26
Sept. 1545,
L&P, xx
[ii]. 450;
M. Deckers,
Hermann von
Wied, Erzbischof
und
Kurfiirst
von Koln
(Cologne, 1840).
5.
Fraisse to
Longueval,
I
Sept. I545,
Fraisse, pp.
53-5. Longueval
and La Planche had
by
now
returned to favour under Mme
d'Etampes's aegis
and were
continuing
their activities in German affairs.
As
governor
of
Champagne,
of course, Longueval
was bound to be
closely
concerned with a threat of
troops
from
Germany.
The
King
had
expressly
ordered Fraisse to
report
to him.
EHR Feb.
96
I996 ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
Brunswick was a double-dealer and had offered
Lauenburg's
services to
Henry
VIII.1
From
September
1545
onwards,
Fraisse was
working
in close collab-
oration with
Captain
Henrick
Hacfort,2
a Guelders
mercenary
who
regularly
served the
King
of France until his desertion to
England
in
1548.3
His role in north
Germany
was to be
important,
and the
royal
instructions on the occasion of his
being
sent to
join
Fraisse are
preserved:
Vous adviser6s tous ensemble en
quoy
il se
pourra employer pour
le bien de
mes
affaires,
et
principallement
a
rompre
ces assemblkes, si faire se
peult,
et la
ou il ne se
pourroyt faire,
il mectra
peyne
d'en retirer une
partye
des
capitaines
de leurs
gens.
Mais le
principal
de mon intention et le
plus
necessaire
seroyt
de
les
pouvoir rompre.4
This
proved
a far more
complex problem
than the French
government
had
envisaged.5 Moreover,
as Fraisse
pointed
out when he received the
King's
letters
by Hacfort,
lack of
money
was
crippling
his
ability
to
manoeuvre. He feared to
put
the
King
to
great expense, yet
to have
attempted
to suborn some of the mercenaries would
inevitably
involve
this. To have recruited them and then sent them
away
without muster
would also have
damaged
the
King's reputation.
Fraisse therefore had to
write to
Grignan
to ask him to send
money,
as the latter had
already
stressed to him that the
break-up
of the
levy
was a
'grand consequence'
for the
King's
service.6 The
King
told
Longueval
that he had ordered
Grignan
to send
2,000
ecus from the Netherlands to add to the
2,000 to
be sent
by Longueval
himself. He added a
caution, however,
that one of
these two sums was to be
kept
in reserve and the other
spent only
on the
i. Francis I to Fraisse,
3 Sept. 1545,
Fraisse, p.
58;
Fraisse to Francis 1, 4 Sept., ibid., pp.
6I-2. Bucler
and Mont to
Henry VIII,
15 Sept.
1545,
StP, x.
588-90.
2. Hacfort was born about I
5
I6 or I
5 17
at
Nijmegen
in Gelderland and lived after his
marriage
in
154
at Forcht. He was thus a subject of the
Emperor
after
15 43.
Arrested at Arnhem for failure to take
the oath in March
1546,
his
replies
to the articles
put
to him furnish
interesting
information on his
activities as a
captain
for
Philip
of Hesse
during
the Brunswick war: cf. HHStA, P.A.
71,
fos.
I86-92.
He seems to have worked at the same time for
Philip
and the
King
of France: cf. his
correspondence
with the
Landgrave
in
Marburg,
Pol. Arch.,
752,
fos. 4-27, especially Philip's
commission to him to
raise four
ensigns,
8 Oct.
15 4 5,
fo. 12. He seems to have served the French
consistently
until his arrival in
England
in March
1548
with the
Regent Mary's permission
to command
3,ooo
horse.
3.
In
1545,
he admitted that he had offered his services to Francis I
against
the
English,
but that
nothing
had come of this. This was
certainly
a lie, as the
Queen
of
Hungary
remarked
-
'il semble
notoirement
que
ledit Hacfort en tout ne dit verite'
-
and as is shown
by
the Fraisse
correspondence.
Fraisse,
he
claimed,
had first
approached
him at Bois-le-Duc and had asked him to recruit men for
France,
but
again nothing
had come of this. He was in France
presenting
his services in
August
1545,
when he was asked to
go
and join Fraisse at Coblenz: 'Confession et
Responce
faite
par Henry
Hackfort', HHStA, P.A.
71,
fos.
i89r-9go, letter of
Mary of Hungary
to Charles V, 23 Mar.
1546.
4.
Francis I to Fraisse,
3 Sept. 1545,
Fraisse pp.
57-8.
5.
Here Hacfort's account is informative:
'luy
furent donnees lettres de
par icelluy seigneur
Roy
au
seigneur
de Frez lors estant aud. Covelens
lesquelles
il
luy presenta;
et declaira icelluy seigneur
de Frez a
Hackfort le contenu d'icelles lettres, disant
que
s'il fut venu deux ou trois jours
plus tost il l'eust mis en
venure
pour
detourner et
rompre
lad. assemblee s'il eult
peu,
conforme a l'intention dud. Roy
de
France,
mais
qu'il
venoit
trop
tard
pour
ce
que
lesd. gens
de
guerre
avoient fait serement au
Roy
d'Angleterre ung jour devant.:
HHStA, P.A.
7I,
fo. 190or.
6. Fraisse to Francis I, 14 Sept.
I
545, Fraisse, pp.
89-93; 4 Sept.
1545,
ibid., pp.
6I-2.
EHR Feb.
96
37
38
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
best
ensigns or,
as
Longueval put it,
'sous l'extreme necessite'. Fraisse
himself
thought
it wise to
promise
the
King
that he would
only
use the
money
in matters of
great importance.1
The
English
commissioners who were so
ably
outwitted
by
Fraisse were
Thomas
Averey
and Thomas Chamberlain, joined by
Sir
Ralph
Fane
and Francis Hall from Calais. Their commission was not dated until the
21
August, by
which time
Reiffenberg
had
already
sent over his lieuten-
ant, Leuchtmacher,
to
enquire why they
were so late and
beg
that
they
be sent over as soon as
possible, considering 'quod
inde
mali, quod
damni
instaret, quod denique
malae famae totam Germaniam
(ex hoc)
adversus nos incendet.'2 Their instructions
give
the commissioners
powers
to extend the
payment
of the
troops
even if not needed. This,
it
seems,
was in
response
to an
urgent request
from
Reiffenberg,
who
feared the loss of his
reputation
otherwise. A
separate levy
of
2,000
men
under
John Dymoke
in north
Germany
was
delayed,
and the com-
missioners were authorized to take on 2,000 'speceall good
men undre
the
leading
of a notable
captayne',
raised
'by thappointment
of Reiffen-
berg'.3 They
arrived at
Antwerp
on the
24th,
and
spent
some time with
Vaughan, dealing
with their
money
and
-
incidentally
-
complaining
to
the Council that their funds would be less than the amount
necessary.4
On the
26th, Hall, having separated
from his
colleagues,
arrived at
Antwerp
to
request
from the
Queen-Regent
a
passport
or at least letters
of recommendation. Both
requests
were refused, though permission
was
granted
for the commissioners themselves to cross
Imperial
terri-
tory.5
The refusal
may
well have taken
place
after the
Emperor's
inter-
view with
Mesnage.6
The
English
did not reach
Cologne
until
4 September,
when
they
heard
Reiffenberg's complaints
about French interference.7
They say
little of their
stay there,
which we know from Fraisse's
correspondence
I. Extract of a letter of Francis I to
Longueval
and
Longueval's covering
note to Fraisse, I4 Sept.
1545,
ibid., p.
o00. Fraisse to Francis I, 2I
Sept.
I
545,
ibid., pp. 117-18.
2. BL, Add. MS
6362,
no.
5
(draft
in
Paget's hand); Reiffenberg
to
Paget, I9 Aug. 1545,
SPi/209,
fos.
I39-40
(L&P, xx [ii]. 172).
Hall to
Paget, 29 Aug. I545,
ibid.
245.
3.
The Council to the commissioners,
30 Aug. 1545,
BL, Add. MS
5753,
fos.
I47-8 (L&P,
xx
[ii].
248), recd. Andernach, Ii
Sept. Dymoke
to
Paget, 3 Aug. 1545,
ibid.
259.
4. Fane, Chamberlain and
Averey
to
Paget, 27 Aug.
I
545,
SP/207,
fos.
20-3
(L&P,
xx
[ii]. 234).
5.
Hall to
Paget, 29 Aug. I545,
SPI/207,
fos.
38-41 (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 245).
6. M6moire of
Mesnage [to
the Admiral
?], Aug. 1545,
draft, BN, fr. I
78
8 8, fos. I 2
5-6: 'Je luy ay
faict
response qu'il y
a
grande
diversit6 entre le
Roy
et le
Roy d'Angleterre, parce que
le
Roy
a faict
passer
son
armee
pour suyvir
et recouvrir ce
qui luy appartient
et
que luy
est
usurp6 par
le
Roy d'Angleterre par
seulle force d'armes; et au contraire le
Roy d'Angleterre
veult faire
passer
lesd.
gens
de
guerre
en France,
ou il n'a aucun droict ne tiltre
que
une seulle volont6 de
venger, laquelle
volonte n'est aucunement
favorable.' It seems, in fact, that the
Queen
of
Hungary actually
sent to Francis I some kind of
guarantee
that she would not allow German
troops
to cross the Netherlands to serve the
English:
see
Francis I to
Mary
of
Hungary,
n.d.
[late 1545],
crs.
Bayard, HHStA,
P.A.
69,
fo.
36.
7. English
commissioners to
Paget, 4 Sept. 1545,
SPI/207,
fos.
9I-2 (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 298); Reiffenberg
to the
English commissioners, 4 Sept.
I
545,
SPI/209,
fo.
93r:
'ea nocte
qua ego
vobiscum eram,
de meis
trecenti
equites
et
propemodum
mille milites
pedestres
de alia mea cohorte recesserunt, quod
ab
instinctu et
per
insidias inimicorum factum esse non est dubium.'
EHR Feb.
96
1996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
to have been rather
unsuccessful,
and
they
left
by
boat
up
the Rhine for
Andernach,
where
they
arrived on the 8th.
They
decided to make their
headquarters
there,
as Coblenz was in the
territory
of the
pro-French
Archbishop
of
Trier,
and it was at Andernach that
Reiffenberg
showed
them his
troops quartered
in the
neighbouring villages
on the east bank.
There, too,
they
learned of French
intrigues against
them,
but
they
still
hoped
to take the muster on the
i4th.1
The arrival of the
English
on the
Rhine was indeed the
signal
to Fraisse to
step up
his
activities,
and he
promised
to do all in his
power
to frustrate them.2 Information obtained
from an
English agent by
his
secretary,
Gode,
finally
convinced him that
the
levy
was for the
English,3 though
news sent
by Grignan suggested
that the
money
for
paying
had been late in
leaving Antwerp.4
When Fraisse arrived at
Cologne,
he was able to
persuade
the
magis-
trates of the
city
to
prevent artillery
and munitions from
being
sent to
the
English camp, despite
the
appeals
of the
English
commissioners to
the close trade links of the
city
with
England.
He was even able to
report
optimistically
of the
English enterprise
that 'sans
effect,
elle mectera
vostre
ennemy
en
grande despence'.5
While at
Cologne,
Fraisse
again
contacted the Protestant
princes
with a view to
persuading
them to
abandon their connections with the
English.
This was the moment he
chose to
approach
the
Landgrave again through
his
secretary
to
point
out
that,
though Bing
had said his master wished to remain uncommit-
ted to either
side,
Fraisse could not
help informing
the Most Christian
King
of rumours which 'amicitiam fortasse inter eos
principes
confir-
mari
non
aequo
animo ferrent'. Fraisse was convinced that
Reiffenberg,
for
one,
wanted to
identify
the cause of
England
with that of the
Evangelical princes
and warned
Bing
of the
dangers
of
this, especially
as
some men were
trying
to turn the
King against
the
Landgrave
and his
allies.6
Fraisse, however,
had some reason for
contentment;
he had
already
seen his cultivation of the Palatine bear fruit in that
prince's
defeat of 200 landsknechts
crossing
his
territory.
Diplomats
in
Germany
worked under certain obvious difficulties
when it
commonly
took a month for a letter to reach its destination.
I.
The
English
commissioners to the
Council, Andernach,
i
Sept. 545, SPI/207,
fo.
I49r:
'owre
hoste in
thys
town told us that the Frenche
Kynge
before our
cumyng
had a
Commissary hyere,
whyche
now
(he saithe)
is att
Covelyns, spyinge, entysynge
and
doing
whatt he can to lette and
hynddyr thys
the
Kynnggis Majestis enterpryse' (L&P, xx [ii].
352).
2. Fraisse to Francis
I, 4 Sept. 1545, Fraisse,
pp.
6i-2.
3.
Mont to
Paget, 5 Sept. 545, SPI/207,
fos.
102-4 (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 3 io).
Mont sent these
agents
himself
to find out the details about Fraisse and discovered that
Longueval
was
ready
with an
army
to resist the
Germans: Gode to
Fraisse, 5 Sept. 1545, Fraisse,
pp. 70-i;
Gode to
Fraisse, 7 Sept. 1545, ibid., pp. 72-4.
4. Grignan
to
Fraisse,
8
Sept. 1545, ibid.,
pp. 77-8.
Cf.
Grignan's enquiry
to
Mesnage, 19
Oct.
1545,
BN,
fr.
7890,
fo.
I57.
5.
Fraisse to Francis
I, 9 Sept. 1545, Fraisse,
p. 78;
Fraisse to Francis
I[?], 14 Sept. 1545,
ibid., p.
90.
6. Fraisse to
Bing,
Coblenz,
i8
Sept. 1545, Marburg,
Pol.
Arch., 1836,
fos.
38-9.
This is a
very long
letter,
setting
out the French case on the
question
of mercenaries and on the
proposed
Protestant
peace
mediation. See also
Philip
of Hesse to
Jakob Sturm,
from
Wolkersdorf,
20
Sept. 1545,
Pol. Corr, iii,
no. 603.
EHR Feb.
96
39
40
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
Added to this was
secrecy. Henry's agent,
Christoff Mont,
at Coblenz
early
in
September,
still
thought Reiffenberg's levy might
be for the
French,
and his mind was not set at rest until he had talked to Reiffen-
berg
himself.1
Fraisse, too,
was confused in
August
about the real nature
of the
levy.
He had observed the
slowing-down
of the musters and
heard that
Reiffenberg
had called for
support
from the
neighbouring
towns
'pour
la defense et conservation de leur
pays'
and
'pour
l'entre-
tenement de la
parole
de Dieu'. Moreover,
he could see no reason
why
Henry
VIII should
delay
the
levy
as matters stood at
Boulogne.
Yet the
day before,
he had written to
Longueval
that 'il
n'y
a rien
plus
asseure
qu'ilz
ont este retenus au nom du
roy d'Angleterre'.
No wonder he
would write to Cardinal du
Bellay: 'Somme,
tout est
plein
de
suspegons,
et si
jamais
il a este
besoing
dextrement
manyer quelque
chose en ce
pays,
c'est a ceste heure.' However,
by
3 September
he was
quite
certain
of
Reiffenberg's
intentions and wrote to the
King
that 'son
appareil
le
descouvre'. Nevertheless he
suspected that,
with war
likely
in north
Germany, Reiffenberg's
men would
eventually
be turned
by
the Land-
grave against
his enemies there.2
Fraisse seems to have had little
respect
for his adversaries when he
reported:
Je n'entends rien aux affaires de ce monde ou c'est la
plus
folle et la
plus
mal
conduicte
entreprise qui
fust
jamais faicte, s'ilz n'ont assurance de
passer
sans
aulcung empechement par
le
pays
de
l'empereur qui
n'est
pas
encore a cette
saison bien facile.3
Elsewhere he
compares
the
levy
to 'ce
que
les
poetes feignent
de celles
qui
aux enfers
puisent
l'eau
avecques
un crible'.4 Fortune,
he
thought,
had been over-kind to the
English
commissioners, for, disembarking
from their boat near Andernach, they
had
only just escaped capture
with
all their
money.
For this reason, they
had
gone straight
to the
camp
and
so had,
to some extent, placed
themselves in the
power
of the mercen-
aries. Yet the Frenchman was himself
increasingly
in
danger; by
the
middle of
September
he was threatened within the walls of Coblenz
itself. The
mercenary
leaders told the
burgomaster that,
if Fraisse
stayed
there
longer, they
would treat the town as an
enemy
and all its
dependent
villages
would suffer. This
naturally placed
a town which wanted to
remain on
good
terms with France in a difficult
position, though
after
the
burgomaster's
initial
request,
no
attempt
seems to have been made to
dislodge
the French
envoy
before his
departure early
in October.5
The
long-delayed
movement of the German levies
immediately
alerted Fraisse and caused him to move in
pursuit. By
the
26th,
the
I. Mont to
Paget, 5 Sept. 1545,
SPI/207,
fos.
102-3;
Bucler and Mont to
Henry VIII,
15 Sept. 1545,
StP,
x.
588-90.
2. Fraisse to the Palatine,
2
Sept. 1545,
Fraisse, pp. 56-7;
to
Longueval,
i
Sept. 1545,
ibid., pp. 53-5;
to
Cardinal du Bellay, 3 Sept., ibid., pp. 59-60;
to Francis I,
3 Sept. 1545,
ibid., pp. 58-9.
3.
Fraisse to
Grignan, 14 Sept. 1545,
ibid., p.
88.
4.
Fraisse to Francis I,
26
Sept. I545,
ibid., p. 123.
5.
Fraisse to Francis
I, 14 Sept. 1545, ibid., p. 93.
EHR Feb.
96
1996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
crossing
of the Rhine had been
completed
with
twenty ensigns
of foot
(lacking
500oo
or 6oo00
men), I,000
of
Reiffenberg's
horse and
540
of
Eytel
Wolf's. Their column set out for Rheinbach, in the
archbishopric
of
Cologne,
via Breisach.1
Evidently, they
had taken the northern
route,
which Fraisse had seen as the
only
alternative to the southern
through
Trier and
past Luxemburg.2
Their
way
must be
through
Aachen into the
archbishopric
of
Liege,
thus
avoiding
the
Emperor's territory.
The
whole situation was
changed, however, by
the
arrival,
on the
day
of the
crossing,
of letters from the
English
Council.3 These contained the
orders
reversing previous policy
and
directing
the
army
towards Cham-
pagne
in a
diversionary expedition.
The
troops
were to
burn, waste, and
kill for a month before
returning;
their leaders were
requested
to await
payment
with
patience
until then. The reason for the
English govern-
ment's
change
of
plan
is not difficult to find: the invasion scare of the
summer of
I545
had
by
now
passed;
the French fleet was out of the
Channel;
and the
only
threat which remained was to
Boulogne.
Here a
diversionary expedition
would be of use.
However,
the
stipulation
that
only
two months'
wages
and conduct were to be
paid effectively
ruined
the
expedition: payment
had
begun
on
5
September, leaving by
now
only just
over a month to reach
France, undertake some
exploit
and then
return.
Though Reiffenberg appeared
to concur in this new
plan,
it is
plain
that he had serious doubts about the
feasibility
of the
expedition
and
feared for his
reputation among
the men.
Thus, from the
start, things
began
to
go wrong
with
English plans.
First of
all,
from Aachen
Averey
had to be sent
post
haste to
Antwerp
to obtain another ten or twelve
thousand crowns in order to
satisfy
the
growing
demands of the
men,
though
the
Council,
on the commissioners'
request, despatched
?44,000
to Aachen on 8 October
plus
I
2,000 crowns
for the
parfyght ending
of all
thinges
to thintent his
grace
be nott
by any
meane trobled with
any
odde
rackoninges
or demandes
among
them ... butt
that
they may
be
quyte rydde away wythout great
reason of
any quarrel,
ffor
the which ordre His
Majeste
maketh none
accompt
of
iiij
or vM over or
undre.4
The
English
Council was
evidently
under the
impression
that it could
get
rid of the
levy simply,
but this was not the case. From
Aachen, as the
troops
marched into
Liege,
it is clear that relations between the com-
missioners and the soldiers deteriorated
badly. Reiffenberg
stuck to his
I. Hall to
Paget,
28
Sept.
1545,
SPI/2o8, fos.
96-7 (L&P, xx [ii].
468). English commissioners to the
Council, 29 Sept. 1545,
SPi/208, fos.
100-3.
2. Fraisse to Francis I, 14 Sept.
1545,
Fraisse, pp.
94-5.
There were a limited number of alternatives.
In December I
542,
Heideck had
proposed
to move from Coblenz to
Luxemburg, though things
had
changed
since the
Emperor
went to war with France:
Seymour to
Henry VIII, 29 Dec.
1542,
StP, ix.
254.
3.
Council to the
English commissioners, n.d.
[Sept.
I545],
SPI/2o8, fos. I2-19
(L&P, xx [ii].
403).
4. English commissioners to the Council, Rheinbach, 29 Sept.
1545,
ibid. xx [ii].
474; Aachen, i Oct.
1545, SPI/2o8,
fos.
I39-42 (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 509);
Council to
commissioners,
8 Oct.
1545, BL,
Add. MS
5753,
fo. i
SI (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 548).
EHR Feb.
96
41
42
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
demand for four months'
wages, arguing
that this is what had been
agreed
and that otherwise little could be done with the
expedition;
he
also added an extra demand for
pages
for the horsemen. To this, the
Council in
England
retorted that there was no custom for fixed
agree-
ments on
length
of service with landsknechts,
and enclosed contracts
with the French
King
and the
Emperor
to
prove
it.1
To what extent was French influence
responsible
for the d6bacle which
followed? Fraisse
certainly
detected the slowness with which the
troops
were
receiving payment
and seems to have taken the
opportunity
to
entice
away
some of the
captains.2
There is no evidence that these
negotiations
were with
Reiffenberg
himself,
rather than with his sub-
ordinates,
for he himself
complained
late in
August
that Fraisse was
disturbing
his men. He later attributed the desertion of
300
horse and
i,ooo
foot to French
intrigue,3
but Fraisse was
working
on fertile
ground,
for neither
Reiffenberg
nor his followers were anxious to leave
Germany
and
they
wrote to offer their services to the
Landgrave
and the
Protestant estates.4 Fraisse
reported
that,
even after the
binding
distri-
bution of coin to each of the men
(completed by
21
September),
desertions were
occurring
for two main reasons:
firstly,
the rumours of
Anglo-French
peace
talks;
and
secondly,
the word
spread by
the French
that other
princes, among
them the
kings
of France and
Denmark,
were
in need of mercenaries.
John
Dymoke
and Claes
Taphoren,
the clerk of
the musters,
had
reported ominously
as
early
as
August
that little was to
be
expected
from
Reiffenberg.5
Mont,
when he was at Coblenz
early
in
September,
saw
clearly
how
French
diplomacy
was
working,
with M. de
Rangone
attached to the
Duke of Brunswick and Fraisse at Coblenz
urging
the local
princes
to
break
up
the
levy.
He
seems, though,
to have done little about it.6
Only
during October,
with the
expedition dragging
its
way
to an
ignominious
halt at Florennes,
did the full extent of French activities become
appar-
ent to the
English
commissioners. An
agent
of
Longueval's, returning
from the
Archbishop
of
Liege,
was
intercepted
and
questioned.
His
papers
and confessions revealed not
only
that the
Archbishop
was
favourable to the French,
which
might
have been assumed
anyway,
but
also the extent of Fraisse's
intelligence.
The confession indicates that
I. Council to the commissioners, I4
Oct.
1545,
BL,
Add. MS
5753,
fo.
153 (L&P,
xx [ii]. 585).
2. Fraisse to
Longueval,
20
Sept. 1545,
Fraisse
pp. 112-14.
3. English
commissioners to
Paget, 27 Aug. 1545;
cf.
supra
p. 38,
n.
4. Reiffenberg
to his clerk Hans
Ulrich, 4 Sept. 1545,
SPi/207,
fo.
94,
a
copy
sent to the
English
commissioners.
4. Certainly, Reiffenberg
was
quick
to offer his men to the
Evangelical princes
once the
expedition
to
France had broken down. Cf.
Reiffenberg
to the
Landgrave, Florennes, 27
Oct.
1545, Marburg,
Pol.
Arch.,
752,
fo.
48
-v; 'Instruction of Reiffenberg
for his
envoys
to the
Landgrave', ibid., fos.
49-5 I,
same
place
and date.
5. Dymoke
to
Paget, Hamburg, 31 Aug. 1545,
L&P,
xx
(ii). 259; Taphoren
to same, 31 Aug. I545,
ibid.
255.
6. Mont to
Paget, 5 Sept. 1545;
Bucler and Mont to
Henry VIII,
15 Sept. 1545,
see
supra P.39, n.3.
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
Fraisse had followed the
army
to
Liege
and was
extremely
well-
informed as to its
progress,
even
predicting
its
likely
return without
crossing
the French frontier.1
The march of the
troops
came to a halt at the
abbey
of Florennes on 28
October, the
day
after
Reiffenberg
wrote
offering
his services to the
Landgrave,
with the detention of
Henry's
commissioners
by
the
'gui-
dons' of the
infantry,
who declared
they
would
put them, Reiffenberg
and his officers in irons if
they
were not
paid.
In the next few
days
the
commissioners became convinced that
Reiffenberg
himself was
staging
the
mutiny, especially
since his lieutenant Wolf
Slegher
was 'the cheffe
begynner
of this
muteny'.
On
30
October,
5oo
arquebusiers
'of the
rascalles' came to assault the
abbey; negotiations
ensued over how much
had been
paid
to
Reiffenberg
and whether
they
would have their
month's return
pay 'according
to their
bestellinge'. Insisting
on what
they
had
already paid out,
the commissioners were then
ignominiously
led on foot 'in the fowlest waie
they
culde devise ... whedir we were
cariede more like theves then
comyssaries'
to the
camp,
where
they
had
to enter the
'ring',
the famous circle of the
lansquenets,
formed when
disputes
arose. With
Reiffenberg
and
Slegher orchestrating
events on
horseback, they
'causide to be offride us a drome to
[sit] on, whiche we
reffuside and as it is tolde us the same is
amonge
them taken in derision.'
Having
been forced to listen to the demands of the 'commons', and
protesting
that
Reiffenberg
had
already
been
paid, they eventually
agreed
to disburse some more
money.
Chamberlain
especially
was
threatened with
hanging
since he had insisted on
making
full account of
money already paid
out and had thus made an
enemy
of
Reiffenberg.
They
were then led on to
Givey
and
Chimay
until released on the
intervention of an
Imperial agent
in return for a
promise
of safe-conduct
for
Reiffenberg
to
go
to the
Emperor's
court. In all
they
had disbursed
several thousand crowns more than
they thought
was due to the
Germans
by
the time
they managed
to
get
back to
Antwerp by
22
November.2
The Council in
England
called all this 'the lewd and ontrue
proced-
inges
of
Reyfenberg
and others'.
Henry promised they
would not be out
of
pocket
'and therefor
prayeth you
to
pluck your
hartes unto
yow
and
play
the men for the
tyme.'
A trusted
agent
was sent to the
Emperor's
court to obtain the commissioners'
release, and
Reiffenberg
was to be
told that
Henry
'doth know more of ther dooble
dealinges
and secrett
practizes
then
they
think'. The
King's
ambassadors in the Low Coun-
tries, one of whom was
Gardiner,
sent
comforting letters, and it is a
I. 'Memoire de ce
que l'homme de Monsieur de Fresse a
apport6',
SPI/20o9,
fos. ioo-I (L&P, xx
[ii].
636/2).
See also Chamberlain to
Paget,
28 Oct., sending
him the
cipher
of the Frenchman 'who was
servant to the Frenche
Kinges
man that laie at Confluence for to have distorbed our armie, as it now
makethe me
suspecte
he did': SP
/209, fos. 1
5
-2. The
cipher
is enclosed, fos.
152-3.
It is in a French
secretary's
hand.
2. Fane and
Averey
to the Council, 28 Oct.
I545,
ibid., fos.
156-60
(L6&P, xx
[ii]. 680); i Nov.,
SPI/209,
fos.
209-I2 (L&P, xx [ii]. 710); io Nov., SPi/2io, fos.
67-70, esp.
68V
(L&P, xx [ii].
766);
commissioners to Council, 22 Nov.
1545,
SP/2I I, fos.
25-6 (L&P, xx [ii]. 847).
EHR Feb.
96
43
44
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
measure of the reaction that even
Gardiner, normally
so hostile to
France,
was now
prepared
to admit that
peace
with her was
necessary
in
order to
'escape
the thrawldom' of the German
captains
and in view of
'our wantes at hom'.
Paget
himself issued
Reiffenberg
with an extraordi-
nary letter, surely reflecting Henry's coruscating anger, denouncing
his
'desloyal
et mauvais service' and
threatening,
should he not
carry
out his
'couvenant',
si vous ne faictes ce
que
dessus
soyez
bien asseure et aussi Sa
Majest6
m'a
command6 vous
escripre, que
en
quelque part que soyez
en toute la Chres-
tient6 il vous coustera la vie, encore
que
Sa
Majest6
en
paye pour
ce
cinquante
mille escuz.1
The commissioners were
given
leave
by
the Council to retire on 28
November, leaving
Chamberlain in
Antwerp
to
attempt
to recover the
money
lost.
Ironically, when,
in
1549,
Fane was
swept up
in the
political
troubles that
brought
Somerset down,
it was
preposterously put
to him
'that he should robb
King Henry
when he went for the
Almaynes
to be
brought
to
Bulleyne'.
At the same
time,
it was hinted that Dr Bruno of
Metz,
one of the Protestant mediators between
England
and France,
had
been 'the menes the
army
went not forward'.2
While it was
certainly
the case that the Protestant
diplomats
would
not wish to see the
Anglo-French
war
encouraged,
there is no real
evidence that
they,
rather than the
Landgrave,
were in a
position
to act in
this
way. Naturally,
Fane and Chamberlain concluded that the
collapse
of the
expedition
had been intended from the start. In the course of the
mutiny they reported
that
they thought Reiffenberg
had
always
intended to
stay
close to the Rhine,
in order to 'breake
upe
for to
go
to
serve his master the
Landsgrave'
if
needed,
and that he had never
intended to enter France. His 'brentmaister' had told them that,
when he
had discussed
levying protection money
in
France, Reiffenberg
had said
this was not the
moment,
as
they might
both find themselves in French
service.3 It
seems, too,
that the
Landgrave's Hofmarschall,
von Baum-
bach,
was
requested by
the
English government, through
Christoff
Mont,
to ask his master to
provide
an
explanation
for
Reiffenberg's
betrayal
and hint that the
Landgrave
had
actually encouraged
the
mutiny.4
There is no direct evidence of collusion between Fraisse and
I.
Paget
and Petre to the commissioners, 2 Nov.
i45,
BL, Add. MS
5753,
fo.
155;
Gardiner, Thirlby
and Carne to same, Bruges, 3
and
5
Nov.
I545,
ibid.,
fos. I
56, 158;
Gardiner to
Paget, 7
Nov.
I545,
in
J.
A. Muller
(ed.),
The Letters
of Stephen
Gardiner
(Cambridge, I933), P. i8o; Paget
to
Reiffenberg,
Windsor, 2 Nov.
I545,
SPI/209,
fo.
215
(L&P,
xx [ii]. 716).
2. Council to commissioners, 28 Nov.
I545,
BL, Add. MS
5753,
fo. i6o
(L&P,
xx [ii].
883).
The
recently
discovered
Anonymous Chronicle, BL, Add. MS
48023,
fo.
3 5
V
(I owe this reference to Dr G.
Bernard).
3.
Fane and Chamberlain to the Council, Florennes, 22 Oct. I
545,
SPI/209,
fos.
94-9 (L&P,
xx
[ii].
636);
the same to the same, Florennes, 28 Oct.
I545, SPI/20o9,
fo.
I57r-v (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 68o);
com-
missioners, 22 Nov.
1545,
SPI/2 II, fos.
25-6 (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 847): Reiffenberg
had turned down the idea
of 'a
large
ransome for
brandesakking
of howses,
to
saye,
for
savinge
them from
brennynge'
in France.
4. Johann
Sturm to
Jakob
Sturm, 13
Nov.
1545,
Pol. Corr. iii.
63 7;
Mont and Bucler to the
Landgrave,
received Cassel 24 Nov. 1545, Mont's hand, Marburg,
Pol. Arch., I80 , fos. 76v-7r:
the
interesting point
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
Reiffenberg, though
it is
possible that,
when the latter became convinced
that the
English
were
trying
to
get away
with
spending
as little as
possible,
he
began
to make
approaches
to the French.
Reiffenberg
was a
complete opportunist: English suspicions
of this were rife late in
1545
and confirmed in the
following year,
when Mont
reported
his conver-
sations with French
agents.
The
Landgrave,
for his
part,
tried to con-
vince Mont
early
in the
following year
that the fiasco was
nothing
to do
with him and hinted that
grants
made since
by
the
Emperor
to Reiffen-
berg
indicated the true author of the affair.' We know that the latter
offered himself to France
early
in
I546, though
his
price
was
high.
Despite this,
Francis I
cautiously accepted
his
plan
to seize
English
money
for
troops
in
Germany,
and thereafter he was
regularly
to serve
France.2
Fraisse himself went as far as
Liege
and then returned to
France,
probably concluding
that his task was
complete. Ironically,
he then went
straight
to Ardres to take
part
in
peace
talks there with the
English.
In an
undated
report
to his
master, though,
he concluded
exultantly
that
je
suis non seulement venu a bout de mon
entreprise,
mais encore ... car
quand
il a este
question
de faire entrer ces bandes dedans votre
royaume,
non
seulement elles se sont mutines et
departies,
mais ont
rompu
les
enseignes,
prins
les commissaires du roi
d'Angleterre
prisonniers
et ravi tout
l'argent,
dont il sera a
jamais mocque
et
vilipende par
deca.
Henry,
he
said,
would never
try
the same
plan again.3
The
French,
however,
remained
wary
of
Reiffenberg's
army
until its
complete
break-up; they
continued to fear for the
safety
of the
Picardy
frontier
and Mezieres in
particular, especially
when the
army
arrived at Flo-
rennes.4 Francis I was at La Fere from
9
to
13
October and from there he
here is that
Reiffenberg
had been
saying openly
that the
Landgrave
himself had
encouraged
the
mutiny.
Landgrave Philip
to
Reiffenberg,
28 Nov. I
545,
ibid., fos. 66-8, draft; Reiffenberg's reply, 5
Dec. I
545,
ibid.,
fos.
56-8, autogr., dealing
with three articles of accusation.
I.
Paget claimed,
in
talking
to
Sturm, during
the Protestant mediation of November 1
545,
that 'the
Lansgrave
... hath served the
King
of late
very
il for his
army
of
Almayns',
and Sturm had to defend
Philip by saying
that
Reiffenberg's knavery
had been without the
Landgrave's knowledge.
Fane etal. to
Council, Antwerp,
22 Nov. I
545, L&P,
xx
(ii). 847; Paget
to
Petre, 27
Nov.
1545,
SPi/21 I, fo.
91r.
See
also Mont to
Henry VIII,
io Feb.
1546, L&P,
xxi
(i). I9I;
I
May 1546,
SP/2
I7,
fos.
160-3
(L&P, xxi [i].
730?)
2. Cf. Francis I to
Bassefontaine, Montargis,
I 8
Apr.
I
546, orig.
crs.
Bayard,
Archives du Chateau de
Villebon,
liasse 2I
(unfol):
'affin de se servir de chacun selon ce
qu'il
se
peult faire, sans entrer en
despence inutille,
vous tiendrez aud.
Reiffenberg
bons et
gracieulx propoz
de ma
part, luy
disant
qu'il
n'est
point
de
besoing qu'il
vienne
pardevers moy, mays que
s'il veult
prendre
les deniers des
Angloys je
l'advouheray
tresvolontiers de ce
qu'il
aura
faict;
et
davantaige,
je
recognoistray ung
tel service, de sorte
qu'il
aura occasion de s'en contenter.'
3.
Fraisse to Francis
I, undated, Fraisse, pp. 8-9.
The
English reported
that he reached
Liege
and then
returned to France:
SPI/209,
fo.
157 (L&P,
xx
[ii]. 68o). His short account of these months written in
the
following year
makes it clear
that, after his activities in the Rhineland ('Ou, Dieu
mercy,
nous
fusmes assez
heureux'),
he went on to Ardres: Fraisse to Marie de Guise, Saint Germain,
3
Mar. [I
546],
in
Marguerite Wood,
The
Foreign Correspondence of
Marie de Lorraine,
Queen
of
Scotland. From the
... Balcarres
Papers, 1537-47 (Edinburgh, 1923),
i.
247-8.
4.
Germain le
Lieur, agent
in
Antwerp,
to
Mesnage,
12 Oct.
I545, copied
into the ambassador's
Diplomatic Journal, BN,
fr.
17889,
fo. I28
r, describing
a conversation with a Scotsman
recently
arrived
from London:
'Davantage
m'a dict avoir
parle
a deux courriers venans
d'Angleterre lesquelz luy
ont
EHR Feb.
96
45
46
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
despatched Enghien
to Guise,
Martin du
Bellay
to Mezieres and Lon-
gueval
to raise the
Champagne
levies. French
military preparations
to
resist the German
troops
on the north-east frontier were extensive
during
October.1 Francis warned
Mesnage
that he had heard
que
les Allemans assemblez
pour
aller au service du
Roy d'Angleterre
sont a
six lieues de
Baings
et
que
le bruict
qui
court entre eulx est
qu'ilz passeront par
les
pays
de
l'Empereur pour
aller joindre aux
Angloys
vers Calais et
qu'ilz
s'esloignent
le
plus qu'ilz pourront
de ma frontiere de
peur
d'estre
empeschez
en leur
passaige.
The
King
affected to disbelieve this,
in view of the assurances of the
Imperial envoy
that the
Emperor
would not allow
it,
but asked for
warning
so that,
should the
Emperor
have
changed
his line, 'je puisse
changer
l'ordre
que j'ay
donne
pour y
resister'.
Mesnage
still feared the
success of the
English enterprise
later in October,
and
Grignan
des-
cribed himself as 'merveilleusement
desplaysant'
at the news that the
army
had crossed the
Imperial territory
of Brabant into
Liege, despite
the
Emperor's
assurances. The discomfiture of the
English
must have
been obvious
by
the end of the
month, though,
when the
King
wrote
again
of the Germans that 'ilz facent
apparence
de rien faire, synon
de
bien
t[ost
se
retirer],
car ilz ont desia faict
descharger
leurs munici[ons
...]
comme
gens qui
n'ont
pas
delibere d'aller
longue[ment ...]'
.2
This
particular levy provides
an
interesting case-study,
for it
displays
both
English
and French
diplomats
at
work,
and
directly
in
competition.
The
Reiffenberg debacle, however,
was most
certainly
not the end of the
matter, especially
as the issue in north
Germany
remained unsettled.
More
importantly,
the
kaleidoscopic diplomatic picture
was
changing
yet again;
where the Germans could afford to be
uncooperative
in
August
and
September 1545,
the
Emperor's plans
to subdue
Germany
were
becoming
more obvious
by
the end of the
year.
This was to be seen
in the
desperate
efforts of the Protestants to breathe life into their earlier
offers of mediation. Another indication was the even
greater
embarrass-
ment of the
princes during
the first
part
of
1546
at
seeing
the French and
English
locked in
dispute
within the
Empire.
The failure of the
Reiffenberg levy
marked a shift in
English
interests.
The difficulties of
bringing
men from the Rhineland and the events of
dict
qu'ilz
alloient audevant les Allemans
pour
les faire haster et
partir pour
venir a
Boullogne
et le reste
a Mesieres.'
i. Cf. Martin du
Bellay's interesting
account in his Memoires,
iv.
320-I.
In October
1543,
com-
missions were sent out to
experienced gentlemen
on the north-eastern frontier to raise
infantry 'pour
obvier et resister a l'entreprise
d'aulcuns Allemans et autres
gens
de noz
ennemys': royal
letter of
remission, Mar.
1546,
AN, JJ
257B,
no. io6,
fo.
34r.
Picard adventurers under Belleforriere were
mustered at Vervins
'pour
resister aux
entreprinses que
font sur lad.
place
et autres circonvoisins ...
aulcuns
gens
de
guerre
allemans soubz ... le
roy d'Angleterre': BN,
fr.
25793,
no.
548.
2. Francis I to
Mesnage, Vaulx-sous-Laon, I4
Oct.
1545, Pierpont Morgan Library,
RF
(MA I47);
Mesnage
to Admiral d'Annebault,
26 Oct.
I545, copied
into
Mesnage's Diplomatic Journal, BN,
EHR Feb. 96
i996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
the Schmalkaldic War led
English
officials to turn their attention much
more to northern
Germany,
and in
particular
to the area around Ham-
burg
and
Bremen,
as a source of men who
could,
at
need,
be
transported
directly by
sea. The area was
replete
with men
eager
for
employment,
though
few
contemporaries
knew
clearly
for whom the levies set on foot
around Bremen and
Hamburg
in the summer of
1545
were
ultimately
intended: the Duke of
Brunswick,
the
King
of
Denmark,
and the
kings
of France and
England
were all
suggested
as the true
paymasters.
There
is some reason to
suppose
that the bands of Peter of Guelders were
originally
hired
by
the
English, though
later on
English
sources
suggest
that
they
were in French
pay.
It seems that Duke
Henry
of Brunswick
was
receiving payments
from both French and
English.
The former
suspected
in
July 1545
that the
Mecklenburg
levies were destined for
England,1 though
a little later Schmalkaldic
diplomats believed,
or
claimed to
believe,
that those in Brunswick were
inspired by
the French
at a time when Brunswick was an
enemy
of the
League.
Such ob-
fuscations were the result of
secrecy
and
suspicion.
The French denial of
this
suggestion
is instructive. In a letter to the Council of Thirteen at
Strasbourg,
Francis I admitted to
paying
the Duke of Brunswick to
break
up
the levies raised for the
English
in north
Germany,
but added
that he had made no levies of his own.2 This
should,
of
course, be read in
conjunction
with
Grignan's
rather more honest
analysis
of the
situation,
though
it does
display
well the French
anxiety
to retain the
goodwill
of
the Protestants.
The outcome of the levies in north
Germany
still remained in
doubt,
and the
problem
was rendered more acute
by
the defeat of the Duke of
Brunswick.
Though Henry
VIII had been
deceived,
as
usual,
in his
dealings
with
Brunswick,
the
negotiations
with
Captain
Conrad Pen-
nynck ('Courtpenninck'), begun by John Dymoke
and Claes
Taphoren
in
September
I545,3 eventually
ended in
Pennynck's signature
of his
contract and collection of an
annuity
in
January
1546.4
The French seem
quickly
to have
got
wind of these activities5
and,
of
course,
were
just
as
active on their own
part, especially
after the failure of mediation talks
with the
English
held
by
the
envoys
of the Protestant
princes
late in
fr.
17889,
fo. I20r.
Grignan
to
Mesnage,
I
5
Oct.
1545,
ibid. fos.
53-4;
Francis I to
Mesnage, Folembray
[20 Oct.-9
Nov.
1545], ibid.,
fr.
17890,
fo.
52, damaged.
i.
Jean
Petit to
Mesnage, 4 July 1545,
ibid., fr.
17888, fos.
318-19.
2. Francis I to the Council of
Strasbourg,
8 Oct.
1545,
Pol. Corr., iii, no.
614.
3. Dymoke
to the
English commissioners, 2
Sept.
1545,
SPI/207, fos. 68-70 (L&P, xx [ii]. 274);
Council to the
English commissioners,
30 Aug. 1545,
with
Taphoren's account-book attached, BL,
Add. MS
5753,
fos.
i61-3.
4.
Council to
Paget, 29
Dec.
I545,
SPI/212, fos.
147-8 (L &P, xx [ii].
1054).
Contract with
Pennynck,
22
Jan.
1546,
cf.
SPi/213,
fo.
152 (L&P,
xxi
[i]. I I2/ii), though Henry VIII's notification of
appoint-
ment has 'drie dusent dutsche landsknecht' in
ensigns
of 4oo, ibid., fo.
I
51
(L &P, xxi [i]. i I2/i). See also
the Council to Brende and
Brygantyn, Jan. 1546,
SPI/2
4,
fos. I-6 (L&P, xxi [ii]. 172).
For German
comments on
this,
cf. Christoff von Carlowitz to Maurice of
Saxony, 27 Feb.
1546,
in
Brandenburg,
Politische
Korrespondenz,
no. 868.
5.
Memoire of
Mesnage
to
d'Annebault, 24
Dec.
1545,
BN, fr.
17889, fos.
98-9; Mesnage
to Francis I,
25
Dec.
1545,
ibid. fos.
96-7.
EHR Feb.
96
47
48
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
1545.
Hacfort was sent to north
Germany
to recruit
troops
on behalf of
the French
government.1
Meanwhile the French ambassador
Mesnage
reported English dealings
with
mercenary captains there, instructed
by
his master to tell the
Emperor
that French
agents
in
Germany
were there
'pour rompre
les menees et
praticques que y
faict le
roy d'Angleterre
et
empescher qu'il
n'en tire
gens pour
me faire la
guerre',
and then to
protest
at news of levies of
cavalry
for
Henry
VIII
by
the
Emperor's
commander,
Buren.2
The new
English
commissioners, Brende and
Brygantyn,
ac-
complished
their mission, admittedly
in rather more favourable circum-
stances,
with much more
efficiency
than their
predecessors.
Commissioned on i
February, they
collected ?3,000
from
Vaughan
at
Antwerp
and ?2,000 from
Hamburg
merchants on
Henry's
letters of
credit, arriving
at Bremen with the
necessary money
by
4
March.3 Even
so, they
seem to have had to deal with the efforts of French
agents
to
disperse
the
troops
when
they
were
waiting
for
permission
to cross the
Netherlands at Alten.4
Despite
this and a series of difficult
negotiations
with the
Queen-Regent
at
Brussels,
the
troops
were
eventually
able to
cross the Netherlands in small
groups. They
arrived at Calais
early
in
April
and were
reported by
the
Rhinegrave Johann Philipp
as
having
crossed the sea with
difficulty
in
May.5
In
February, Paget
had told
Mont that
Henry's army
would be
ready
around 20 March and would
consist of
i6,ooo English, 2,000 Italians, 2,000 Spaniards,
and
6,ooo
Germans
being
levied
by Pennynck,
'who is
already
aboutes it' and
I. Henrick Hacfort to
[Mesnage],
6
Jan.
I
545/6,
BN, fr. 66I6, fo.
95,
from
'Berghen':
'par
com-
mission du
Roy
il s'est asseure de
quatre
mil
pietons
et
cinq
cens chevaulx et
qu'il
entretient les
cappitaines
a ses
frayz;
et
depuis
lad. commission a
luy baillee, il n'a eu
argent
ne nouvelles du
Roy....
II
dict aussi
que
led. Hacfort s'est
allye
d'aucuns
protestants pour plus
seurement faire lad. levee et led.
Hacfort ne
luy
a nomme lesd.
protestants
mais il croict
que
c'est le
Landgrave
et
l'Evesque
de
Meunstre.'
By February,
Hacfort had been
imprisoned
in Gueldres for
levying
men without the
Emperor's
licence: see Chamberlain to
Paget,
20 Feb.
1545/6 (L&P,
xxi
[i]. 256).
2.
Mesnage
to Francis I, Utrecht,
io Jan.
1545/6,
BN,
fr.
I7890o,
fos.
I85-6:
'le
personnaige qui
m'a
apporte
la lettre de creance du
cappitaine
Hacfort m'a dict
qu'il
venoit dud. Iieu de Bresme et
que pour
certain il avoit veu commission du
Roy d'Angleterre
a
Martyn
van
Hard, capitaine
du
pays
de Frise ...
pour
lever douze
enseignes
et a
promys
les
passer
en
Angleterre
et les mener en Escosse. Aussi a veu
commission dud.
Roy
a Cort Pannich,
cappitaine
demourant a Bresme, pour
lever dix huict
enseignes
et
les mener a Callaix et
Boullongne;
et disoient lesd.
cappitaines
et autres de la
compaignie
de ceulx
ausquelz
il avoit
congnoissance que
au commencement du Caresme seroit faicte lad. levee.' Francis I to
Mesnage, Saint-Germain,
28 Feb.
1546,
and Paris,
8 Mar.
1546, Pierpont Morgan
Lib. RF
(MA I47).
3.
Brende and
Brygantyn
to
Henry VIII,
6 Mar.
1546, SPI/214,
fos.
217-18 (L&P,
xxi [i]. 330).
For
their account, see PRO E
35 1/I3,
i Feb. -20
July 1546,
rendered 28
Aug. 1553.
4.
Brende and
Brygantyn
to
Henry VIII,
27
Mar.
1546,
SPI/2i6,
fos.
7-10 (L&P,
xxi
[i]. 473),
dated
at Alten.
5.
Pennynck
to Cobham, Antwerp, 7 Apr. 1546,
BL,
Harleian
288,
fo.
71 (L&P,
xxi
[i]. 568).
Brende
and
Brygantyn,
7 Apr. 1546
(L&P, xxi[i].
569);
Brende and
Brygantyn
to
Paget, I4 Apr. 1546, SPI/217,
fos.
8-9 (L&P,
xxi
[i]. 599). Georg
Reckerodt to Simon
Bing, Langern,
21
May 1546, Marburg,
Pol.
Arch.,
I839,
fo.
4r:
'Es hat mir der
Reingraf
auss dem
lager geschrieben
und
angezeigt
das Conrad
Pfenning
mit den 8 venlein knechten bei den
Engellanden
ankommen hat...' Earlier
reports
had led the
Landgrave
to think that
Pennynck's
force had been lost at sea: letter to
Mont, 14 May 1546, SPI/218,
fo.
I29 (L&P,
xxi
[i]. 834/i). Pennynck's eight ensigns
of foot had
400
men
per ensign.
Each man
received one daller conduct
money
and each
ensign
received
3,054 philippus per pay.
Brende and
Brygantyn
disbursed ?fl.
7523
on them from
February
to
July:
PRO E
351/13.
EHR Feb.
96
I996 ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
would arrive ten
days after,
as well as
4,000 horse, part German, part
Italian.
By June
i
546,
the Earl of Hertford's forces at
Boulogne
included
a substantial
contingent
of north German and Clevois
cavalry
who had
served before and would do so
again.1
Mesnage's
informants had
proved remarkably
accurate in their
reports
of all this.
Mesnage
himself had not been idle in the matter and
had made strenuous efforts to
persuade Josse,
the
Emperor's secretary,
to order a
stop
to
Pennynck's passage through
the
'pays patrimo-
niaulx'.2
Mesnage
seems in these months to have had a
general
brief to
watch
English activities,
not
only
in
Germany
but also in the Nether-
lands, Italy
and Scandinavia. Most of his
information, though,
came
from sources in
Germany, especially
after he had
reported
the acute
danger
that the Germans would soon be at
Boulogne
to
join
with the
English
in
pillaging
French
territory.3
Roland
Guyneau,
one of Mes-
nage's agents
in north
Germany,
wrote to him from
Hamburg
that 'vous
et Monsieur de
L'Aubespine
m'avez
apporte
bonne fortune car
j'ay
obtenu
par
deca ce
que
le
Roy
demandoit'.4 This was almost
certainly
a
promise
from the Hanseatic towns not to
supply ships
to the
English.
Claude de
L'Aubespine, royal secretary dealing
with German
affairs,
was the brother of
Bassefontaine, envoy
to Worms in
1545
and then to
Hesse and the Diet of Princes at Frankfurt in
January
i
546.5
Bassefon-
taine had been based at
Heidelberg,
but attended the Diet in
February,
where he and Reckerodt were observed
by
Mont in conclave with the
Landgrave.6 Though
his main task was to direct
negotiations
with the
Protestants,
with a view to
spurring
them on to war with the
Emperor,
he seems to have taken considerable interest in the
English
levies.
So,
writing
to
Mesnage
from Worms on
23 April
1546,
he outlined his
plans:
I.
Paget
to
Mont, 25
Feb. I
546, StP,
xi. 6o:
Paget's
clear
doubling
of Penninck's numbers is an
indication of how even an
English envoy
could be deceived
by
hs own
government. Chaloner's account
for the
payment
of
foreign troops,
PRO E
3 51/43, indicates, for
cavalry,
that Leuchtmacher
(I48, incl.
i 8 from
Pomerania),
Hoen
(37)
and
Vanderlugh (53)
were
paid
for
eight months,
8
Apr.
1545-7
Feb.
1546, 250
horse.
BL,
Add. MS
5753,
fo.
I88-97, receipts, Apr.-July 1546,
of Leuchtmacher
(8o horse),
Vollard
Vanderlugh (250),
Peter Hoen
(250
Dutch
horse),
Christoff von Vrsberch
([?]Prysborch) (4
5
horse),
Otto Count of
Rytberg, Capt.
Salablanca
(66 arquebusiers),
Hans van
Winsigenrot; many
of
these were also stationed at
Boulogne
in October I
544.
In
1549, Dymoke
recalled that
Rytberg
'I do
knowe well for to be a
greatte muttyner,
for he
dyd
serve before Bullen with Edel Volff and what ado he
made ther
ys
no unknowe to some of
my
lordes of the councell': to
Somerset,
11
May 1549, SP68/3,
p. 696.
2.
Mesnage
to
Bassefontaine,
28
Apr. [1546], BN, fr.
17890,
fos.
2-3.
3. Mesnage
to Francis
I, Speyer, 30
Mar.
1546, ibid.,
fo.
io6, draft:
'Sire, les advertissements ne
contiennent
que pour
certain le
Roy d'Angleterre
faict faire toute
diligence possible d'assembler bas
Allemans
pour
les rendre dedans
ung moys prestz
d'entrer dedans voz
pays, esperant que par
telle
diligence
il vous
previendra que
voz forces ne seront encores assembl6es
pour
les
pouvoir empescher
de
se
joindre
a Callaix et
Bollongne
avec
quelque
nombre
d'Angloys qu'il y
veult faire descendre...' On
Mesnage
in this
period,
see D.
Potter, 'Foreign Policy
in the
Age
of the
Reformation',
538-9.
4.
Roland
Guyneau
to
Mesnage, Hamburg,
20
Apr. [1546], BN, fr.
I7890,
fo.
15sr-.
5.
The Hessian ambassadors
Walter, Giinterode and
Aitinger
to the
Landgrave, 27 Jan.
1546,
Marburg,
Pol.
Arch., 842,
fos.
475-6, quoted
in Pol.
Corr, iv.
32,
n.
I4. Bassefontaine was
offering
French subsidies to the
princes
at Frankfurt.
6.
Johann
Sturm to
[Fraisse],
io Feb.
1546, ibid., no.
25.
Mont to
Henry VIII, io Feb.
1546,
L&P, xxi
(i). 191.
EHR Feb.
96
49
50 THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
De
moy,
je
partiray d'icy
demain
pour
aller a
Hedelberg pour quelque
affaire
et de la incontinant a Francfort
pour
descouvrir
quelque
men6e de
l'Angloys
car
je
commence a sentir
qu'il
veult
fayre
levee de
quelques
haultz Allemans:
depuys ung jour
ou deux il a eu deux commissaires de ses
guerres
a Francfort
pour fayre
quelques
eschanges d'argent
et
pour
aussi
fayre
descendre
quelques
lantzquenetz.
Conrad Phenin, collonel dud.
Angloys, celuy qui passoyt gens
es Basses
Allemaignes
a faict desia
passer
iii mille hommes.
Bassefontaine was
pleased
to
report
that Mont had tried to take
up
the
men around Worms, but without success.1 He was also in contact with
the Protestants
through
Ulrich
Geiger (alias Chelius),
the
diplomat,
and
it was Chelius who seems to have been
informing
him of the movements
of Mason and Mont and of the whereabouts of the now anti-French
colonel, Count Wilhelm von
Fiirstenberg.2
The French
King
was
kept
informed of
everything
and took a close interest in these matters.
Acknowledging
Bassefontaine's
report
on 'ce
que l'Angloys
faict
par
le
duc
Philipes' [i.e.
the
Palsgrave] by
various
promises,
the
King's opinion
was acid:
Je
pense
qu'il
[Henry VIII]
n'en tiendra aucune. Mais ceulx a
qui
il s'adresse
entendent tresbien a
quelle
fin il faict telles offres,
et
quant
a
moy
je les
extyme
tant mes
amys
et si cler
voyans qu'ilz
n'ont
garde d'y
voulloir entendre.3
A close
working
relationship existed between Bassefontaine and Mes-
nage
in the task of
observing English
movements.
Mesnage's despatches
were sometimes
re-ciphered
and sent to Bassefontaine,
and an
important
correspondence
exists between the two
diplomats
on the
subject.4
Mesnage's
informants led him to believe that the levies had become
crucial;
the
King
of
England
would have to make his
greatest
efforts that
year,
since his
subjects' ability
to
support
the war was
virtually
exhaus-
ted.5 Hence it was crucial to frustrate this last effort in order to obtain
the best
possible
terms at the
peace
which had to come sooner or later.
When
Mesnage reported
that
Fiirstenberg,
an old thorn in the French
side,
was
raising troops
for
England,
he asked Bassefontaine to make
representations
to the Elector Palatine and
Landgrave
'affin
qu'ilz
le
I. Bassefontaine to
Mesnage,
dated Good
Friday 1546, BN, fr.
I7890,
fos.
91-2.
This letter is
signed
'i' and is almost
certainly
in the hand of Bassefontaine's clerk.
2. 'Peterman' (Ulrich Chelius)
to
'Vogelstein' (Bassefontaine), 27 May
I
546, BN,
fr. 66I6,
fo. Io8.
See also Bassefontaine to
Hacfort, Regensburg, 24 July [I
546], Marburg,
Pol. Arch., I834,
fo. I0;
'Vogelstein'
to Giinterode, 24 July, ibid., fo. I I.
3.
Francis I to Bassefontaine,
3 May
I
546, orig.
crs.
Bayard,
Archives du Chlteau de Villebon,
liasse
2I.
4.
Francis I to Bassefontaine, 17 May 1546,
from Fontainebleau, orig.
crs.
Bayard,
ibid. For an
eighteenth-century copy
of this, cf. BN,
fr. 6620, fo. i.
5- Mesnage
to Francis I, Regensburg, 13 Apr. 1546,
draft, BN,
fr.
17890,
fos.
88-9:
'le
Roy
d'Angleterre
est en necessite de faire ses
plus grands
effors ceste annie contre vostre
Mageste pour
ce
qu'il
ne
peult plus longuement
soustenir la
guerre,
tant
pour
la sterilite et charte de vivres
qui
sont en ses
pays que
aultres
grandes
necessitez
que
souffrent ses
subjectz.'
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
facent cesser de servir a vostre
ennemy';1
and a little later he
again
asked
Bassefontaine to
approach
the Palatine in order to
stop
his
nephew,
the
Palsgrave Philip,
from
acting
on
Henry's
behalf.2 In
fact, though
Dr
Hans Bruno of Metz made strenuous efforts to recommend Fiirsten-
berg,
who had
planned
to offer his services to the
English King
with a
letter from the
Emperor, nothing
resulted.3 The
assembly
of soldiers
around Frankfurt and Worms in
April
and
May
1546
remained outside
the
English orbit, and the
English
offers to
Fiirstenberg,
made
by
Christoff Mont when the Count was
taking
the cure in
Wiirttemberg,
came to
nothing
because of
Fiirstenberg's unwillingness
to
accept
the
meagre
terms
proposed.4
The
English displayed,
if
anything,
even more
anxiety
about French
diplomacy
in
Germany during
the first half of
1546,
than vice versa.
Mont
reported
Bassefontaine's arrival at Frankfurt for the
Diet,
in the
company
of the
pro-French
Hessian
agent, Georg
von Reckerodt.5 He
was
highly suspicious
of the Frenchman's
insinuating
himself into the
counsels of Hesse and
Saxony,
and for the rest of the
year
Bassefon-
taine's activities were observed.6
Though
Mont felt that the Germans
were bound to favour
England
for confessional
reasons,7
the obvious
successes of French
diplomacy
in the
spring
of
546
led to serious
efforts on the
English part
to discredit the French. Thus
Paget,
in a letter
to
Bruno, characterized Bassefontaine and Reckerodt as
papal spies
who
saw and knew
everything
around the
Landgrave.8
In
March, Mont taxed
the
Landgrave
with his
friendly dealings
with a
king
so
opposed
to his
faith,
and was
told, quite fairly,
that it would be foolish for the Germans
to alienate the French
King
before
they
were sure of
England,
whose
i. Ibid.
Mesnage
to Francis I,
I7 Apr.
1546, BN,
fr.
17889,
fos.
90-2.
2.
Mesnage
to
Bassefontaine, 6
May
I
546,
ibid. fos. 2 10-I I.
Philip,
Duke of Bavaria, Count Palatine
of the Rhine
(d.
1548),
was
receiving
a
pension
of
?833
6s.
per half
year
from
Henry VIII: PRO, E
351/43.
He had offered his services to
Henry
in
June
1545
and been invited to visit
England
in March
1546
to show what he could do: see L&P, xx (i).
885,
xxi (i). I37,
297,
469,
550.
Fraisse to Francis I,
Mar.-Apr. 1546,
in G. Ribier
(ed.), Lettres et memoires d'estat (2 vols., Paris, i666), i.
603-6:
'le duc
Philippe
est en extreme necessite tellement malade en
Angleterre, que
l'on
n'espere pas qu'il en revienne
jamais.'
3. Mont to
Henry VIII, 30 Mar.
1546,
StP, xi. 86-8; Mont to
Paget, 30 Mar.
1546,
ibid.
88-9. On
Bruno, agent
of the Schmalkaldic
League,
for Francis I (I
539)
and for
Henry
VIII from
1545,
see G.
Zeller, La Reunion de Metz a la France (2 vols.,
Strasbourg/Paris, 1926), pp.
82-3.
4. Mont to
Henry VIII, I
May
1546, SPi/217,
fos.
160-3 (L&P, xxi [i].
730); Henry VIII to
Palsgrave
Philip, Sept. 1546, SPI/224, fos.
I-13
(L&P, xxi [ii]. 2).
5.
Reckerodt
(I
500-59)
is a
good example
of a
mercenary captain-cum-diplomat.
For a brief note on
him, see Pariset, Les Relations, p. 37,
n.
25.
A servant of
Philip
of Hesse, he had been a French
pensioner
since
I540:
see
CAF, iv.
174, no. I I802.
6. Mont to
Henry VIII,
7Jan. 546,StP,xi.
; Montto
Henry VIII, 27Jan.
I546,SPI/213,fos. 174-5
(L&P, xxi
[i]. I29).
7. Mont to
Henry VIII, I0 Feb.
1546, SPI/214, fos.
34-5
(L&P, xxi [i]. I9I);
Mont to
Paget,
Io Feb.
1546,
StP, xi.
40-3.
8.
Paget
to Bruno,
25
Feb.
I546,
ibid.
62-3.
EHR Feb.
96
5 I
52
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
alliance had so often been
sought
and never obtained.1 In
April,
when
Mont offered the
Landgrave
a retainer of
i0,000 fl. if he would retain
captains
to serve
Henry
in case of need and
prevent troops going
to
French
service,
he described Bassefontaine, Reckerodt,
La Planche and
Fraisse as liars who wanted the Germans to serve the French
King
as
slaves and
spill
their blood in his cause.
Philip naturally pointed
out that
to
prevent troops going
to
Henry's
enemies would be tantamount to an
act of war
against
France. The latter had
helped
him in the
past
and was
quite capable
of
stirring up
his enemies in
Germany.2
Mont's
inability
to
offer a firm
alliance, moreover,
rendered his
grandiloquent language
useless;
it remained the
policy
of the Protestant
princes firstly
to seek an
Anglo-French alliance,
and
then,
after
June
1546,
to take
advantage
of
the
Anglo-French peace treaty
to obtain aid from both.
Bassefontaine, as has been seen,
had intended to
go
to
Heidelberg
at
the end of
April 'pour quelque affaire',
and it seems clear that henceforth
the French
diplomatic
effort was to be concentrated on the Palatinate,
now the most reliable French
ally
in
Germany
as a result of the Em-
peror's
abandonment in
1545
of the Elector Frederick II's claim,
through
his wife,
to the Danish throne.3 Mont, returning
from his visit
to
Fiirstenberg,
found Bassefontaine and Reckerodt hard at work enter-
taining leading
members of the court and
seeking
a
mustering-ground
for the soldiers
brought together
at Frankfurt.4 Not
surprisingly, John
Mason's mission in
accompanying
the
Palsgrave Philip
back to Ger-
many
was
largely designed
to
improve Anglo-Palatine
relations,
which
the omission of
English congratulations
for Count Frederick's elevation
to the electoral title had
recently embittered, by
the
proposal
of a
religious
and
political league.
In
this, the
interruption
of
troop supplies
to France would
play
a
major
role.5 The situation had
gone
too
far,
however,
and the Elector's
secretary, Hubertus,
had
already
been sent to
1. Mont to
Paget, 27
Mar. I
546,
ibid.
83.
Bruno had sent to
England
a
copy
of Francis I's letter to the
Protestant states in which he
rejected
their
requests
that he tone down the
persecution
of heretics,
requiring
them to 'estre contans ne vous entremeslez aucunement de ce
que
nous faisons en nostredict
Royaulme...
vous advisant
que
nous avons delibere
y
faire
garder
et
ensuyre
les Statuts, ordonnances,
coustumes, et sainctes constitutions
qui y
ont este observees du
temps
de noz
predeceseurs':
19 Feb.
I
546,
SPI/214,
fo. I
14'.
2.
Paget
to Mont, Io
Apr. I546,
StP, xi.
99-IoI; reply
of the
Langrave
to Mont, I3 May I546,
SPI/2I8, fos.
137-8
(L&P,
xxi
[i]. 834/ii):
'si militem a Gallo averteremus et ad Serenissimum
Anglie
Regem
admitteremus, aperte
nos belli socium contra Gallum constitueremus.'
3. Partly by
the
treaty
of
Speyer, May 1544,
and in the
approach
to Christian III of December
1544:
cf. M. Roberts, The
Early
Vasas
(Cambridge,I968), pp.
146-7.
4.
Mont to
Henry VIII, I
May I546, SPI/217,
fos.
I6o-3
(L&P,
xxi
[i]. 730).
5.
Mason's instructions are in
StP,
xi.
97-8, n., and SPI/2i6,
fos.
I78-8I (L&P,
xxi
[i]. 582),
draft
corrected
by Paget
'...
being
enformed that the French
King
our
enemye
hath
dayly
conversant with
thElectour
Bassefontayn,
Rikerode and
Volpesleger,
who ar suffred to
levye daylye
men of warre in
those
partes against
us ... and
doubting
not but that
esteming
moch more the
syncerite
of our
amitye
towardes him then the colorable and
pretensed
freendshipp
of the French men,
which do
nothing
with
dedes but
altogether
in wordes, he would be
glad
to
gratify
us in this cace...' Reckerodt left
Heidelberg
about the middle of
May
and went on to the French court via
Wiirttemberg:
cf. Reckerodt to
Bing,
21
May 1546,
Marburg,
Pol. Arch.,
1839,
fos.
3-5.
EHR Feb.
96
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
France.1 Mason's
description
of his
negotiations
show how
keenly
he
was aware of
being
out-manoeuvred
by
Bassefontaine
who, though
he
had left
Heidelberg,
had
accomplished
his work well. When the Chan-
cellor of the Palatinate tried to minimize the influence of the
French,
Mason claims to have
replied:
Is it not knowen.... the
longe tyme
that
Bassefowntayn, Rycrode,
and others
have haunted here? Howe
frendelye they
have ben
entreteigned?
And what
chere and revell
they
have made here? It is to be
thought
that
they
have doone
all this for their owne
pleasures;
the town
being
so
unpleasaunt.
Mason was
pessimistic
about the
possibility
of
using
the Elector Pala-
tine to
stop
the
levies,
in view of the French
sympathies
of his council-
lors, and was well aware of the
practical problems
of
preventing
recruitment:
and for the
stayng
of
any
men either to be
levyed
or to be
passed
for
Fraunce,
the
Palzgrave
as I am
enfourmed,
can not do that we thinke he
may
do
[though]
he wolde thereunto
employe
him self. Well he
might
mak
procla-
mation no man so
hardy
to
go
from his house and then
they
that have
any
thing
to lefe wolde
tarye.
But idle and
unmarryed
men which have litle to take
to
might go
owt of his
cowntreye
as
though they
had to do at
Argentyn
or in
the
marquisate
of Bade or in
Swytherlande
and the
Palzgrave
never the
wyser.2
Though
Mason's mission was
largely unsuccessful,
and
nothing
could
be done to
stop
the French
levies, peace
intervened to save the worst
consequences.
The French
diplomatic
efforts in
Germany were,
as far as
England
was
concerned, part
of the
precautionary
measures set on foot
in case
Henry
VIII decided to renew active warfare. In
fact, diplomacy
and financial
necessity
forced an
uneasy compromise
in the
treaty
of
Campe
(7
June).
The
peace, therefore,
made Bassefontaine's task of
obstructing English
moves in
Germany needless,
at least for a
time, and
the
King
able to
suspend
his activities:
Et
pour
autant
que
les
practicques qui avoyent
este
par cy
devant dressees
pour
destrousser les deniers
que
le
Roy d'Angleterre avoyt
ordonnez
pour
faire levee de
gens
de
guerre
en
Allemaigne
affin de s'en servir alencontre de
moy
ne sont
plus apropos pour
ceste heure
que j'ay paix
et
amitye avecques
luy,
vous
regarderez
de faire entendre a ceulx
qui desyroient
estre avouez de
moy qu'il
n'est
plus besoing qu'ilz
facent telle
entreprinse..
.3
With the
peace
of
June
i
546,
troop
recruitment in
Germany
ceased for a
while to involve direct
Anglo-French competition.
The interests of the
Protestant
princes
now became concentrated on
obtaining
from the
I. For the arrival of Hubertus at the French court, cf. Francis I to Bassefontaine,
3
May
1546,
Archives de
Villebon, liasse 2
; and for his
departure,
cf. Francis I to Bassefontaine, 17 May
1546,
ibid.
2. Mason to
Henry VIII, Heidelberg,
II
May
1546,
StP, xi.
158-9;
same to
Paget,
II
May
1546,
SPI/2i8, fo. 68v
(L&P, xxi [i].
797).
3.
Francis I to Bassefontaine, I3 July
1546, orig. crs.
Bayard, Archives de Villebon, liasse 21. This
clearly
refers to the
plan
for
Reiffenberg
mooted in
April:
see supra, p.
45,
n. 2.
EHR Feb.
96
I996 S3
54
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
newly
reconciled monarchs the
help
of which
they
were in such
desper-
ate need. Even in
February
I
547,
however, it was
reported
that Francis I
was
assembling
his mercenaries in
Picardy
and had vowed to
recapture
Boulogne
or die in the
attempt.
With the death of
Henry
VIII and the
accession of Henri II in
France, Anglo-French
relations
rapidly
cooled.
The Duke of Somerset became
increasingly preoccupied
with Scotland,
and the French determined to intervene there.
Boulogne, too,
remained
a
major
issue of
dispute
between the two countries, and the old
pattern
of
competition
for recruits
began
to
appear,
with both France and
England continuing
to draw mercenaries from the
Empire.1
The
diplo-
matic duel with France continued: the
Emperor's victory
at
Miihlberg,
though
it
crippled
the
power
of
princes
like
Philip
of Hesse,
left room
for lesser nobles and
diplomats
to
conspire
to
bring
France back into
German affairs as
protector
of German liberties;
while the accession of
Edward VI
gave England
a
prominence
in the Protestant cause it had not
hitherto known.
Both countries
employed
the
Rhinegrave
brothers in their
opposing
interests
during
the later
540os
and
I55os,
on the Continent and in
Scotland, Johann Philipp serving
France and
Philipp
Franz the
king
of
England. Philipp Franz, having
visited
England
in the suite of the
Palsgrave Philip,
returned later in the
year
and acted as an
agent
for
England, reporting
on the course of the Schmalkaldic War. He received
an
annuity
from I
548.2
The contacts established in I
543-4
by Henry
VIII, particularly
in north
Germany,
became more vital as the Rhineland
was for a while eliminated as a source of mercenaries
by
the
collapse
of
the Schmalkaldic
League.
Albrecht of Mansfeld,
who had stood out
against
Charles V's forces at Bremen in
I547,
offered the services of his
son,
Count
Volradt, through
the mediation of
Margrave
Albrecht Alci-
biades of
Brandenburg-Kulmbach.3
Henrick
Hacfort,
so
prominent
in
French service
during
I
545-6,
was
given permission by Mary
of Hun-
gary
to enter
English
service and command his Clevois horse in March
I549.
The aim was to avoid
being cheated,
as
by Reiffenberg,
and
although
the intention was to use these men to
strengthen Boulogne,
Somerset called about
420
of them over in
July,
on
Paget's advice,
to deal
i.
Spy
news from France, Feb.
1546/7,
BL, Harleian 288,
fo.
57.
On the
campaigns
in Scotland,
see
M. L. Bush, The Government
Policy of
Protector Somerset
(London, I975), pp. 7-39.
2. D. Potter, 'Les Allemands et les armees francaises'
(I993),
1-20; J.
P. Roos, Einige
Nachrichten
von dem Wild- und
Rheingrafen Philipp
Frantzen von Dhaun
(Frankfurt, 1784):
letter to
Henry VIII,
2
Jan.
I
547, pp. 13-I 5 (see
also L&P,
xxi
[ii]. 658); passport
of
Henry VIII,
i8
Sept. 1546, pp. 57-8; Paget
to
Rhinegrave,
20o Mar.
1547, pp. 59-60;
Edward VI, grant
of
annuity
of ?i 50, 5 July 1548, pp.
61-2.
Rhinegrave Philipp
Franz was still in
English
service in I
5 4:
see his letter to the Council, 4 July,
Plas
Newydd,
MSS of
Marquess
of
Anglesey,
box 2,
fo. 21.
3.
Albrecht of Mansfeld to Somerset and Edward VI, K6nigsberg,
12
Sept.
I
548,
in W. B. Turnbull
(ed.), C[alendar
ofl S[tate] P[apers], F[oreign Series, of
the
Reign of
Edward
VI] (London, i86i),
nos.
107-8;
Volradt of Mansfeld to Somerset, London, i6Jan. I
549,
SP
68/5,
pp. 7-9 (ibid.,
no.
209, wrongly
dated). Dymoke
to Somerset, I6 Mar.
548/9,
ibid., no. I
25.
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
with the rebellions at home.1 Conrad
Pennynck,
who had offered to
serve the
Landgrave
after his return from
Boulogne,
had been told to
keep
his men around
Hamburg
and Bremen and wait.
Clearly,
he was in
need of
employment and,
as an
English pensioner,
entertained Richard
Morison
royally
at
Hamburg early
in
1547:
[Y]our graces
liberalitie hath
putt
a newe
inglysshe
harte in
hys
old
body.
He
trustith
yet eyther many tymes
to serve
your Majestie,
or ons
by
losse of
lyfe
to testifie unto the worlde that
your highnes hys
most
princely
rewardes can
be no otherwise
fully
deserved.2
This was
prophetic,
in that
Pennynck proved
to be the central
figure
in
landsknecht recruitment for Edward VI's
reign. John
Brende went to
Hamburg again
in December I
547
to ensure that no
supplies
left that
city
to
help
the French and the
Scots,
and at the same time
approached
Pennynck.
In
April, John Dymoke
went there to oversee the
levy
and
transport by
sea of
3,ooo lansquenets by Pennynck. They
arrived in June
at Newcastle and were
serving
at
Haddington by August. Dymoke,
whose commission mentioned 'the
speciall
credit that Court
Pennyck
hath in
hym',
was
by
now
very
familiar with the north German recruit-
ing grounds
and took measures to
employ
an
agent
'to
enquyre prevelye
thentention and
purposes
of the Frenchmen
lyeng
in Freselande to
awaight
for
Courtpennycke'.3
Through
battle and disease
Pennynck's
force had dwindled
seriously
by
March I
549.4
In
January
that
year, Dymoke
was
again
sent to
northern
Germany
with offers of
pensions
of
i,500
crowns each to
I. Van der Delft to Charles
V, I9
Mar.
1549,
Calendar
of
... State
Papers, Spanish,
ed. G. A.
Bergenroth
etal.
(12 vols., London, I862-1916 [hereafterSpanish Calendar]), ix.
350. Dymoke declared
that he was well known at
Hamburg
'and
lytell
extemed but to be a
greatt bragard':
to
Somerset, I
i
May
1549,
SP
68/3, p. 696 (CSPF,
no.
I45); Hoby
to
Somerset, Brussels, I9
Jan. 1548/9,
BL, Harleian
523,
fo.
I9r. By June 1549,
he was at
Nieuport
with his band:
ibid., Harleian
284,
fo.
36. Marillac, French
envoy
to the
Emperor, thought
he was to be sent to
Scotland,
but that this was frustrated
by
the crisis:
cf. Marillac to Henri
II,
22
June 1549, BN,
fr.
3099, p. 48.
On
Paget's
advice to call the
400
horse at Calais
to
England,
see
Paget
to
Somerset, 7 July 1549,
CSP
Domestic, Edward
VI, no.
301. His initial contract
was to
supply 300
'Clevois' horse
(SP46/2,
fo.
48),
but he was
paid
for
420,
25 Aug. -24 Sept.
1549
(ibid.,
fo.
40) By
Nov.
1549, despite
the
high reputation
of his
troops,
he was recorded as dismissed
by
the
Protector:
Spanish Calendar,
ix.
469.
2. S.
Vaughan
to
Paget, 5, 7 Sept. 1546, L&P,
xxi
(ii). 26, 42. Dymoke
to
Paget, 3 Oct.
1546,
ibid. 2I6.
R. Morison to
Henry VIII, 30 Jan. 1547, SPI/228,
fo.
139 (L&P,
xxi
[ii]. 758); Pennynck
to
Paget,
Hamburg, 23
Feb.
1547, CSPF,
no.
I9.
3.
Instructions to
Watson/Brende, I Dec.
547, SP68/I, pp. 310-I3 (CSPF, no.
64);
Brende to Petre,
Bremen, 24 Jan. 548, ibid.,
no.
66;
Senate of Bremen to Edward
VI,
24 Jan.
1548,
ibid., no.
II9;
Pennynck
to
Paget,
6 Mar.
1548,
SP
68/3, pp. 597-8 (CSPF,
no.
I24, misdated).
PRO E
35
i/i
5,
account
of
Dymoke
'for
thentertaynynge
of Sur Conrade Courte Penincke and
iijm launceknightes',
total
expenditure
for
levy
and
transport, ?3,169
8s.
5d.
This makes clear that it was Brende ('the king's
servant
William
Watson')
who had received a commission to
approach Pennynck.
On his
movements, see Van
der Delft to Charles
V, 27
Dec. I
547,
i6
May 1548,
21
Aug. 1548, Spanish Calendar, ix.
238, 266, 287. J.
Dasent, A[cts of the] Pfrivyl C[ouncil of England],
ii.
556-7;
Scottish
Calendar, i, nos.
259,
306.
4.
Van der Delft to
Emperor, I9
Mar.
15 49,
ibid. ix.
350, exaggerates
in
suggesting
there were
only
6o0 left.
EHR Feb.
96
55
56
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET:
February
Duke Otto of
Brunswick-Liineburg (d.
1549)
and Count
Christoph
of
Oldenburg,
as well as with
requests
for aid and advice to the cities of
Hamburg,
Bremen and the
Lady
of Emden in the
levy
of 2,000 'good
and hable fotemen' in their
region,
to
supplement
on the same terms
those raised the
previous year
and now 'weakened with sickenes and
otherwise
spent'.
The
spring
saw him hard at work on this, despite major
obstructions:
Pennynck
had
acquired
a
reputation
for not
looking
after
his men,
and it
proved
hard to find
good
recruits. But between
15
May
and I
July, fifty
new German recruits were
despatched
to
join
his bands
in the north,
and from
June,
four new
ensigns
were in service under an
experienced captain,
Wilhelm Walderden.1 With the
many Spaniards,
as
well as Italians, Hungarians,
Albanians and Irish
employed
in Scotland
in this
period,
the
complement
of mercenaries seems to have been as
ethnically
mixed as that observed
by Gruffydd
in I
545.2
In the crisis of
1549,
besides Hacfort's Cleves
cavalry,
landsknechts
played
a crucial
role
among
the
3,000 foreign troops
available for the
suppression
of
popular
disturbances in
England (as they
had in the
suppression
of the
1548
French rebellion in
Guyenne).
In
particular,
Walderden's 1,200
men,
diverted to Norfolk on their
way
to Scotland,
formed the
experi-
enced core of Warwick's
infantry
in the
campaign against
the rebels.3
Others were still
being despatched
abroad.
Troops
were sent to Calais in
June I549,
and one of those who had served
Henry
VIII in
544,
Christoff von Prisborch,
offered men.4 Some German
troops
marched
on north after the
campaign
in Norfolk,
but had to be called back at
York to be sent to Calais.
Pennynck's troops, joined
with some of
i. Instructions to
Dymoke,
20 Jan.
1548/9,
SP
68/3, pp. 563-79:
routes
depended
on the
Emperor's
licence to
pass through
his dominions, which
Philip Hoby
was unable to obtain for more than
5oo.
The
alternative was
by
sea to the nearest
English port.
Terms were to be one month's
pay
for all costs of
conduct to
England
instead of the
previous
one daller
per
head and ten
philippus per
ensign,
unless
they
insisted on the latter. Each
ensign
of
400
was to receive
663 pays:
extract from
Dymoke's
letter of I
3
Aug., SP46/2,
fo. 42. Dymoke
to Somerset, Bremen, i6 Mar.
1549,
CSPF, no.
I25;
to Council, 24
Mar.,
ibid., no. I28; to Somerset, 24 Mar., ibid.,
no.
129;
to
Hoby,
II
Apr., ibid.,
no.
134;
to Somerset and
Council, 20
Apr.,
ibid.,
no.
137;
to same, 27 Apr., ibid.,
no.
140;
to same,
5,
6,II May, ibid.,
nos.
I43,
I44,145. Troops despatched piecemeal
to
Pennynck, SP46/2,
fo.
30.
2. PRO, E
351/43,
Chaloner's account for
foreign troops,
and AOI/283/io67,
lists
Spaniards,
Italians, Albanians, Hungarians,
Germans and Irish in the
English
armies
against Scotland, Sept.
1548-May
I
550
3.
Chaloner's orders for the
pay
of Hacfort's men, SP46/2,
fo.
40r.
PRO, AOI/283/Io67:
Walder-
den's four
ensigns (I,200 men)
were
paid by
the treasurer of the Scottish
troops
for
24 June-20
Nov.
1549.
From 20. Nov. 49-I9 Jan.
1
550
he had five
ensigns paid by
Grimston: PRO, EIoI/5 31/39.
Orders,
I8
Aug. 1549,
for conduct of Van Buren's men and Walderden's 8o00 foot to Warwick's
army
in
Norfolk, SP46/2,
fo.
36v.
Two
ensigns,
of Van Buren and
Ardenberghe, serving
in Norfolk,
were
despatched
north and recalled at York to join
the force for the relief of
Boulogne: Eioi/531/39.
On the
role of
foreign troops
in the revolts, seeJ. Cornwall, The Revolt
of
the
Peasantry, I549 (London, 1977),
pp.
90-7, 212-13.
4.
Van der
Lughe
was sent to Calais in
June 549:
PRO,
E
35
I/43;APC,
ii.
361 (Nov. I549). Reply
of
Albrecht of Brandenburg, 23
Dec.
1549,
CSPF,
no.
204; Wrisberg
to Somerset,
5 Jan. 1550, ibid.,
no.
20o8; note that Prisborch/Wrisberg
sent as his
emissary captain
Arnold Boseke of Utrecht, possibly
the
kinsman of
Gymynyck praised by
Wallop
in
1543:
L&P, xviii
(ii). 385.
Prisborch had served with
415
horse at
Boulogne
in
1544:
BL, Add. MS
5753,
fos.
I93-4.
He now offered
3,ooo
and
thirty ensigns
of
foot. In
general,
see Bush, Government Policy, pp, 87, 92,
and W. K.
Jordan,
Edward VI: The
Young
King (London, I968), pp. 466-7.
EHR Feb.
96
I996
ANGLO-FRENCH COMPETITION IN GERMANY
Walderden's,
were included from November
1549
in the force
assembled at Calais for the relief of
Boulogne
under
Huntingdon,
but
saw no further action.
Payment
ceased in
April
I
550
after the
peace
with
France,
while
money problems
and
consequent
discontent had
already
led to some mercenaries in
English
service
being paid
off
by
November
of the
previous year. Only
8oo or so were retained for
garrison
duties in
England
in
55 o.1
All this
troop-raising
continued to
generate
a
diplomatic
duel in
Germany, though
the sources are not so full as those for i
545-6.
When
Dymoke
was in Bremen and
Hamburg
in the
spring
of I
549,
the Count
of
Oldenburg haggled
over his retainer and claimed he had received
more from the
king
of France.
Dymoke suspected
that Mansfeld had
put
him on his
guard by telling
him that his son Volradt 'had no entertain-
ment' in
England.
The
Rhinegrave Johann
Philipp,
having
left the
French
army
in
Scotland,
crossed to Bremen and Denmark
early
in
1549,
working
to dissuade
Oldenburg
and
Liineburg
from
serving England.
Both Mansfeld and
Liineburg
were in
any
case
seeking help
from France
in I
547-8
in the aftermath of the
Emperor's victory,
and both sent their
sons there as
emissaries,
while landsknecht colonels such as Schartlin
and Heideck
proposed
to raise
io,ooo
foot and
2,000
horse in
July
1548
to
impede
the
Emperor's designs.
The internal discussions of the French
court make it clear that the state of
Germany
and access to its mercen-
aries was
regarded
as crucial.2
The counts of Mansfeld turned their attention to
bringing
the Duke
of
Prussia,
the
Margrave
of
Kiistrin,
and
John
a Lasco into a
plan
to
settle
peace
between
England
and France in I
549,
in order to use their
resources in the
coming
renewal of conflict with the
Emperor.3
Mean-
while,
the
Rhinegrave
Philipp
Franz,
who had been
serving
Edward
VI,
opened negotiations
on behalf of the
English Privy
Council with
Albrecht
Alcibiades,
one of the most turbulent and feared
military
enterprisers
of north
Germany,
who had
fought
for the
Emperor
in
I
543-6,
but was
essentially
uncommitted to
any party.
The
plan,
for the
Margrave
to raise what would have been for
England
the enormous
force of
7,200
horse and I
7,600 foot,
was taken
by
Dr Bruno and met a
i.
PRO,
E
3 51/222,John
Clere's account for
Huntingdon's army, 25
Nov. 1549-28 Apr. 5 50. These
included
Pennynck's
seven
ensigns
and one band of Walderden's of
480
men.
John
Brygantyn
was
again
muster-master of these men: W. K.
Jordan,
Edward VI: The Threshold
of
Power. The Dominance
of
the Duke
of
Northumberland
(London, I970),
p.
437.
2.
Dymoke
to
Somerset, 24
Mar.
1549,
in F.
Tytler, England
under the
Reigns of
Edward VI and
Mary (2 vols., London, I839), i. i6I-4 (CSPF,
no.
I29); Dymoke
to
Hoby,
I I
Apr.,
SP
68/3, pp.
639-41
(CSPF,
no.
134):
'the
Ryngrave
has laboured in
thys
matter moche
by
the
kynge
of Deanemarcke and
thosse of Hamborow and also with the lordes of Breame and also he has threattened them
geve
that
they
do suffre
anye
men to be
conveyed
owt of
thyr ryvers
that bothe the Frenche
kyng
and the
kyng
of
Denemark shall mak all
theyr shipes pryce
where so ever that
they
shall
fynde
them.' Potter, 'Les
Allemands et les armees francaises'
(X993), 6-7.
On French relations with the
princes
and
mercenary
captains,
see documents in
Pariset,
'La France et les
princes allemands', nos.
13-I6.
3. Gottingen,
Staatliches
Archivlager,
Staatsarchiv
K6nigsberg, A4,
letters of Volradt and Albrecht
of Mansfeld to Duke Albrecht of Prussia. See also H.
Kiewning, Herzog
Albrechts von
Preufien
und
Markgraf Johannes
von
Brandenburg
Anteil am Firstenbund
gegen
Karl V
(K6nigsberg, 1889), i.
3
-6.
EHR Feb.
96
57
58
THE INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY MARKET
positive response. Margrave Albrecht, notoriously
unreliable as he was,
saw fit to advise the
English government
that it was better 'se fier a
ung
prince
de
l'Empire apres duquelle
ilz se
pouldroient
assurer
d'y
trouver
foy
et
plus
d'honneur et
loyaute que
avec d'aultres'.1 The
Reiffenberg
affair
clearly
still
gave pause
for
thought.
The
liquidation
of
Henry
VIII's
legacy
in France and Scotland, however, brought
to a close this
phase
of
Anglo-French military competition.
The
period
from I
543
to I
5
50
saw
England
for the first time
seriously
engaged
in the German
mercenary
market because of her wars in France
and Scotland. The fullness of the documentation in the
mid-i54os
throws the most extensive
light
on the
relationship
between war and
diplomacy
in the
period
and on the
extraordinarily complex
manoeuvres
undertaken
by
France and
England
in
Germany.
Detailed
study
of the
recruitment drives of the mid-i
54os
also throws into
sharp
relief the
problems
involved for states in
trying
to deal with
mercenary captains
in
what was a
'market',
to some extent
governed by supply
and demand,
but also distorted
by
the
diplomatic
and
dynastic pressures being
brought
to bear on the estates of the
Empire.
In this
regard,
the
special
strengths
of French
military
and
diplomatic
contacts in the
Empire
stand revealed. In the
i54os,
England
was
by
contrast a newcomer and
seriously disadvantaged by
the lack of an
adequately
informed and
subtle network of
agents.
This was one more reason
why
she could not
compete militarily
with France in the
period. By
the end of the I
540s,
however,
she had started to overcome the initial difficulties; agents
and
muster commissioners were
acquiring
crucial
knowledge
of German
affairs and were able to recruit and
employ
mercenaries with more
effect, using
methods similar to,
if on a smaller scale than, those of the
great
continental
powers.
That
England
failed to
pursue
the course of
raising
the bulk of her crack
troops
in
Germany
is
partly explained by
her
very
limited
experience
of
European
land wars after
1550
and
by
the
crippling expense
of
raising
men in this
way.
For France there was no
choice,
and the
way
led
directly
to the massive
over-expenditure
that
was such an
important
element in the troubles of the second half of the
century.
University of
Kent DAVID POTTER
I.
'Response
de
Marcquis
Albert de
Brandebourg...
sur le
propos6
et
requeste
fait aud.
prince par
le
docteur Bruno', SP
68/4,
no.
204, pp.
1
I63-77. J. Voigt, Markgraf
Albrecht Alcibiades von Branden-
burg
Kulmbach
(2 vols., Berlin, 85 2).
EHR Feb.
96