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Northumberland.
    Except for the misfortune of the elderly and sour-tempered bishop of Winchester, who was kicked by a mule en route, the army arrived without incident before the walls of Thérouanne. They set siege to the town, and were soon joined by a band of Burgundians under the Emperor Maximilian, which he offered to put at Henry’s disposal provided the English king paid them. With the arrival of his Hapsburg ally Henry’s siegeforce took on the character of a respectable international host which the French could not afford to ignore. It was at least worlds apart from the ill-fated expedition to Spain a year earlier, which had gained no military advantage whatever and threatened permanently to damage the prestige of English arms.
    The design of this venture called for a force under the marquis of Dorset to sail to Spain, then move northward with the support of Ferdinand’s Spanish soldiers to retake the former English lands in Guienne. From the outset the undertaking was frustrated by incompetent planning and the notorious unreliability of Ferdinand. There were no tents, no beer, and few other provisions. The tropical weather enervated the English, and the high prices of local goods quickly drained their pockets. Ferdinand capriciously announced that he preferred to fight in Navarre rather than Guienne, and left the English to attack alone. Dorset was not the man to organize a campaign on his own, and like many of his soldiers he soon fell ill. A rebellion among the troops seeking higher pay was put down, but all semblance of military training ceased and a fair number of men deserted. By September quarrels among the commanders allowed the English fighting men to arrange their own affairs. They ordered ships, baked enough biscuit to get home on, and left. Henry was furious, but by the time the disobedient army reached England he had decided to pretend that the entire disgraceful episode never happened.
    Now, however, he was in personal command of a loyal, well-provisioned and self-sufficient army, whose successes would atone for Dorset’s fiasco. In the third week of the siege of Thérouanne his first opportunity came. A body of French knights attempted to relieve the town by means of an assault on the besiegers. Driven back by Henry’s cannons, they retreated past a village called Guinegate, with the English knights close behind them. In their panic, the English boasted, the French lost their spurs, and the brief engagement was given the memorable name “Battle of the Spurs.” In fact the French lost several of their standards and a number of French knights were taken prisoner. Among them was the matchless Bayard himself, who graciously yielded his sword to an astonished English knight in acknowledgment of the English triumph. Henry, determined to outdo the gallant Bayard in magnanimity, released him after a brief imprisonment.
    Other triumphs quickly followed. Thérouanne fell in a few days, and after taking possession of the town in a splendid ceremonial entry Henry handed it over to Maximilian, who ordered every building but the old church destroyed. The city of Tournai held out only eight days before the English siege, and this prize Henry kept for himself. With two towns taken and a shipload of valuable French prisoners whose ransoms, once paid by their anxious relatives, should repay much of the cost of the campaign,Henry took his army home. It had been a profitable and even a pleasant crusade—between sieges Henry had stopped for several weeks of feasting and entertainment at the court of the regent of Flanders, and did so again on his way back to Calais. More important, it had given Henry the military reputation he badly needed. The standards and spurs of the French were worthy spoils from a first campaign. His next venture might indeed imperil the French crown.
    Paradoxically, the most decisive English military victory of 1513 came about in Henry’s absence, under the nominal command of Katherine. When