Linda Porter lindaporter.net
Reviews of Mary Tudor The First Queen:
Lloyd's List - Review by Terry Sutton - Friday 5 October 2007
Royal portrait distills the loss of Calais
THE loss of the English enclave of Calais in 1558, these days the first port of call in France for millions of tourists, has always been blamed on Queen Mary I, who is alleged to have cried that the name of Calais would, after her death, be found engraved on her heart.
Defeat at Calais was certainly a blow for England whose troops had occupied the Pale of Calais since 1340.
But a new biography of Mary suggests that part of the reason for the loss of Calais was due to a wish not to spoil the beer brewed in an enclave just 20 miles by 6 miles.
Author Linda Porter explains in detail how the French forces, numbering 20,000, surprised the English occupiers by advancing over the frozen marshes when military activity was not expected during the winter months. Winter was not the time for warfare.
The English defenders made the fatal mistake of not deploying their most important weapon - the ability to flood the marshes that completely surrounded the town.
Mary held an inquest after the fall of Calais and one of the reasons for not flooding put forward by the English commander was his fear of contaminating the town's water supply.
The defeated commander wrote to Mary: "If I had flooded the marshes I would also take in the salt water about the town, but I cannot do it, by reason I should also infect our own water, wherewith we brew: and notwithstanding all I can do, our brewers be so behindhand in grinding and otherwise, as we shall find that one of our greatest lacks."
There was a sort of Dunkirk spirit back home in England as the disaster sank in, and the author relates that the Earl of Rutland was ordered across to France with 500 men from Kent to recapture Calais.
"But the sailors, hearing that the fortress at Rysbank had fallen by the time they arrived, refused to land."
Other moves were being planned to recapture Calais, but just at that the crucial moment one of the worst storms in living memory scattered the English fleet. Henry II of France made a triumphant entry to Calais later that January and diplomatic talks to return the town to the English were quickly rejected by the French who were adamant they would never part with the port again.
The loss of Calais would always count against her in an appraisal of Mary, but Porter says the first English queen was more a victim of the black propaganda poured on her by her half-sister Elizabeth I when she succeeded to the throne rather than any fault solely on her part.
Mary Tudor, the First Queen by Linda Porter is published in hardback by Portrait at £20.