In this and the following year, the Lord High Admiral served on land as well as afloat, and was continuously and very arduously employed. It was probably owing to his many preoccupations, and to the fact that he had to provide for the transport to France of an army of thirteen thousand men in August, 1523, that he did not cruise during that summer. Sir William Fitz-William commanded the main fleet of thirty-six vessels; and Anthony Poyntz[1] was entrusted with an inferior, yet still considerable, squadron which cruised to the westward.
Fitz-William's orders were, if possible, to intercept John, Duke of Albany, who, after having been Admiral of France, had become Regent of Scotland, and who had collected in France a large force with which he intended to enter Scotland, or to invade England. The vice-admiral was so fortunate as to meet a Scoto-French division of twelve vessels which had on board, among other dignitaries, the Archbishop of Glasgow. He took two[2] of these ships and chased the rest into Boulogne and Dieppe, off which places he left small blockading squadrons. With the rest of his fleet he ravaged the French coast, took and burnt Tréport, destroyed many vessels, and captured much booty; but he returned prematurely to England; and Albany, who had recognised the futility of attempting to cross the sea while Fitz-William was active there, and who had laid up his ships and quartered his troops ashore, no sooner learnt of the withdrawal of the vice-admiral than he quickly re-manned his vessels, sent his troops on board, and sailing with great promptitude, landed in Scotland on September 24th.[3]
In the same year, one Duncan Campbell, described as a Scots pirate, was, according to Holinshed, taken after a long fight by John Arundel of Cornwall.
Peace was made with France in 1525; and thenceforward for many years, few naval events of sufficient importance to demand notice occurred. On July 16th, 1525, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, a natural son of the king by Elizabeth Blount, later, wife of Sir Gilbert Baron Tailbois, was, though only about nine years of age,[4] appointed Lord High Admiral in supercession of Surrey, who
- ↑ Afterwards knighted. Seems to have been High Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1522 and 1527, and to have died 26 Hen. VIII.
- ↑ Possibly including the one which was added to the navy as the John of Greenwich.
- ↑ Drummond, 180; Buchanan, xiv. 448; Leslie, 'De Reb. Gest. Scot.' ix. 406, 407.
- ↑ He was already a K.G.
