Chapter 162: A Secondary Fleet
Admiral Philippe de Chabot’s armada, which had sailed into the estuary with the pride of a feudal conqueror, was now a fractured collection of wooden splinters limping toward the English Channel.
Below the quarterdeck of the retreating galleon Le Léviathan, inside the captain’s quarters, the atmosphere was poisonous with panic.
The surviving French captains had abandoned their stations to confront their Admiral...
"It was witchcraft!" spat Captain Valois, his breastplate smeared with blood. "Three thousand of our finest marines, erased in a single breath of fire!"
"It was not witchcraft, you fool," countered Captain Beaumont, a younger officer leaning against the plotting table.
Beaumont slammed an imported Venetian spyglass onto the table, his hands trembling.
"I was watching the Tower battlements before the smoke blinded us," Beaumont stated in a hushed whisper. "They did not fire hollow bombards or cast-iron culverins."
Admiral Chabot stared at the young captain. "Then what did they fire?"
"Their barrels were smooth... uniform cylinders of solid metal," Beaumont breathed. "And the English gunners did not load solid iron shot. They loaded massive, thin-walled tin canisters."
The room fell into silence.
The realization of what a tin canister packed with scrap iron would do when fired from a machined barrel slowly dawned on them.
"They turned their heavy artillery into massive fowling pieces," Admiral Chabot whispered.
"And they will do it again if we do not reach the open ocean by dawn," Beaumont warned.
At the Tower of London, smoke from the synchronized canister volley was still clearing from the courtyard.
Lord Alistair Blackwood, Master of the Royal Ordnance, stood on the battlements.
He was busy calculating the logistical requirements needed to cool the artillery barrels and replenish the canister stores.
His calculations were interrupted by the clatter of armored boots echoing up the stairwell.
Bursting onto the battlements was King Henry VIII, fully encased in Greenwich plate armor.
To Blackwood, the King was an inefficient sinkhole of the royal treasury... a man who spent fortunes on jousting tournaments while ignoring the revolution sweeping across the Holy Roman Empire.
Flanking the King were his four military commanders: Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury; William FitzWilliam, Earl of Southampton; and Edward Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp.
"By the blood of Christ!" King Henry’s voice boomed across the battlement.
He marched to the parapet, staring at the burning remnants of the French flagship.
"A glorious victory!" Henry declared. "The French dogs flee before the English crown! You have held the Tower, Lord Blackwood, but we shall not let this insult go unpunished!"
Blackwood offered a minimal bow. "The coastal defense grid operated according to calculated tolerances, Your Grace. The French invasion force has been eradicated at a negligible cost. The most pragmatic course is to stand down the garrisons and assess the financial damage to the shipyards."
"Stand down?" Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, stepped forward, his hand on the pommel of his sword. "You speak like a merchant haggling over copper, Blackwood! Honor demands that we crush them entirely!"
"The Duke of Suffolk speaks true!" King Henry roared. "Gather the men-at-arms! Muster the heavy horse! Brandon, Talbot, FitzWilliam, Seymour... you shall mobilize the royal vanguard immediately!"
"We shall march the army down the Kentish coast!" King Henry declared. "We will intercept them at the estuary and march against the rest of the ships!"
The four generals slammed their armored fists against their breastplates.
"For the King and the Crown!"
Marching ten thousand heavily armored knights through the unpaved roads of Kent in the middle of the night was a catastrophe...
Supply wagons would sink into the mud, and cavalry could do nothing against wooden galleons in deep water.
"Your Grace," Blackwood spoke. "Marching the vanguard will cost the treasury thousands of pounds in provisions. The French are broken. The most efficient use of capital is to reinvest in solid-cast Alemannian cannons, not marching horses through the mud."
King Henry turned his bulk toward his Master of the Ordnance, his face darkening.
"You forget your place, Blackwood," the King snarled. "My generals will march."
Without waiting for a response, the King and his generals stormed off the battlement.
Lord Alistair Blackwood remained on the wall alone. He reached into his coat and pulled out his pocket watch, listening to the precise ticking of the gears.
...
While the burning remnants of the French flagship illuminated the Thames, the retreat of Admiral Philippe de Chabot’s armada masked a secondary operation.
In a final attempt to cripple the English capital, the French had dispatched teams of infiltrators into the shadows of the docks.
Deep within the perimeter of the Royal Woolwich Arsenal... Inside Warehouse Number Four, a structure packed with hundreds of barrels of Swabian gunpowder, three French saboteurs crept through the darkness.
At the entrance lay the bodies of two English dockworkers, their throats slit with poniards.
"Quickly, pour the pitch," hissed the lead saboteur, a minor baron named Laurent.
The three men pryed open ceramic jugs, spilling flammable pine pitch across the floorboards toward the stacks of gunpowder.
In Laurent’s mind, a single spark would obliterate the arsenal and restore the honor of the French crown.
He assumed the warehouse was guarded by incompetent peasant levies...
The Woolwich Arsenal was guarded by state-salaried sentries working in strictly regulated shifts.
Just as Laurent raised his flint and steel, the doors slammed shut.
The shadows were pierced by the glare of bullseye lanterns.
"Drop the flint," a disciplined voice echoed.
Emerging from the light were a dozen of Blackwood’s perimeter guards.
They wore coats and steel breastplates, armed with wheel-lock carbines.
"I said, drop the flint," the Sergeant repeated, his finger on the trigger. "If a single spark touches that floor, my men will unleash a volley before the pitch catches fire."
Laurent’s fingers opened, the flint and steel clattering against the stones.
The guards moved in, binding the saboteurs with rope and dragging them into the night.
The infiltrators were marched down the paths toward the main port staging grounds, where the mobilization of the English vanguard was underway...
Amidst shouting knights and braying warhorses stood Lord Alistair Blackwood, reviewing a ledger beneath a torch.
"My Lord Blackwood!" the Sergeant shouted, shoving the bound Frenchmen into the mud. "Infiltrators. They killed two wage laborers and attempted to ignite the Swabian powder stores in Warehouse Four."
Blackwood closed his ledger, marking his page with parchment.
"Bring them up," Blackwood commanded.
The guards hauled Laurent to his knees, his doublet caked in mud and blood.
Before Blackwood could begin the interrogation, the clanking of plate armor announced the arrival of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
The Duke stormed into the torchlight, his broadsword drawn.
"French spies!" the Duke roared. "Stand aside, Blackwood! I shall take their heads right here!"
"You will do no such thing, Charles," Blackwood stated flatly, stepping between the Duke and the prisoners.
"They are enemy combatants!" the Duke sneered. "Honor demands their immediate execution!"
"..." Blackwood sighed. "These men possess strategic metrics regarding the French armada. Put your sword away."
The Duke lowered his blade with a curse, but remained in the circle.
Blackwood turned his attention back to the baron.
"Your flagship is at the bottom of the Thames," Blackwood stated. "Admiral Chabot is fleeing. I require the breakdown of the remaining French fleet. Provide the numbers, and you will be a prisoner. Refuse, and I hand you to the Duke of Suffolk."
Laurent swallowed hard, looking at the Duke’s drawn sword.
"Forty ships!" Laurent blurted out. "Admiral Chabot commands forty surviving ships!"
"Tonnage and armament," Blackwood demanded.
"Three heavy galleons, twelve galleasses, and the rest are transport carracks." Laurent stammered. "But that is not the entire fleet... The Admiral split the armada! A secondary fleet is waiting in the Channel under the Marquis de Lafayette!"
"How many vessels in the secondary fleet?" Blackwood pressed.
"I do not know the exact number." Laurent pleaded. "Some say thirty ships, some say fifty. They are waiting near the Straits of Dover!"
The French operated under a fragmented command structure, but their sheer numbers remained a blunt-force threat...
"Take them to the holding cells," Blackwood ordered his guards. "Ensure they are fed standard rations."
As the guards dragged the prisoners away, a blast of =trumpets shattered the air.
Emerging through the crowds was King Henry VIII, mounted atop a heavily armored destrier.
"The French flee to the Channel!"
"We shall not give them the chance to rest! Vanguard, advance! We march to Dover!"
The King drew his sword, pointing dramatically toward the eastern horizon to the cheers of his knights.
Blackwood stood, watching the cavalry begin their grueling slog through the roads.
They were marching thousands of pounds of silver into a quagmire, chasing a naval threat with broadswords.
He pulled his pocket watch from his coat, listening to the steady ticking of the gears.
The King would march, and the King would fail... After all, could even the King of England command the Kentish marshes to hold the weight of heavy cavalry?