The Siege of Boulogne, 1544. The Collapse of a Throne Built on Defiance.

King Henry, having taken Boulogne through sheer force of will, stood at the height of his final campaign, but he could not convert occupation into dominance. The victory, though real, yielded no strategic transformation. Faced with financial strain, dwindling supplies, and an unreliable ally in Emperor Charles, he abandoned further escalation. The peace he signed with France was not born of strength, but of exhaustion... a reluctant admission that the age of English conquest on the Continent had passed. With that treaty, Henry’s long pursuit of martial glory ended: not in triumph, but in limitation. It marked the quiet extinguishing of a military legacy forged in fury, but ultimately constrained by the realities of power.

Boulogne. July 19 - September 18, 1544.
English Forces: 16,000 Soldiers to take Boulogne, 4,000 to hold it.
French Forces: ~ 2,000 Soldiers. 

Additional Reading and Episode Research:

• Scarisbrick, J.J. Henry VIII.
• Cornish, Paul. Henry VIII's Army.
• Ridley, Jasper. Henry VIII.

Transcript

 Thanks for tuning into this episode of History's Greatest Battle Season two, where we explore history's greatest sieges. if you know anybody that enjoys this genre of history, please share the podcast with them. Apologies for the delay.

In last week's episodes, my youngest son broke both bones in his left shin. Dog swallowed a deer joint and he got stuck in his neck needless to say it was quite the week, but we should be back to our regular scheduling now. In the summer of 1544, England launched a military campaign on the northern coast of France.

The decision came after decades of intermittent warfare between England and France, driven by dynastic rivalry, shifting alliances, and the constant interference of Scotland. At this point in the 16th century, England held no significant territory on the continent, aside from kale, a symbolic relic of its once expansive empire.

Henry vii, in the later years of his reign, sought to reclaim prestige through force while Europe teetered on the edge of political and religious fracture.  This was not a war for conquest in the traditional sense. It was a demonstration of strength, a political maneuver, and a personal statement. Henry had severed England from Rome, alienated Spain, and stood largely isolated on the European stage by striking France, he aimed to reassert English relevance and defend his reformed church through armed power.

But the campaign that followed though tactically successful yielded little strategic benefit. England held what it captured, but the cost outweighed the gain and the broader objectives were never fulfilled. The consequences of this operation were long-term and deeply structural. It exhausted the crown, financially  weakened, the kingdom's ability to project force abroad and forced future monarchs to rethink foreign policy in favor of naval strength and colonial expansion at home.

The war diverted resources from Subduing Scotland. A failure that allowed persistent resistance to English influence. More importantly, the diplomatic fallout exposed the instability of alliances rooted in personal rule and religious convenience. England was left isolated, burdened by occupation, and unable to influence the continental balance of power in any lasting way.

This campaign marked the end of England's serious attempts to hold territory in northern France. From this point forward, English ambitions would shift away from the European mainland. I. Toward maritime dominance, the patterns of military engagement, imperial focus, and religious identity forged in these years continue to shape the institutions and borders of the modern world.

Let's now experience, the siege of Boulogne.

Welcome to History's Greatest Battles, Season Two, episode 36: The Siege of Boulogne. From the 19th of July to the 18th of September, 1544.

English Forces: 16,000 Men at the start, four thousand men towards the end.

French Forces: exact numbers are unknown but modern historians estimate approximately two thousand men. 

King Henry, having taken Boulogne through sheer force of will, stood at the height of his final campaign, but he could not convert occupation into dominance. The victory, though real, yielded no strategic transformation. Faced with financial strain, dwindling supplies, and an unreliable ally in Emperor Charles, he abandoned further escalation. The peace he signed with France was not born of strength, but of exhaustion... a reluctant admission that the age of English conquest on the Continent had passed. With that treaty, Henry’s long pursuit of martial glory ended: not in triumph, but in limitation. It marked the quiet extinguishing of a military legacy forged in fury, but ultimately constrained by the realities of power.

Henry VIII took the English crown in 1509, and by 1511, his sights were already fixed on France. He didn’t inherit the throne to sit idle, he wanted war, and he wanted it fast.

The hard-won territories of England’s past monarchs had bled away over time, lost to politics and poor fortune, until only Calais remained, a single coastal foothold, hanging on like a clenched fist.

Henry’s wars against France came in bursts, driven less by strategy than by fury, especially when the French kept arming and backing the Scots, stirring rebellion just beyond England’s northern border.

In 1513, Henry slammed the French into the dirt at the Battle of the Spurs near Thérouanne. At the same time, up in the north, the Earl of Surrey tore through a full Scottish army at Flodden Field. Two fronts. Two victories. England triumphant.

With the north quiet and the French licking their wounds, Henry turned inward to handle his realm. But by 1522, the call of France drew him back across the Channel.

That campaign delivered little but scorched fields and exhausted men. By 1523, the army limped home, sick, battered, and beaten in spirit.

For the next twenty years, Henry’s war wasn’t fought with armies, it was fought in his bedchambers and churches. He hunted for a woman who could give him a son and reworked the very foundation of religion to do it.

That obsession drove him to sever ties with the Pope, an earthquake in European politics, and in doing so, he broke with Spain as well. Charles V, king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, saw himself as the sword and shield of Catholicism. Now, Henry was the enemy.

Henry’s defiance of Rome pushed the Catholic Scots even further away. A fresh alliance between France and Scotland was forming, another dagger pointed at England’s throat.

The only thing saving Henry from a united front was that Francis and Charles hated each other more than they hated him. Their egos clashed too often to mount a serious joint strike.

Henry waited for their armies to land, but the invasion never came. So, like any seasoned commander, he chose to hit first. If war was coming, it would come on his terms.

In 1543, he sent the Duke of Norfolk north to smash a fresh Scottish uprising. With his flank secured, Henry locked his gaze on France, and readied his strike.

Charles V, meanwhile, was neck-deep in a mess of crowns and conflict. King of Spain, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, he held titles, but they came with enemies on every frontier.

His grip stretched from the Iberian Peninsula to the heart of Europe. He ruled not just Spain, but vast imperial lands that demanded constant vigilance.

Both he and Francis wore the cross of Rome, but they were locked in a brutal chess match, one border dispute after another, with no trust between them.

Francis, always the opportunist, struck a deal with the Ottomans, Islamic warriors pushing hard into southeastern Europe. It was a bold, dangerous play meant to squeeze Charles from the east.

Faced with that pressure, Charles held his nose and turned to Henry, yes, the heretic who defied the pope. Religion took a back seat to strategy. Henry could help him gut France, and that was enough.

For now, Charles shelved his piety and shook hands with the English king. The enemy of his enemy would have to do.

The plan was clean on parchment: both monarchs would field 40,000 men and march in from two directions, crushing France in a double blow aimed at the gates of Paris.

But when the time came, Henry shifted course. Instead of lunging toward Paris, he tightened his grip on the land surrounding Calais. He wanted a firm base before pushing further.

In June 1544, the ground shook beneath the boots of 42,000 English soldiers as they landed at Calais. They were backed by 4,000 Imperial auxiliaries and hardened mercenaries, men who fought for coin, not crown.

The army split. Norfolk led his men south toward Montreuil, aiming to choke the Canche River. Suffolk took the other column and drove west toward Boulogne, a port city Henry had long coveted.

Norfolk’s assault dragged. His men barely pressed the siege. But Suffolk meant business. On July 19th, his forces locked Boulogne in a steel ring and began the work of breaking it.

Charles fumed, he wanted Henry racing toward Paris, not stalling on the coast. But Henry stood firm: without Boulogne and Montreuil, he couldn’t hold his supply lines. This was no delay, it was logistics.

Everything escalated on July 26th. Henry himself arrived and took command of 16,000 men. The king wasn’t there to watch, he was there to win.

The lower town crumbled first. It lacked real defenses, and after a brutal bombardment, Henry’s men stormed in. The “Old Man,” an ancient Roman lighthouse, was toppled early, an omen of what was coming.

The pounding didn’t stop. Through August, cannon thundered. On September 1st, Henry ordered a full assault on the upper town. His men took it, but the castle still stood, bristling with guns and defiance.

The French held firm. Their fire was relentless. For a moment, it seemed even Henry’s grit might not be enough.

But the English engineers and artillery kept grinding. They tunneled beneath the walls, buried charges, and tore into the fortress from below. After two weeks of this torment, the French resolve broke.

On September 13th, the defenders asked for terms. Five days later, Henry marched into Boulogne in full triumph. The remaining 1,630 surrendered to a king who had taken their city by sheer force of will.

While Boulogne fell, Montreuil stalled. Norfolk’s siege was going nowhere fast. Henry, satisfied with his prize, didn’t bother riding south to fix it, he stayed in Boulogne, already thinking of England.

Then came the news, cold and sudden. On the very day Henry seized Boulogne, Charles and Francis had struck a peace deal. The alliance Henry had counted on evaporated overnight.

Henry didn’t flinch. He sailed back to England, leaving Norfolk and Suffolk to hold the line in France. Boulogne was his, and he meant to keep it.

Norfolk, however, got word of a French force, 30,000 strong, bearing down on Montreuil. He didn’t stay to test their steel. He pulled back.

Norfolk bolted for Boulogne, linked up with Suffolk, and then both men retreated to Calais. Behind them, just 4,000 English soldiers were left to hold Boulogne.

On October 7th, Francis I arrived in force. Before him stood Boulogne, its walls still shattered from Henry’s cannons. The breaches gaped open, no repairs, no reinforcements. The city was ripe for the taking.

Two nights later, Francis struck. He ordered a nighttime assault, twenty-three companies of French and Italian infantry, all wearing white shirts over their armor so they wouldn’t kill each other in the dark. This was the infamous "camisade of Boulogne."

Somehow, the English were caught sleeping. The French broke through the ruined walls with almost no resistance. The city was theirs, if only for a moment.

But chaos set in fast. The French commander was wounded and pulled back. Panic spread, rumors flew that the English had rallied and retaken the gaps. Discipline cracked.

Instead of regrouping, the attackers turned to loot. Steel gave way to greed. The assault crumbled into chaos.

Inside the citadel, Sir Thomas Poynings took command. He rallied the defenders, surged forward, and slammed into the disordered French. The result was decisive, 800 French and Italian soldiers were cut down or captured.

With winter closing in and his best shot squandered, Francis withdrew. He wasn’t finished, but for now, Boulogne remained in English hands.

With Charles out of the picture, Henry stood alone. He braced for a French invasion in 1545, he knew Francis would want revenge.

Henry deployed three full armies along England’s southern shores. But Francis, despite his bluster, launched nothing more than a few scattered coastal raids.

Even so, the French noise was enough to stir the Scots into action again. Rebellion flared in the north, keeping Henry off-balance and forcing him to divide his strength.

Back at Boulogne, Francis tried another siege. Trenches were dug, guns were rolled up, but the French army lacked the numbers to make it stick. The English garrison, just 4,000 strong, couldn’t push them out either. It was deadlock.

Henry sent out new commanders to turn the tide. One after another, they failed. Boulogne held, but barely. The French wouldn’t break, and neither would the English.

Boulogne stayed in English hands, but gave him nothing. No glory. No profit. Just a drain on men, money, and time.

Finally, on June 7th, 1546, after years of strain, Henry and Francis made peace. Not out of friendship, but out of necessity.

Henry had even prepared one more invasion force, but something changed. He pulled back. The fire was still in him, but the will to spend it was gone.

Historian J.J. Scarisbrick summed it well: maybe the war’s weight finally broke him. Maybe the failed harvests, the shortage of food, the empty supply lines on the continent left him no choice. Maybe it was Charles turning his back. Or maybe it was all of it, and the Privy Council, pressing him hard for months, finally got through.

Even in peace, Henry barked like a war dog. He kept Boulogne for eight more years, demanding a massive ransom he believed the French would never pay. It wasn’t surrender, it was delay.

The treaty also bound Henry’s hands in the north. He swore not to attack the Scots unless they broke the peace first.

Henry had pushed hard to make the French cut off the Scots completely, but Francis refused. That door stayed open.

On British soil, Henry’s final foreign campaign had the opposite effect of what he wanted, it gave the Scots fresh breath, kept resistance burning.

Instead of tightening his grip on Scotland, Henry spent his final war chasing a ghost across the Channel. When the dust settled, he had little to show, no lasting gains in France, and no final victory in the north.

In those final years, Henry had one last opportunity, one final window, to bring Scotland to its knees and solidify his dominion over the entire island. But instead of driving north, instead of finishing what he started, he turned back to France… chasing shadows of an empire that had long since slipped through English fingers.

He poured men, money, and will into a war that gave him nothing but ashes. The north remained defiant. France remained unconquered. And when the guns fell silent and the treaties were signed, the great King of England stood on scorched ground with nothing to show for it but a single battered port city and a handful of promises.

Yes, he forced Francis I to put pen to paper, to recognize him not just as king, but as Supreme Head of the Church of England and Ireland. For Henry, it was more than a political clause, it was vindication. Proof that he had torn down the ancient authority of the Pope and replaced it with his own. That he had remade England not just in name, but in soul.

But history does not stop for kings. And fate does not ask permission.

Because when Henry VIII died in 1547, bloated, broken, and alone in the palace he had once ruled like a lion, his crown passed to a daughter who hated everything he had built.

Queen Mary. Catholic. Unforgiving. And when she ascended that throne, she did not hesitate. She reopened the gates of England to the papacy. She called the Pope back to the island her father had ripped from Rome’s grasp.

And just like that... everything Henry had fought for, every law passed, every church seized, every monk cast out, every altar stripped, was undone.

It was not a reversal. It was a reckoning.

His wars had devoured nations, shattered alliances, and soaked two kingdoms in blood. But in the end, all his fury, all his triumph, all his unrelenting will… died with him.

Because what Henry VIII never understood, what no conqueror ever truly does, is that legacy is not forged by power alone.

It is carried by those who come after.

And in the end, the King who defied the world… could not even hold his own kingdom together.

This… is the collapse of a throne built on defiance.