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Hey friends, welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast. This is the weekly highlight reel of videos that I have put out on YouTube. So in case you don't know, you can go over to YouTube and watch all my videos. The channel is History and Coffee, and you can just search for my name as well, Heather Tesco, History and Coffee, and you will get it. And you can subscribe there. Thank you to the many people who already subscribe. And then what I've started doing is

weekly highlight reels of some of the videos that have gone out on YouTube that would be of interest to the podcast listeners as well. So thanks for listening. And you can also, like I said, go over and join me on YouTube history and coffee and search for Heather. And there I am. So let's get right into it. When the news reached England in January of 1558, the Calais had fallen to the French. It was received with a shock.

Calais wasn't a distant outpost for people in England. It was part of their national identity, the last foothold of the once great English empire in France. It had belonged to the English for over two centuries, and now it was gone. We are going to talk about Calais, how the English got it, how they kept it, and how they lost it, why it was so important, and what its loss did to Mary I.

Calais played such an important role in so many different parts of Tudor history. We think about Anne Boleyn going on that famous trip to Calais with Henry VIII, where they kind of solidified their relationship. She was presented as a consort before they were even married. It played such an enormous role in English history. And when it was lost, it devastated Mary I.

But how did Calais become part of England? How did this happen? So we're going to go back and we're going to talk about that. When the news came that Calais had fallen, Mary I, who was already quite unwell and her popularity was dipping, she's said to have taken the loss quite deeply. According to legend, she told her ladies that if they opened her after death, they would find Calais written on her heart.

Whether or not she actually said it, the line stuck because that is how much Calais meant to the English. But to understand why the loss stung so much, we have to go back to how England got Calais in the first place. Our story begins in the reign of Edward III in the early years of the Hundred Years' War. In

In 1346, after the crushing English victory at the Battle of Creuset, Edward moved to consolidate his position in northern France by laying siege to Calais. The siege dragged on for 11 months. Edward knew that attacking the heavily fortified town head-on would be disastrous, so instead he blockaded the port and waited.

Calais was cut off from supplies, and with its population slowly starving, they finally surrendered in August of 1347.

Edward's terms were harsh. The original French inhabitants were expelled, some say around 3,000 people, and the town was repopulated with English settlers. This was more than a military base. This was a colonial experiment. A little slice of England placed on the northern coast of France.

and for 200 years, it stayed that way. Calais became a military outpost, a trading hub, and a political tool all rolled into one. It was governed by a lord deputy or captain, appointed by the king, often a nobleman of significant stature. A council managed the day-to-day affairs, and it remained directly under the control of the English crown. It wasn't part of any French duchy or region. It was the pale of Calais, a

a defined and fortified area that stretched a few miles inland. The English built up its defenses. Henry VIII in particular spent enormous sums reinforcing its walls and updating the artillery. It was one of the most fortified towns in Europe.

Calais also wasn't just a military zone. Economically, it was critical. English wool exports passed through Calais under the staple system. This was a medieval monopoly that designated certain ports for official trade. English merchants had major privileges in Calais, including tax breaks and certain protections. It became a gateway for English goods heading to the continent and vice versa.

This blend of Marshall and mercantile life made Calais really unique and really distinct.

It was English territory, but always on the edge, geographically and politically, surrounded by French towns, always under threat. But this thriving, bustling area that was, like I said, one of the most fortified towns in Europe. While Calais was a garrison town, it wasn't just soldiers marching around in armor. It developed into a functioning community with families, schools, markets, churches and taverns.

English settlers made their lives there, some born and raised without ever setting foot in England. These so-called Calais English formed a unique identity. They were loyal to the English crown, but they were shaped by the rhythms of life in a continental port. They would have had much more experience with French and with, you know, trading with the French, traveling to France, etc.

was much easier. Population of Calais at the end of the 15th century was between 3,000 and 4,000 people. This included soldiers, administrators, merchants, and artisans, and their families. The entire pale of Calais, which was this fortified region of about 20 square miles,

extending inland from the town. It had an estimated population of about 12,000 people at this time. And this broader area included several small villages like Guyne, and it was used for agriculture, for defensive outposts, that type of thing. The garrison, of course, was a major part of the population. It had about 1,200 soldiers or so, depending on the decade and the threat level. During Henry's reign, when he was invading France, that number, of course, went up.

Compared to different English towns, Calais was really modest. It was smaller than places like Norwich or York, but economically and strategically, it was, of course, far more important than its size alone suggested. Trade, of course, was the engine of daily life. Merchants came and went. Goods weighed and taxed. So even though we said that the population itself, the permanent population was like 4,000 people, there was probably many, many more people than that

trading, coming and staying in and out who weren't official residents. The wool trade dominated the docks and craftsmen produced everything from cloth to leather goods. Bakers and butchers kept the garrison fed. There was always a military presence, but it didn't drown out the hum of ordinary life.

Still, everyone lived with this kind of low-level tension all the time. Skirmishes with the French were common. Every resident knew that war could flare up at any moment. It was a frontier town. It was civilized, but never entirely safe. Calais was the last relic of England's old claim in France, a physical reminder of Edward III, Henry V, Agincourt, the days when English kings dreamed of ruling both realms.

Militarily, it gave England a base for launching campaigns into the continent. Economically, it anchored the wool trade, gave merchants a foothold in Europe. And symbolically, it mattered even more. Losing Calais didn't just shrink the map by a little bit. It bruised the national ego. It marked the end of an era. England was no longer a European power with land in France. It was back to being an island.

So what went wrong? By the time Mary came to the throne, Calais was still seen as vital, but it had become more symbolic than strategic. The town's defenses had been allowed to decline, the garrison was underpaid and undermanned, and England, locked in an expensive war alongside Spain against France, was stretched super thin.

in january fifteen fifty eight the french made their move under the command of francois duke of guise they launched a swift winter offensive this was really unusual you didn't fight during the winter generally calais was caught off guard and poorly defended and it fell in less than a week there was no serious attempt at any kind of relief and the english were humiliated their last continental possession was gone

The loss was devastating. The English merchants lost their privileges. Parliament fumed. Mary was inconsolable and died within the year. Elizabeth was more pragmatic, and she quietly abandoned any plans to try to retake Calais.

In England, though, the memory lingered. Calais became a symbol of what had been lost. Not just land, but prestige, pride, and the last link to the old Plantagenet dream of an Anglo-French empire.

From that point on, the English ambitions turned seaward. The age of colonies, of maritime power was beginning. But for many, Calais remained a sore spot, the wound that marked the end of England's time as a continental power. England, like we said, would start to move to the west, to Ireland, to even the Americas. But they never again had that place in Calais in France, a European outpost.

So there we go, my friend, a little bit about the taking and losing of Calais, I suppose, and why it was so important to the English. Instacart is on a mission to have you not leave the couch this basketball season. Because between the pregame rituals and the postgame interviews, it can be difficult to find time for everything else. So let Instacart take care of your game day snacks or weekly restocks and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Because

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Today we are going to talk about Henry VIII's secret mission. So this was a secret diplomatic move that he hid from Cardinal Woolsey early on in trying to get his divorce. He was suspecting that Cardinal Woolsey might not be the best man for the job. And he did a little special secret mission going around, skirting around Cardinal Woolsey. So we are going to talk about that.

In September 1527, Henry VIII quietly sent his new secretary, William Knight, on a highly sensitive mission to Rome. It was so secret, in fact, that he ordered Knight not to inform Cardinal Wolsey, the one man who had until then controlled every detail of Henry's diplomatic and religious affairs. Knight's mission was to secure a special dispensation from the Pope

that would allow Henry to marry a woman, this is very specific, with whose sister he had already slept with. It was a legal sleight of hand aimed at undoing his marriage to Catherine Aragon without needing to admit any flaw in the original papal dispensation. So let's go back and talk about why Henry went behind Woolsey's back.

In the autumn of 1527, Henry's confidence in Wolsey was faltering. Despite his 20-plus years of service, the cardinal had failed to produce an annulment. Worse, Henry began to suspect that Wolsey's loyalties leaned more toward Rome than toward the king's personal desires. Henry's relationship with Anne Boleyn was growing more serious. He wasn't just

seeking a release from katherine anymore he was planning his future with anne and that meant he needed actions not excuses so he made a secret move knight was recently appointed henry's secretary and he was trusted and discreet and still operating beneath wolsey's radar the instructions were so specific

travel to Rome, stop first in France to avoid any suspicion because Woolsey was in France at the time. So stop in France, talk to Woolsey, avoid suspicion. Then once in Italy, request this papal dispensation, not for a divorce, but for remarriage on the basis of affinity. That is permission to marry a woman with whose sister he had already been involved.

In this case, that woman was Anne and the sister was Mary Boleyn. So Knight did as he was instructed. First, he set off to France, where he remained long enough to lull Woolsey and others into a false sense of normalcy. Then, once the coast seemed clear, he headed toward Rome. But it didn't stay quiet for long. Rumors started swirling and Woolsey got wind of the plan, perhaps through court gossip, perhaps through his network of informants.

Either way, Henry panicked. He blamed the leak on someone close and ordered Knight to take an entirely revised version of the document instead, one that was even more explicit and more confidential. Henry instructed that the new dispensation be shown only to Pope Clement and

and his most trusted advisers no one else not wolsey not any other cardinal was to see it he even insisted that it be delivered only to men he was sure will never disclose it to no man living for any craft the cardinal or any other can find

But even in this new version, things didn't go as planned. Knight struggled to gain access to the pope. Political pressure in Rome was intense. Clement was essentially held hostage by Emperor Charles V. This is after the sack of Rome. Granting a dispensation, especially one so clearly engineered, was very risky. Knight alone couldn't get the job done.

So by December, Wolsey finally realized the scope of the situation. Knight's mission had stalled and the Boleyns were making end runs around him. So Wolsey inserted himself, but not by removing Knight. Instead, he brought in reinforcements. He turned to Giorgio Casali, an Italian diplomat born in Rome who had lived for time in England and was now stationed at the Vatican.

Casali had the charm, the connections, and the political savvy to succeed where Knight had not. He offered both diplomacy and bribes. He offered 10,000 ducats and a 3,000 crown salary, more than some bishops earned, to help open the right doors. Meanwhile, the Boleyns continued their own maneuvering. John Barlow, who was Anne's chaplain and a fiery reformist, tracked Knight down in Parma,

and served as a courier between Knight and the English court. Around the same time, they also turned to Robert Wakefield, a Hebrew scholar from Cambridge, fluent in Latin, Greek, and Aramaic. Wakefield argued forcefully that Henry's marriage to Catherine violated divine law, not just church law, and that the Levitical prohibition was binding on Christians. It was precisely the sort of scriptural support that Henry needed.

And crucially, Wakefield had been identified and promoted not by Woolsey, but by the Boleyns.

Woolsey's grip on power was slipping. Ambassadors like the Spanish ambassador de Mendoza were already reporting that Anne Boleyn had overtaken Woolsey's influence. Mendoza even noticed that Anne answered the king's summons for visitors, a role that Woolsey once controlled. Reformers and evangelicals were also beginning to suffer under Woolsey's harsh measures in

including Robert Barnes, who had already been punished once for preaching. This time he was imprisoned for distributing Tyndale's banned New Testament and then staged a dramatic escape, leaving a pile of clothes and a suicide note beside the River Nain before joining Luther in exile.

So, Knight's mission had ultimately failed. By early 1528, Pope Clement had fled Rome for Orvieto, and no formal decision was forthcoming. But the real result had already happened. Henry acted without Wolsey. Anne was asserting herself politically, and the entire operation, though unsuccessful in Rome, marked the beginning of Wolsey's slow and irreversible fall.

By the way, that whole story of Robert Barnes, I found fascinating. I just kind of skipped over it with one sentence. And unfortunately, the historical record is really sketchy on how he escaped because he supposedly was in custody. And then he got out of custody, left this pile of clothes and this note saying he was ending his life and slipped across the channel, made it to Antwerp, and then actually made it all the way to Wittenberg and to Luther himself. But how

But how he got out of custody to leave those clothes in that note is something that people don't know because at the time, the record was more concerned with painting him as a heretic and less concerned with showing how he managed to escape the authorities. Some scholars suggest that he wasn't locked in a high security prison like the Tower. He might have been just under scrutiny somewhere else.

He might have been in a more relaxed area of confinement, maybe at a university or a religious place in Cambridge. He was in Cambridgeshire, apparently, and that might have allowed him a little bit more movement, at least enough to have slipped away. It's also possible he had help. He still had supporters. Cambridge was a massive reformist hotbed of reform, so people might have helped him. And it's also possible that the authorities were complicit or at least indifferent. So, yeah.

That's Robert Barnes. And of course, he escaped to Wittenberg, became a bit of a Protestant celebrity in Wittenberg. And so the English government wasn't exactly keen on broadcasting the details of how he got out. But he did. I find it fascinating. So that's a little bit about these early political maneuverings that were going on about when Henry stopped trusting Woolsey completely and tried to go around him a little bit. And kind of the earliest inklings for Woolsey that he...

he might be losing some grip on power. Thanks so much for listening to this week's YouTube highlights. Remember, you can go over and subscribe. History and Coffee, Heather Tesco, you will find me there. And we'll be back again next week with more highlights from what went out on YouTube throughout the week. Thanks so much. Have a great week. Blown all the wind A scent who may be sweating Blown all the

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