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 The Barton affair caused much ill blood between Scotland and England, and ultimately served as one of the pretexts for the invasion which ended at Flodden Field on September 9th, 1513. Henry's attitude, when James IV. remonstrated, was "that punishing pirates was never held a breach of peace among princes."

In 1512, in furtherance of the objects of the Holy League, Henry VIII. fitted out a fleet of twenty vessels, and entrusted it to the command of Lord Edward Howard, whom he had made Lord High Admiral for the purpose. The immediate mission of this force was to convoy an English army, under the Marquis of Dorset, to co-operate with King Ferdinand in the south of France. The troops were carried in Spanish ships; and the expedition sailed on May 16th, and reached the coast of Guipuscoa on June 8th.

As soon as the army had been landed, the Lord High Admiral proceeded on a cruise off the coasts of Brittany, where he attacked several places in the neighbourhood of Le Conquêt and Brest, and burnt some shipping.

France had afloat in the same waters a force under Jean de Thénouënel, Admiral of Brittany; another of her admirals, Prégent de Bidoux, was on his way from the Mediterranean with a reinforcement of four large galleys; and a French ship of great force, the Marie la Cordelière, which Anne, Queen of France, had some years before caused to be built at her own cost, had lately been commissioned by a noted Breton seaman, Captain Hervé de Portzmoguer; and King Henry, conscious that Howard's command was scarcely equal to contending with such a combination, collected twenty-five other vessels at Portsmouth, and, after having himself reviewed them, dispatched them to the assistance of the commander-in-chief. Among these ships were the Regent and the Sovereign, the two finest in the service. The former was commanded by Sir Thomas Knyvett, Master of the Horse, with Sir John Carew as his second; and the latter by Sir Charles