Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is a pivotal but ambivalent ally in the novel’s account of the 1513 campaign: he does not provide the army expected of him, yet joins Henry VIII in person and advises a siege that serves his own ambitions more than English strategy. Through him, the campaign’s grand coalition appears less like a dependable instrument than a negotiation in which each ruler pursues a different advantage.

The promised coalition

In the spring of 1513, the English plan depended on simultaneous attacks: Ferdinand II of Aragon was to invade Guienne, English troops were to take Normandy, and Maximilian was to join the northern campaign. The scheme seemed secure only if all three parties acted together and kept faith with one another. Maximilian’s expected participation was therefore not incidental; it formed part of the plan’s essential coordination.

That expectation failed when Maximilian did not muster his own army. Pleading poverty while professing enthusiasm for the cause, he instead went to the young Henry VIII and offered his sword and service. The shift from promised force to personal service made his contribution materially different from the one on which the coalition had been built.

Service at a price

Katherine of Aragon reads the change as another instance of the campaign’s double-dealing. She anticipates that Henry, impressed by the emperor’s offer, will pay an inflated sum for a mercenary army—effectively hiring an ally who had promised to come at his own expense. Her judgment separates the appearance of solidarity from its cost: Maximilian is present, but his presence may add a new burden to the English war effort.

Even so, Katherine sees a practical benefit in his joining Henry. The emperor’s experience could help keep the impulsive young king safe in his first battle. Maximilian is thus presented not simply as an unreliable partner, but as a potentially useful military companion whose value lies less in the troops he fails to bring than in his presence beside the inexperienced ruler.

Thérouanne and competing aims

On Maximilian’s advice, the English army besieges Thérouanne. The town had long been an object of the emperor’s desire, though the account stresses that it had no tactical value to the English. His counsel therefore directs the campaign toward a goal that serves his own longstanding interest rather than England’s military priorities.

The episode gives Maximilian a double role: he is both a source of expertise and a participant advancing his own aims within the coalition. His advice puts Henry in the field at Thérouanne, where the king walks through the camp at midnight and fires his first cannon, but the narrative does not establish that the siege’s outcome vindicates the emperor’s strategy. Instead, Maximilian’s part in the campaign makes visible how shared military action can conceal unequal purposes. The alliance holds, but not as a simple union of interests.