But his ambition was still unappeased, and in June 1513 he in person led his army across the Channel to conquer France. His conduct in the campaign was puerile in its vanity and folly, and ended lamely with the capture of two (to him) unimportant fortresses in the north, Therouenne and Tournai, and the panic flight of the French at the Battle of the Spurs or Guingate. Our business with this foolish and fruitless campaign, in which Henry was every one's tool, is confined to the part that Katharine played at the time. On the King's ostentatious departure from Dover he left Katharine regent of the realm, with the Earl of Surrey--afterwards Duke of Norfolk--to command the army in the north. Katharine, we are told, rode back from Dover to London full of dolour for her lord's departure; but we see her in her element during the subsequent months of her regency. Bold and spirited, and it must be added utterly tactless, she revelled in the independent domination which she enjoyed. James IV. of Scotland had threatened that an English invasion of France would be followed by his own invasion of England. "Let him do it in God's name," shouted Henry; and Katharine when the threat was made good delivered a splendid oration in English to the officers who were going north to fight the Scots. "Remember," she said, "that the Lord smiled upon those who stood in defence of their own. Remember that the English courage excels that of all other nations upon earth."[21] Her letters to Wolsey, who accompanied Henry as almoner, or rather secretary, are full of courage, and as full of womanly anxiety for her husband. "She was troubled," she wrote, "to learn that the King was so near the siege of Therouenne," until Wolsey's letter assured her of the heed he takes to avoid all manner of dangers. "With his life and health nothing can come amiss with him, without them I see no manner of good thing that shall fall after it." But her tactlessness even in this letter shows clearly when she boasts that the King in France is not so busy with war as she is in England against the Scots. "My heart is very good of it, and I am horribly busy making standards, banners, and badges."[22] After congratulating Henry effusively upon the capture of Therouenne and his meeting with the Emperor, Katharine herself set forth with reinforcements towards Scotland, but before she had travelled a hundred miles (to Woburn) she met the couriers galloping south to bring her the great news of Surrey's victory at Flodden Field. Turning aside to thank Our Lady of Walsingham for the destruction of the Scottish power, Katharine on the way sent the jubilant news to Henry. James IV. in his defeat had been left dead upon the field, clad in his check surcoat, and a fragment of this coat soaked with blood the Queen sent to her husband in France, with a heartless gibe at his dead brother-in-law. We are told that in another of her letters first giving the news of Flodden, and referring