English ships; but how these came to be complained of I do not seo, for they were in open. war, and I do not find any truce had been made. The French agent at London pressed much that there might be a treaty on the borders before the breach were made wider. But now the protector had given orders for raising an army, so that he had no mind to lose that summer. Yet to let the French king see how careful they were of preserving his friendship, they appointed the bishop of Durham, and sir Robert Bowes, to give the Scotch commissioners a meeting on the borders the 4th of August; but with these secret instructions, that if the Scots would confirm the marriage, all other things should be presently forgiven, and peace. be immediately made up; but if they were not empowered in that particular, and offered only to treat about restitutions, that then they should immediately break off the treaty, The bishop of Durham was also ordered to carry down with him the exemplifications of many records, to prove the subjection of the crown of Scotland to England; some of these. are said to have been under the hands and scals of their kings, their nobles, their bishops, abbots, and towns. He was also ordered to search for all the records that were lying at Durham, where many of them were kept, to be ready to be showed to the Scots upon any occasion that might require it. The meeting on the borders came to a quick issue, for tho Scottish commissioners had no power to treat about the marriage. But Tonstall searching the registers of his see, found many writings of great consequence to clear that subjection, of which the reader will see an account, in a letter he writ to the council, in the collection Collection of papers. The most remarkable of these, was the homage king William of Number 9. Scotland made to IIenry II. by which he granted that all the nobles of his realm should be his subjects, and do homage to him; and that all the bishops of Scotland should be under the archbishops of York; and that the king of England should give all the abbeys and honours in Scotland, at the least they should not be given without his consent, with many other things of the like naturo. It was said that the monks in those days, who generally kept the records, were so accustomed to the forging of stories and writings, that little credit was to be given to such records as lay in their keeping. But having so faithfully acknowledged what was alleged against the freedom of Scotland, I may be allowed to set down a proof on the other side, for my native country, copied from the original writing, yet extant, under the hands and seals of many of the nobility and gentry of that kingdom. It is a letter to the pope; and it was ordinary that of such public letters there were duplicates signed; the one of which was sent, and the other laid up among cords, of which I have met with several instances. So that of this letter the copy which was Collection reserved, being now in noble hands, was communicated to me, and is in the CollecNumber 10. tion. It was upon the pope's engaging with the king of England to assist him to subduo Scotland that they writ to him, and did assert most directly that their kingdom was at all times free and independent. But now these questions being waved, the other difference about the marriage was brought to a sharper decision. the re On the 21st of August, the protector took out a commission to be general, and to make war on Scotland; and did devolve his power during his absence on the privyAug. 21. council; and appointed his brother to be lord-lieutenant for the south, and the earl of Warwick (whom he carried with him) lord-lieutenant for the north; and left a commission of array to the marquess of Northampton for Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk; to the earl of Arundel for Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, and Wiltshire; and to sir Thomas Cheney for Kent. All this was in case of any invasion from France. Having thus settled affairs during his absence, he set out for Newcastle, having ordered his troops to march thither before; and coming thither on the 27th of that month, he saw his army Aug. 27, 28. mustered on the 28th, and marched forward to Scotland. The lord Clinton commanded the ships that sailed on as the army marched; which was done that provisions and ammunition might be brought by them from Newcastle or Berwick, if the enemy should at any time fall in behind their army. He entered into Scotch ground the 2nd Sept. 2, 5. of September, and advanced to the paths the 5th, where the passage being narrow and untoward, they looked for an enemy to have disputed it, but found none; the Scots having only broken the ways, which in that dry season signified not much, but to stop them some hours in their march. When they had passed these, some little castles, Dunglas, Thornton, and Innerwick, having but a few ill-provided men in them, rendered to them. On the 9th they came to Falside, where there was a long fight in several parties, Sept. 9. in which there were one thousand three hundred of the Scots slain. And now they were in sight of the Scotch army, which was for numbers of men one of the greatest that they had ever brought together, consisting of thirty thousand men; of which ten thousand were commanded by the governor, eight thousand by the earl of Angus, eight thousand by the earl of Huntley, and four thousand by the earl of Argyle, with a fair train of artillery, nine brass and twenty-one iron guns. On the other side, the English army. consisted of about fifteen thousand foot, and three thousand horse, but all well appointed. The Scots were now heated with the old national quarrel to England. It was given out that the protector was come with his army, to carry away their queen, and to enslave the kingdom. And for the encouraging of the army it was also said, that twelve galleys and fifty ships were on the sea from France, and that they looked for them every day. The protec The protector finding an army brought together so soon, and so much greater than he expected, began to be in some apprehension, and therefore he writ to the tor's offers to Scots to this effect, that they should remember they were both Christians, and so the Scots. should be tender of the effusion of so much blood; that this war was not made with any design but for a perpetual peace, by the marriage of their two princes which they had already agreed, and given their public faith upon it; and that the Scots were to be: much more gainers by it than the English: the island seemed made for one empire; it. was a pity it should be more distracted with such wars, when there was so fair and just a way offered for uniting it; and it was much better for them to marry their queen, to a prince of the same language, and on the same continent, than to a foreigner; but if they would not agree to that, he offered that their queen should be bred up among them, and not at all contracted, neither to the French, nor to any other foreigner, till she came of age, that by the consent of the estates she might choose a husband for herself. If they would agree to this he would immediately return with his army out of Scotland, and make satisfaction for the damages the country had suffered by the invasion. This proposition seems to justify what the Scotch writers say, though none of the English mention it; that the protector, what for want of provisions, and what from the apprehensions he had of so numerous an army of the Scots, was in great straits, and intended to have returned back to England, without hazarding an engagement. But the Scots thought they were so much superior to the English, and. that they had them now at such a disadvantage, that they resolved to fall upon them next day. And that the fair offers made by the protector might not raise division among them, the governor having communicated these to a few whom he trusted, was by their advice Rejected by persuaded to suppress them; but he sent a trumpeter to the English army with an offer to suffer them to return without falling upon them; which the protector had reason to reject, knowing that so mean an action in the beginning of his administration would have quite ruined his reputation. But to this, another that came with the trumpeter added a message from the carl of IIuntley, that the protector and he with ten or twenty of a side, or singly, should decide the quarrel by their personal valour. The protector said, this was no private quarrel, and the trust he was in obliged him not to expose himself in such a way; and therefore he was to fight no other way but at the head of his army. But the earl of Warwick offered to accept the challenge. The earl of Huntley sent no such challenge, as he afterwards purged himself when he heard of it. For as it was unreasonable for him to expect the protector should have answered it, so it had been an affronting the. governor of Scotland to have taken it off of his hands, since he was the only person that might have challenged the protector on equal terms. The truth of the matter was, a gentleman that went along with the trumpeter made him do it without warrant, fancying the answer to it would have taken up some time, in which he might have viewed the enemy's camp. On the 10th of September the two armies drew out, and fought, in the field of Pinkey, Sept. 10. near Musselburgh. The English had the advantage of the ground. And in the The Battle of beginning of the action, a cannon ball from one of the English ships killed the Pinkey, near lord Graham's eldest son, and twenty-five men more; which put the carl of Musselburgh. Argylo's Highlandors into such a fright, that they could not be held in order. them.. But after a charge given by the earl of Angus, in which the English lost some few men, the Scots gave ground; and the English observing that, and breaking in furiously upon them, the Scots threw down their arms and fled. The English pursued hard, and slew them without A great defeat mercy. There were reckoned to be killed about fourteen thousand, and given the fifteen hundred taken prisoners, among whom was the earl of Huntley, and Scots. five hundred gentlemen; and all the artillery was taken. This loss quite disheartened the Scots, so that they all retired to Stirling, and left the whole country to the protector's mercy; who the next day went and took Leith, and the soldiers in the ships, burnt some of the sea-towns of Fife, and retook some English ships that had been taken by the Scots, and burnt the rest. They also put a garrison in the isle of St. Columba in the Frith of about two hundred soldiers, and left two ships to wait on them. IIe also sont the earl of Warwick's brother, sir Ambrose Dudley, to take Broughty, a castle in the mouth of Tay; in which he put two hundred soldiers. He wasted Edinburgh, and uncovered the abbey of Holyrood-house, and carried away the lead and the bells belonging to it. But he neither took the castle of Edinburgh, nor did he go on to Stirling, where the queen with the stragglers of the army lay. And it was thought, that in the consternation wherein the late defeat had put them, every place would have yielded to him. But he had some private reasons that pressed his return, and made him let go the advantages that were now in his hands, and so gave the Scots time to bring succours out of France; whereas he might easily have made an end of the war now at once, if he had followed his success vigorously. The earl of Warwick, who had a great share in the honour of the victory, but knew that the errors in conduct would much diminish the protector's glory, which had been otherwise raised to an unmeasurable height, was not displeased at it. So on the 18th of September the protector drew his army back into England, and having received a message from Sept. 18. the queen and the governor of Scotland offering a treaty, he ordered them to send commissioners to Berwick to treat with those he should appoint. As he returned through the Merse, and Teviotdale, all the chief men in these counties came in to him, and Collection, took an oath to king Edward, the form whereof will be found in the Collection, Number 11. and delivered into his hands all the places of strength in their counties. He left a garrison of two hundred in Home castle, under the command of sir Edward Dudley; and fortified Roxburgh, where, for encouraging the rest, he wrought two hours with his own hands, and put three hundred soldiers and two hundred pioneers into it, giving sir Ralph Bulmer the command. At the same time the earl of Lennox and the lord Wharton made an inroad by the West Marches; but with little effect. On the 29th of September the protector returned into England full of honour, having in Sept. 29. all that expedition lost not above sixty men, as one that then writ the account The Protector of it says; the Scotch writers say he lost between two and three hundred. He returned to had taken eighty pieces of cannon, and bridled the two chief rivers of the England. kingdom by the garrisons he left in them; and had left many garrisons in the strong places on the frontier. And now it may be easily imagined how much this raised his reputation in England; since men commonly make auguries of the fortune of their . rulers from the successes of the first designs they undertake. So now they remembered what he had done formerly in Scotland; and how he had in France, with seven thousand men, raised the French army of twenty thousand that was set down before Boulogne, and had forced them to leave their ordnance, baggage, and tents, with the loss of one man only, in the year 1544; and that next year he had fallen into Picardy, and built Newhaven with two other forts there so that they all expected great success under his government. And indeed if the breach between his brother and him, with some other errors, had not lost him the advantages he now had, this prosperous action had laid the foundation of great fortunes to him. IIe left the earl of Warwick✶ to treat with those that should be sent from Scotland. But none came; for that proposition had been made only to gain time. The queen-mother there was not ill pleased to see the interest of the governor so much impaired by that • Afterwards created duke of Northumberland; father of lord Guilford Dudley, the husband of Lady Jane Grey.-ED. |