by R J M Pugh
Second day, Saturday, 10 September
On the morning of the second day, a Saturday, Somerset brought his army off Fa’side to join his forward elements at Inveresk; it was then that he discovered Arran had moved his army across the Esk and was rapidly advancing on his position, reforming on the plain of Pinkie Cleugh. (Cleugh is an old Scots-Gaelic word for glen, or narrow valley.) The reason behind Arran’s redeployment remains unclear; his former position had several advantages which could have discomfited Somerset, particularly his cavalry. There was little room for manoeuvre on Arran’s left flank, his right was protected by the Shire Moss and the fast-flowing river Esk to his front presented a difficult obstacle for the English cavalry and infantry alike. The only access across the river was a narrow wooden bridge, reputedly of Roman origin; Pinkie might have been another Stirling Brig, Wallace’s resounding victory in 1297. But history is full of might-have-beens …
The main battle opened with a cannonade from Clinton’s fleet, anchored off Fisherrow, Musselburgh, killing the Master of Grahame and twenty-five men standing near him.11 Despite this, the Scots came on in good order. Arran’s army was arranged in three formations; his left wing was commanded by George, 4th Earl of Huntly, his right by Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus while Arran commanded the centre. Angus was faced by Lord Dacre and his division; Angus should have enjoyed the added protection of Home’s cavalry on his flank but the remainder, badly bloodied the previous day, did nothing but stand motionless, hoping to take advantage of any break in the English lines to allow them to raid Somerset’s baggage train. Facing Huntly on the Scottish left wing were the Earl of Warwick, with Sir Thomas D’Arcy’s hagbutters, the English name for arquebusiers. Warwick was flanked by Lord Grey’s formidable cavalry, flushed with the previous day’s victory over Lord Home. In the centre Somerset faced Arran.
At the outset Somerset positioned the bulk of his cavalry opposite Arran’s right but the Scottish pikemen drove them off, inflicting heavy casualties on the horse; Lord Grey was badly wounded by a pike thrust in his mouth and neck. At the height of the battle the Scots very nearly captured the English Royal or King’s Standard; the staff bearing the flag snapped in two, the standard bearer managing to escape with the flag. But gradually the English horse began to take its toll of Arran’s tightly packed pikemen; added to their onslaught were the continuing cannonade from Clinton’s warships and the showers of arrows from the English archers. The pikemen of the Lothians, Lanark, Ayr, Renfrew and Stirling gave a good account of themselves against the English shire infantry but a renewed attack by the re-formed English horse drove them back, albeit in steady order. At this point the Highland bowmen in Huntly’s division mistook the redeployment of Arran’s force as a retreat and they broke ranks, possibly hoping to benefit from the looting of Somerset’s baggage train. Dismay spread among the Lowland levies as they watched the Highlanders streaming away from the field. Pounded on three sides by naval bombardment and field artillery, hagbutters and the deadly English archers, Arran’s formation began to disintegrate. In the ensuing melee Sir Pedro de Gamboa’s mounted Italian arquebusiers galloped alongside the Scottish right wing, discharging their weapons into the packed mass of pikemen while the left wing was showered with arrows which could not fail to find a mark. The confusion in Arran’s three formations degenerated into wholesale panic; Arran himself was among the first to ride from the field, followed by the bulk of his shattered army. Pursued by the English cavalry, many Scots were drowned in the fast-flowing river Esk while many more came to grief in the boggy wetlands of the Shire Moss.
Scottish casualties at Pinkie were given as 6,00012 with between 1,500 and 2,000 taken prisoner, although few were of high rank; among the captives were Lord Hay of Yester, Colquhoun, Laird of Luss, and Robert Hamilton of the Briggs, captain of Dunbar Castle.13 English losses were estimated at between 500 and 600. At the battle of Pinkie, the Scots were equipped with medieval weaponry – the spear or pike, sword, axe, longbow and a few arquebuses, the men protected by nothing more than iron helmets and padded leather jerkins or jacks and wooden targes; the Highland elements were even more poorly equipped. The English army fought with the halberd, longbow, crossbow, sword and arquebus. Modern historians agree that Pinkie was the first ‘modern’ battle fought on British soil, combining infantry, cavalry, artillery and a naval bombardment in support of the land forces. A medieval army had been beaten by a Renaissance army.
We have to thank William Patten, an officer in Somerset’s army, for his eyewitness account which describes the Scots’ arms and their mode of fighting:
They cum [come] to the felde [field] well furnished all with jak [stout padded doublet or upper garment] and skull [cap], dagger, buckler [shield] and swords, of exceeding good temper and universally good to slice. Hereto everie man his pyke, their array towards joining with the enemy they cling and thrust so nere [near] in the front rank shoulder to shoulder together, with their pykes in both hands straight afore them and their followers so hard at their backs, layinge [laying] their pykes over their foregoers’ shoulders, that no force can well withstand them … Standing at defence they thrust shoulders nie [nigh] together, the fore ranks kneeling stoup lowe [stoop low] before, their fellows behynde holding their pykes, the one end against their right foote, the other against the enemye breast high, the third ranke crossing their pyke points with their forwarde, as thus each with other so nye [nigh] as place and space will suffer through the whole warde so thicke, that as easily as a bare finger perce [pierce] through the skyn [skin] of an angry hedgehog as ony [any] encounter to frunt [front] of their pykes.14
Pinkie Cleugh, known as Black Saturday, was the worst disaster in Scotland’s history since Flodden. The day after the battle Leith was committed to the flames, then Broughty Castle, near the mouth of the Tay; the island strongholds of Inchcolm and Inchkeith were slighted in September, followed by the occupation of all of Annandale by the Earl of Wharton. Before these events, however, Somerset had been recalled to England on pressing political affairs. The main objective of Pinkie had not been achieved, however; the Scots had no thought of seeking peace with England by giving up their young Queen.
After his defeat Arran had little option other than to turn to France and renew the Auld Alliance which he negotiated in December 1547. As a condition, however, he was requested to hand over certain important castles including Dunbar, Eyemouth and Inchcolm; the French set about creating a defensive chain of forts along the east coast of Scotland which incorporated these strongholds. Then, in April 1548, Lord Grey of Wilton, Somerset’s cavalry commander at Pinkie, occupied Haddington; Grey believed ‘the keeping of Haddington to be the winning of Scotland’ which, to modern eyes, seems something of a spin on his modest achievements in Scotland. No matter, Grey spent the next two months fortifying the market town; by the end of June he was surrounded by 14,000 French and Scottish troops commanded by Andre Montalembert, Sieur d’Esse. The Treaty of Haddington signed by France and Scotland on 6 July promised Mary, Queen of Scots to the Dauphin François, heir to the throne of France and only son of Henri II and Catherine de Medici.
The siege of Haddington would last from June 1548 to September 1549. For his part, Grey delegated the command at Haddington to Sir James Wilford so that he could direct operations from Berwick. On 7 July Grey was able to despatch 2,000 troops with powder and shot to Haddington but only 400 managed to get inside the town walls. Another relief column of 15,000 led by the Earl of Shrewsbury found that Haddington was in no danger of capitulating, so Shrewsbury returned to Berwick, torching Dunbar yet again. Before returning over the Border, Shrewsbury rebuilt and strengthened the fortalice of Dunglass and installed a garrison of 3,000 German mercenaries to defend the area, a forward thinking measure to cover the inevitable withdrawal of the English troops from Haddington in the autumn of 1549. In England a court coup toppled Somerset and the war virtually came to a close. Somerset was executed; the war he had so ruthlessly prosecuted against Scotland seemed to ha
ve achieved nothing save death, misery and poverty for the people of south-east Scotland.
In the spring of 1550 England and France signed the Treaty of Boulogne on 24 March which brought a welcome respite to the Scots; part of the treaty stipulated that England would relinquish any Scottish strongholds still in its possession. Further, the main castles would be garrisoned by French soldiers which did not sit well altogether with the Scots. It seemed to the Scots that they had exchanged one formidable enemy for another, albeit one kindly disposed to them – at least on the surface. Their young Queen was in French hands and would become the wife of the heir to the French throne; furthermore, the Queen Mother, Marie of Guise Lorraine, encouraged by her brother, the Duke of Guise, and the Cardinal of Lorraine had become extremely powerful, intending to make Scotland a French province. The Scots were also tiring of the presence of d’Esse and his large army; at one point, there was a fight between the citizens of Edinburgh and the strangers in which many lives were lost. Marie of Guise could not wholly dispense with her French soldiers in the running of the country but she sent home as many as she could, retaining only enough to garrison the most important castles in the kingdom. In the next four years Marie increasingly took hold of the reins of power from the weak Earl of Arran who had shown just how little power he excercised as regent. Backed by France, Mary of Guise made a bid for the regency of Scotland in 1550. As for Arran, he was a spent force; he had been opposed to the late alliance with France for purely family reasons, hoping that his son might be a suitable husband for Mary, Queen of Scots. The Treaty of Boulogne had effectively denied him that opportunity; to smooth his ruffled feathers, Arran was offered the Duchy of Chatelherault in France, a bribe he initially refused.
In September 1550 Marie of Guise, accompanied by several of the leading Scottish nobles, visited the French court, where they accepted French gold in exchange for their support of Marie’s claim to the regency. A deputation was sent to Arran from France requesting him to demit the office of regent and again offered him the Duchy of Chatelherault by way of compensation. Against his will Arran agreed to both and in November 1551, Marie returned to Scotland. The bargain struck with Arran was that she would assume the regency when her daughter Mary, Queen of Scots reached the age of twelve. Pressure was brought to bear on Arran both from Scotland and France; on 12 April 1554, seven months before Mary’s twelfth birthday, Marie of Guise was formally appointed regent of Scotland.
On 24 April 1558 Mary, Queen of Scots married François, Dauphin of France. The wedding ceremony took place in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris; an unusual splendour attended the event which was perhaps an indication of the political importance attached to it. A public treaty signed five days before the wedding stipulated that if Mary died without heirs Scotland would be given to France, the crown of Scotland placed on the Dauphin’s head. For obvious reasons, this aspect of the treaty was kept secret.
By 1559 the Reformation was gathering momentum. Several nobles including Lord James Stewart, illegitimate son of James V – and Mary’s half-brother – Lord Erskine, Keith, the Earl Marischal, the Earl of Glencairn, Erskine of Dun, Lords Morton and Lorne had all sworn to embrace the new religion; they and many others signed covenants stating they would never rest until they had established Protestantism as the state religion of Scotland. These nobles styled themselves the Lords of the Congregation and declared they were determined to see the back of Marie of Guise and the French who were staunchly Catholic; their cause was strengthened when the Catholic Mary Tudor of England died in 1558 and was succeeded by the Protestant Elizabeth I of England, Henry VIII’s daughter by Anne Boleyn. The Lords of the Congregation now felt they could rely on the support of a powerful England whose interests were bound up with those of Scotland. In the face of the growing Protestant rebellion, Marie of Guise had no other option but to abandon the negotiating table and resort to the sword.
On 24 May Marie raised levies of men from Clydeside, Stirling and the Lothians in support of her French troops, ordering them to attend upon her at Stirling. In response, the Protestant Lords strengthened the defences of the town of Perth, one of the earliest walled towns in Scotland. With a force of about 8,000 French and Scottish troops, D’Oysel, Marie’s chief adviser, advanced to Auchterarder, some twelve miles from Perth. Marie treated with the insurgents for terms; their response was that Perth would be surrendered if she gave assurances that all who embraced the new religion would be afforded freedom and security of worship. To back their demands, the Protestant Earl of Glencairn at the head of 2,500 men recruited in Ayrshire marched on Perth. It was stalemate. Marie compromised; she agreed not to quarter any French troops in Perth and granted freedom of worship, whereupon the gates of Perth were opened to her. Marie observed the letter but not the spirit of this agreement; she occupied Perth, installing not French but Scottish troops in French pay. In addition, she treated the civilian inhabitants of Perth with harshness which led to further confrontation. It was clear that Marie was playing for time, determined to keep Scotland a satellite of France until her daughter Mary and her husband the Dauphin could take up the throne of Scotland as rightful sovereigns.
The rebels led by Lord James Stewart and the Earl of Argyll evacuated the town and summoned the Protestant gentlemen of Angus and the Mearns, Aberdeenshire to meet them at St Andrews on 3 June. While residing at Falkland Palace, Fife, Marie learnt of this move. With a force led by Henri D’Oysel and Arran, now Duke of Chatelherault she advanced on the rebels who with some 3,000 troops took up position on Cupar Muir or Moor. Battle was avoided, with Marie agreeing to a truce of eight days to allow her to draw up a new understanding. Both sides withdrew to consider their position. Marie’s second offer was as hollow as the first. D’Oysel wrote to the French ambassador in London, informing him that only French troops could back up the regent Marie’s authority; to this end, D’Oysel sought French reinforcements. During the brief truce, the rebels had not been idle; they opened negotiations with Elizabeth I of England which would ultimately lead to the establishment of Protestantism as the state religion in Scotland as well as uniting the destinies of the two countries.
The truce had no sooner expired than hostilities recommenced. The Protestant Lords relieved Perth and by 29 June Perth, St Andrews, Dundee, Stirling and Edinburgh were firmly in their hands. Marie had no option other than to retreat to her base of Dunbar Castle, where she built an additional outwork or fort to accommodate more of her troops. Dunbar was to be the landing place for the French reinforcements she expected.
All was not well in Edinburgh, however; after the Lords of the Congregation took the capital their 7,000 following had dwindled to a mere 1,500. Marie lost no time in exploiting the situation. She marched with D’Oysel and Arran to confront the rebels at Leith Links in July, again playing for time. The Lords of the Congregation were in no position to dictate terms; they agreed to evacuate Edinburgh, allowing the townspeople to choose their own religion. Then Marie received welcome news; on 10 July, Henri II of France had died of a wound received in a tournament and her daughter, Mary, was therefore Queen of France. This news encouraged Marie to further prosecute her ambitions in Scotland with increased fervour. The Lords of the Congregation had no option but to seek help from England, so John Knox was sent south to open negotiations. Knox got no further than Berwick from where he brought back a less than encouraging response from Elizabeth I’s secretary Sir William Cecil to the requests of the Protestant Lords. Money would not be a problem but military support would; in 1559 about two-thirds of Elizabeth’s subjects were Catholics and it would not sit well with them were she to enter into a war in support of Protestant rebels in Scotland. The arrival in August of 1,000 French soldiers with their wives and children at Leith left the rebels in no doubt that Marie was in Scotland to stay, despite the fact that the Protestant army now numbered 8,000 against the French 3,000. On 25 November the Lords of the Congregation suffered a reverse in a running street battle in Edinburgh and were forced to retreat to Stirlin
g. Marie’s staunch supporters, the Duke of Chatelherault (Arran), the Earl of Glencairn, and Lords Boyd and Ochiltree made their base in Glasgow. Chatelherault’s son James, now titled Earl of Arran, had joined the Protestant Lords James Stewart, Ruthven and the Earl of Rothes with John Knox and made their base at St Andrews. The two factions agreed to meet again at Stirling on 16 December 1559.
Marie of Guise did not waste time on niceties; she occupied Edinburgh although she failed to persuade Lord Keith, the Earl Marischal, to surrender the castle. The arrival of further French troops gave Marie the advantage; on Christmas Day she despatched D’Oysel with a major force to drive the Lords of Congregation from Stirling which he did with ease. Then he set about gaining St Andrews which proved a more difficult task as he was beset at every turn by the Scots led by the Earl of Argyll and Lord James Stewart. Skirmishing took place over three weeks, with neither side achieving supremacy. Then, on 23 January 1560, a fleet of unidentified vessels appeared in the mouth of the Firth of Forth; D’Oysel thought it was the French fleet, expected for some weeks. He was shaken to learn that it was an advance squadron of a large English fleet sent by Elizabeth I to blockade any further attempts by the French to land reinforcements.
Then at Berwick-on-Tweed, Lords James Stewart, Ruthven and three other commissioners met the Duke of Norfolk and concluded a treaty on 27 February which promised English military aid to enforce the Protestant religion in Scotland. Marie of Guise was now in desperate straits. On 4 April the Scottish and English armies joined forces at Prestonpans; two days later they invested Leith. The large French fleet bearing fresh troops and armaments never materialized, having been driven back to France by storms. Marie was also suffering from a disease which would carry her off in about two months. Marie’s army was now concentrated in Leith and she, at her own request, was received into Edinburgh Castle.