Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles by Margaret George Read Free Book Online Page B

adviser.
     
    SIX
     
    Scarcely half a year later, Henry VIII died, and was succeeded on the throne of England by nine-year-old Edward, but in reality by the boy's uncle and Protector, the Duke of Somerset. The death of Henry VIII did nothing to lessen the ferocious "rough wooing," as the Scots sarcastically called the English military attempts to force the marriage of little Mary to now-King Edward by burning, killing, and looting all over the Scottish countryside.
     
    As winter turned to spring, the French King Francois I followed Henry VIII to the grave. His son, the weak, ineffectual Henri II, now ruled France and was much more anxious to please the powerful Guise family than old Francois I had ever been; pleasing them meant, of course, championing the Scots against the English.
     
    The rebels and assassins of Cardinal Beaton had held out in St. Andrews Castle for months, vainly hoping for English succour. Inside the stout castle walls, with the salted body of the dead Cardinal stored in his own dungeon, the murderers alternated between riotous living and deep penitence. Hungry for entertainment and company, certain fathers ordered the tutor of their children to bring the boys to the castle. John Knox, the tutor, obeyed, and came in at Easter.
     
    After some initial hesitation, he took on the mantle of his vocation: he began to preach, minister, and debate with his "congregation," a congregation in exile. The thirty-three-year-old schoolmaster took to the pulpit like a John the Baptist, thundering of the great punishment to come if they did not reject the Synagogue of Satan, the Whore of Babylon, the Roman Church with its Pope, the Man of Sin. He whipped them into a frenzy of religious ecstasy.
     
    The French sent a military force, and by the end of July 1547 the castle was forced to surrender. Knox, captured by the enemy, joined his fellow rebel-prisoners as a convict-rower in the galleys of the French fleet.
     
    Stunned by the French action and hold on Scotland, the English now acted. The Protector himself led an invasion of Scotland, coming up through
     
    Northumberland and passing through on the Berwick side of the coast.
     
    He had an army of about eighteen thousand men, of which a third were cavalry. The foot soldiers were armed with muskets; heavy artillery was present, there were a thousand wagons of supply, and the might of the English fleet hovered just offshore.
     
    Scots from all over had flocked to defend their country, and the Earl of Arran had twice as many men as the enemy some thirty-six thousand. But they had no guns, only Highland archers; they had no artillery, only spears; and they had no horses. They marched under a white banner proclaiming Afflicte sponse ne obUviscaris "The Holy Church Supplicating Christ."
     
    At Pinkie Clough, beside the town of Musselburgh, some six miles east of Edinburgh, the Earl of Arran dug in to fight. He formed a battle line of four divisions on a piece of high ground, and their glittering spears were like four great fields of ripe barley. Or, as an English eyewitness described them, their ranks and spears were as thick as the spikes of a hedgehog. The black-robed clergy, standing together, were clearly visible, their tonsured heads looking like rows of helmets.
     
    Both sides knew full well what they were fighting for. Somerset himself stepped forward and offered to withdraw if only the Scots would agree to let Mary choose her own husband when she was old enough, and not to make a marriage for her.
     
    The Scots answered by hurling themselves on their foes, heedlessly abandoning their strong position. The English ships fired on them, scattering their archers; the cavalry cut them down. Most of the dead were wounded in the head, because the mounted soldiers could reach no lower with their swords, lopping off heads and hacking necks. Ten thousand Scots were slain, and the dead lay so thick that from a distance they looked like herds of grazing cattle in the green