The Protector Somerset, to overcome or to punish the opposition of the Scots to the marriage of Mary Stuart with Edward VI, invaded Scotland at the end of the summer of 1547 with eighteen thousand men, supported by a fleet. The Scots mustered at Musselburgh, a town on the water five or six miles east of Edinburgh, under the Earls of Arran, Angus, and Huntly, each of whom, according to Buchanan, had ten thousand men, and there the issue was tried on the 10th of September. The northern army abandoned an impregnable position, and their superior, but ill-managed, and partly ill-composed, force, after successfully resisting a cavalry charge, was put to flight by the English, who had an advantage in cannon and cavalry as well as generalship. A hideous slaughter followed; Leslie admits that, in the chase and battle, there were slain above ten thousand of his countrymen. Patten, a Londoner who saw and described the fight, says that the one anxiety of the Scots was lest the English should get away, and that they were so sure of victory that, the night before the battle, they fell "to playing at dice for certain of our noblemen and captains of fame" (cf. stanza 3), as the French diced for prisoners on the eve of Agincourt. The dates are wrong in 11,2, 51; Huntly is rightly said to have been made prisoner, 71.
6, 8. When the Scots were once turned, says Patten, "it was a wonder to see how soon and in how sundry sorts they were scattered; the place they stood on like a wood of staves, strewed on the ground as rushes in a chamber, unpassable, they lay so thick, for either horse or man." Some made their course along the sands by the Frith, towards Leith; some straight toward Edinburgh; "and the residue, and (as we noted then) the most, of them toward Dalkeith, which way, by means of the marsh, our horsemen were worst able to follow."[foot-note]
The battle is known also by the name of Pinkie or Pinkie Clench, appellations of an estate, a burn and a hill ("a hill called Pinkincleuche," Leslie), near or within the field of operations.
Percy remarks upon 33: "It should seem from hence that there was somewhat of a uniform among our soldiers even then." There are jackets white and red in No 166, 293. Sir William Stanley has ten thousand red coats at his order in 'Lady Bessy,' vv 593, 809-11, 937 f, Percy Manuscript, III, 344, 352, 358; Sir John Savage has fifteen hundred white hoods in the same piece, v. 815.
This page most recently updated on 07-Apr-2011, 19:57:26. Return to main index
