| Rough Wooing | |||||||
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| Part of theItalian War of 1542–1546 and theAnglo-Scottish Wars | |||||||
 Anglo-Scottish border at the time of the Rough Wooing | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 England | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
TheRough Wooing (Scottish Gaelic:An t-Suirghe Chnaparra; December 1543 – March 1551), also known as theEight Years' War, was part of theAnglo-Scottish Wars of the 16th century.[1][2] Following theEnglish Reformation, the break with the Catholic Church, England attacked Scotland, partly to break theAuld Alliance and prevent Scotland being used as a springboard for future invasion byFrance, partly to weaken Scotland, and partly to force theScottish Parliament to confirm the existing marriage alliance betweenMary, Queen of Scots (born 8 December 1542), and the English heir apparentEdward (born 12 October 1537), son of KingHenry VIII, under the terms of theTreaty of Greenwich of July 1543. An invasion of France was also contemplated.
Henry declared war to force the Scottish Parliament to agree to the planned marriage between Edward, who was six years old at the start of the war, and the infant queen, thereby creating a new alliance between Scotland and England. Upon Edward's accession to the throne in 1547 at the age of nine, the war continued for a time under the direction of theLord High Treasurer, theDuke of Somerset, before Somerset's removal from power in 1549 and replacement by theDuke of Northumberland, who wished for a less costly foreign policy than his predecessor. It was the last major conflict between Scotland and England before theUnion of the Crowns in 1603.
In Scotland, the war was called the "Eight" or "Nine Years' War".[3] The idea of the war as a "wooing" was popularised many years later by SirWalter Scott, to hide the extreme nature of the war.[4] The phrase "Rough Wooing" appeared in several history books from the 1850s onwards.[5]
The phrase appears to derive from a famous remark attributed toGeorge Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly byPatrick Abercromby in his edition ofJean de Beaugué's history of the war: "We liked not the manner of the wooing, and we could not stoop to being bullied into love", or asWilliam Patten reported, "I lyke not thys wooyng."[6] The historianWilliam Ferguson contrasted this jocular nickname with the savagery and devastation of the war,
English policy was simply to pulverise Scotland, to beat her either into acquiescence or out of existence, and Hertford's campaigns resemble nothing so much as Nazitotal warfare; "blitzkrieg", reign of terror, extermination of all resisters, the encouragement of collaborators, and so on.[7]
More recently,Marcus Merriman titled his bookThe Rough Wooings to emphasise the division of the conflict into two or three distinct phases.[8]
In November 1542, a Scottish army suffered a crushing defeat at theBattle of Solway Moss andJames V died soon after.[9] He was succeeded by his six-day old daughter,Mary, Queen of Scots. A plan for an English marriage for Mary proposed by theTreaty of Greenwich was conditionally accepted by the Scottish government led byRegent Arran. However, Arran was slow to advance the marriage due to strong internal factions favouring an alternative alliance with France and the continuance of the Catholic religion in Scotland. The English diplomatRalph Sadler reportedAdam Otterburn's comment on the Scottish opinion of the marriage:
Our people do not like of it. And though the Governor and some of the nobility have consented to it, yet I know that few or none of them do like of it; and our common people do utterly mislike of it. I pray you give me leave to ask you a question: if your lad was a lass, and our lass were a lad, would you then be so earnest in this matter? ... And lykewise I assure you that our nation will never agree to have an Englishman king of Scotland. And though the whole nobility of the realm would consent, yet our common people, and the stones in the street would rise and rebel against it.[10]
The French-leaning faction ofCardinal Beaton met atLinlithgow in July 1543 to oppose Regent Arran, and signed the "Secret Bond" against the marriage.[11] Mary and her mother, Mary of Guise, moved fromLinlithgow Palace to the security ofStirling Castle.[12] Regent Arran celebrated the Treaty of Greenwich atHolyrood Abbey on 25 August 1543.[13] A kind of civil war continued with the Regent opposed by the Douglas faction in the east andMatthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox in the west, with aBattle at Glasgow.
The Scots faced the anger of Henry VIII, after theParliament of Scotland renounced the Treaty of Greenwich in December 1543. Five days later, on 20 December, war was declared in Edinburgh by the messengerHenry Ray, Berwick Pursuivant.[14] Henry VIII released some Scottish noblemen who had been captured at the Battle of Solway Moss on licence, hoping they would build consensus for the royal marriage. In March 1544, Henry sentRichmond Herald to thePrivy Council of Scotland to demand their return.[15]
Major hostilities began with anattack on Edinburgh on 3 May 1544, led by theEarl of Hertford andViscount Lisle.[16] Hertford had instructions to burn Edinburgh and issue Henry's proclamation of 24 March 1544, which laid the blame onCardinal Beaton's "sinister enticement" of Regent Arran.[17] Hertford considered establishing an English garrison atLeith but the English Privy Council vetoed this plan. Henry VIII also asked him to destroySt Andrews, but Hertford pointed out the extra distance would be troublesome. After burningSt Monans on the north side of theFirth of Forth and taking fishing boats for landing-craft, the English army landed atGranton, then occupied Leith.[18] Hertford parleyed withAdam Otterburn, theProvost of Edinburgh, but he had been instructed not to make terms or accept a surrender. The next day the troops entered Edinburgh'sCanongate, and set the city on fire.Edinburgh Castle was defended by cannon fire commanding theRoyal Mile. Hertford decided not to lay siege but thoroughly burn the city. According to the English contemporary account, all the houses within the suburbs and city walls were burnt includingHolyroodhouse and theAbbey. The English ships at Leith were loaded with looted goods and sailed with the capturedUnicorn andSalamander. The army returned to England by land, burning towns and villages along the way.[19]
Soon after the English force had landed, Regent Arran released theEarl of Angus andGeorge Douglas of Pittendreich who had been imprisoned inBlackness Castle. Although they had been supporters of the English marriage, Arran now needed the support ofClan Douglas against an English invasion.[20] Following this attack,Sir William Eure and Ralph Eure made raids across the border fromBerwick upon Tweed, burning houses and buying the loyalty of Scots who became "assured men".[21]
Arran's power struggle against Mary of Guise led to internal conficts. In September 1544, John, 5th Lord Borthwick, an ally of Arran, was captured and held atDalkeith Castle by George Douglas. His wife, Isobel Lindsay, Lady Borthwick, invitedPatrick Hepburn, 3rd Earl of Bothwell toBorthwick Castle and imprisoned him there until her husband was released in an exchange. A spy told William Eure that Bothwell came to the castle because "the Lady Borthwick is fair, he came to her for love, but she made him to be handled and kept".Thomas Wharton heard that Bothwell was invited to a newly-built lodging outside the castle, where he was taken by Gavin Borthwick.[22]
Against these English invasions, the Scots won a victory at theBattle of Ancrum Moor in February 1545.[23] Scotland was included in the Treaty of Camp, or Treaty of Ardres, of 6 June 1546, which concluded theItalian War of 1542–1546. This brought 18 months of peace between England and Scotland.[24] In May 1546, Fife lairds had murdered the Francophile Cardinal Beaton atSt Andrews Castle. These Protestant lairds became known as the Castilians, andgarrisoned the castle against Regent Arran, hoping for English military support.[25]
Henry VIII died in January 1547 and the war continued under theLord Protector Somerset for Edward VI. The English had established a fort atLangholm in the Scottish borders; unable to secure its return by diplomacy, Regent Arran reduced it by force on 17 July 1547 following an unsuccessful attempt in June. At the same time, a French naval force took St Andrews Castle from the Castilians.[26] On 24 July Arran ordered seven signal beacons to be prepared to warn of an expected English invasion by sea. The first was atSt Abb's Head, the second at Dowhill nearFast Castle, next on the Doun Law nearSpott,North Berwick Law, 'Dounprenderlaw', atArthur's Seat or Edinburgh Castle, and at 'Binning's Craig' nearLinlithgow. The keepers of these 'bailes' were instructed to have horsemen ready to carry news of the invasion to the next beacon if it came in daylight. The towns of Lothian, the borders and the Forth valley were ordered to ensure that all men between sixty and sixteen living in sight of the beacons were ready to respond to the signal.[27]
An English invasion in September 1547 won a major encounter at theBattle of Pinkie close toMusselburgh, and put much of southern Scotland under military occupation.[28]Haddington was occupied, along withBroughty Castle near Dundee. Beginning on 5 April 1548,Sir Robert Bowes built a fort atLauder.[29] Increased French military support for the Scots included the services of military engineers likeMigliorino Ubaldini who strengthened Edinburgh Castle andDunbar. An English commanderWilliam Grey, 13th Baron Grey de Wilton burnt Musselburgh on 9 June 1548 andDunbar on 12 June. On 16 June 10,000 French troops arrived at Leith, and besieged Haddington with artillery.[30]
Following theTreaty of Haddington, Mary was taken to safety in France in August 1548 and betrothed to theDauphinFrancis.[31][32]Piero Strozzi began to fortify Leith with 300 Scottish workmen. Strozzi had been shot in the leg at Haddington and was carried around the works in a chair by four men.[33]
With the fortification ofDunglass, English commanders includingThomas Holcroft began to write of the "King's Pale" in Scotland, anticipating that Edward VI would receive feudal rents from the occupied area of Southern Scotland, extending from Dunglass to Berwick, and Lauder to Dryburgh. Landowners would be replaced by Scottish "assured men" or English men.[34]
By May 1549, the English army on the frontier included 3,200 soldiers with 1,700 German and 500 Spanish and Italian mercenaries.[35] With more financial and military assistance from France brought byPaul de Thermes, the Scots were able to maintain resistance.André de Montalembert, sieur d'Essé, captured the island ofInchkeith on 19 June 1549.
The English abandoned Haddington on 19 September 1549. Hostilities ended with Scotland comprehended in theTreaty of Boulogne [fr] of 24 March 1550,[36] which was primarily between France and England.[37] Peace was declared in England on Saturday 29 March 1550; a week earlier thePrivy Council had sent secret orders to English commanders telling them not to move cannon that would be abandoned to the Scots.[38]
Conditions of the peace included the return of prisoners and the demolition andslighting of border fortifications. As part of the treaty, six French and English hostages or pledges were to be exchanged on 7 April. These were, for France: Mary of Guise's brother, theMarquis de Mayenne;Louis de la Trémoille;Jean de Bourbon, Comte d'Enghien;François de Montmorency;Jean d'Annebaut, son of the Admiral of France;François de Vendôme, Vidame de Chartres, were sent to London. For England:Henry Brandon;Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford;George Talbot;John Bourchier, 5th Baron FitzWarren;Henry Fitzalan;Henry Stanley.
Francois de Seguenville-Fumel, sieur de Thors, brought the peace treaty and ratifications to Scotland in April 1550.[39] Mary of Guise and Regent Arran gave De Thors a gold chain, made by the Edinburgh goldsmithJohn Mosman.[40]
The hostages at both courts were well entertained and most had returned home by August 1550.[41] In France,Henry II organised a triumphal entry toRouen on 1 October 1550. Mary of Guise and Mary, Queen of Scots took part.[42] There were banners depicting the French victories in Scotland; and a herald recited:
Voila Dondy, Edimpton, Portugray,
OùTermes prist & Essé le degrè,
Pour devenir chevalier de ton ordre.
Sire, voyez ceste Ysle de Chevaulx,
Voyez aussy le fort chasteau de Fargues,
O quants assaulx, escarmouches & cargues,
Voila aussi le fort pres de Donglass,
Et plus deca ou est assis ce bourg,
Est le chasteau conquis de Rossebourg.[43]
Here areDundee,Haddington, Broughty Craig,
Wherede Thermes, with d'Essé,
becameknights of your order.
Sire, seeInchkeith,
Also see strongFast Castle,
So much assault, skirmish and hassle,
Here also close toDunglass,
Further the side where sits the burgh
the castle conquered isRoxburgh.[44]
A separate peace negotiation between Scotland and theHoly Roman Empire was required, chiefly so that trade and piracy disputes could be resolved. In August 1550, Regent Arran taxed forty of the chief trading burghs of Scotland to fund an embassy toCharles V. This treaty was concluded in Antwerp by Thomas, Master of Erskine on 1 May 1551.[45] The Treaty of Norham in 1551 formally ended the war and the English military presence withdrew from Scotland.[46] By October 1551, Mary of Guise herself was welcomed in England and she travelled from Portsmouth to meet Edward VI in London.[47]
The peace, concluded atNorham Castle and church on 10 June 1551, was negotiated by Thomas Erskine, Master of Erskine, Lord Maxwell, SirRobert Carnegie ofKinnaird, andRobert Reid,Bishop of Orkney withthe seigneur de Lansac, representingHenry II of France. The English delegation includedSir Robert Bowes, Sir Leonard Beckwith,Sir Thomas Challoner andRichard Sampson, Bishop ofLichfield and Coventry.[48] The terms included: the English abandoning their holdings in Scotland; the border andDebatable Lands to revert to original lines and usage;Edrington and fishing rights on the Tweed returned to Scotland; all captives, pledges, and hostages to be returned.[49] Edward VI ratified the treaty on 30 June and Mary on 14 August 1551.[50]
The English objective to forward a union between Scotland and England had wavering support among some sectors of the Scots population. These Scots may not have relished French domination of Scottish affairs or may have seen the alliance with England as furthering the Protestant cause. A number of books and pamphlets were published in England aspropaganda to encourage such feelings. They focused on three aspects of the conflict: long-standing debates about the rights of the English crown in Scotland, the perceived injustice of the Scottish rejection of the Treaty of Greenwich, and the merit of the Protestant religion. The English commander at Broughty,Andrew Dudley, hoped to distribute Bibles printed in English, which were not freely available in Scotland. Scotland countered the English propaganda with theComplaynt of Scotland, probably printed in France in 1549.[51] Another work,Ane Resonyng byWilliam Lamb, did not make it to the press.[52]
The first English work was written before the Battle of Solway Moss:A Declaration, conteyning the iust causes and consyderations, of this present warre with the Scottis, wherein alsoo appereth the trewe & right title, that the kings most royall maiesty hath to the soveraynitie of Scotlande. A journal of Hertford's raid on Edinburgh of 1544 was printed asThe Late expedicion of the Earl of Hertford into Scotland. A contribution by a Scot in England,John Elder, remained unpublished. It was intended to preface a detailed description and map of Scotland. Elder claimed that the northern lords of Scotland, who were 'red-shanks' of Irish descent, would be loyal to Henry VIII, and reject the French culture imposed by Cardinal Beaton and the Scottish court.[53] (Elder later became the tutor ofLord Darnley.)
Somerset began a new round in 1547 shortly before the Battle of Pinkie by publishing the ScotJames Henrisoun'sAn Exhortacion to the Scottes to conforme themselfes to the honourable, Expedient & godly Union betweene the two realmes of Englande & Scotland. It was followed by Somerset's printedProclamation of 4 September 1547, and theEpistle or Exhortation of February 1548. The Pinkie campaign was described byWilliam Patten inThe Expedition into Scotland of the most worthy Prince, Edward Duke of Somerset. A Welshman, Nicholas Bodrugan, added hisEpitome of the title of the kynges majestie of Englande, which looks back toGeoffrey of Monmouth to justify English claims and seeks to reassure Scottish fears that the civil law of England was harsher than Scots law.[54]David Lindsay's poemThe Tragedy of the Cardinal was published in London with an account of the death of George Wishart, with a preface encouraging religious reform byRobert Burrant.[55] In October 1548,Sir John Mason and other clerks were rewarded £20 for their archival researches into "records of matters of Scotland" for these tracts.[56]
Lord Methven understood the effect of the English propaganda and raised his concern with Mary of Guise in June 1548.[57] The Protestant Fife lairds who had killed David Beaton and held the Regent's son,James Hamilton hostage at St Andrews Castle gambled on English assistance. InEast Lothian, three friends of the Protestant preacherGeorge Wishart,John Cockburn of Ormiston,Ninian Cockburn, andAlexander Crichton of Brunstane lent their support to England.Lord Gray and theMaster of Ruthven were also happy to deal with the English.
Other Scots were induced to sign bonds and take payments from the English and became "assured men". A sample bond for assurance was drafted by a Scot,Henry Balnaves, at St Andrews Castle in December 1546.[58] That mostly happened in the war zones of the border and around English garrisons. After the war ended, many Scots were accused of assurance or collaboration as a crime; 192 citizens of Dundee were acquitted in 1553, and the whole town of Dumfries received a pardon.[59] In July 1549 with English losses in France the assurance system ceased.[60] Henrisoun, observing recent developments, questioned "Whether it were better to conquer hearts without charges, or burn, and build forts at great charges, which will never conquer Scotland?"[61]
At the end of the war, the French celebrated their successful intervention atfêtes like the entry to Rouen. The details of these events were published in illustrated festival books. In England a number of the English commanders had their portraits painted celebrating their martial prowess, includingJohn Luttrell,James Wilford,Thomas Wyndham, and a picture (now lost) was made to commemorate Edward Shelley who waskilled in action at Pinkie.[62] Exploits during the siege of Haddington were later celebrated by the Elizabethan authorUlpian Fulwell in 1575.
