#rough wooing

November 22nd 1547 saw 3,000 Scottish troops besiege Broughty Castle, held by an English force.

Second mention of the day for "The Rough Wooing" when Henry VIII tried to secure a marriage between Mary and his own infant son, Edward.

In 1547 Lord Gray was a supporter of the invading English army against the cause of Mary Queen of Scots. The English arrived by sea at Broughty Castle on 20th September 1547, two weeks after they had defeated the Scottish Army at the Battle of Pinkie. The castle was surrendered to them, and the English immediately set to work on improving its fairly weak defences, mainly by digging a defensive ditch across the landward approach to the castle.

On February 27th 1545 the Battle of Ancrum Moor took place.

This was a battle during the "Rough Wooing" as King Henry VIII of England tried to persuade the Scots that the 3 year old Mary Queen of Scots to marry his son. The decisive Scottish victory would put a temporary end to English incursions into the Scottish border and lowlands.

After failed negotiation with the Scottish king, in October 1542 Henry VIII sent an English army some 20,000 into Scotland, where they burnt Kelso and Roxburgh. In reply, James V of Scotland raised an army of some 18,000 troops in the west and headed for Carlisle, but was defeated in November at Solway Moss by a much smaller English force. After the death of James V, Henry aimed to unify the two kingdoms by seeking the marriage of the then, one year old Scottish Queen Mary to his own son, Prince Edward. When his proposals failed he pursued the matter through force of arms - the so called 'rough wooing'.

As part of this campaign, in February 1545 two of Henry's northern commanders, Euer and Laiton, again crossed the border, this time with some 5000 troops. The army plundered Melrose town and burn down the abbey, then returned towards Jedburgh. In response the Earl of Angus raised local forces. At first outnumbered, he manoeuvred but would not engage the invaders. Once joined by other forces, including the Earl of Arran, he had more than 1200 troops. The Scots now considered their army strong enough to act and at Ancrum Moor they totally defeated the far larger English army.

On September 10th 1547 the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh was fought near Edinburgh.

Isolated since his break from Rome and Catholic Europe Henry VIII sought to secure his northern borders though an alliance with Scotland. Henry’s proposal involved the marriage of his son, Prince Edward to the young Mary Queen of Scots.

When the Scottish Parliament rejected Henry’s overtures, he sought to change their mind through a show of force by waging war in what became known as the ‘Rough Wooing’.

When Henry died in 1547, the Duke of Somerset, uncle to the new King Edward VI, was now effectively ruling England as its Lord Protector. Like Henry, Somerset continued with Henry's policy, and so the Rough Wooing would continue, but this time it would get really rough!

Somerset gathered the English army at Berwick before marching his force of around 18,000 men north, along the east coast road to Edinburgh, shadowed along the coast be some 30 war ships.

It fell to the Earl of Arran to organise the Scottish defences, who managed to muster an army estimated at 22,000 strong in response to the English invasion. Moving out of Edinburgh, Arran organised his troops on the west bank of the River Esk, blocking Somerset’s march on the Scottish capital. With the Firth of Forth to his left, he sited some of his artillery pieces out into the estuary to try and keep the English warships at bay.

The main action began on 10th September 1547 with a charge by the English cavalry which was driven off by the Scottish pikemen.

The artillery pieces from both sides were now brought into the action, including the canons from the English ships lying offshore. Battered now from three sides and unable to respond, the Scottish resistance began to crumble.

In the last pitched battle to be fought between English and Scottish armies, the English offered precious little mercy to the retreating Scots. Estimates claim Scottish losses at around 6,000, earning this epic defeat the title of ‘Black Saturday’.

On May 7th 1544 Henry VIII sent the Earl of Hertford and an army into Scotland in an attempt to force the marriage of his son Edward, and Mary, Queen of Scots.

This is another one of those posts where dates may differ from source to source.

In the few years following Mary's inheritance of the Crown of Scotland, Henry VIII, scenting an opportunity to take total control of Scotland by forcibly marrying her to his son Edward, would try to follow up his army's victory at Solway Moss.

Initially, he tried diplomatic means. A brace of Scottish Lords had been captured after the battle, and he expended a good deal of charm and gold on them to persuade them of the benefits of a long-term alliance through the marriage of the baby Queen and Henry's own heir, Edward.

In addition, there had always been Scottish nobles who favoured alliance with England over France, and, as the Reformation that James V had skilfully held at bay began to creep into Scotland, their views became stronger.

The majority of the Scots, however, and their French-born Queen-Dowager, Marie of Guise would have none of it. Marie was not appointed Regent, that honour initially fell to James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, the young Queen's nearest male kinsman, but Marie knew how to play a long game, and, spent her time working out the best way to keep her daughter safe.

Known as the War of the Rough Wooing, Henry sent wave after wave of troops, led by his brother-in-law, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford. Hertford scored some notable victories, including the burning of Edinburgh, and the massacre that was the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547, but had neither the money nor the men to undertake the wholesale occupation of the country needed to forcibly annex Scotland to England.

The Scots sought help from the French, to defeat the English and in June 1548 thousands of French troops arrived at the port of Leith in Edinburgh and attacked Haddington with artillery.

The price of this French support was that on 7th July, the Scots and French signed the Treaty of Haddington. This promised that Mary Stuart would marry the Dauphin Francis - the heir to the French throne.

The Earl of Arran then persuaded the Scottish Parliament to favour a French marriage for the Queen. He was rewarded for this with a French Duchy (a piece of territory) - he became the Duke of Châtelherault.

The French fleet, which had carried the soldiers, sailed to Dumbarton. It subsequently departed to France with the young Mary and her four young attendants The Four Mary's  Seton, Mary Livingstone and Fleming.

In the spring of 1551, Scots breathed a sigh of relief as a brutal military conflict with England was formally ended by a treaty signed at Castle in Northumberland.

The conflict was once known in Scotland as the Eight or Nine Year’s War, historians point to the Earl of Huntly, who remarked that he ‘did not so much mislike the match as the rough manner of wooing’ and thus gave the name to the campaign, for the origins of the name "The Rough Wooing" but the idea of the war as a ‘wooing’ was popularised by Sir Walter Scott. By the mid-19th century the term had began to appear in history books.

On February 27th 1545 the Battle of Ancrum Moor took place.

This was a battle during the "Rough Wooing" as King Henry VIII of England tried to persuade the Scots that the 3 year old Mary Queen of Scots to marry his son. The decisive Scottish victory would put a temporary end to English incursions into the Scottish border and lowlands.

After failed negotiation with the Scottish king, in October 1542 Henry VIII sent an English army some 20,000 into Scotland, where they burnt Kelso and Roxburgh. In reply, James V of Scotland raised an army of some 18,000 troops in the west and headed for Carlisle, but was defeated in November at Solway Moss by a much smaller English force. After the death of James V, Henry aimed to unify the two kingdoms by seeking the marriage of the then, one year old Scottish Queen Mary to his own son, Prince Edward. When his proposals failed he pursued the matter through force of arms - the so called 'rough wooing'.

As part of this campaign, in February 1545 two of Henry's northern commanders, Euer and Laiton, again crossed the border, this time with some 5000 troops. The army plundered Melrose town and burn down the abbey, then returned towards Jedburgh. In response the Earl of Angus raised local forces. At first outnumbered, he manoeuvred but would not engage the invaders. Once joined by other forces, including the Earl of Arran, he had more than 1200 troops. The Scots now considered their army strong enough to act and at Ancrum Moor they totally defeated the far larger English army.

November 22nd 1547 saw 3,000 Scottish troops besiege Broughty Castle, held by an English force.

Second mention of the day for  "The Rough Wooing" when Henry VIII tried to secure a marriage between Mary and his own infant son, Edward.

In 1547 Lord Gray was a supporter of the invading English army against the cause of Mary Queen of Scots. The English arrived by sea at Broughty Castle on 20th September 1547, two weeks after they had defeated the Scottish Army at the Battle of Pinkie. The castle was surrendered to them, and the English immediately set to work on improving its fairly weak defences, mainly by digging a defensive ditch across the landward approach to the castle.