The Invasions of England

by Edward Foord; Gordon Home

When in 1424 James I., after his long captivity in England, took over the government of Scotland, his energies were mainly directed to internal reform, though he made in 1436 a fruitless attempt to recover Roxburgh. James II. attacked Berwick in 1455, and raided the Border next year. In 1460 Roxburgh was recovered, though James himself was killed by a bursting cannon. England, involved in the Wars of the Roses, could do little. As the price of assistance rendered to the Lancastrians, Scotland regained Berwick, which was retained until 1482, when Prince Richard, afterwards King Richard III., finally recovered it for England.

For thirty years thereafter a precarious peace subsisted between the two kingdoms, but dread and dislike of England were always strong in Scotland, which was also more or less attached to England’s old enemy, France. James IV. interfered in the cause of the adventurer Perkin Warbeck in 1497 without effect, and the Earl of Surrey retaliated by a raid. Hostilities were ended by the Peace of Ayton. In 1503 James married Henry VII.’s daughter Margaret.

For ten years the peace subsisted, but the chronic Border feuds were a constant source of trouble. Henry was suspicious of the frequent passage through his realm of Scotsmen proceeding to France. James was busy endeavouring to form a navy, and his captains, Andrew and Robert Barton and Sir Andrew Wood, were often in conflict with English vessels. It was the rule of those days that navy ships must support themselves, and the English, who were often probably little better, regarded the Scots admirals as pirates. There is little doubt that they did occasionally behave as such.

Up to 1511 the peace lasted, though the fierce and resolute Henry VIII. was a more dangerous neighbour than his father. But in August came an event which precipitated hostilities. It appears that Andrew Barton had made prize of English ships, and Lord Edward Howard, High Admiral of England, with his brother Thomas, attacked him as he was cruising in the English Channel. After a fierce struggle Barton was slain, and his two ships, the Lion and the Jennet Perwyn, were taken. James protested, but Henry haughtily declined to treat upon a matter of piracy. Yet it seems that he released the prisoners, and certainly offered to make fair compensation for the unjustifiable actions of Englishmen. In May, 1512, Lord Dacre and Dr. West appeared in Edinburgh, but at the same time came the French Ambassador, De la Motte, with instructions to enlist, if possible, Scotland on the side of France in the impending struggle with England. The wisdom of making a diversion on England’s rear was obvious. James informed Henry that he could consent to no peace which did not include France. De la Motte came and went between Paris and Edinburgh, and supplies of all kinds were sent from France. To James’s romantic nature Queen Anne’s ring and the message to ‘her true knight,’ begging him to invade England for her sake, were perhaps dearer.

On June 30 Henry VIII. crossed to Calais to invade France, and on July 26 James sent Lyon King-at-Arms to declare war. A squadron of thirteen ships, under the Earl of Arran, was sent into the Irish Sea, perhaps to make a diversion by attacking Ireland. This attempt was a failure. A futile attack was made on Carrickfergus, and then the Scottish fleet disappears from the scene.

The whole fighting population of Scotland was ordered to assemble on the Boroughmuir of Edinburgh. To-day the population of England is eight times that of Scotland. In 1801 it was only five and a half times as great, and in 1513 the discrepancy may have been less. Assuming it to have been the same, and taking the population of England at 4,000,000, that of Scotland would be about 700,000, and the number of fighting men perhaps 100,000; but though this is the figure given by Hall, it is unlikely that more than 50,000 took the field. The English chronicler would naturally incline to exaggeration.

Still, the army was the most formidable that Scotland had ever sent forth. Thanks to France, the Lowlanders were well equipped as regards defensive armour. Hall says that the English arrows had less effect than of old. The Highlanders however, as a whole, lacked mail and consequently efficiency; and the Borderers were unstable and turbulent, and attached more importance to pillage than fighting. The grand Lowland foot-spearmen were, as ever, the backbone of the army, but it lacked anything like a proper proportion of archers and arquebusiers. The artillery was largely composed of fine cast pieces, the work of Robert Borthwick, James’s famous master-gunner. It appears to have included some forty guns in all, but there were few trained artillerymen.

To cover his concentration, James ordered a raid into Northumberland under Lord Home, High Chamberlain of Scotland and Warden of all the Marches. Home has gained a bad reputation in the annals of his country, but it would seem that his fault was not treachery, but mere lack of military capacity. He collected a force estimated by the English writers—probably with exaggeration—at 7,000 men, and did much damage; but on his retreat he was overtaken by a small English force under Sir William Bulmer at Milfield-on-Till, and routed with a loss of 1,000 men.