Edward Duke of Somerset, formerly and better known in Scotland as that Earl of Hertford who led the invasion in the year 1544, had arrived at Newcastle on the 27th of August at the head of fourteen thousand two hundred Englishmen and many foreign auxiliaries, with fifteen pieces of cannon drawn by horses, and nine hundred waggons laden with stores. Sir Francis Fleming was master of the ordnance, and had fourteen hundred pioneers, under Captain John Brem, to clear the way before the guns, to build fascines, and so forth. Master William Patten, who accompanied this army in the quality of judge marshal, a post to which, he had been advanced by the interest of Edward Shelly, in his history[*] of the "Expedition," has given us a minute account of the campaign, and an accurate list of all the commanders in the Protector's army, to aid which thirty-four ships of war and thirty-two transports, under the pennon of Edward Lord Clinton and Say (afterwards high admiral of England) and Sir William Woodhouse, anchored at the mouth of the Tyne.
[*] "The Expedition into Scotland, of the most worthely fortunate Prince Edward, Duke of Somerset, &c., made in the first yere of his Maiestes most prosperous reign, and set out by way of diarie by W. Patten, Londoner. Vivat Victor! Out of the Parsonage of St. Mary Hill in London, this xxviii of January, 1548."
Lord Grey of Wilton, lieutenant of Boulogne, was high marshal and captain-general of the horse, who were all cap-a-pie in full armour, but of a light fashion. Sir Ralf Vane commanded four thousand men-at-arms and demi-lances; and Sir Francis Bryan (in the following year chief governor of Ireland) was captain of two thousand light horse. Sir Thomas Darcy led King Edward VI.'s band of pensioners.
Sir Peiter Mewtas was commander of the Almayners, or German infantry, who were all clad in buff coats and armed with arquebuses.
Don Pedro de Gamboa led the mounted Spanish arquebusiers; and these foreigners, being trained soldiers of fortune, who had served in many wars, were the flower of Somerset's forces. Many of them were veterans who had fought at the siege of Rhey, in 1521, when muskets were first used by the Spaniards, whose infantry were then deemed the finest in Europe.
Edward Shelly led the men-at-arms of Boulogne, who, like the mercenaries, were all trained and veteran soldiers, but dressed in blue doublets, slashed and faced with red. The celebrated Sir Ralf Sadler (whose papers were edited by Sir Walter Scott) was treasurer of this well-ordered army, and Sir James Wilford was provost-marshal.
On the 2nd September the Duke of Somerset entered Scotland, and marched along the eastern coast, keeping carefully in view of his fleet of sixty-four sail, which accompanied him towards the Firth of Forth. Unopposed, he reached that tremendous ravine, the Peaths, which is now spanned by a bridge that is perhaps the greatest in Europe, as it is two hundred and forty feet high by three hundred feet in length. Abrupt, precipitous, and narrow, this ravine formed one of the great passes into Scotland; and, being of easy defence, was deemed "a kind of sluice, by which the tide of war could be loosened or confined at pleasure."
For, an entire day Sir Francis Fleming and his gunners, and Captain Brem with his pioneers, toiled in that narrow and savage gorge to drag through the English artillery and waggons, while the Protector was busy storming several fortresses in the neighbourhood. Among these were the castles of Thornton and Dunglass, belonging to the Lord Home; and Inverwick, a house of the Hamiltons. These strongholds were blown up by gunpowder; but, "before we did so," saith Master Patten, "it would have rued any good housewife's heart to have beholden the great and unmerciful slaughter our men made of the brood geese and good laying hennes, which the wives had penned up in the holes and cellars of the castle [of Dunglass]. The spoil was not rich, to be sure; but of white bread, oaten cakes, and Scottish ale, was indifferent good store, and soon bestowed among my lord's soldiers accordingly."
The English marched in three great columns; each was flanked by horse and artillery; and each piece of cannon had a band of pioneers to guard it and clear the way before it. Somerset led the main body; Warwick still had the vanguard; and Thomas Lord Dacres of Gillesland, Knight of the Garter, led the rear.
Leaving Dunbar on his right, the duke pushed forward through East Lothian to the Tyne, which he crossed by the same old narrow bridge that spans it still; but there not unopposed, for the vassals of the house of Hepburn opened a cannonade of falcons and culverins from the ramparts of Bothwell's castle of Hailes, while a brisk assault was made upon the defiling columns by a famous border marauder named Dandy Kerr, of the house of Fernyherst, whose moss-troopers, after a rough encounter, were routed by the heavily-mounted men-at-arms of Warwick; then, laying the whole country in flames as they advanced, the English marched on until the 7th of September, when they halted at Long Niddry, in Haddingtonshire. There the coast is flat and low; and thus Somerset was enabled to communicate with his fleet, which came to anchor in the roads of Leith.