Sir Miles Partridge : Battle of Pinkie Cleugh : Knighted at Roxburgh 28 September 1547 Blog :
Sir Mile Partridge (died 26 February 1552) was an English courtier during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI . During the reign of Henry VIII, Miles Partridge often played Chess against King Henry VIII. On one occasion, when playing with the King, staked 100 pounds against the Celebrated Ring of Bells and the Bell House of Jesus Chapel in the Churchyard of St Paul's Cathedral, Miles won the game, and had the Bells from the Cathedral taken down and Broken. He was granted the manor of Almondsbury in 1544, and served as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1546 to 1547.
He accompanied the Protector to Scotland in 1547, fought at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh on 10 Sept., and was knighted at Roxburgh on 28 Sept 1547.
Perhaps one reason why the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh (cleugh being a narrow glen or valley in Scots-Gaelic) has been all but forgotten is because its political consequences were so slight. England’s ambitious Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, had come to Scotland to win a bride, at the point of a sword, for his young master, the 9-year-old King Edward VI. In that, however, he would fail–Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was spirited away to France, dashing English hopes of a union of the two crowns.
Pinkie Cleugh was the first ‘modern’ battle on British soil–featuring combined arms, cooperation between infantry, artillery and cavalry and, most remarkably, a naval bombardment in support of land forces. Such an interpretation places Britain in the mainstream of military development 100 years earlier than is generally accepted.
