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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

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Yet, in one respect, the battle was highly significant. Historians have tended to regard the British Isles as a military backwater in the 16th century, but a close examination of the campaign suggests that 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.

Upon his death in January 1547, the megalomaniac English King Henry VIII had bequeathed to his nation an ongoing war with Scotland. His major diplomatic ambitions had been in continental Europe, but securing the volatile northern border with Scotland was an essential prerequisite for campaigning in France. The ideal solution to Henry’s problem would have been a union of the two crowns through the marriage of his young son, Edward, to the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. Certainly, in that time of political and religious upheaval there were many Scottish nobles who were not unreceptive to the idea. However, Henry’s approach to courtship–the ‘rough wooing’ that saw English armies rampage throughout the border country, behaving with the utmost brutality in an attempt to intimidate Scotland into acquiescence–drove many potential allies into the pro-French camp.

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After Henry’s death, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Protector of England as regent to the child King Edward VI, devised a new strategy to win the ‘bride’ for his master. He hoped to not only successfully invade Scotland but also establish permanent garrisons in strategic positions across the country, holding it in virtual subjugation.

William Patten, secretary to the English commander, wrote an eyewitness account of Somerset’s campaign, The Expedition Into Scotland, 1547, in January of 1548, while events were still fresh in his mind. In marked contrast to the vague accounts by monastic chroniclers, 16th-century record-keepers like Patten left behind more detailed accounts, which make it clear that Renaissance battles were more sophisticated than their medieval predecessors. Patten describes a campaign that would not seem unfamiliar to a student of the Napoleonic wars.