Iron Courtship: The Rough Wooing and the War for Scotland, 1547
The Tudor court had never been known for sentiment, but when England turned to woo Scotland in the mid-sixteenth century, it brought not roses but fire and steel. The campaign later dubbed the Rough Wooing was less a marriage proposal than an assault with intent. And in 1547, the courtship reached its most brutal crescendo in the blood-soaked fields near Musselburgh, where English ambition, Scottish resistance, and the ghosts of centuries of enmity collided with terrible clarity.
The war’s origin was dynastic, but its execution was anything but courtly. In 1542, following the death of James V of Scotland—exhausted and broken by defeat at Solway Moss—his only heir was a six-day-old girl: Mary, Queen of Scots. Sensing opportunity, the English king, Henry VIII, proposed a marriage between the infant Mary and his own son, Edward, securing a permanent union of the two crowns. The Scots, wary of England’s long history of coercion, rejected the proposal outright. Their government, led by Regent James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, reaffirmed the Auld Alliance with France and sent Mary to be raised in the French court.
Henry, insulted and infuriated, abandoned diplomacy. What followed was a campaign of devastation, intended to force Scotland’s hand through fear and attrition. Beginning in 1544, English forces under Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford—later Duke of Somerset—burned their way through the Lowlands, sacking Edinburgh, Leith, and numerous abbeys and villages. The Scots named it aptly: the Rough Wooing.
By 1547, with Henry VIII dead and Edward VI a boy-king under Somerset’s regency, England redoubled its efforts. Somerset, now Lord Protector, believed that a show of overwhelming force would break Scotland’s will and cement English dominance once and for all. He assembled an invasion force of 18,000 men, supported by a fleet of 30 warships—a hybrid army of English veterans, German mercenaries, and Spanish arquebusiers.
Scotland, fractured and outnumbered, responded with defiance. Regent Arran, supported by the charismatic Archbishop John Hamilton and military commander James Hamilton of Finnart, rallied a force of roughly 22,000 men, including Highlanders, borderers, and pikemen drawn from across the kingdom. Despite being numerically superior, they lacked the artillery and gunpowder arms that gave the English their edge.
The two armies met on 10 September 1547 at Pinkie Cleugh, near Musselburgh. The battlefield was an open plain—a killing ground ideal for English cavalry and firepower. Somerset opened with cannon and naval bombardment, driving the Scots toward the River Esk. When the Scottish pikemen advanced, they were met by a withering storm of musket and bow fire. English cavalry under Lord Grey completed the rout, cutting down fleeing men in what historian Marcus Merriman calls “the first modern battle on British soil” (The Rough Wooings, 2000, p. 208).
The slaughter was immense. Estimates of Scottish dead range from 6,000 to 10,000, with thousands more taken prisoner. It was the single worst defeat for Scotland since Flodden. “Pinkie Cleugh,” writes Jenny Wormald, “was not merely a military disaster—it was a psychic wound that reaffirmed Scotland’s precariousness in the face of English ambition” (Scotland: A History, 2005, p. 161).
Yet, for all its horror and scale, the battle did not achieve its strategic goal. The Scots, far from capitulating, became more entrenched in their alliance with France. Mary was smuggled to the continent in 1548, betrothed to the French Dauphin. French troops under André de Montalembert, Sieur d’Esse, landed in Scotland and helped fortify key towns. The English held several fortresses in the Borders and Fife, but they were besieged and harassed relentlessly.
The Rough Wooing continued in bitter, attritional fashion until 1551, when a change in leadership and war-weariness led England to negotiate peace under Mary I. The marriage plan was formally abandoned. Scotland remained independent, and Mary eventually became queen of France.
In the end, the war accomplished none of its political aims. It left behind a trail of ruined abbeys, shattered towns, and a deeper wedge between England and Scotland. It might have been said it best: “There are some wars whose names betray their purpose, and some whose names betray their shame. This one managed both.” The Rough Wooing was a lesson in the limits of power—how conquest by marriage can turn to conquest by sword, and how neither can win a heart unwilling to be held.
References:
- Merriman, Marcus. The Rough Wooings: Mary Queen of Scots, 1542–1551. Tuckwell Press, 2000.
- Wormald, Jenny. “The Rough Wooings.” In Scotland: A History, edited by Jenny Wormald. Oxford University Press, 2005.
- Macdougall, Norman. James V. Tuckwell Press, 1997.
- Sadler, Ralph. State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler. Edinburgh, 1809.
- Dawson, Jane E.A. Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587. Edinburgh University Press, 2007.