JAMES l? TO ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARK 51
success on his own behalf. The Scottish nation, torn at this time by rival factions, and
destitute of any leader or guide, could only submit in passive indignation to his ruthless
vengeance. Yet, with their usual pertinacity, they shortly after mustered aboltt thirteen
hundred men, who “raid into England and brunt and herijt certane townes on the bordouris
vnto Tilmouth; ” and, on the twelfth of July following, the Earl of Angus was
proclaimed lieutenant, and commanded the realm to follow him in an hour’s warning,
“ with foure dayis victuall, to pass on their ald enemies of Ingland.”
During the following year 1545-6, Edinburgh Castle was for a brief period the scene
of Wishart’s imprisonment, after his seizure by the Earl of Bothwell, and delivery into
the hands of Cardinal Beaton, at Elphinstone Tower ; an ancient keep, situated in East
Lothian, about two miles from the village of Tranent. A wretched dungeon, under the
great hall of Elphinstone, is fitill pointed out as the place of Wishart’s imprisonment, as
well as another room, in which the Cardinal slept at the same period. The burning of
Wishart immediately afterwards at St Andrews, as well as the death of the Cardinal, by
the hands of Wishart’s friends, which 80 speedily followed, are facts familiar to the
student of Scottish history.
The death of Henry VIII. in 1547 tended to accelerate the renewal of his project for
enforcing the union of the neighbouring kingdoms, by the marriage of his son with the
Scottish Queen. Henry, on his deathbed, urged the prosecution of the war with Scotland;
and the councillors of the young King Edward VI. lost no time in completing their
arrangements for the purpose.
The Scottish Court was at this time at Stirling, but the council made the most
vigorouB preparations for the defence of the kingdom. A proclamation was issued on the
19th of March, requiring all the lieges to be ready, on forty days’ warning, to muster at
their summons, with victuals for one month ; and on the 25th of May, this was followed
by another order for preparing beacon fires on all the high hills along the coast, to give
warning of the approach of the enemy’s fleet. The more urgently to summon the people
to arms, the Earl of Arran adopted an expedient seldom resorted to, except in cases of
imminent peril; he caused the Kery Cross to be borne by the heralds throughout the
realm, summoning all men, as well spiritual as temporal, between sixty and sixteen, to
be ready to repair to the city of Edinburgh, weil bodin in feir of weir, at the first notice of
the English ships.*
. In the beginning of September, the Earl of Hertford, now Duke of Somerset, and
Lord Protector of England, during the minority of his nephew Edward VL, again eutered
Scotland at the head of a numerous army; while a fleet of about sixty sail co-operated
with him, by a descent on the Scottish coast. At his advance, he found the Scottish army
assembled in great force to oppose him, whereupon he wrote to the Governor of Scotland,
offering for the sake of peace, that while he still insisted on the hand of the Queen for his
royal master, he would agree to conditions by which she should remain within Scotland
until she were fit for marriage.
The Scottish leaders, however, were resolute in rejecting this alliance with England at.
whatever cost ; and in proof of the strong feeling of opposition that existed, it may be
mentioned, that the Scottish army included a large body of priests and monks, who
Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 33. ’ Keith’e History, vol. i. p. 1% Tytler, vol. vi. p. 23.
