Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/319

A.D. 1547.] who had never been engaged—fled en masse. "Therewith then turned all the whole rout," says Patten; "cast down their weapons, ran out of their wards, off with their jacks, and with all that ever they might, betook them to the race that their governor began. Our men, with a universal cry of 'They fly! they fly!' pursued after in chase amain, and thereto so eagerly, and with such fierceness, that they overtook many, and spared, indeed, but few. But when they were once turned, it was a wonder indeed to see how soon, and in how sundry sorts, they were scattered. The place they stood on, like a wood of staves strewed on the ground as rushes in a chamber, impassable, they lay so thick, for either horse or man. Here, at the first, had they let fall all their pikes; after that everywhere scattered swords, bucklers, daggers, jacks, and all things else that either was of any weight, or might be any let to their course."

The rout was general, and the slaughter terrible, some making off for Leith, some direct for Edinburgh by fields or woods as they could, and others endeavoured to cross the marsh and reach Dalkeith. The English horse pursued them wherever they could follow; and the description of Patten may show how mercilessly Somerset repeated the bloody practices of his campaigns under Henry's fell orders. "Some lay flat in a furrow as though they were dead, thereby past by of our men untouched; as I heard say, the Earl of Angus confessed he crouched till his horse happened to be brought him. Other some to stay in the river lowering down his body, his head under the root of a willow tree, with scarce his nose above water for breath. A shift but no succour it was to many that had their sculls on, at the stroke of the follower, to shrink with their heads into their shoulders, like a tortoise into his shell. Others again, for their more lightness, cast away shoes and doublets, and ran in their shirts; and some also seen in this race all breathless to fall flat down, and have run themselves to death. Soon began a pitiful sight of the dead corpses lying dispersed abroad; some their legs off, some but houghed, and left lying half dead, some thrust quite through the body, others the arms cut off, divers their necks half asunder, many their heads cloven, of sundry the brains pushed out, some others again their heads quite off, with other thousand kinds of killing. And thus, with blood and slaughter of the enemy, this chase was continued five miles in length westward from the place of their standing, which was on the fallow fields of Underesk, until Edinburgh Park, and well nigh to the gates of the town itself, and unto Leith; and in breadth nigh four miles from the Frith sands, up towards Dalkeith southward. In all which space, the dead bodies lay as thick as a man may note cattle grazing, in a full replenished pasture. The river all ran red with blood, so that in the same chase were counted, as well by some of our men that somewhat diligently did mark it, as by some of them taken prisoners, that very much did lament it, to have been slain above 13,000. In all this compass of ground, what with weapons, arms, hands, legs, heads, blood, and dead bodies, their flight might easily have been traced to every of their three refuges. And for the smallness of our number, and shortness of the time, which was scant five hours, from one till nigh six, the mortality was so great, as it was thought the like aforetime not to have been seen."

Great numbers of men of rank and station were slain as well as of the commonalty, and only 1,500 prisoners made. When the wretched fugitives who had escaped had got into Edinburgh or some other retreat, the heart of Somerset professed to feel pity, and he called back his troops to plunder the Scottish camp. They seem to have found plenty of provisions, and in the tents of the chief officers good wine and some silver plate. They stripped naked the bodies of the slain over all the space where they fell, and of coats of mail and other armour and arms more than 30,000 pieces. They found thirty pieces of ordnance, and amongst the prisoners taken was the Earl of Huntly, lord chancellor of the kingdom, who had sent the challenge to Somerset; the Masters of Buchan, Erskine, and Graham, the Scottish historians assert to have been put to death in cold blood, after having surrendered on promise of quarter. The battle became named the battle of Pinkie, from Pinkie, or Pinken-cleugh, an eminence near it.

The army rested in its camp the next day, and on the following morning, Sunday, September the 11th, it advanced to Leith. From that point the fleet sailed up the Forth, destroying all the vessels in it, and ravaging and laying waste the towns and country on its banks. The Isle of Inchcolm, the town of Kinghorn, and numbers of villages were plundered and burnt. Leith was set on fire by Somerset, and the gentry, subdued by their tenors, came in from all the country round and made their submission.

Now, then, was the time to push the object for which this expedition was undertaken—the securing the young queen for the king. Somerset had attained a commanding position. He held the capital, as it were, under his hand, and fresh forces brought up and judiciously employed, must have put the country so far into his power as to enable him to treat on the most advantageous terms for the accomplishment of this great national object; or if he could not obtain it by treaty, he might make himself master of her person by arms. But all this demonstration, this signal victory, this sanguinary butchery, which must add finally to the antipathy of the Scottish people if no great good followed it, was abandoned with a strange recklessness which showed that though Somerset could conquer in the field, he was totally destitute of the qualities of a statesman. Instead of making his success the platform of wise negotiation, and of a great national union, he converted it into a fresh aggravation of the ill-will of the Scotch, by depriving it of all rational result. Being, it is supposed, apprised of some machinations of his brother, the admiral, in his absence, he commenced an instant march homeward, like a man that was beaten rather than a victor. On the 17th of September, only a week and one day from the battle of Pinkie, he took his departure. The Scotch were amazed at a flight as sudden as the onslaught had been deadly. As he marched from Leith, whose flames wore mounting redly into the sky behind him, the commander of Edinburgh Castle fired twenty-four pieces of ordnance at him, but too far off to reach him. He had dispatched Clinton with a part of the fleet to awe the coasts of Scotland, and to reduce the castle of Broughty at the mouth of the Tay, which was the key to that river and to the towns of Perth and Dundee, which he soon effected. But whilst victory