dclare4
10-16-2002, 15:14
Heres an interesting article I came across during research of particular interest to those of us who'd want to see more firearms employed or who feel they're useless in this game...
Battle of Pinkie Cleugh
Date 27th February 1545
Combatants - Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset .v. Mary Queen of Scots
Setting Pinkie Cleugh
In the last engagement between English and Scottish national armies, both
sides adopted weapons and tactics used on the Continent.
Centuries of military struggle between Scotland and England have produced
some epic contests. Still seared into the folk memory of the two
countries, from the humbling of English knighthood at the spear points of
doughty Scots commoners at Bannockburn in 1314 to the death of Scotland's
impetuous but chivalrous King James IV at Flodden in 1513. Among the
multitude of other famous battles is one whose name is less readily
recalled, fought outside Musselburgh on September 10, 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.
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.
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.
The 16th century was a transitional period in the European "art of war."
In the course of the so-called Great Italian Wars, triggered by French
King Charles VIII's invasion of Italy in 1494, the weapons and tactics of
medieval warfare were gradually supplanted by new methods, involving the
operation of cavalry, artillery and infantry arms in an increasingly
complex tactical synthesis. Vast phalanxes of well-drilled pikemen and
missile troops armed with the harquebus (a matchlock firearm fired from a
portable support) and later the musket maneuvered on the battlefields of
Cerignola (1503), Ravenna (1512) and Pavia (1525). Light cavalry, notably
mercenary Albanian stradiots, Spanish genitors and German Reiters,
developed an increasingly important independent role. Men-at-arms, heavy
cavalry still armored from head to toe, enjoyed a renaissance of their
own, back in the saddle after the decline of the "English" tactic of
dismounted fighting. The most potent heavy cavalry was the French
Compagnie d'Ordonnance, a permanent professional force employed directly
by the state.
The British Isles locked in internecine conflicts in the latter half of
the 15th century, were apparently on the peripheries of the military
revolution. England's armies generally clung to the old dismounted "bill
and bow" formations that had worked so well at Agincourt in 1415.
Scotland, threatened by a powerful and aggressive neighbor, relied on
peasant levies armed with bow, spear and two-handed sword for defense. The
Wars of the Roses, however, had not entirely isolated England from
developments on the Continent. Foreign mercenaries had brought pikes and
handguns to English battlefields (with little success against native bows
and bills), and English men-at-arms, despite their traditions of
dismounted combat, had fought once more from the saddle to play a decisive
part in the Yorkist victory at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.
Light cavalry--referred to as "prickers" by the Yorkists--had also played
a vital role for the rival armies, gathering intelligence, carrying out
feints, and skirmishing with their enemy counterparts. The cream of
English light cavalry were Northerners--reivers from the volatile
Anglo-Scots frontier who served in all of King Henry VIII's campaigns in
France.
English infantry, too, had not been untouched by modern developments.
Under Henry VIII, the English had experimented widely with gunpowder
weapons, particularly for naval use, as the ordnance recovered from the
sunken warship Mary Rose has indicated. In terms of "professionalization,"
England maintained small numbers of garrison troops in the Calais Pale and
at Berwick, but Henry's most important standing units were afloat.
According to the Calendar of Scottish Papers, 1, 154763, the armada that
accompanied England's land forces northward in 1547 was crewed by 9,222
mariner-soldiers. Those men, along with the men-at-arms and "Gentlemen
Pensioners" of the Royal Bodyguard, are an indication that Henry took
greater steps to create large-scale, standing forces than has been
recognized in the past.
One important feature of the military revolution was the increased size of
armies. To fill out their armies, princes competed for the services of
large bodies of international mercenaries, the most highly prized of which
were Swiss and German (Landsknecht) pikemen. The 42,000 men amassed by
Henry VIII in 1544 for his so-called Enterprise of Boulogne included 4,836
foreign horse and 5,392 foreign infantry. The 16,000-man army that
Somerset would lead across the Tweed River into Scotland in 1547 also
contained a significant proportion of foreign specialists, most notably a
complement of mounted harquebusiers under a Spanish captain, Sir Pedro de
Gamboa.
The majority of Somerset's troops were armed in the old style, with bow
and bill--an archaic combination perhaps, but one that had not yet been
rendered obsolete. Firearm development had been slow, and only 600 of
Somerset's soldiers carried such weapons. The handgun and the harquebus
that had supplanted the crossbow on the Continent had operated from the
peripheries of the battlefield, from behind walls and entrenchment s.
English bowmen did not operate on the peripheries, and the light arrows
they fired at distant targets were designed to gall, not kill. Their rate
of fire, which the harquebus could never match, disordered their enemy
and, as at Agincourt, could provoke him into a premature attack. When the
enemy closed he would be met, at shorter range, by heavier, deadlier
arrows. Using a secondary weapon, such as a bill or maul, bowmen were then
expected to melee with their enemy, be he highborn knight or lowly
peasant. To exchange the longbow for the harquebus would have involved
abandoning a tested tactical doctrine in return for a missile weapon with
only moderately greater range and penetrative power.
While some English equipment was archaic, more modern technology was also
employed, including an impressively large artillery train, under a master
gunner appointed directly by the king. Under Henry VIII's enthusiastic
patronage, artillery tactics had become surprisingly sophisticated. At
Pinkie Cleugh, the guns accompanying the army would be manhandled into
action speedily and with devastating effect. The warships of Somerset's
accompanying naval force, commanded by Lord Edward Clinton, were very
effective floating gun platforms, capable of battering enemy ships into
submission, or sinking them, with long-range gunfire rather than by
ramming or boarding, as had been the traditional practice. From positions
in the Firth of Forth, they would support the English land forces at
Pinkie with a timely and effective shore bombardment.
Despite the oft-quoted view of the English as primarily infantry oriented,
Somerset had amassed some 4,000 cavalry, under the overall command of John
Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, for his invasion of
Scotland. That considerable mounted arm included the light cavalry,
Northern Horse and Gamboa's mounted harquebusiers ("backbiters" to the
English). Among the heavy cavalry were 500 "Bullerners"--men-at-arms from
the garrison of Boulogne--the Gentlemen Pensioners of the Royal Bodyguard
and a force of "demi-lancers." The latter were lance-armed cavalry whose
horses were unarmored and who had replaced their own leg armor with stout,
thigh-length boots, a compromise of protection for increased speed,
mobility and flexibility.
On the face of it, the Scottish army still seemed medieval in its
organization. Every man was expected to equip himself for war according to
his income, from suits of plate armor for the nobility to brigandines for
the less exalted. Legislation also specified acceptable weapons--spears,
pikes, light axes, halberds, bows, crossbows, handguns and two-handed
swords. To check that men met those requirements, "wappenschaws," or
musterings, were held, at which men presented themselves fully equipped.
The Scottish army of the 16th century had neither few professional
soldiers, nor any permanent force comparable with those on the Continent.
It was also particularly deficient in cavalry, since the country was
economically unable to support a force of heavy cavalry on the Continental
model. Scotland had its own border reivers, who harried the English as
they moved north, but they were outnumbered by their generally better
equipped English counterparts. The majority of Scots who faced Somerset at
Pinkie Cleugh fought on foot, as they had always done.
William Patten's description of Scottish soldiers at Pinkie indicates that
most were equipped with protective brigandines or "jacks," helmets,
targes, pikes and swords of high quality. Alongside the pikemen served the
Highlanders, generally less well-armored than the Lowland levies, but
formidably armed with longbow, ax, two-handed sword, or with some form of
light ax, such as the Jedburgh stave--useful in the confines of a melee or
for hooking cavalrymen off their steeds.
The standard Scottish infantry weapon was the pike, a weapon that had come
to dominate European battlefields in the late 15th century. Well-drilled
Swiss and Landsknecht formations were not only invulnerable to heavy
cavalry but, by using rapidly moving mass columns of pikes and halbards,
they had transformed themselves into an offensive weapon as well. The
English, whose bowmen had scored a rare success against mercenary pikemen
at Stoke in 1487, were slow to adopt the pike. But for the Scots, who,
like the Swiss, were less intimidated by enemy cavalry than they were by
missile weapons, the pike was an ideal weapon with which to rapidly close
with and engage English bow and bill formations.
After the Battle of Flodden in 1513, the Bishop of Durham reported that
the Scots had advanced "in good order, after the Almayne's [German's]
manner." An inherent weakness in reliance upon pike columns had already
been demonstrated at Cerignola, in 1503, when Swiss pikemen had floundered
before Spanish entrenchment s, well garnished with cannons and
harquebuses. At Marignano in 1515--a battle that was to have distinct
echoes at Pinkie--a Swiss pike column was halted by a French cavalry
charge, then decimated by artillery fire. Nevertheless, the pike was still
formidable against an enemy maneuvering for position.
Scotland had also developed a keen interest in the gunpowder revolution,
but an indigenous gun-founding industry was slow to develop and the
country remained dependent on foreign imports. Legislation demanded that
merchants carry at least two "hagbutts" (harquebuses) and powder on
homeward voyages from the European mainland. The Scots chief missile
weapon at Pinkie Cleugh remained the bow, but they clearly had enough guns
to worry the English. One estimate of 1522 referred to the Duke of
Albany's forces on the border having a "marvelous great number of hand
guns" and 1,000 arquebus à croc--heavy harquebuses mounted on wagons.
Scotland's commitment to "pike and shot" formations clearly demonstrated
that, in terms of tactics and equipment, their army, too was developing on
the same lines as other European armies.
The English army crossed the Tweed River into Scotland on September 1,
1547, while its supporting fleet skirted the coastline. Light cavalry
preceded the advance, probing cautiously along the route north and
skirmishing with their Scottish counterparts. Small garrisons, sometimes
comprised of only a handful of men in the path of the invader, resisted
until they were overwhelmed. The English made prominent use of their
firearms in those skirmishes, including Gamboa's mounted harquebusiers,
who clashed with Scottish light horse outside Dunbar.
The Scottish horse--borderers for the most part, who likely had close kin
in the English ranks--shadowed the advancing army. The reivers, whether
English or Scots, were dangerous adversaries (indeed, given their
unpredictability and uncertain loyalties, it was dangerous even to have
them on one's own side). Somerset's army now eyed the large bands of
Scottish troopers warily. The Scots laid ambushes, tempted the English to
break formation and employed cunning ruses de guerre to disrupt the
advance, at one point trying to tempt an English galley to come ashore, to
what would have been an inhospitable welcome, by waving the Cross of St.
George on the shoreline. Their success, however, was limited; the English
harquebusiers, both on foot and mounted, kept them at arm's length.
The English finally drew close to the main body of the Scottish army,
which was perhaps 26,000 strong, on September 9. The Scottish commander,
James Hamilton, the 2nd Earl of Arran--who, like Somerset for King Edward,
was serving as regent for the 5-year-old Queen Mary--had selected a strong
position following the line of the river Esk, along Edmonston Edge,
between Musselburgh and Inveresk. To their left lay the Firth of Forth,
and to their right lay an area of extensive marsh. Before them the ground
sloped away, with the Esk flowing along the base of the ridge. The natural
strength of the position had been enhanced with field fortifications,
furnished with cannons and arquebus à croc. With no open flank to turn,
the English faced the prospect of assailing the position head on, fording
the Esk under fire and advancing up the exposed slope of Edmonston Edge.
To add to English worries, the Scottish horse had gathered on the western
end of Fawside Brae, a hill overlooking the English army. There, they
watched as the English columns formed up in preparation for their assault.
No longer content to keep the Scottish border horse at a distance,
Somerset dispatched a body of his own light horse, backed up by heavier
demi-lancers, to clear them from the Brae. Patten claimed that there were
1,500 Scots cavalry, supported by 500 concealed infantry. The Scottish
horse drew back, apparently hoping to draw their impetuous English
pursuers on to the pikes of the concealed infantry, but they had
miscalculated the speed of the business-like demi-lancer, which moved
faster than the fully armored man-at-arms had. The retreating Scots were
overtaken and for three miles fought a running battle with sword and
lance, in which weight and numbers were clearly on the English side. The
Scots cavalry was badly cut up and was able to play no significant part in
the next day's battle.
With his cavalry arm lost, Arran sent two proposals to Somerset. The first
offered the English safe passage home if they disengaged. If they would
not agree to disengage, Arran offered to settle the matter by personal
combat between Somerset and his chosen champion, George Gordon, Earl of
Huntly, each to be supported by 20 men. Somerset rejected both proposals.
Scottish hopes of victory were now pinned on their pike-equipped infantry.
The question the Regent Arran faced on the morning of September 10 was how
best to use that force.
Somerset could have had little doubt that the Scots would fight a
defensive battle--the strength of their position suggested that--yet he
could still be confident of victory. Experience in the Italian wars had
taught Europe's soldiers that even an enemy in a strong defensive position
could be reduced with intensive artillery fire, and Somerset did not lack
cannons. Even more important, his navy had taken up a position in the
Firth of Forth from which it, too, could assail the Scottish left flank.
Eighty warships accompanied Somerset's expeditionary force, of which the
largest, Henry Grace à Dieu, displaced 1,000 tons and carried 50 guns.
Each gun was served by a professional gunner, commanding a gun crew that
was drawn from the ship's complement of mariner-soldiers. Well able to
strike a small, bobbing target on the open sea, the English gunners in the
Firth of Forth would have no difficulty hitting the Scots' positions on
shore.
Moreover, by employing a tactic similar to the cavalry caracole, whereby
troopers armed with firearms attacked in column, discharged their weapons,
and retired to the rear of the column to reload, the English fleet would
be able to maintain a sustained bombardment of the Scottish position. A
handful of Scottish cannons pointed vainly out to sea to meet that threat,
but the lurking menace in the Firth of Forth rendered the position of the
Scottish left flank untenable.
Facing the prospect of being blasted out of his defenses, Arran had few
courses of action open to him. Retreat was not one of them--with his
battered cavalry force unable to screen a withdrawal, the English troopers
would have ridden down his slow-moving infantry. Arran's only other option
was to use his pike columns, as modern tactics dictated, as a shock
weapon. With sufficient speed and momentum, he hoped to deliver a blow at
the right moment to avenge the Scottish defeat at Flodden and send the
invaders reeling homeward. Arran's decision to attack at Pinkie Cleugh has
been seen as rash folly, but as it happened, he came closer to success
than he had a right to have hoped.
Somerset, meanwhile, was seeking to position his artillery to its best
advantage. A particularly useful position would be the hill where
Invereske Church stood. This was on the east bank of the Esk, jutting
toward the Scottish lines and slightly higher than the positions on
Edmonston Edge. The English army, now drawn up along Fawside Brae, turned
to march toward that position, presenting the Scottish troops opposite
with a temptingly open flank. Somerset had a precedent for believing he
could maneuver as he pleased in front of a Scottish army. In 1513, the
Duke of Surrey had marched around James IV's army on Flodden Edge, while
the Scots had remained resolutely fixed in their position until it became
apparent that the English had cut off their line of retreat. Arran,
however, did not let pass a similar opportunity to strike at a
disorganized enemy on the move. If his pikemen could cover the ground
quickly enough, the English would not have time to form up or get their
cannons into position. A spectacular victory seemed to lie within his
grasp.
The Scots were formed into three massive columns of pikemen, just as the
Swiss traditionally fought. The "main battle," in the center, was
commanded by Arran himself; the "forward," or right wing, was led by
Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus; and the "rearward," or left wing, was
commanded by the Earl of Huntly. Huntly was supported by the largest
contingent of Scottish missile troops--Highlanders armed with bows.
The unexpected, ferocious onslaught took the English by surprise--Patten
commented that the Scots moved at the pace of cavalry rather than
infantry. English bowmen and billmen stumbled their way into a semblance
of order; pioneers and gunners struggled to manhandle cannons into
position. It was a race against time, and one that the English might
easily have lost if it had not been for two factors--the floating
batteries in the Firth of Forth and Somerset's large cavalry force.
Huntly's rearward was in range of the ships' guns, and they opened fire
with deadly effect. The lightly armored Highlanders broke and fled
immediately. Cannonballs crashed into the tightly packed ranks of Huntly's
pikemen, killing swathes of men at a time. Huntly checked his advance and
moved his column inland, colliding not with the English but with Arran's
main battle. The two columns coalesced into one battle, somewhat
disordered, but nevertheless able to resume their advance. Angus' forward
came up on Arran's right flank, and the Scots pressed on. Alongside all
three battles, men manhandled cannons and arquebus à croc forward to
provide support for the assault columns. Despite the intervention of the
fleet, the outcome of the battle still hung in the balance.
Somerset now saw no recourse but to throw his heavy cavalry, the Gentlemen
Pensioners and the Bullerners of Boulogne, against the oncoming Scots.
Heavily armored, carrying lances, swords and maces, and mounted on
powerful destriers (war horses), the English men-at-arms were a potent
force, but it would require discipline and nerves of steel to drive a
charging horse at a phalanx of resolute pikemen. The English horse had not
been expecting such a task that morning and had left their horse bards in
camp. They would have to not only charge pikes but also melee, on
unarmored horses, against men armed with ax and sword--ideal weapons to
hamstring mounts and topple their riders to the ground. This would be
bloody work and, had Somerset hoped to break the Scottish columns, a
desperate and foolhardy gamble. But that was not his intention--he needed
the cavalry only to halt the columns, to gain time for his infantry and
artillery.
Experienced French officers had been drilling the Scottish pikemen, and
Patten noted the effectiveness of the Scots' defense against the oncoming
charge "They thrust shoulders...nigh together, the fore rank, well nigh to
kneeling, stood low before their fellows behind holding their pikes in
both hands, and herewith on their left [arm] their bucklers; the one end
of the pike against their right foot, the other against the enemy breast
high; their fellows crossing their pike points with them forward; and
thus, each with other, so nigh as place and space will suffer, through the
whole ward so thick, that as easily shall a bare finger pierce through the
skin of an angry hedgehog, as any encounter the front of their pikes."
Both sides brought more artillery pieces into action now, and a pall of
dark smoke hung over the battlefield. "Herewith waxed it very hot, with
pitiful cries, horrible roar, and terrible thundering of guns besides,"
wrote Patten, adding that "...each man [was] stricken with a dreadful
fear...death to fly and danger to fight." Into that maelstrom charged the
English heavy cavalry. The Scots were not their only obstacle--a wide
ditch crossed the path of their advance, taken at a leap by many, but
others stumbled and tripped, blocking the progress of those behind.
Furthermore, the field in which the pikes halted to receive the charge was
traversed by deep furrows, and the English cavalry struggled to gather
momentum. The Scots in the front ranks dared the English to come on,
shaking their pike points and crying "Come here, lounds! Come here, tykes!
Come here, heretics!"
Whatever the impediments to their charge, the English collided with the
pike columns with sufficient force to send a shock wave rippling through
Huntly's "battle." But the pikemen did not break, and the leading ranks of
English cavalry, including Edward Shelley, lieutenant of the Bullerners,
collapsed into a tangled mass of dead and dying men and horses. Other
Englishmen began to retire back up Fawside Brae, their leaders hoping to
re-form for another charge; yet for some, according to Patten, the "sober,
advised retire" turned into "a hasty temerious flight," and a "few lewd
soldiers" panicked and fled the field. More determined men-at-arms tried
to hack down the pike points with sword and mace, but with little success.
Lord Arthur Grey of Wilton, commander of the English horse, emerged from
the melee bleeding badly from a pike thrust through the mouth and throat.
Scots surrounded Sir Andrew Flammack, bearer of the King s Standard,
during a fight for possession of the banner. He seemed doomed until Sir
Ralph Coppinger, a Gentlemen Pensioner, rushed to his rescue, and the two
fought their way to safety. Flammack somehow retained possession of the
standard, but the Scots were left in triumphant possession of the staff,
which had snapped off in the struggle.
Bloodily repulsed, the English horse withdrew up Fawside Brae. For a
moment, the Scots stood victorious on a battlefield strewn with English
dead, but their fate was already sealed. English hackbutters, cannons, and
longbows were positioned in strength before them. Besides the few cannons
manhandled forward by exhausted gunners, the Scots' own missile strength
had melted away under the shore bombardment from the English fleet. Their
bloodied cavalry force hung on the edge of the battlefield, eyeing the
English baggage train but unwilling to commit itself. The pike columns,
now robbed of their momentum and close order, were alone. At the ditch
that had held up the English cavalry charge, Sir Peter Mewty had
positioned a detachment of harquebusiers who now opened fire on the
stationary pikemen. Sir Pedro de Gamboa's mounted harquebusiers galloped
past the Scots, discharging their weapons into their ranks. Archers on the
English right flank unleashed the arrow storm once more. Worst of all, the
English cannons opened fire on the Scots with hail shot at a devastatingly
short range.
Unable to resume their advance, the Scots wavered, faltered, then
broke--starting with Arran himself, who "took hastily to horse." Casting
down pikes, swords, jacks and any other encumbrances in their haste, the
Scottish infantry might have made good their escape if pursued only by
English foot. Remarkably, however, the English horse had rallied, and with
the deaths of friends still fresh in their minds, they embarked on a
merciless pursuit. A horrific slaughter ensued until Somerset, shocked by
the bloodletting according to Patten, reined his enraged troopers in.
Pinkie Cleugh was the last formal battle to be fought between England and
a Scottish national army; subsequent engagements involved armies of Scots
rising up in rebellion to oust their English occupiers. The English had
lost about 500 men during the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, but Scottish
casualties exceeded 5,000, and 1,500 more were taken prisoner.
Somerset reaped no tangible gains from his victory. He went on to occupy
Edinburgh, but with Queen Mary safely in France, Scotland remained
intransigent. The garrisons that were established (the largest of which
was at Haddinton, where 4,529 troops were stationed) led precarious
existences. A French expeditionary force landed at Leith, and Somerset's
weary garrisons struggled to maintain control over the territory they
occupied. Their raiding parties found resistance stiffening and noted the
increasing presence of tough and well-equipped French soldiers among their
opponents. England itself was in a rebellious mood; Somerset himself was
ousted by a coup d'état, and his successor had no interest in pursuing war
in Scotland.
In 1550, even Edinburgh was abandoned. Perhaps Somerset's campaign--the
ruthless invasion, followed by the bloody, futile slaughter of a beaten
enemy and the pointless, brutal subjugation of the civilian
population--deserves to slip into oblivion. Yet the significance of the
battle goes beyond its inconsequential political context. The tactics and
the weaponry employed by both sides were ugly portents for the future. The
military reformation had clearly touched England and Scotland; 100 years
after Pinkie Cleugh it would be carried to every corner of the British
Isles, bringing misery and suffering in its wake.
Contact us at: joerc@cts.com
Apparently handgunners were designed to fight behind field fortifications like the Agincourt archers. Hmmm... perhaps in the later periods maps should be allowed to give the defenders field fortifications of some sort.
Gilbert de Clare
Battle of Pinkie Cleugh
Date 27th February 1545
Combatants - Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset .v. Mary Queen of Scots
Setting Pinkie Cleugh
In the last engagement between English and Scottish national armies, both
sides adopted weapons and tactics used on the Continent.
Centuries of military struggle between Scotland and England have produced
some epic contests. Still seared into the folk memory of the two
countries, from the humbling of English knighthood at the spear points of
doughty Scots commoners at Bannockburn in 1314 to the death of Scotland's
impetuous but chivalrous King James IV at Flodden in 1513. Among the
multitude of other famous battles is one whose name is less readily
recalled, fought outside Musselburgh on September 10, 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.
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.
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.
The 16th century was a transitional period in the European "art of war."
In the course of the so-called Great Italian Wars, triggered by French
King Charles VIII's invasion of Italy in 1494, the weapons and tactics of
medieval warfare were gradually supplanted by new methods, involving the
operation of cavalry, artillery and infantry arms in an increasingly
complex tactical synthesis. Vast phalanxes of well-drilled pikemen and
missile troops armed with the harquebus (a matchlock firearm fired from a
portable support) and later the musket maneuvered on the battlefields of
Cerignola (1503), Ravenna (1512) and Pavia (1525). Light cavalry, notably
mercenary Albanian stradiots, Spanish genitors and German Reiters,
developed an increasingly important independent role. Men-at-arms, heavy
cavalry still armored from head to toe, enjoyed a renaissance of their
own, back in the saddle after the decline of the "English" tactic of
dismounted fighting. The most potent heavy cavalry was the French
Compagnie d'Ordonnance, a permanent professional force employed directly
by the state.
The British Isles locked in internecine conflicts in the latter half of
the 15th century, were apparently on the peripheries of the military
revolution. England's armies generally clung to the old dismounted "bill
and bow" formations that had worked so well at Agincourt in 1415.
Scotland, threatened by a powerful and aggressive neighbor, relied on
peasant levies armed with bow, spear and two-handed sword for defense. The
Wars of the Roses, however, had not entirely isolated England from
developments on the Continent. Foreign mercenaries had brought pikes and
handguns to English battlefields (with little success against native bows
and bills), and English men-at-arms, despite their traditions of
dismounted combat, had fought once more from the saddle to play a decisive
part in the Yorkist victory at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.
Light cavalry--referred to as "prickers" by the Yorkists--had also played
a vital role for the rival armies, gathering intelligence, carrying out
feints, and skirmishing with their enemy counterparts. The cream of
English light cavalry were Northerners--reivers from the volatile
Anglo-Scots frontier who served in all of King Henry VIII's campaigns in
France.
English infantry, too, had not been untouched by modern developments.
Under Henry VIII, the English had experimented widely with gunpowder
weapons, particularly for naval use, as the ordnance recovered from the
sunken warship Mary Rose has indicated. In terms of "professionalization,"
England maintained small numbers of garrison troops in the Calais Pale and
at Berwick, but Henry's most important standing units were afloat.
According to the Calendar of Scottish Papers, 1, 154763, the armada that
accompanied England's land forces northward in 1547 was crewed by 9,222
mariner-soldiers. Those men, along with the men-at-arms and "Gentlemen
Pensioners" of the Royal Bodyguard, are an indication that Henry took
greater steps to create large-scale, standing forces than has been
recognized in the past.
One important feature of the military revolution was the increased size of
armies. To fill out their armies, princes competed for the services of
large bodies of international mercenaries, the most highly prized of which
were Swiss and German (Landsknecht) pikemen. The 42,000 men amassed by
Henry VIII in 1544 for his so-called Enterprise of Boulogne included 4,836
foreign horse and 5,392 foreign infantry. The 16,000-man army that
Somerset would lead across the Tweed River into Scotland in 1547 also
contained a significant proportion of foreign specialists, most notably a
complement of mounted harquebusiers under a Spanish captain, Sir Pedro de
Gamboa.
The majority of Somerset's troops were armed in the old style, with bow
and bill--an archaic combination perhaps, but one that had not yet been
rendered obsolete. Firearm development had been slow, and only 600 of
Somerset's soldiers carried such weapons. The handgun and the harquebus
that had supplanted the crossbow on the Continent had operated from the
peripheries of the battlefield, from behind walls and entrenchment s.
English bowmen did not operate on the peripheries, and the light arrows
they fired at distant targets were designed to gall, not kill. Their rate
of fire, which the harquebus could never match, disordered their enemy
and, as at Agincourt, could provoke him into a premature attack. When the
enemy closed he would be met, at shorter range, by heavier, deadlier
arrows. Using a secondary weapon, such as a bill or maul, bowmen were then
expected to melee with their enemy, be he highborn knight or lowly
peasant. To exchange the longbow for the harquebus would have involved
abandoning a tested tactical doctrine in return for a missile weapon with
only moderately greater range and penetrative power.
While some English equipment was archaic, more modern technology was also
employed, including an impressively large artillery train, under a master
gunner appointed directly by the king. Under Henry VIII's enthusiastic
patronage, artillery tactics had become surprisingly sophisticated. At
Pinkie Cleugh, the guns accompanying the army would be manhandled into
action speedily and with devastating effect. The warships of Somerset's
accompanying naval force, commanded by Lord Edward Clinton, were very
effective floating gun platforms, capable of battering enemy ships into
submission, or sinking them, with long-range gunfire rather than by
ramming or boarding, as had been the traditional practice. From positions
in the Firth of Forth, they would support the English land forces at
Pinkie with a timely and effective shore bombardment.
Despite the oft-quoted view of the English as primarily infantry oriented,
Somerset had amassed some 4,000 cavalry, under the overall command of John
Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, for his invasion of
Scotland. That considerable mounted arm included the light cavalry,
Northern Horse and Gamboa's mounted harquebusiers ("backbiters" to the
English). Among the heavy cavalry were 500 "Bullerners"--men-at-arms from
the garrison of Boulogne--the Gentlemen Pensioners of the Royal Bodyguard
and a force of "demi-lancers." The latter were lance-armed cavalry whose
horses were unarmored and who had replaced their own leg armor with stout,
thigh-length boots, a compromise of protection for increased speed,
mobility and flexibility.
On the face of it, the Scottish army still seemed medieval in its
organization. Every man was expected to equip himself for war according to
his income, from suits of plate armor for the nobility to brigandines for
the less exalted. Legislation also specified acceptable weapons--spears,
pikes, light axes, halberds, bows, crossbows, handguns and two-handed
swords. To check that men met those requirements, "wappenschaws," or
musterings, were held, at which men presented themselves fully equipped.
The Scottish army of the 16th century had neither few professional
soldiers, nor any permanent force comparable with those on the Continent.
It was also particularly deficient in cavalry, since the country was
economically unable to support a force of heavy cavalry on the Continental
model. Scotland had its own border reivers, who harried the English as
they moved north, but they were outnumbered by their generally better
equipped English counterparts. The majority of Scots who faced Somerset at
Pinkie Cleugh fought on foot, as they had always done.
William Patten's description of Scottish soldiers at Pinkie indicates that
most were equipped with protective brigandines or "jacks," helmets,
targes, pikes and swords of high quality. Alongside the pikemen served the
Highlanders, generally less well-armored than the Lowland levies, but
formidably armed with longbow, ax, two-handed sword, or with some form of
light ax, such as the Jedburgh stave--useful in the confines of a melee or
for hooking cavalrymen off their steeds.
The standard Scottish infantry weapon was the pike, a weapon that had come
to dominate European battlefields in the late 15th century. Well-drilled
Swiss and Landsknecht formations were not only invulnerable to heavy
cavalry but, by using rapidly moving mass columns of pikes and halbards,
they had transformed themselves into an offensive weapon as well. The
English, whose bowmen had scored a rare success against mercenary pikemen
at Stoke in 1487, were slow to adopt the pike. But for the Scots, who,
like the Swiss, were less intimidated by enemy cavalry than they were by
missile weapons, the pike was an ideal weapon with which to rapidly close
with and engage English bow and bill formations.
After the Battle of Flodden in 1513, the Bishop of Durham reported that
the Scots had advanced "in good order, after the Almayne's [German's]
manner." An inherent weakness in reliance upon pike columns had already
been demonstrated at Cerignola, in 1503, when Swiss pikemen had floundered
before Spanish entrenchment s, well garnished with cannons and
harquebuses. At Marignano in 1515--a battle that was to have distinct
echoes at Pinkie--a Swiss pike column was halted by a French cavalry
charge, then decimated by artillery fire. Nevertheless, the pike was still
formidable against an enemy maneuvering for position.
Scotland had also developed a keen interest in the gunpowder revolution,
but an indigenous gun-founding industry was slow to develop and the
country remained dependent on foreign imports. Legislation demanded that
merchants carry at least two "hagbutts" (harquebuses) and powder on
homeward voyages from the European mainland. The Scots chief missile
weapon at Pinkie Cleugh remained the bow, but they clearly had enough guns
to worry the English. One estimate of 1522 referred to the Duke of
Albany's forces on the border having a "marvelous great number of hand
guns" and 1,000 arquebus à croc--heavy harquebuses mounted on wagons.
Scotland's commitment to "pike and shot" formations clearly demonstrated
that, in terms of tactics and equipment, their army, too was developing on
the same lines as other European armies.
The English army crossed the Tweed River into Scotland on September 1,
1547, while its supporting fleet skirted the coastline. Light cavalry
preceded the advance, probing cautiously along the route north and
skirmishing with their Scottish counterparts. Small garrisons, sometimes
comprised of only a handful of men in the path of the invader, resisted
until they were overwhelmed. The English made prominent use of their
firearms in those skirmishes, including Gamboa's mounted harquebusiers,
who clashed with Scottish light horse outside Dunbar.
The Scottish horse--borderers for the most part, who likely had close kin
in the English ranks--shadowed the advancing army. The reivers, whether
English or Scots, were dangerous adversaries (indeed, given their
unpredictability and uncertain loyalties, it was dangerous even to have
them on one's own side). Somerset's army now eyed the large bands of
Scottish troopers warily. The Scots laid ambushes, tempted the English to
break formation and employed cunning ruses de guerre to disrupt the
advance, at one point trying to tempt an English galley to come ashore, to
what would have been an inhospitable welcome, by waving the Cross of St.
George on the shoreline. Their success, however, was limited; the English
harquebusiers, both on foot and mounted, kept them at arm's length.
The English finally drew close to the main body of the Scottish army,
which was perhaps 26,000 strong, on September 9. The Scottish commander,
James Hamilton, the 2nd Earl of Arran--who, like Somerset for King Edward,
was serving as regent for the 5-year-old Queen Mary--had selected a strong
position following the line of the river Esk, along Edmonston Edge,
between Musselburgh and Inveresk. To their left lay the Firth of Forth,
and to their right lay an area of extensive marsh. Before them the ground
sloped away, with the Esk flowing along the base of the ridge. The natural
strength of the position had been enhanced with field fortifications,
furnished with cannons and arquebus à croc. With no open flank to turn,
the English faced the prospect of assailing the position head on, fording
the Esk under fire and advancing up the exposed slope of Edmonston Edge.
To add to English worries, the Scottish horse had gathered on the western
end of Fawside Brae, a hill overlooking the English army. There, they
watched as the English columns formed up in preparation for their assault.
No longer content to keep the Scottish border horse at a distance,
Somerset dispatched a body of his own light horse, backed up by heavier
demi-lancers, to clear them from the Brae. Patten claimed that there were
1,500 Scots cavalry, supported by 500 concealed infantry. The Scottish
horse drew back, apparently hoping to draw their impetuous English
pursuers on to the pikes of the concealed infantry, but they had
miscalculated the speed of the business-like demi-lancer, which moved
faster than the fully armored man-at-arms had. The retreating Scots were
overtaken and for three miles fought a running battle with sword and
lance, in which weight and numbers were clearly on the English side. The
Scots cavalry was badly cut up and was able to play no significant part in
the next day's battle.
With his cavalry arm lost, Arran sent two proposals to Somerset. The first
offered the English safe passage home if they disengaged. If they would
not agree to disengage, Arran offered to settle the matter by personal
combat between Somerset and his chosen champion, George Gordon, Earl of
Huntly, each to be supported by 20 men. Somerset rejected both proposals.
Scottish hopes of victory were now pinned on their pike-equipped infantry.
The question the Regent Arran faced on the morning of September 10 was how
best to use that force.
Somerset could have had little doubt that the Scots would fight a
defensive battle--the strength of their position suggested that--yet he
could still be confident of victory. Experience in the Italian wars had
taught Europe's soldiers that even an enemy in a strong defensive position
could be reduced with intensive artillery fire, and Somerset did not lack
cannons. Even more important, his navy had taken up a position in the
Firth of Forth from which it, too, could assail the Scottish left flank.
Eighty warships accompanied Somerset's expeditionary force, of which the
largest, Henry Grace à Dieu, displaced 1,000 tons and carried 50 guns.
Each gun was served by a professional gunner, commanding a gun crew that
was drawn from the ship's complement of mariner-soldiers. Well able to
strike a small, bobbing target on the open sea, the English gunners in the
Firth of Forth would have no difficulty hitting the Scots' positions on
shore.
Moreover, by employing a tactic similar to the cavalry caracole, whereby
troopers armed with firearms attacked in column, discharged their weapons,
and retired to the rear of the column to reload, the English fleet would
be able to maintain a sustained bombardment of the Scottish position. A
handful of Scottish cannons pointed vainly out to sea to meet that threat,
but the lurking menace in the Firth of Forth rendered the position of the
Scottish left flank untenable.
Facing the prospect of being blasted out of his defenses, Arran had few
courses of action open to him. Retreat was not one of them--with his
battered cavalry force unable to screen a withdrawal, the English troopers
would have ridden down his slow-moving infantry. Arran's only other option
was to use his pike columns, as modern tactics dictated, as a shock
weapon. With sufficient speed and momentum, he hoped to deliver a blow at
the right moment to avenge the Scottish defeat at Flodden and send the
invaders reeling homeward. Arran's decision to attack at Pinkie Cleugh has
been seen as rash folly, but as it happened, he came closer to success
than he had a right to have hoped.
Somerset, meanwhile, was seeking to position his artillery to its best
advantage. A particularly useful position would be the hill where
Invereske Church stood. This was on the east bank of the Esk, jutting
toward the Scottish lines and slightly higher than the positions on
Edmonston Edge. The English army, now drawn up along Fawside Brae, turned
to march toward that position, presenting the Scottish troops opposite
with a temptingly open flank. Somerset had a precedent for believing he
could maneuver as he pleased in front of a Scottish army. In 1513, the
Duke of Surrey had marched around James IV's army on Flodden Edge, while
the Scots had remained resolutely fixed in their position until it became
apparent that the English had cut off their line of retreat. Arran,
however, did not let pass a similar opportunity to strike at a
disorganized enemy on the move. If his pikemen could cover the ground
quickly enough, the English would not have time to form up or get their
cannons into position. A spectacular victory seemed to lie within his
grasp.
The Scots were formed into three massive columns of pikemen, just as the
Swiss traditionally fought. The "main battle," in the center, was
commanded by Arran himself; the "forward," or right wing, was led by
Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus; and the "rearward," or left wing, was
commanded by the Earl of Huntly. Huntly was supported by the largest
contingent of Scottish missile troops--Highlanders armed with bows.
The unexpected, ferocious onslaught took the English by surprise--Patten
commented that the Scots moved at the pace of cavalry rather than
infantry. English bowmen and billmen stumbled their way into a semblance
of order; pioneers and gunners struggled to manhandle cannons into
position. It was a race against time, and one that the English might
easily have lost if it had not been for two factors--the floating
batteries in the Firth of Forth and Somerset's large cavalry force.
Huntly's rearward was in range of the ships' guns, and they opened fire
with deadly effect. The lightly armored Highlanders broke and fled
immediately. Cannonballs crashed into the tightly packed ranks of Huntly's
pikemen, killing swathes of men at a time. Huntly checked his advance and
moved his column inland, colliding not with the English but with Arran's
main battle. The two columns coalesced into one battle, somewhat
disordered, but nevertheless able to resume their advance. Angus' forward
came up on Arran's right flank, and the Scots pressed on. Alongside all
three battles, men manhandled cannons and arquebus à croc forward to
provide support for the assault columns. Despite the intervention of the
fleet, the outcome of the battle still hung in the balance.
Somerset now saw no recourse but to throw his heavy cavalry, the Gentlemen
Pensioners and the Bullerners of Boulogne, against the oncoming Scots.
Heavily armored, carrying lances, swords and maces, and mounted on
powerful destriers (war horses), the English men-at-arms were a potent
force, but it would require discipline and nerves of steel to drive a
charging horse at a phalanx of resolute pikemen. The English horse had not
been expecting such a task that morning and had left their horse bards in
camp. They would have to not only charge pikes but also melee, on
unarmored horses, against men armed with ax and sword--ideal weapons to
hamstring mounts and topple their riders to the ground. This would be
bloody work and, had Somerset hoped to break the Scottish columns, a
desperate and foolhardy gamble. But that was not his intention--he needed
the cavalry only to halt the columns, to gain time for his infantry and
artillery.
Experienced French officers had been drilling the Scottish pikemen, and
Patten noted the effectiveness of the Scots' defense against the oncoming
charge "They thrust shoulders...nigh together, the fore rank, well nigh to
kneeling, stood low before their fellows behind holding their pikes in
both hands, and herewith on their left [arm] their bucklers; the one end
of the pike against their right foot, the other against the enemy breast
high; their fellows crossing their pike points with them forward; and
thus, each with other, so nigh as place and space will suffer, through the
whole ward so thick, that as easily shall a bare finger pierce through the
skin of an angry hedgehog, as any encounter the front of their pikes."
Both sides brought more artillery pieces into action now, and a pall of
dark smoke hung over the battlefield. "Herewith waxed it very hot, with
pitiful cries, horrible roar, and terrible thundering of guns besides,"
wrote Patten, adding that "...each man [was] stricken with a dreadful
fear...death to fly and danger to fight." Into that maelstrom charged the
English heavy cavalry. The Scots were not their only obstacle--a wide
ditch crossed the path of their advance, taken at a leap by many, but
others stumbled and tripped, blocking the progress of those behind.
Furthermore, the field in which the pikes halted to receive the charge was
traversed by deep furrows, and the English cavalry struggled to gather
momentum. The Scots in the front ranks dared the English to come on,
shaking their pike points and crying "Come here, lounds! Come here, tykes!
Come here, heretics!"
Whatever the impediments to their charge, the English collided with the
pike columns with sufficient force to send a shock wave rippling through
Huntly's "battle." But the pikemen did not break, and the leading ranks of
English cavalry, including Edward Shelley, lieutenant of the Bullerners,
collapsed into a tangled mass of dead and dying men and horses. Other
Englishmen began to retire back up Fawside Brae, their leaders hoping to
re-form for another charge; yet for some, according to Patten, the "sober,
advised retire" turned into "a hasty temerious flight," and a "few lewd
soldiers" panicked and fled the field. More determined men-at-arms tried
to hack down the pike points with sword and mace, but with little success.
Lord Arthur Grey of Wilton, commander of the English horse, emerged from
the melee bleeding badly from a pike thrust through the mouth and throat.
Scots surrounded Sir Andrew Flammack, bearer of the King s Standard,
during a fight for possession of the banner. He seemed doomed until Sir
Ralph Coppinger, a Gentlemen Pensioner, rushed to his rescue, and the two
fought their way to safety. Flammack somehow retained possession of the
standard, but the Scots were left in triumphant possession of the staff,
which had snapped off in the struggle.
Bloodily repulsed, the English horse withdrew up Fawside Brae. For a
moment, the Scots stood victorious on a battlefield strewn with English
dead, but their fate was already sealed. English hackbutters, cannons, and
longbows were positioned in strength before them. Besides the few cannons
manhandled forward by exhausted gunners, the Scots' own missile strength
had melted away under the shore bombardment from the English fleet. Their
bloodied cavalry force hung on the edge of the battlefield, eyeing the
English baggage train but unwilling to commit itself. The pike columns,
now robbed of their momentum and close order, were alone. At the ditch
that had held up the English cavalry charge, Sir Peter Mewty had
positioned a detachment of harquebusiers who now opened fire on the
stationary pikemen. Sir Pedro de Gamboa's mounted harquebusiers galloped
past the Scots, discharging their weapons into their ranks. Archers on the
English right flank unleashed the arrow storm once more. Worst of all, the
English cannons opened fire on the Scots with hail shot at a devastatingly
short range.
Unable to resume their advance, the Scots wavered, faltered, then
broke--starting with Arran himself, who "took hastily to horse." Casting
down pikes, swords, jacks and any other encumbrances in their haste, the
Scottish infantry might have made good their escape if pursued only by
English foot. Remarkably, however, the English horse had rallied, and with
the deaths of friends still fresh in their minds, they embarked on a
merciless pursuit. A horrific slaughter ensued until Somerset, shocked by
the bloodletting according to Patten, reined his enraged troopers in.
Pinkie Cleugh was the last formal battle to be fought between England and
a Scottish national army; subsequent engagements involved armies of Scots
rising up in rebellion to oust their English occupiers. The English had
lost about 500 men during the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, but Scottish
casualties exceeded 5,000, and 1,500 more were taken prisoner.
Somerset reaped no tangible gains from his victory. He went on to occupy
Edinburgh, but with Queen Mary safely in France, Scotland remained
intransigent. The garrisons that were established (the largest of which
was at Haddinton, where 4,529 troops were stationed) led precarious
existences. A French expeditionary force landed at Leith, and Somerset's
weary garrisons struggled to maintain control over the territory they
occupied. Their raiding parties found resistance stiffening and noted the
increasing presence of tough and well-equipped French soldiers among their
opponents. England itself was in a rebellious mood; Somerset himself was
ousted by a coup d'état, and his successor had no interest in pursuing war
in Scotland.
In 1550, even Edinburgh was abandoned. Perhaps Somerset's campaign--the
ruthless invasion, followed by the bloody, futile slaughter of a beaten
enemy and the pointless, brutal subjugation of the civilian
population--deserves to slip into oblivion. Yet the significance of the
battle goes beyond its inconsequential political context. The tactics and
the weaponry employed by both sides were ugly portents for the future. The
military reformation had clearly touched England and Scotland; 100 years
after Pinkie Cleugh it would be carried to every corner of the British
Isles, bringing misery and suffering in its wake.
Contact us at: joerc@cts.com
Apparently handgunners were designed to fight behind field fortifications like the Agincourt archers. Hmmm... perhaps in the later periods maps should be allowed to give the defenders field fortifications of some sort.
Gilbert de Clare