The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh
September 1547
The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh was fought between the English and the Scots. Edward Seymore, protector to Edward IV, King of England, was intending to continue a campaign in mainland Europe but needed to sort out his issues with Scotland first. His plan was to send his forces north and engineer a marriage between Edward IV, and Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary was taken to France for protection). Thus he would bring the Scottish crown into English ownership and join the two countries. This would then allow him to focus his attentions on mainland Europe.
18000 mixed units of English troops and artillery marched north, hugging the coastline, protected by a flotilla of naval ships in the north sea.
The Scots, led by the Earl of Arran, had taken up position to the west of the river Esk with additional cavalry on Carberry Hill. The English approached from the East and took up position on Fa'side Hill, deploying artillery units on Inveresk slopes. Shortly afterwards the Earl of Home, leading 1500 cavalry rode up to the English camp and challenged an equal amount of Engish soldiers to fight. The Scots lost most of the cavalry in the move and were pursued for 3 miles to the west.
In a desperate move to avoid major bloodshed, Arran sent two offers to Somerset. The first was that they could settle the battle in one on one combat, the other was for 20 champions from each side to settle it. Both offers were declined.
On Saturday 10th September, Somerset advanced his army toward the artillery units to find that the Scots, knowing they would be out gunned by the English artillery, had moved position and were now on the eastern side of the Esk - having crossed via the Roman bridge in Musselburgh - trying to force a close battle. The Scots suffered major losses through bombardment from the Naval ships sitting of the shore in the Forth which also caused confusion and disorganisation. Under heavy fire from off the shore, land based artillery, arquebusiers and archers the Scots were broken and retreated. Many were slaughtered or drowned as they got caught in the soft marches to the south of Musselburgh (now Monktonhall Golf Club).
6000 Scots were lost and only around 600 english troops were killed. The Scots refused to agree terms and Somerset began a lengthy occupation of the Scottish lowland but eventually withdrew forces as the troops were an unnecessary drain on the treasury.
The first modern battle using combined land and sea based units had now been fought. This was a significant change to war tactics. Well done to Interloper for the FTF