THE BLACK SATURDAY.
Yet turn ye to the eastern hand,
And wae and wonder ye shall see;
How thirty thousand Scotsmen stand,
Where yon rank river meets the sea.
There shall the lyon lose the gylte,
And the leopards hear it clean away;
At Pinkycleuch there shall be spylte
Much gentil blood that day.
_Thomas the Rhymer._
The dawn of the next day, the 10th of September, 1547--by the Scots
called, the Feast of St. Finian, by the English and others the
Festival of St. Nicholas of Tolentino--was singularly beautiful.
When the sun arose from his bed beyond the eastern sea, the waves
rolled and glittered in amber light; the spray seemed to rise and
fall in showers of snow and diamonds upon the rocky bluffs; while the
dew of the past night lay heavy on every leaf and shrub. Between its
green and far-stretching shores of yellow sand and opening bays, of
mountain slopes and brown basaltic rocks, its grassy isles and
covered headlands, the Forth lay almost waveless like a sea of gold,
and receding far away as the eye could reach, until it melted into
the eastern horizon, where cloud and wave were blent together.
The fertile hills and upheaved bluffs of Fife were tinted by the
glory of the morning with saffron and purple, though mellowed by haze
and distance; while the capital, with its castle, its steep ridge of
towering mansions, St. Giles's tower, and Arthur's rocky cone, stood
clearly forth from the deep unbroken blue of the west. As the sun
rose higher, seeming to mount into heaven, through successive bars or
horizontal lines of vapour, which turned to glowing gold and purple,
the beauty of the morning increased, for it exhibited one of those
glorious arrangements of massive cloud and blazing sunshine,
brilliant light and sudden shadow, peculiar to the lowlands of
Scotland.
Cleared of the grain, which was now stowed away in the vaults of
baronial towers or of fortified granges, or else consumed by the
flame and the troop-horses of the foe, the fields were bare now, and
yellow stubble covered all the upland slopes, from the margin of the
sea to the lonely Lammermuirs. In some places, the plough that lay
now rusting and disused, had already been at work, and had turned up
the long, brown furrows, above which the ravening gled and the black
corbie, as if scenting the battle from afar, were wheeling in lazy
circles. Westward, beyond the Esk, the stackyards were full of
yellow grain, and along the river's bank, and among the old coppice
that shrouded Pinkey House, Wallyford, and the Templar Hospital of
St. Germains, the leaves were assuming those varied tints of orange,
russet, green, and brown--the beautiful, but fading hues of the
Scottish forests in autumn.
Such was the aspect of the morning and the scenery, when, on this
Saturday in September, 1547, Florence Fawside reined up his horse on
the slope of Inveresk Hill, and saw before him the whole arena of a
battle-field; whereon manoeuvred the far-extended and glittering
lines of more than _fifty thousand_ Scots and Englishmen, prepared
for mortal strife! And this was to gratify the mad ambition, of
Henry VIII., who, from his deathbed bequeathed, like the first
Edward, to his successors, the hopeless task of attempting to humble
a free and warlike people.
The English had first begun to move about dawn, by sending some of
their artillery to the summit of Inveresk and to Crookstone Loan,
from whence they could play upon the camp of the Scots, towards whom
their whole force moved in three great columns, Warwick still leading
the van; Somerset led the second column, and Lord Dacres the third,
or rear-guard; but on coming into the fertile plain, amid which the
little stream named Pinkey Burn, flows through a cleuch or hollow,
the English were astonished to find that the Scots, with singular
imprudence, had accepted the duke's challenge, and left their strong
position, to meet his better-trained and well-appointed army in the
open field.
The regent of Scotland had unwisely mistaken the first movements of
the English for an intention to seek safety in flight, by a
precipitate retreat from the sands of Musselburgh on board their
fleet. Alarmed lest they should thus escape, after their
unwarrantable hostilities, and the devastations committed on their
northern march, he resolved at once to cross the Esk, and get between
them and their shipping, so as to cut off all chance of their
retiring towards the sea. This movement he resolved to execute in
defiance of the advice of the most wary and skilful soldiers in his
army, which was armed almost entirely in the fashion of the middle
ages, with lances, bows, swords, and battle-axes; while the English
had many of the more modern appliances of warfare in the hands of
their well-trained and veteran bands of Spaniards, Germans, and the
garrisons of Calais and Boulogne, all of whom carried arquebuses or
hand-guns.
The Earls of Arran, Huntly, Angus, and Argyle, on this day appeared
each at the head of his division, sheathed in full armour, wearing
above their cuirasses the Order of the Thistle, together with the
Collar of St. Michael, which they had received from Francis I., two
years before. Each wore around his helmet an earl's coronet, from
the centre of which, beneath a plume of feathers, rose his gilded
crest; thus, the first carried an oak-tree; the second, a
stag's-head; the third, a salamander _vert_ amid flames of fire; and
the fourth, the wild boar's head of the Campbells, showing its
ghastly tusks above his polished vizor.
"Reflect, lord regent," said the Earl of Huntly; "I pray you to
reflect on this measure."
"Reflect on what?" asked Arran sharply, through his golden helmet.
"The sequel of a movement so rash as this."
"A brave soldier never reflects," replied Arran proudly.
"But a skilful captain doth," was the pointed response.
"True, my Lord Huntly," said the Earl of Angus; "you are in the
right, and our friend Arran is most unwise to reject such prudent
counsel."
"Enough, sirs--enough!" said Arran, who was burning with impatience,
as he saw the long lines of the English glittering in the sunshine,
and a longing for vengeance on Somerset, whose invasion had convulsed
the realm, and whose plots, spies, assassins, and bribes, had so long
disturbed the Scottish government, gathered in his heart; "let us
attack them ere they escape by sea. You smile, my Lord Kilmaurs!" he
added, turning wrathfully to that young lord.
"Nay, my lord regent--this is no time to smile; nor did I," replied
the other bluntly.
"Methought a strange expression crossed your face."
Kilmaurs grew pale with rage, for being in the English interest, he
_had_ felt some satisfaction on foreseeing the ruin of Arran's army.
"Your grace is scarcely well bred in reproaching me with a wound
received in the service of my country," said he, pointing to the scar
which traversed his cheek, and the spasmodic twitching of which was a
constant source of annoyance to him. He then put spurs to his horse
and galloped to the head of his father's vassals, all stout yeomen of
Cunninghame and Kyle, who were arrayed in a dense and steely mass
under the banner with the hayfork sable, and were preparing to cross
the fatal river at a ford.
The rash movement of Arran was urged by the Earl of Glencairn and
many others, who are now known to have been the pensioners of
England, and in secret league with Somerset; but dearly did it cost
the earl and his Cunninghames.
"The lord regent is right," said he; "let us down at one fell swoop
upon them; for what is yonder host but a banded horde of English
clowns and Irish kerne--of Spanish robbers and German boors, come
hither in steel bonnets to seek for blood and beer? Down at once, I
say, and bear me this horde of invaders at spear-point to the sea!"
"But the German infantry," said Huntly, "and those arquebuses of
Spain----"
"A rabble of tawny loons clad in armour so heavy, and mounted on
horses so gorgeously trapped, that they can never escape your
Highlandmen or the Lord Home's light Border-prickers."
The Earl of Angus now refused to advance, swearing "by St. Bryde of
Douglas it was rank madness to cast advantage at their horses' heels."
"On pain of treason to our lady the queen, I charge you, lord earl,
to pass forward with the van, or beware our speedy vengeance!" said
Arran.
"My fear is less of thee than for my queen and country," replied the
Douglas calmly, as he led his squadron girdle-deep through the
stream, which swept some of them through the arches of the bridge,
and away into the sea beyond.
"What says your leal and right-hand man, the young Laird of Fawside?"
asked the Earl of Cassilis with a scarcely perceptible sneer;
"doubtless that he is ready, on either side of the Esk, to die for
your grace and the queen."
"To say so, my lord, were an empty boast," replied Florence quietly
(his heart was too heavy for anger). "In yonder plain are
six-and-thirty thousand Scots, who far excel me, I hope, in their
readiness to die."
"To battle, then!" exclaimed Arran, waving his truncheon. "God and
St. Andrew are with us!"
By this time the whole Scottish army had defiled across the high
Roman bridge of Esk, and formed in dense columns of horse, foot, and
archers, as they advanced towards the foe, presenting a splendid
array, with all their polished helmets and cuirasses shining in the
sun--their many square, triangular, and swallow-tailed banners
waving, and their tall, uplifted lances, eighteen feet in length, and
not less than fifteen thousand in number, swaying heavily to and fro,
like a field of giant corn, as the close ranks marched on shoulder to
shoulder, until the whole thirty-six thousand men stood in firm order
of battle on the plain beyond the hill of Inveresk, which overlooked
their left flank, while the green upland slope of Fawside rose upon
their right.
With the shrill fife, the rattling drum (or _Almainie swesche_, as
the Scots named it), the droning bagpipe, the twanging bugle-horn,
the kettle, the clashing cymbal, and the sharp brass trumpet, filling
the air with harsh but martial music, the Scottish lines drew near
the English; and then the shouts, the cheers, the war-cries (the
_slogan_ of the Lowlanders, the _cathghairm_ of the Celts), by which
the soldiers of hastily-collected levies usually encourage each
other, or taunt the foe, began to load the air with a confusion of
sounds, after the deep boom of the first English cannon from the
green brow of Inveresk had pealed through the clear welkin, and made
a ghastly lane amid the nearest close column of Scottish infantry,
causing the silken banners to rustle, the ranks to swerve, and the
tall ash spears to sway like a corn-field bending beneath a blast of
wind; and then to heaven went up a louder and a deeper shout, as the
ranks closed over the mangled dead, and the forward march went on.
The centre was led by the Regent Arran in person. It consisted of
the hardy clans from Stathearn, with the flower of the Scottish
infantry, the men of Lothian, of Kinross, and of Stirlingshire. With
many barons, he had also at least eight hundred chosen citizens of
Edinburgh, led by William Craik, their provost. In their centre,
Dick Hackerston bore the "Blue Blanket," or ancient banner of the
city--a great swallow-tailed pennon of azure silk, worked for the
burgesses by Margaret of Oldenburg. Among the men of Strathearn were
the MacNabs, in their red, glaring tartans; and amid them were twelve
stately warriors, conspicuous in their long lurichs of steel. These
were Ian Mion and his eleven brothers, the heroes of the savage story
of Lochearn, and on their banner was painted a human head _affrontée_.
The right wing consisted of six thousand western Highlanders, and
brave and hardy islesmen, inured to battle and to storm, under
MacLeod, MacGregor, and Archibald Earl of Argyle, the regent's
son-in-law. On both its flanks and rear this column was covered by
artillery. The other divisions presented the aspect either of dull
or uniform masses covered with shining steel or brown leather; but
this displayed the varied tartans of many Celtic tribes; and from its
marching masses, with the incessant brandishing of swords and round
targets, rose the wildest and most tumultuary shouts and outcries.
The left division of the Scots consisted of ten thousand infantry of
Fife, Mearn, and the eastern counties, led by Archibald Earl of
Angus, flanked by culverins and light horse. In their centre there
marched a singular force, consisting of more than a thousand Scottish
monks, who had been drawn from their cloisters by a terror of the
Reformation (which Henry had so roughly established in England) being
spread into Scotland, if Somerset's expedition proved successful.
They were clad in plain black armour, and wore white or grey surcoats
with crosses on the breast and back, to distinguish them as
Dominicans, Cistercians, or Franciscans; and in their centre waved a
white silk banner, which had been consecrated with many solemn
ceremonies by the abbot of Dunfermline, after it had been made by
Mary of Lorraine and the Countesses of Yarrow and Arran. Thereon was
depicted a female kneeling with dishevelled hair before a cross, and
around her was the motto--
"Afflictæ Ecclesiæ ne Obliviscaris."
The great squares or close columns of Scottish infantry were formed
in admirable order, but in the ancient and somewhat unwieldy fashion
of their country. Drawn up shoulder to shoulder, each soldier
carried his spear, which was six Scots ells (_i.e._ eighteen feet) in
length, pointing to the front; the first rank knelt, the next
stooped, the third stood erect; but _all_ had their weapons levelled
at three angles towards the foe; thus the Scots were "so completely
defended by the close order in which they were formed, and by the
length of their lances, that to charge them seemed to be as rash as
to oppose your bare hands to a hedgehog's bristles."
Lances, two-handed swords, and daggers, with mauls and Jethart
staves, were the arms of the cavalry, who were all in complete mail,
except the Borderers, who were always lightly armed, and seldom wore
more than a skull-cap and breastplate or splinted jack, with plate
sleeves and gloves of steel. A few were armed with wheel-lock
pistols, which were brought from Italy or Flanders; but in the art of
war, in order, and, above all, in perfect obedience, as well as in
the discipline of the Boulogners and the new fashion of weapons,
arquebuse and culiver, by which their auxiliaries the foreign horse
and foot were armed, the English on this day were every way superior
to the Scots.