lish party among the nobles
had arranged to betray Scottish fortresses to England; and to lead 2000
Scottish "favourers of the Word of God" to fight under the flag of St
George against their country. An English host of 15,000 was assembled,
and marched north accompanied by a fleet. On the 9th of September 1547
the leader, Somerset, found the Scottish army occupying a well-chosen
position near Musselburgh: on their left lay the Firth, on their front a
marsh and the river Esk. But next day the Scots, as when Cromwell
defeated them at Dunbar, left an impregnable position in their eagerness
to cut Somerset off from his ships, and were routed with great slaughter
in the battle of Pinkie. Somerset made no great use of his victory: he
took and held Broughty Castle on Tay, fortified Inchcolme in the Firth of
Forth, and devastated Holyrood. Mischief he did, to little purpose.

The child queen was conveyed to an isle in the loch of Menteith, where
she was safe, and her marriage with the Dauphin was negotiated. In June
1548 a large French force under the Sieur d'Esse arrived, and later
captured Haddington, held by the English, while, despite some
Franco-Scottish successes in the field, Mary was sent with her Four
Maries to France, where she landed in August, the only passenger who had
not been sea-sick! By April 1550 the English made peace, abandoning all
their holds in Scotland. The great essential prize, the child queen, had
escaped them.

The clergy burned a martyr in 1550; in 1549 they had passed measures for
their own reformation: too late and futile was the scheme. Early in 1549
Knox returned from France to England, where he was minister at Berwick
and at Newcastle, a chaplain of the child Edward VI., and a successful
opponent of Cranmer as regards kneeling at the celebration of the Holy
Communion. He refused a bishopric, foreseeing trouble under Mary Tudor,
from whom he fled to the Continent. In 1550-51 Mary of Guise, visiting
France, procured for Arran the Duchy of Chatelherault, and for his eldest
son the command of the Scottish Archer Guard, and, by way of exchange, in
1554 took from him the Regency, surrounding herself with French advisers,
notably De Roubay and d'Oysel.

CHAPTER XVIII. REGENCY OF MARY OF GUISE.

In England, on the death of Edward VI., Catholicism rejoiced in the
accession of Mary Tudor, which, by driving Scottish Protestant refugees
back into their own country, strengthened there