took many, and spared, indeed, but few. The torrent chiefly rolled itself along three great lines: one multitude took the way by the sands to Leith; another made for Edinburgh, either by the highroad, or through the enclosed ground called the King's Park; a third, and that the most numerous, sought Dalkeith, by crossing a marsh, through which the English horse found it difficult to pursue them."

Many thousands, however, were slaughtered in the flight, the protector's people giving hardly any quarter. The prisoners taken amounted, in all, only to about 1500-little more, according to Patten's account, than a tithe of the slain. The most distinguished among those that fell alive into the hands of the English was the Earl of Huntly, lord-chancellor of the kingdom, whom, notwithstanding his ostentatious message to Somerset by the trumpeter, the Scottish writers loudly accuse of treachery; the same authorities also assert that the Masters of Buchan, Erskine, and Graham, were put to death in cold blood, "after having rendered themselves on quarter promised." Soon after five o'clock, however, the lord-protector being, if we may believe his judgemarshal, moved with pity at the sight of the dead bodies, and rather glad of victory than desirous of slaughter, staid the pursuit. But by this time it seems to have extended up to the walls of Edinburgh, and no more fleeing enemies were anywhere to be seen for the sword to cut down. The victorious army then returned to plunder the Scottish camp. It stood, according to Patten's description, in a field called Edmonston Edges, half a mile to the west of Musselburgh, and four miles from Edinburgh; the space occupied by the tents being about a mile in compass. Here, as soon as the English arrived, they set up a universal shout of gladness and victory, the shrillness of which is affirmed to have been heard as far as Edinburgh. As for the spoil, there was found in the tents good provision of white bread, ale, oaten cakes, oatmeal, mutton, butter in pots, and cheese; and also, in those of the principal persons, good wine and some silver plate. Then they fell to stripping the bodies of the multitudinous dead. As many hands make light work, observes our journalist, it was wonderful to see in how short a time all the bodies were stripped stark naked throughout the whole space over which the pursuit and slaughter had extended. He expresses great admiration of the athletic forms of the Scottish soldiers; their tallness of stature, clearness of skin, bigness of bone, and due proportion in all parts, he says, were

1 See Sir James Balfour's Annals. According to Patten, the Mister of Graham was one of those killed by the volley fired on the admiral's galley at the commencement of the engage

ment.

such, that, unless he had seen them, he would not have believed the whole country had contained so many well-made men. All the day, during the fight and the subsequent slaughter, the sky had been cloudy and lowering; but now, when the earth lay covered with the naked dead, a heavy rain fell for an hour, lightening the laden atmosphere, and refreshing the face of nature. About seven o'clock the English pitched their camp for the night on the neighbouring height of Edge-buckling-brae, otherwise called Pinkencleugh, beside Pinkie Slough, about midway between their former station at Prestonpans and the spot where the battle was fought. And thus ended the greatest defeat the Scots had sustained since the disastrous day of Flodden Field, almost exactly thirty-four years before.

The army rested here only till the morning of the following day, Sunday the 11th, when it removed to the neighbourhood of Leith. The fleet now, taking advantage of the universal terror into which the country had been thrown, proceeded to sweep the sea of all Scottish vessels, and to burn and ravage whatever parts of the land it could reach. The island of Inchcolm in the firth was taken, and Kinghorn and other towns and villages along the Fife coast were plundered and set on fire. Meanwhile many of the neighbouring gentry came in to make their submission-and, for the moment, all active resistance on the part of the Scottish government and people was at an end. Both the capital, however, and its dependent seaport of Leith, still kept their gates shut against the invaders. Nor did Somerset deem it expedient to follow up his great victory by attempting to force an entrance into either of these towns. On Saturday, the 17th, it was announced to the army that the following morning the tents would again be struck, and the word given for setting out on their march back to the Borders. That same day the town of Leith was set on fire-the writer before us hesitatingly attempts to insinuate, by accident, or at least without any commission from Somerset-but the act was too much in the spirit of that commander's usual devastating and savage manner of carrying on war, to allow us to have any doubt as to its having been done by his express order. When the army set out the next morning at seven o'clock, the sky was still red with the flames that rose from the town, and also from some great ships in the harbour, that are admitted to have been designedly set on fire. As the English took their departure, Patten says that the castle of Edinburgh "shot off a peal of twenty-four pieces," but none of the shot reached them. The chief part of the army directed their march south-east across the country; "but part of us," he continues, "kept the way that the chief

of the chase was continued in, whereby we found most part of the dead corpses lying very ruefully, with the colour of their skins changed greenish, about the place they had been smitten in, as then too, above ground, unburied."

Somerset, meanwhile, pursued his way homewards without losing much more time. He had, indeed, despatched Clinton with a few ships, "full fraught with men and munition," to assault the castle of Broughty, at the mouth of the Tay; and this fortress, which was the key to that river and to the towns of Dundee and Perth, was soon compelled to surrender. The first pause which he himself made was at Hume Castle, in the Merse, before which he sat down on the 19th, and made preparations for an assault; but after two days of negotiation, Lady Hume deemed it most prudent to yield up the place, on condition of the garrison and herself being allowed to depart with their lives and whatever else they could carry away with them. He also halted for a few days at Roxburgh, and built a small fort within the inclosure of an old ruined castle there. After this, many of the persons in that part of the country came in to make their submission. It appears, however, that Arran, with a small body of cavalry, had hung upon the rear of the retreating army all the way from Edinburgh, although he did not venture to do more than watch its motions. At last, on Thursday, the 29th, the English general recrossed the Tweed, and in a few days more arrived in London, after an absence altogether of about six weeks.

It is conjectured that intelligence of certain doings on the part of a “brother near the throne," which will presently engage our attention, hurried Somerset back to the English court; but, independently of any such sudden and secret motive for his hasty return, the moment was as apt a one as he could have chosen in which to make his re-appearance. The Scottish war, indeed, of which he had undertaken the conduct, instead of being ended, was only begun; nor had he even attempted to follow up, or to gather the fruits of, his first great success. But no subsequent achievement was likely to out-dazzle the victory of Pinkie; nor could the glory of that victory be enhanced even by the most favourable and decisive results, for already it seemed not merely a battle won, but a kingdom conquered. The protector, however, was careful to return without show, and assume a demeanour of the most condescending and returing humility. He was immediately rewarded by Edward-in other words, by himself-with a grant of additional landed estates to the value of £500 a-year. He forthwith also prepared "to meet the parliament (for which the writs had been sent out before he went into Scotland), now that he was so covered with glory, to get himself

established in his authority, and to do those other things which required a session."1

The work of carrying forward the reformation of the church had engaged the attention of the government from the commencement of the reign. Cranmer, in the words of the right reverend historian who has just been quoted, "being now delivered from that too awful subjection that he had been held under by King Henry, resolved to go on more vigorously in purging out abuses." In these views the archbishop, besides the cordial assent of the young king, had the entire concurrence of the protector, as also, since the expulsion of Wriothesley, of nearly all the members of the council that were of any influence or consideration. The only formidable opponent of the innovations that remained even nominally a member of the government was Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, and he was relegated on various pretexts to his distant diocese, and excluded from taking any part in public affairs. Of the other bishops, several went along with Cranmernamely, Holgate of York, Holbeck of Lincoln, Goodrich of Ely, and especially the able and learned Ridley, who, in September of this year, was appointed to the see of Rochester. On the side of the old opinions, however, was still arrayed a vast force both of numbers and also of other elements of power. If the boy who occupied the throne was an enthusiastic Protestant, his sister, the Princess Mary, generally looked upon as the heiress presumptive, was as zealous and determined a Catholic; Somerset and his adherents of the new nobility had to maintain their position against the envy, the resentment, and the other natural antipathies of the whole faction of the ancient houses, depressed, indeed, for the present, but still deeply rooted and of great natural strength in the country; even of the heads of the church, both the greater number and the most distinguished, including, besides Tonstal, the fierce and unscrupulous Bonner of London, and the courageous, politic, and accomplished Gardiner of Winchester, were opposed to the new opinions; above all, the immense majority of the people of all classes had yet to be roused from their habitual attachment to the doctrines and the ritual of their forefathers. In these circumstances it was prudently resolved, "by Cranmer and his friends, to carry on the Reformation, but by slow and safe degrees, not hazarding too much at once." They did not wait, however, till the parliament met, to commence what they deemed so good and necessary a work, but determined at once to proceed upon the despotic statute of the last reign, which gave to the royal proclamation the full force of a legislative enactment. They began by a repetition of

the late king's visitation of dioceses. The kingdom was divided into six circuits, to each of which were appointed three or four visitors, in most cases partly clergymen, partly laymen. These visitors were invested for the time with the supreme spiritual authority in their several districts, and with power to call before them, for examination, the clergy of all ranks, from the bishop inclusive, and even any of the laity in every parish, whose evidence, as to its ecclesiastical condition, they should deem it expedient to obtain. But their functions were not limited to the taking of evidence. A body of injunctions relating to a great variety of points of religious belief and worship was framed and put into their hands, which they were to publish wherever they went, with intimation that the refusal or neglect to obey them would be punished with the pains of excommunication, sequestration, or deprivation, as the ordinaries, whom the justices of the peace were required to assist, should answer it to the king. These orders were for the greater part the same that had been formerly issued by Cromwell; but it was an important innovation thus to conjoin the civil authorities with the bishops in the execution of them. At the same time a collection of homilies was drawn up, which were required to be read in every church on Sundays and holidays: every parish church in England was ordered to be provided with a copy of a translation made for the purpose of Erasmus' Paraphrase on the New Testament, as well as of the English Bible; the most eminent preachers of the Reformed doctrines that could be found were dispersed over the kingdom along with the visitors, that they might with the more authority instruct the people; while, by various regulations, the right of all other clergymen to preach was gradually more and more contracted, till at last it was permitted to no one, even although a bishop, who had not a license from the protector or the metropolitan.

The visitors were sent out upon their circuits about the same time that the protector set forth on his expedition to Scotland; and when Somerset returned from the north he had the satisfaction of finding that they had completed their mission apparently with as much success as himself. One of the injunctions was, that all monuments of idolatry should be removed out of the walls or windows of churches; "and those," says Burnet, "who expounded the secret providences of God with an eye to their own opinions, took great notice of this-that on the same day in which the visitors removed and destroyed most of the images in London, their armies were so successful in Scotland in Pinkie Field." Both Bonner and Gardiner, however, had stood out against the new regulations. Bonner, at first,

would only promise to observe the injunctions in so far as they were not contrary to God's law and the ordinances of the church: on this be was brought before the council, where, after offering a submission "full of vain quiddities" (as the minute characterizes it), he at last consented to withdraw his protestation unconditionally; but, nevertheless, " for giving terror to others," it was deemed proper that he should be sent for a time to the Fleet. Gardiner's case was different; the injunctions and homilies had never actually been offered for his acceptance, but he had objected to them in a letter to one of the visitors before the visitation of his diocese had commenced. Burnet, who transcribes this letter at length, being "resolved," as he says, "to suppress nothing of consequence, on what side soever it may be," cannot help speaking of it in a tone of honest commendation, which is not the less forcible for the indications of partizanship with which his admission is accompanied. "It has more," he observes, "of a Christian and of a bishop in it than anything I ever saw of his. He expresses, in handsome terms, a great contempt of the world, and a resolution to suffer anything rather than depart from his conscience; besides that, as he said, the things being against law, he would not deliver up the liberties of his country, but would petition against them." He also wrote argumentative letters against some things in the injunctions and homilies both to the protector and to Cranmer. This was all that he had done when he was summoned before the council, and required to promise that he would obey the royal injunctions. He replied that he was not bound, then, to say whether he would or would not, but should be prepared to make his answer to the visitors when they came to his diocese. This defence, however, availed him nothing: he also, as well as Bonner, was consigned to close imprisonment in the Fleet. In this way the two most formidable enemies of the course which the protector and Cranmer had entered upon, and were bent upon pursuing, were excluded from the parliament that was about to open.

The two houses met on the 4th of November. The day before, "the protector," says Burnet, "gave too public an instance how much his prosperous success had lifted him up; for by a patent under the great seal he was warranted to sit in parliament on the right hand of the throne, and was to have all the honours and privileges that at any time any of the uncles of the kings of England, whether by the father's or mother's side, had enjoyed; with a non obstante to the statute of precedence." The new parliament, however, began its proceedings with some valuable constitutional reforms, or rather restorations of the old constitution. The first bill that was