King James V of Scotland, capricious, prideful, paranoid and cruel, sent an army against Henry VIII. It won a victory at Haddon Rigg and then, a few weeks later at Solway Moss, fled before a much smaller English force ordered, paid for and commanded by Sir Thomas Wharton, Deputy Warden of the English Middle March. Wharton’s army was composed almost entirely of Border reivers, the Scots and English along the frontier who cared more for their family Name than any sense of national patriotism and were happy to take English money to fight a Scottish king.
King James, hearing of this rout, suffered a nervous collapse and died, aged thirty. His only offspring was a six-day-old daughter, promptly hailed as Mary, Queen of Scots and served by the Earl of Arran as Regent. Arran refused to be cowed by English demands for the baby Queen to be married to King Henry’s son, Prince Edward. So Fat Henry, old, gouty and pained by a bad leg and a bad wife – Catherine Howard had just been executed – looked for a way to force the issue.
He decided on a bold plan, using the skills of the Border reivers.
The Border lands, particularly that portion claimed by neither country and called the Debatable Land as a result, were already lawless, ruled only by fire and sword. That was scarcely to change for another sixty years… but change it did, with the death of a queen and the rise of a king with two crowns.
For some, all that came too late.