Then, to enforce the treaty of marriage, came the invasion of Scotland, when Edinburgh was burned to the ground, when the port of Leith and the picturesque castles of Roslyn and Craigmillar were in flames, when the abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh were laid in ruins, and when the villages and farms of the lowlands were devastated by the English soldiery. But the violence of Henry was in vain; and during his reign the Scottish people hated England as they had never hated her before.[5]
The project of uniting the kingdoms by a royal marriage was not abandoned on the death of Henry; and in the first year of Edward the Sixth, the battle of Pinkie, the last great battle between England and Scotland, was fought. But the Protector Somerset soon found that the Scots, though defeated, were as determined as ever to resist the English connection, and that the Scottish Parliament had at last resolved that their young queen should be betrothed to the Dauphin, and sent forthwith to France, to be educated at the French Court. This resolution, so fateful to Mary Stuart, then a child of only six, altered the views and policy of Somerset. In the name of the English Council he issued a remarkable proclamation, in which he proposed that the Crowns should be united, and that the kingdoms should become one. “We invite you,” it was said, “to amity and equality, because, as we inhabit in the same island, there is no people so like one another in manners, customs, and language.” There was to be freedom and equality of trade between England and Scotland. The subjects of both kingdoms were to be allowed to intermarry. If the Scots wished it, the name of England would be abolished, and “the indifferent old name of Britains” taken again. “If we two,” the proclamation declared, “being made one by amity, be most able to defend us against all nations; and, having the sea for the wall, mutual love for garrison, and God for defence, should make so noble and well-agreeing a monarchy, that neither in peace we may be ashamed, nor in war afraid of any worldly or foreign power; why should not you be as desirous of the same, and have as much cause to rejoice at it as we?”[6] But these overtures were too late; the Queen of Scots was sent to France: and when, two years later, peace was proclaimed, Scotland remained unconquered and independent.