How Henry VIII’s Armies Defeated a Much Larger Scottish Force, Humiliating His Nephew, the King of Scotland

In 1534, Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, declaring himself supreme head of the Church of England. He expected his nephew, James V of Scotland, to follow suit, but James did not. When Henry scheduled a meeting with James in northern England in 1542, James blew it off.

This breakdown in relations between the kingdoms set the stage for what historian Gervase Phillips has called “one of the most extraordinary battles ever fought between English and Scot”: the Battle of Solway Moss, which took place on November 24, 1542.

Henry had broken with Rome in a bid to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and become his kingdom’s ultimate religious authority. In response to James’ disobedience, he first sent English troops up to Scotland to sack and burn a few towns and villages along the eastern marches, as the borderland was then known. James then sent his own troops to raid the western marches along the English side of the River Esk.

“A great army of Scotland, numbering 18,000, entered these marches,” wrote William Musgrave, a sheriff who fought at Solway Moss, in a letter to an English courtier.

A comparatively paltry number of local English troops could be mustered on short notice—3,000 “at the most,” Musgrave reported.

Thomas Wharton was in charge of the English troops, and he was well aware of this disparity and the apparent disadvantage it offered the English. To enter into battle while knowing the slim odds would almost certainly be folly.

“But Wharton was a borderer,” Phillips notes. “He fought best on horseback with lance or sword and trusted his country’s defense more to walls of flesh and bone than stone.”

As the Scottish army crossed the River Esk at dawn, Wharton sent out light cavalry troops to penetrate the advancing line. The Battle of Solway Moss was underway.

The English army moved quickly on the offensive, darting back and forth, advancing, retreating, attacking, and escaping in rapid, frustrating succession. They forced the Scots into an awkward position between the Esk and Solway Moss, a boggy, treacherous mire that hindered the movement of Scotland’s cannons and heavy troops, now rendered useless in the face of the nippy English horsemen.

To make matters worse, Phillips writes, the Scots were effectively leaderless since their monarch himself was too “ailing and weak” to participate in the battle himself. The man technically in charge, Robert Maxwell, Fifth Lord Maxwell, was locked in a power struggle with the Scottish king’s favorite courtier, Oliver Sinclair.

In the confusion, “the Scots withdrew softly,” Musgrave recalled. The English troops “set on them and struck down many, and the rest fled over Esk.”

Wharton’s men pursued the Scots deep into their own territory, taking 1,200 prisoners and lots of Scottish artillery. When the battle was over, approximately 7 Englishmen and 20 Scots were dead. But the humiliation was too great for the young Scottish monarch. He died just three weeks after news of the defeat reached him.

Though James “had been ill for some time,” Phillips writes, his cause of death remains unknown. “Few doubt, though, that news of the debacle on the Esk was the final blow to the weary and already ailing king.”

Upon James’ untimely death, his only legitimate child, a 6-day-old daughter named Mary, ascended to the throne, reigning as queen of Scots for the next 25 years. The consequences of her reign—and the aftershocks of the battle of Solway Moss—would reverberate for centuries.

Eli Wizevich | | READ MORE

Eli Wizevich is a history correspondent for Smithsonian. He studied history at the University of Chicago and previously wrote for the El Paso Times.