Friday, May 7, 2010

The Rough Wooing

One of the phrases coined by Walter Scott, the Wars of the Rough Wooing referred to the effort on the part of England's Henry VIII to force a marriage between his son Edward and Mary Stuart.  On May 7, 1542, the Earl of Hertford, who was Queen Jane Seymour's brother, invaded the Borderlands of Scotland, reaching Edinburgh in support of Henry's wishes.

Sir Walter Scott covers the Earl's (the Queene's brother) incursion the poem "Lord Ewrie", published in his Poetical Works:

Lord Ewrie was as brave a man
As ever stood in his degree;
The King has sent him a ftioad letter,
All for his courage and loyalty.!
...
 
With our Queene's brother * he hath been,
And rode rough shod through Scotland of late;
They have burn'd the Mers and Tiviotdale,
And knocked full loud at Edinburgh gate.
 
*The Earl of Hertford, afterward duke of Somerset, and brother of Queen Jane Seymour, made a furious incursion into Scotland, in 1545.

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