The Battle of Solway Moss

Battle of Solway Moss 24th November 1542

On the 18th November Sir Thomas Wharton, Deputy Warden of the English West March and Captain of Carlisle, called out the gentlemen resident within the West March to be at Carlisle with bows and spears by sunset on 22nd November. He planned a raid on Middlebie and Langholm with the aim of both annoying and confusing the Scots who were massing at Langholm.

He returned after supper on 23rd to the news from the Lord Warden, then Lord Hertford in Alnwick almost on the east coast that a great force of Scots, estimated at between 17,000 and 19,000 men, would descend on the West March on 23rd or 24th November.

Wharton had his deputies and commanders either with him or waiting for him at Carlisle and his spies were reporting almost hourly on Scottish movements from Langholm south toward the rivers Esk and the Leven. His forces, estimated at between 300 and 3,000 men plus 100 light horse, sometimes called “prickers” seemed like no match for the opposing Scots. However, the prickers, called into existence by the eternal forays of the Scottish Border, were probably the best light cavalry in Europe.

There are five contemporary reports on the battle: original letters from Sir Thomas Wharton, (written on 23rd and 25th November) plus one from Sir William Musgrave. Two more are “reports of reports” (Lisle and Tunstall (6th Dec) and Edward Hall’s “Chronicles,” published 1548. Lisle had taken over the Wardenship from Hertford on 1st December that year and might therefore be forgiven for not having a full grasp of the battle.

Communication was not easy in the sixteenth century. Wharton gives excellent detail of the entire battle, probably because he had his clerk with him to take notes.

A smaller battle took place at Akeshawhill, one mile east of Netherby, where Jac Musgrave, a captain under his brother Sir William Musgrave, led the company and later wrote notes which were later taken up by Lisle and Tunstall, who seemed mistakenly to believe that the skirmish was the main thrust of the battle. Lisle’s report to Henry’s Privy Council omitted all mention of Wharton.

On 24th November Wharton rode out with 2,000 foot and 1,200 horse to West Linton and observed Scots riders burning Oakshawhill. Lack of a guide, November weather and the notorious Solway Bore, often up to ten feet in height, dissuaded Lord Maxwell from bringing his Scots across the shifting quicksand of the Solway to Burgh on the English coast. Instead he chose to advance via the Esk Ford at Arthuret. Wharton and his prickers met them there.

Scots horse retreated to Arthuret Holme to warn the main body of the Scots army. The Border Horse pricked at Maxwell’s rear during their retreat.

The Grames chased Scots raiders from Oakshawhill to Arthuret and from Lyne to beyond Hopesikehill. Wharton advanced and set up his six standards in a flying formation ie with wings outspread to look as imposing as possible, on Hopesykehill.

As the Scots advanced, Wharton’s two hundred archers loosed off a volley of arrows. A trained longbow man can send off 10-12 arrows a minute, so the Scots advancing uphill faced a deluge of approximately 2,000 deadly arrows followed by a charge of the notorious prickers. Disorganised and believing themselves to be facing a much larger force, the Scots retreated.

Wharton overran the Scots foot at Hopesykehill and advanced to Howse to watch the Scots army floundering at the Myln dam. They attempted to regroup and fired light ordinance at the English. Maxwell dismounted at Sandyforde and attempted to rally the main army and protect the river crossing.

Wharton sent in prickers to harry floundering Scots who panicked and ran back to the river. The Scots retreated, ran from the battle, only to be harried by Liddesdale reivers. King James escaped capture by riding hard to Stirling and then on to Falkland where he died a few days later. A few days after that, his wife, Marie de Guise, gave birth to a daughter, Mary, on 8^th December 1542. 

Weapons

The word arquebus, (sometimes spelled harquebus, harkbut or hackbut from the Dutch word haakbus, meaning "hook gun" or "hook tube," refers to an early muzzle-loaded firearm used during the 15th to 17th centuries. The Germans knew it as Hakenbüchse, or haquebute, the Italians as archibugio; which gave arquebuse (French), arcabuz (Spanish), arcabus (Portuguese) and arquebus (English).

The caliver, an improved version of the arquebus, was introduced in the early 16th century. The word is derived from the English corruption of calibre as this gun was of standard bore, increasing combat effectiveness as troops could load bullets that would fit their guns (before, they would have to modify shot to fit, force it in, or cast their own before the battle).

In the early 16th century, the term "arquebus" had a confusing variety of meanings. Some writers used it to denote any matchlock shoulder gun, referring to light versions as caliver and heavier pieces fired from a fork rest as musket. Others treated the arquebus and caliver synonymously, both referring to the lighter, forkless shoulder-fired matchlock.

As the 16th century progressed, the term arquebus came to be clearly reserved for the lighter forkless weapon. When the wheel-lock was introduced, wheel-lock shoulder arms came to be called arquebuses, while lighter, forkless matchlock and flintlock shoulder weapons continued to be called calivers.

The arquebus was used against enemies wearing steel-plate armour, standard in European combat from about 1400 until the middle of the 17th century. Plate usually stopped an arquebus ball at long range but at close range often pierced the armor of knights and other heavy cavalry. Good quality in both gun and armour was vital. The arquebus led to the development of thicker plate armour, and its final retirement.

Tools of War

Research fascinates me. Right now I'm thinking myself back into the sixteenth century and it's a wonderful opportunity to hunt down obscure names and places on the internet.
Many things have to be considered. By the fifteenth century cannon had improved, but they were still inaccurate and unreliable, as likely to explode and kill their 'handlers' as the enemy. They were unwieldly and could not be fired more than perhaps seven times a day because they grew too hot. Handguns were in use, but longbowmen, foot soldiers with pikes and heavy cavalry units were still the ones who won the battles.

By the 1400s brick was the coming building material, and there are some splendid castles made of brick. By the time the Wars of the Roses were over, ideas filtering in from Italy affected the architecture of England. By Elizabeth's time, castle building was over. Some were altered and redesigned as stately homes.

Handguns became more efficient with the matchlock pistol towards the end of the fifteenth century. Renamed an arquebus, it had a short wooden butt designed to rest against the shoulder. Cannon became lighter, and thus more mobile. With these new tools, the old accepted methods of warfare had to change.

Some castles were inhabited, besieged, felled and restored well into the seventeenth century. Some are still used today as family homes, but others became prisons and storerooms. Yet others fell into disrepair and their stone was spirited away by those anxious to rebuild a fallen barn or delapidated farmhouse. For a period of three, perhaps four hundrd years, castles were the most important defensive building in a region. With Henry VIII, who changed so many things, castles morphed into stately homes, and forts and barracks were built to house soldiers. The last battle on English soil is generally accepted as the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, though Cumbria claims a skirmish involving a hundred dead as the English chased Bonnie Prince Charlie back over the border in 1745, and some claim the Falklands as 'English soil.'

A thin veneer

Emotions are always going to remain the same no matter which period novelists write about. I've read this statement many times, and agree with the premise. But then little niggles creep out of the woodwork and I begin to wonder if it is true.

The life experiences of historical characters are so very different to ours. Surely they would make some difference to a character's psyche?

When writing about characters in the sixteenth century, I have to remind myself that religion was important to them in a way it is not to me. (But I don't want to write about religion, so I avoid it as much as possible. Still, I can't say it isn't there in clear and present form.) In that century, arguably more than any other, Christians were prepared to die rather than give lip service to a religion in which they did not believe.

It is difficult to get into focus how short a life expectancy was then. While we can confidently expect to live to be 70 or even 80, they could expect 45, and some historians say as little as 35.

In that sort of life scale, marriage at 12 and 13 seems a tad more reasonable than it does to us today. Wait until 21, and most of your life had already gone. Childbirth was deemed to be easier when the mother’s bones were flexible, and perhaps practice proved them correct, given the state of medicine and hygiene back then.

Even among royalty, where conditions would be so much better than average for the time, many children did not survive the first year of life. The King of Scotland and Mary of Guise watched two sons die within a very short space of time of each other, and could do nothing to prevent it.

There is so much today that we rely on without stopping to give thanks – medical help, education, welfare state, 24/7 news, clean water supply and wonderful transport links not only in this country but around the world.

What if glasses and contacts were unavailable? If dentistry consisted of nothing more than pulling rotten teeth with pliers and a stiff whisky? That painkillers did not exist except in herbal form? Hygiene almost non-existent, no piped running water, certainly no hot water unless you boiled it on an open fire…I can't help but feel that given such a life style, our emotions would be quite a bit different.

The pic shows a fox, admittedly blurry because he was half a mile away, spotted on out country walk on Wednesday.

The big R time

I'm late with this because I've had all the aches and pains of a cold bug without the sneezing over the last few days, received two rejections within a week of each other, and I've been out for a country walk with a very good friend today.

Unfortunately she claims to have no skills at literary critiquism, otherwise I think she would have found my ms in her lap! It is so easy to lose heart, and I must admit the thought crept into my mind last night ~why torture yourself like this?

Bt then it's always like this when a rejection comes through, and especially this time because in one case I'd been asked to send in the full ms. We try to remain level-headed, but somewhere on the subconcious plane the mind is busily crafting away on how delightful it will be when that acceptance comes... and then of course comes the big crash. At least this time I heard, and they told me very nicely. So many times the response is just silence. Aching, unending silence. Is it any wonder aspiring authors are basket cases?

Never mind. I keep on doing it because I love doing it, and I'm trying to achieve success in a time and place that has never been harder because of the recession. I'll take few days off, and then I'll be back, working away in my sixteenth century world where Matho has got to Edinburgh and the English are poised to attack tomorrow....how can I resist getting him and Phemie together for a few hours?