s brought to some
composure, made preparations for war with Scotland; and he was
determined to execute, if possible, that project of uniting the two
kingdoms by marriage, on which the late king had been so intent, and
which he had recommended with his dying breath to his executors. He
levied an army of eighteen thousand men, and equipped a fleet of
sixty sail, one half of which were ships of war, the other laden with
provisions and ammunition. He gave the command of the fleet to Lord
Clinton; he himself marched at the head of the army, attended by the
earl of Warwick. These hostile measures were covered with a pretence of
revenging some depredations committed by the borderers: but besides that
Somerset revived the ancient claim of the superiority of the English
crown over that of Scotland, he refused to enter into negotiation on any
other condition than the marriage of the young queen with Edward.

The protector, before he opened the campaign, published a manifesto,
in which he enforced all the arguments for that measure. He said, that
nature seemed originally to have intended this island for one empire,
and having cut it off from all communication with foreign states, and
guarded it by the ocean, she had pointed out to the inhabitants the
road to happiness and to security; that the education and customs of the
people concurred with nature; and, by giving them the same language, and
laws, and manners, had invited them to a thorough union and coalition:
that fortune had at last removed all obstacles, and had prepared an
expedient by which they might become one people, without leaving any
place for that jealousy either of honor or of interest, to which rival
nations are naturally exposed: that the crown of Scotland had devolved
on a female; that of England on a male; and happily the two sovereigns,
as of a rank, were also of an age the most suitable to each other: that
the hostile dispositions which prevailed between the nations, and which
arose from past injuries, would soon be extinguished, after a long and
secure peace had established confidence between them: that the memory of
former miseries, which at present inflamed their mutual animosity,
would then serve only to make them cherish with more passion a state of
happiness and tranquillity so long unknown to their ancestors: that when
hostilities had ceased between the kingdoms, the Scottish nobility,
who were at present obliged to remain perpetually in a warlike postu