ll common men who should pretend to serve a king whose
peers and the nobles of his realm were shut out from the first of his
favour. James V had in his train some familiar servants, confidants of
his many public undertakings, who were not of noble blood or, at least,
of distinguished rank, and his angry withdrawal might well be explained
by his determination to save them, if indeed any explanations beyond his
vexed and miserable sense of humiliation and desertion were necessary to
account for it. He left the lords, whom he would seem to have had no
longer either the means or the heart to confront, saying in his rage and
shame that he would "either make them fight or flee, or else Scotland
should not keep him and them both," and returned to Edinburgh sick at
heart to his Queen, who was not in very good health to cheer
him--passing, no doubt, with a deepened sense of humiliation through the
crowds which would throng about for news, and to whom the spectacle of
their King thus returning discomfited was no pleasant sight; if it were
not, perhaps, that many among them had now begun to think all failures
and disappointments were so many proofs of the displeasure of heaven
against one who would not take upon him the office of reformer.

When James heard soon after that his rebellious lords had disbanded
their host, he collected a smaller army to revenge the ravages of
Norfolk, issuing, according to Pitscottie, a proclamation bidding all
who loved him be ready within twenty-four hours "to follow the King
wherever he pleased to pass"; but even this new levy was little
subordinate. After it had penetrated a little way into England a fatal
mistake arose--an idea that Oliver Sinclair, the King's "minion," whom
he had sent to read a manifesto to the army, had been appointed its
general--upon which the new bands, disgusted in their turn, fell into a
forced retreat, and getting involved in the broken ground of Solway Moss
were there pursued and surrounded by the English, miserably defeated and
put to flight. "There was but ane small number slain in the field," says
Pitscottie, "to wit, there was slain on both sides but twenty-four,
whereof was nine Scottishmen and fifteen Englishmen"; a very great
number, however, were taken prisoners, many of the gentlemen, it is
suggested, preferring captivity to the encounter of the King after such
an inexcusable catastrophe. We are not told why it was that James had
not himself taken the command of