432 Notes on Branxholme. By W. Eliott Lockhart. 



goes on to remark that with the ranks crossing their pykes "and thus each 

 with other so nye as place and space will suffer, thrngh the hole ward so 

 thick, that as easly shal a bare fynger perce thrugh the skyn of an angrie 

 hedgehog as ony encounter the frunt of theyr pykes." 1 



Iii the early part of the battle, and while in this formation, 

 he says : — 



" Before this, as our men wear well nie at them, they stood very brave 

 and bragging, shaking theyr pyke pointes, criyng, " cum here loundes, cum 

 here tykes, cum here here here tykes " and such lyke, (as hardly they 

 are fayre mouthed men)." 2 



If Patten is correct, some of the Scottish " nice instruments 

 for war," which he says were afterwards found on the field, 

 were certainly very primitive. He is however careful to guard 

 himself by the remark " as toe thought.'''' — 



" They wear nue boordes ends cut of, being about a foot in breadth, and 

 half a yarde in leangth ; hauying on the insyde handels made very 

 cunyngly of ii. cordes ends. These a Gods name wear their targettes again 

 the shot of our small artillerie, for they wear not able to hold out a canon. 

 And with these found we great rattels, swellyng bygger then the belly of 

 a pottell pot, coured with old perchement or dooble papers, small stones 

 put in them to make noys, and set upon the ende of a staff of more then 

 twoo els long ; and this was their fyne deuyse to fray our horses, when our 

 horsemen shoulde cum at them ; Howbeii bycaus the ryders wear no 

 babyes, nor their horses no colts, they could neyther duddle the tone, nor 

 fray the toother; so that this polleyce was as witles as their powr 

 forceles."3 



He is equally contemptuous of their discipline, as instead of 

 there being' quietness and stillness in camp after the watch was 

 set, the northern prickers, the Borderers, kept up an intolerable 

 and dangerous noise all the night long. 



" Not unlyke, (to be playn) unto a masteries hounde howlyng in a hie- 

 way when he hath lost hym he waited vpon; sum hoopyng, sum whistlyng 

 and most with crying a Berwyke, a Berwyke, a Fenwyke, a Fenwyke, a 

 Buhner, a Bulmer, or so otherwyse as ther Captains names were. . . . 

 It is a feat of war in mine opinion that might ryht well be left." 4 



That there was little or no difference in the dress and equip- 

 ment of the chieftain and his men was a great defect in Patten's 

 estimation. 



" To these anoother,and not the meanest matter was,thyr armour among 

 theim so little differing, and their apparail so base and beggerly , wherein the 



1 Dalyell's Fragments of Scottish History (Patten's Account of Somerset's 

 Expedition of 154-7, p. 58-9). Hay ward's Life and Raigne of Edward VI., 

 p. 32. Holinshed's Chronicles of England, p. 985. 



a Ibid., p. 60-1. 3 Ibid, p. 73. + Ibid., p. 76-7. 



