Appendix: Miscellaneous 1497 | British History Online

Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 6, 1555-1558. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1877.

Citation:

'Appendix: Miscellaneous 1497', in Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 6, 1555-1558, ed. Rawdon Brown( London, 1877), British History Online https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/venice/vol6/pp1602-1603 [accessed 28 November 2024].

Miscellaneous 1497



March 8. Avvisi e notizie dall' estero. Archives of Modena.	71. News Letter from England, translated into Italian out of French.
	The King of Scotland made two attempts (tractati) lately against the King of England, both of which brought him loss and shame, and honour to the King of England.
	The first attempt was that the King of Scotland ordered his Lord Chamberlain with 3,000 good troops, the greater part of them being of the King's household and of the chief nobility of Scotland, to burn and plunder certain good places (bone ville) subject to the King of England, but the neighbouring peasantry soon armed and drove them back to the river which divides the two countries, capturing or killing more than 700 of them, without counting those who were drowned in the said river, nor is it yet known for certain whether the Chamberlain and his son are safe or not, many persons suspecting them to have been drowned with the others. The English standard (standardo) was . . . (fn. 1) at Nondre (sic) in the direction of the King's Majesty.
	The second attempt (tractato), which very speedily followed the other, seems to have been that the King of France sent as his ambassador a monk, of the order called in France “Mathurins of Paris,” the which monk, pretending to make an agreement between the King of England and the King of Scotland, sent to the Captain of Berwick, which place is in custody of the King of England, and under his protection. Towards Christmas (sotto chremta) the said monk having arrived with other ambassadors of the King of Scotland in the said place of Berwick, the captain gave them great greeting, lodging them in the castle; and one Sunday the said monk, with the others, when the said captain went to mass, sent for 500 Scots, who were in ambuscade, to give them the castle, they being assisted by some Englishmen of Berwick, and as it pleased God the said attempt (il dicto tractato) was discovered . . . . . The said captain had all the King's subjects beheaded (decapitare), except the ambassador, whom he keeps in good custody until he gets a reply from his master.
	Before the 8th of March my master's Majesty will have in readiness a great army both by sea and land against the said King of Scotland, and will have 40 large ships at sea, and 60 smaller ones, eight of them being already in the River Trent (in la rivera di Tranto) to blockade (assediare) the principal place in Scotland, called Edinburgh, where the said King of Scotland was.
	The Lord Chamberlain of our King was to depart after Easter with 12,000 combatants, to join 15,000 others on the borders of Scotland, and on the 1st of May the King will follow with 32,000 men, his Majesty having amassed 300,000l. sterling, equal to a million and a half of gold crowns, with which to make war on the said King of Scotland. It is hoped in God that ere long he will have made an end of the said realm of Scotland, as his quarrel is both just and fair, and thus do I pray God that it may come to pass.
	England, 8th March 1497.
	[Italian.]