THAT’S NO WAY TO WOO A LADY … OR A COUNTRY:  On this day in 1544, the English army, acting on orders of Henry VIII, ransacked and burned Edinburgh.  Scotland’s offense against England was that its parliament had rejected plans for Mary, Queen of Scots (then only a toddler), to marry Henry’s son, Edward (then six years old).  Henry had been trying to draw Scotland away from its “Auld Alliance” with France and hoped that one day his heir would occupy the thrones of both England and Scotland.

Henry’s brutal instructions to his army were as follows:  “Put all to fire and sword, burn Edinburgh, so razed and defaced when you have sacked and gotten what ye can of it, as there may remain forever a perpetual memory of the vengeance of God lightened upon [them] for their falsehood and disloyalty.”

The violent period in Scottish-English relations from late 1543 to early 1551 has come to be called “the Rough Wooing.”   The term is thought to have been derived from a comment by the Earl of Huntly:  “We liked not the manner of the wooing, and we could not stoop to be being bullied into love.”

Upon Henry’s death, his son became the English king.  But Edward died at age 15 and thus his planned marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, would likely have never taken place anyway.  On the other hand, Henry’s dream of a single monarch on the thrones of both England and Scotland was eventually realized.  But not the way he envisioned it:  It was Mary’s son, James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England.  That ended the Tudor dynasty in England and began the reign of the Stuarts.  (As a group, they weren’t so great either.  Always heed the  Psalmist’s advice: “Put not thy trust in princes …”).

By the way, there are those who believe that Henry’s erratic mood swings may be attributable to one or more  head injuries suffered in jousting accidents.