Note 160 — Chapter XII · JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK

On this expedition Somerset carried out to the letter the instructions given him by Henry VIII, which will be found in a document in the State Papers. Nero might have written them. They run as follows: “Put all to fire and sword, burn Edinburgh Town, and raze and deface it, when you have sacked it, and gotten what you can out of it.... Beat down and overthrow the castles, sack Holyrood House, and as many towns and villages about Edinburgh as you conveniently can. Sack Leith, and burn and subvert it and all the rest, putting man, woman and child to fire and sword, without exception, when any resistance shall be made against you; and this done, pass over to Fife-land and extend all extremities and destruction in all towns and villages whereunto you may reach ...; not forgetting ... so to spoil and turn upside down the Cardinal’s [Beaton] town of St. Andrew’s, as the upper stone may be the nether, and not one stick stand upon another, sparing no creature alive within the same, specially such as, either in friendship or blood, be allied to the Cardinal.”