Note 161 — Chapter XII · JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK

For a further account of this campaign, see the dispatches of the Seymours in the State Papers for the reign of Henry VIII; and for the second expedition, those for the reign of Edward VI.

The most heinous crime of all perpetrated on the second expedition—a crime which damaged Somerset’s reputation to the greatest extent—was the slaughter of twelve young lads under fifteen years of age, the children of Scottish horsemen recruited by Lennox, who were held as hostages for the good behaviour of their parents. Lennox and Lord Wharton had the poor boys hanged for their fathers’ disaffection; only one escaped, to become eventually known in the story of Mary Stuart as Lord Maxwell of Herries. A common soldier to whom he was handed over by Lennox, and who was sick of the carnage, saved the lad at the risk of his own life. Somerset rewarded Lennox for his services in this campaign, and wrote to him “right merrily.”