Battle of Solway Moss 1542

Who Fought

History & Significance

The Battle of Solway Moss took place on Solway Moss near the River Esk on the English side of the Anglo-Scottish border in November 1542 between English and Scottish forces.

The Scottish King James V had refused to break from the Catholic Church, as urged by his uncle King Henry VIII, who then launched a major raid into south-west Scotland. The Scottish army that marched against them was poorly led and organised, and many Scots were either captured or drowned in the river. News of the defeat is believed to have hastened the early death of James V.

When Henry VIII of England broke from the Roman Catholic Church, he asked James V of Scotland, his nephew, to do the same. James ignored his uncle's request and further insulted him by refusing to meet with Henry at York. Furious after the defeat of his forces at Hadden Rig, Henry VIII sent troops led by Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk against Scotland. In retaliation for the massive English raid into Scotland, James assigned Robert, Lord Maxwell, the Scottish Warden of West March, the task of raising an army.

James wrote to Pope Paul III on 9 November 1542 about the English raid, and explained that he had defied Henry's attempts to convert him to the Protestant faith by waging war with his vast resources gained from the dissolution of the monasteries. The Earl of Angus wrote that Cardinal Beaton and the Earl of Moray had intended to follow the Scottish army into England at the East March and serve a papal interdict in English churches.

An order for the muster of Scottish forces at the Kirk of Morton (near Bogrie, in Scotland) before dawn on 22 November survives. Men from Dumfries, Peebles, Selkirk, and Hawick were summoned. The note mentions their routes; from Dumfries to Hoddom and Kirkconnel tower in Ecclefechan; from Peebles to Moffat; from Selkirk to Eskdalemuir.

On 24 November 1542, an army of 15,000–18,000 Scots advanced into England. Lord Maxwell, though never officially designated commander of the force, declared he would lead the attack in person. A report of George Douglas of Pittendreich, who was not present, and some later chronicle accounts, say that in the absence of Maxwell, Oliver Sinclair, James V's favourite, declared himself to be James's chosen commander. According to this account of the battle, the other commanders refused to accept his command and the command structure disintegrated. The English commanders, Lord Wharton and Sir William Musgrave, made reports of the battle. Musgrave stated that Maxwell was still in charge and fought with the rest of the Scottish nobles, who were forced to dismount on the bank of the River Esk.

The ground they fought on

The site of Battle of Solway Moss 1542 lies on Triassic Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Triassic. The rock here is sandstone and conglomerate, interbedded.

Frequently Asked Questions

Scheduled Monuments near Battle of Solway Moss 1542

Scots' Dike

Scheduled monument · ~3.6 mi

Scots' Dike is a linear earthwork located in Cumberland, England, traditionally attributed to the medieval period as a boundary feature marking the frontier between England and Scotland. The monument takes the form of a substantial bank and ditch running across the landscape, characteristic of me…

Rockcliffe Cross

Scheduled monument · ~4 mi

Rockcliffe Cross is a medieval stone cross located in Rockcliffe, Cumberland. The monument stands as a wayside cross, a form typical of the medieval period, though the precise date of its construction remains uncertain within the medieval chronology. The cross survives as a substantial stone stru…

Liddel Strength motte and bailey castle and fortified tower house

Scheduled monument · ~4.2 mi

Liddel Strength is a motte and bailey castle and fortified tower house located in Cumberland, England, situated in the strategically important borderlands between England and Scotland. The site comprises earthwork remains of a motte and bailey fortification alongside a later stone tower house, re…

Howard Mattinson / CC BY-SA 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Scaleby Castle moated site

Scheduled monument · ~5.3 mi

Scaleby Castle moated site is a medieval fortified residence located in Cumberland, England. The site comprises the earthwork remains of a moated enclosure that dates from the medieval period, representing a form of defensive domestic architecture characteristic of northern English border territo…

Simon Ledingham / CC BY-SA 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Carlisle Castle; medieval tower keep castle, two lengths of city wall, a 16th century battery, and part of an earlier Roman fort known as Luguvalium

Scheduled monument · ~7.1 mi

Carlisle Castle is a medieval fortress built from 1122 onwards within the remains of the Roman fort of Luguvalium, strategically positioned at Carlisle in Cumbria, England. The castle comprises a substantial twelfth-century stone keep, curtain walls incorporating Roman masonry, and later defensiv…

John Gibson / CC BY-SA 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Carlisle Cathedral precinct

Scheduled monument · ~7.4 mi

Carlisle Cathedral precinct is a medieval ecclesiastical site in Cumbria that originated as a priory of the Augustinian order, founded in the early twelfth century. The precinct retains substantial remains of the cathedral church itself, rebuilt and modified from the medieval period onwards, alon…

Sarah Lean / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons

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Battles near Battle of Solway Moss 1542

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• Battle of Solway Moss 1542 · Historic England
• Battle of Solway Moss · Wikidata
• Battle_of_Solway_Moss · Wikipedia
• Battle of Solway Moss · Battlefields Trust