At dinner time on 2 May, Baron Latimer IV led his army of quasi-lancers and horse-mounted longbowmen to a forest southwest of Edinburgh. Then, after a few more miles east, we reached a town called Dalkis to the southeast. This is the base camp of the English Army for the invasion of Scotland.

It was only after sunset that Baron Latimer found the base of Sir Ernest's army in an area where the aristocratic army was stationed. Since the two had already met during the border counterattack against the Scottish invasion two years earlier, the conversation between the two seemed very familiar at this time.

On the morning of 3 May, after the Earl of Hertford, commander of the army, gave the order to attack Edinburgh, the two men simultaneously led their respective armies to dismount and fight, according to the custom of aristocratic warfare. As the two men followed their respective standard-bearers on foot towards the Scottish capital, which was atop a stretch of volcanic ash and rocky cliffs, Baron Latimer ran and yelled at the knight beside him, "Sir, the Scotsman's castle is built on a damn hill, what are we going to do to take it?" ”

Sir Ernest Walton, dressed in three-quarter armor, with a handguard sword strapped to his waist and two armor-piercing cones and hammers, looked at the young baron with his eyes hidden behind his visor, and shouted, "Besiege and burn Edinburgh!" ”

What Sir told the Baron was only the actions of the Army. On the naval side, the royal fleet under the command of the Duke of Richmond, the commander of the fleet, has entered the Forth of Forth on the east coast of Edinburgh. In accordance with the operational plan previously negotiated with the Army, the Army provided landing boats, and the Naval Landing Force landed in the town of Granton, northwest of Edinburgh, and then occupied the port town of Leith in the north of Edinburgh.

As long as the mercenary troops carried by the royal fleet landed successfully and captured the port town of Leith, the English naval and army forces completed the combat posture of encircling Edinburgh from north to south. It should be said that this battle plan, drawn up by the Commander of the Army, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, and the Duke of Richmond was the completion of the victory.

In fact, on the day of the British attack on Edinburgh, the Earl of Hertford received another instruction from Henry VIII: he was asked to immediately send troops to burn the town of St. Andrews. St Andrews is a large town located on the east coast of Scotland. In the Middle Ages, it was not only one of the most famous towns in the Kingdom of Scotland, but also the religious capital of Scottish Catholicism.

Obviously, at this time, the division of troops to the town of St. Andrews, nearly 70 miles away, was likely to change the battle plan that had been drawn up with the royal fleet. The Earl of Hertfordshire and his deputy, the Earl of Shrewsbury, after careful consideration, came to such an outcome.

That is, not to carry out the instructions of Henry VIII, because the additional distance would be a troublesome matter. However, in order to save Henry VIII's face, the army would immediately send an army to burn down another Catholic religious town.

The two army commanders and lieutenants had the results of the deliberations transcribed, and sent messengers with letters to the flagship of the royal fleet, which was at sea, and reported the results to the commander of the fleet, the Duke of Richmond. If the Duke disagrees with the outcome of the Army's deliberations, he will discuss them separately.

As a result, the Army's plan to provide landing fishing vessels for the Navy's carrier-based units had to be postponed. If the navy's ship-based units could not land within the scheduled time, they would not be able to complete the north-south encirclement plan for Edinburgh, leaving the army alone to withstand the all-out resistance from Edinburgh.

As Baron Latimer said, Edinburgh is a castle built on top of an extinct volcano. Its strategic location, with a long hard slope to the east and steep cliffs that cannot be climbed on the other three sides, makes it a fortified fortress that is particularly easy to defend and particularly difficult to overcome. If a strong attack is carried out, it will inevitably cause a large number of casualties among the army personnel. Of course, those who survive the onslaught are most likely to be satisfactorily rewarded with titles, positions, and spoils.

Henry VIII's purpose in sending troops to invade Scotland was only to rob Prince Edward's wife, Mary Stuart. In this way, his army looks as ridiculous as a gang of thieves who go to the countryside to snatch a bride. His army did not have enough food and drink, nor was it equipped with a certain number of siege equipment, and the various front- and rear-loading guns that he was most proud of remained on the decks of the royal fleet, far from the port towns. Wanting to besiege and burn Edinburgh under so many unfavorable conditions was probably just to vent his personal anger.

On another note, his request to the army commander to burn down the religious capital was also a manifestation of his personal anger. Because the Kingdom of Scotland is Catholic, and his Kingdom is Protestant. How can two kingdoms that are married on the same island of Great Britain practice two religions? Protestantism freed him from having a male heir, but Catholicism did not allow him to do so. Therefore, he wanted to make the Catholic Scots suffer a little bit of religious suffering.

In order for His Majesty to vent his anger at the Scots, the English Army made great sacrifices on the first day of fighting. However, it doesn't matter, most of the people killed in battle were mercenaries recruited from the Holy Roman Empire.

The dead were not English, and even the money that hired these dying men was not his, but borrowed from the Antwerp financial market. The more he borrowed, the less worried he was about repaying the money. Because he knew that even if he could not afford the millions of pounds he had borrowed, the bankers in Antwerp would not dare to chase him back to England to pay him back.

The Army's assault on Edinburgh began in the morning and continued until the afternoon. The only slope that could be approached the castle gate and moat was almost full of the corpses of mercenaries and Englishmen who had been killed by spherical shells fired from bronze cannons. There were various flags and various cold weapons scattered next to the corpse, and there were bursts of wails from time to time.

The remnants of the retreating British troops were stationed beyond the range of the Scots' artillery, some holding flags and weapons staring blankly at the castle still standing on the top of the hill, while others just sat on the grass and silently wiped their wounds. Hardly a single person spoke, and the occasional swear in Low German sounded very similar to the "Burgundian" language that the English could not understand.

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