and he enjoyed, in 1540, Sir David Lyndsay's satirical play on the vices
of the clergy, and, indeed, of all orders of men. In 1540 James ratified
the College of Justice, the fifteen Lords of Session, sitting as judges
in Edinburgh.

In 1541 the idea of a meeting between James and Henry was again mooted,
and Henry actually went to York, where James did not appear. Henry, who
had expected him, was furious. In August 1542, on a futile pretext, he
sent Norfolk with a great force to harry the Border. The English had the
worse at the battle of Hadden Rig; negotiations followed; Henry
proclaimed that Scottish kings had always been vassals of England, and
horrified his Council by openly proposing to kidnap James. Henry's
forces were now wrecking an abbey and killing women on the Border. James
tried to retaliate, but his levies (October 31) at Fala Moor declined to
follow him across the Border: they remembered Flodden, moreover they
could not risk the person of a childless king. James prepared, however,
for a raid on a great scale on the western Border, but the fact had been
divulged by Sir George Douglas, Angus's brother, and had also been sold
to Dacre, cheap, by another Scot. The English despatches prove that
Wharton had full time for preparation, and led a competent force of
horse, which, near Arthuret, charged on the right flank of the Scots, who
slowly retreated, till they were entangled between the Esk and a morass,
and lost their formation and their artillery, with 1200 men: a few were
slain, most were drowned or were taken prisoners. The raid was no secret
of the king and the priests, as Knox absurdly states; nobles of the
Reforming no less than of the Catholic party were engaged; the English
had full warning and a force of 3000 men, not of 400 farmers; the Scots
were beaten through their own ignorance of the ground in which they had
been burning and plundering. As to confusion caused by the claim of
Oliver Sinclair to be commander, it is not corroborated by contemporary