the religious truce by an arrangement called the "Interim." But the Emperor's purpose was now clear. Wherever his power was actually felt the religious reaction began; and the Imperial towns which held firmly to the Lutheran creed were reduced by force of arms. It was of the highest moment that in this hour of despair the Protestants saw their rule suddenly established in a new quarter, and the Lutheranism which was being trampled under foot in its own home triumphant in England. England became the common refuge of the panic-struck Protestants. Bucer and Fagius were sent to lecture at Cambridge, Peter Martyr advocated the anti-sacramentarian views of Calvin at Oxford. Cranmer welcomed refugees from every country, Germans, Italians, French, Poles, and Swiss, to his palace at Lambeth. When persecution broke out in the Low Countries the fugitive Walloons were received at London and Canterbury, and allowed to set up in both places their own churches. [Sidenote: Pinkie Cleugh.] But Somerset dreamed of a wider triumph for "the religion." On his death-bed Henry was said to have enforced on the Council the need of carrying out his policy of a union of Scotland with England through the marriage of its Queen with his boy. A wise statesmanship would have suffered the Protestant movement which had been growing stronger in the northern kingdom since Beaton's death to run quietly its course; and his colleagues warned Somerset to leave Scotch affairs untouched till Edward was old enough to undertake them in person. But these counsels were set aside; and a renewal of the border warfare enforced the Protector's demands for a closer union of the kingdoms. The jealousy of France was roused at once, and a French fleet appeared off the Scottish coast to reduce the castle of St. Andrews, which had been held since Beaton's death by the English partizans who murdered him. The challenge called Somerset himself to the field; and crossing the Tweed with a fine army of eighteen thousand men in the summer of 1547 the Protector pushed along the coast till he found the Scots encamped behind the Esk on the slopes of Musselburgh, six miles eastward of Edinburgh. The English invasion had drawn all the factions of the kingdom together against the stranger, and a body of "Gospellers" under Lord Angus formed the advance-guard of the Scotch army as it moved by its right on the tenth of September to turn the English position and drive Somerset into the sea. The English horse charged the Scottish front only to be flung off by its pikemen; but their triumph threw the Lowlanders into disorder, and as they pushed forward in pursuit their advance was roughly checked by the fire of a body of Italian musketeers whom Somerset had brought with him. The check was turned into a defeat by a general charge of the English line, a fatal panic broke the Scottish host, and ten thousand men fell in its headlong flight beneath the English lances. [Sidenote: Somerset's Policy.]