The project of uniting the kingdoms by a royal marriage was not abandoned on the death of Henry; and in the first year of Edward the Sixth, the battle of Pinkie, the last great battle between England and Scotland, was fought. But the Protector Somerset soon found that the Scots, though defeated, were as determined as ever to resist the English connection, and that the Scottish Parliament had at last resolved that their young queen should be betrothed to the Dauphin, and sent forthwith to France, to be educated at the French Court. This resolution, so fateful to Mary Stuart, then a child of only six, altered the views and policy of Somerset. In the name of the English Council he issued a remarkable proclamation, in which he proposed that the Crowns should be united, and that the kingdoms should become one. “We invite you,” it was said, “to amity and equality, because, as we inhabit in the same island, there is no people so like one another in manners, customs, and language.” There was to be freedom and equality of trade between England and Scotland. The subjects of both kingdoms were to be allowed to intermarry. If the Scots wished it, the name of England would be abolished, and “the indifferent old name of Britains” taken again. “If we two,” the proclamation declared, “being made one by amity, be most able to defend us against all nations; and, having the sea for the wall, mutual love for garrison, and God for defence, should make so noble and well-agreeing a monarchy, that neither in peace we may be ashamed, nor in war afraid of any worldly or foreign power; why should not you be as desirous of the same, and have as much cause to rejoice at it as we?”[6] But these overtures were too late; the Queen of Scots was sent to France: and when, two years later, peace was proclaimed, Scotland remained unconquered and independent. The treaty of peace declared that the boundaries of the two countries were to be the same as they had been before the outbreak of war between Henry the Eighth and James the Fifth of Scotland. An attempt was made to deal with that portion of waste land upon the western borders which had been, for so long, a harbour of refuge for the outlaws of both kingdoms, and which was known as the Debateable Ground.[7] It was to be divided by march stones; and ditches and enclosures were to be made for the purpose of hindering the flight of marauders. The English were to relinquish all lands and houses which they had seized; and those fishings on the river Tweed which the Scots had possessed before the war were to be given back to them.[8]