Even to enumerate the raids and forays on the one side or the other, of which some record has been left either in the Histories of the two Kingdoms, or in the archives of the State Paper Office, would be an almost endless task, and moreover would serve no really useful purpose. The details of the “burnings,” “herschips,” and “slaughters,” which were the necessary concomitants of these invasions, are much the same in all cases. It is a dreary tale of theft and oppression, bloodshed and murder. The following incidents may be taken as fairly illustrative examples.
During the reign of Henry VIII. the relations between the two kingdoms were often of a most unsatisfactory and unsettled character. This was due to a variety of causes, partly political and partly religious. The same difficulties cropped up in the subsequent reigns of Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, and the consequence was that war clouds were ever hanging, dark and threatening, on the horizon. The mutual antagonism between the two countries fostered the raiding tendencies of both kingdoms. The Scots were intent on despoiling their more wealthy neighbours, and the English never missed an opportunity of humiliating and crippling their ancient foes.
Two of the most destructive invasions, or raids, on the part of the English were conducted by the Earl of Hertford and Sir Ralph Eure. The former invaded the country both by sea and land. Edinburgh and Leith suffered severely. The Abbey and Palace of Holyrood were given to the flames. All along the east coast, and southwards as far as Merse and Teviotdale, marked the steps of the retreating and relentless invaders. Henry’s savage instructions were faithfully carried out. When Hertford set out on this expedition he was commanded “to put all to fire and sword, to burn Edinburgh town, and to raze and deface it; when you have sacked it, and gotten what you can out of it, as that it may remain for ever a perpetual memory of the vengeance of God lighted upon it, for their falsehood and disloyalty. Do what you can out of hand, and without long tarrying, to beat down and overthrow the Castle, sack Holyrood-house, and as many towns and villages about Edinburgh as ye conveniently can; sack Leith and burn and subvert it, and all the rest, putting man, woman, and child to fire and sword, without exception, where any resistance shall be made against you; and this done, pass over to the Fife land, and extend the extremities and destructions in all towns and villages whereunto you may reach conveniently, and not forgetting amongst all the rest so to spoil and turn upside down the Cardinal’s town of St. Andrews, as the upper stone may be the nether, and not one stick stand by another, sparing no creature alive within the same, specially such as in friendship or blood be allied to the Cardinal.”[22]
This hideous policy on the part of the English King was fruitful mainly of bitter memories. He did not accomplish the object he had in view, but he certainly succeeded in engendering in the Scottish mind a feeling of the most bitter hostility. It produced, however, one good result. It alienated from the English monarch some of those nobles who had for some time been wavering in their allegiance to the Scottish throne, and had been, either secretly or openly, lending their aid to further the machinations of the English government.
But destructive as Hertford’s invasion proved (which has been well described as only a foray on a large scale), it was totally eclipsed by the raid undertaken by Sir Ralph Eure in the following year, 1544. He crossed the Scottish Border with a considerable army, and laid waste nearly the whole of Merse and Teviotdale, reducing that large and important district to a blackened desert. Jedburgh and Kelso were burnt to the ground, and the surrounding country plundered and destroyed. “The whole number of towns, towers, stedes, barnekins, parish churches, bastel-houses, seized, destroyed, and burnt, in all the Border country, was an hundred and ninety-two, Scots slain four hundred, prisoners taken eight hundred and sixteen, nolt ten thousand three hundred and eighty-six, sheep twelve thousand four hundred and ninety-six, gayts (goats) two hundred, bolls of corn eight hundred and fifty, insight gear—an indefinite quantity.
“The great part of these devastations were committed in the Mers and Teviotdale.... The other commanders of chief note, besides Sir Ralph Eure, were Sir Brian Laiton and Sir George Bowes. On the 17th July, Bowes, Laiton, and others burnt Dunse, the chief town of the Mers, and John Carr’s son with his garrison entered Greenlaw, and carried off a booty of cattle, sheep, and horses. On the 19th of the same month, the men of Tyndale and Ridsdale, returning from a road into Tiviotdale, fought with the laird of Ferniherst and his company, and took himself and his son John prisoners. On July 24th the Wark garrison, the Captain of Norham Castle, and H. Eure, burnt long Ednim, made many prisoners, took a bastel-house strongly kept, and got a booty of forty nolt and thirty horses, besides those on which their prisoners were mounted, each on a horse. August 2d, the captain of Norham burnt the town of Home, hard to the castle gates, with the surrounding stedes. September 6th, Sir Ralph Eure burnt Eikford church and town, the barnekyn of Ormiston, and won by assault the Moss Tower, burnt it, and slew thirty-four people within it; he likewise burnt several other places in that neighbourhood, and carried off more than five hundred nolt and six hundred sheep, with a hundred horseload of spoils got in the tower. September 27th, the men of the east and part of the middle march won the church of Eccles by assault, and slew eight men in the abbey and town, most part gentlemen of head sirnames; they also took several prisoners, and burnt and spoiled the said abbey and town. On the same day the garrison of Berwick brought out of the east end of the Mers six hundred bolls of corn, and took prisoner Patrick Home, brother’s son to the laird of Ayton. November 5th, the men of the middle march burnt Lessudden, in which were sixteen strong bastel-houses, slew several of the owners, and burnt much corn. November 9th, Sir George Bowes and Sir Brian Laiton burnt Dryburgh, a market town, all except the church, with much corn, and brought away a hundred nolt, sixty nags, an hundred sheep, and much other booty, spoilage, and insight-gear.”[23]
This record is an instructive one. It shows how these merciless raiders were dominated by the spirit of destruction and revenge. Nothing was spared which it was possible for them to destroy. This invasion must have proved peculiarly vexatious and disheartening to the Scottish Borderers. Flodden had left them terribly crippled. The damage they had sustained was not only of a material kind—the loss of men and resources—it was also, to a certain extent, moral and intellectual. They had become utterly disheartened, and it was some considerable time before they regained their wonted confidence and intrepidity:
“Dool and wae for the order, sent our lads to the Border!
The English, for ance, by guile wan the day:
The flowers of the forest, that fought aye the foremost,
The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay.
“We’ll hear nae mair lilting, at the ewe milking;
Women and bairns are heartless and wae:
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning—
The flowers of the forest are a’ wede awae.”
The darkest part of the night precedes the dawn. Help was forthcoming from an unexpected quarter. Henry had promised to give Eure a grant of all the land he could conquer in Merse, Teviotdale, and Lauderdale, and it so happened that the greater part of the district named belonged to Angus, who was then in disgrace at the Scottish Court, and for some time had been currying favour with the English King. When he learned what had taken place, his indignation was unbounded. He swore that “if Ralph Eure dared to act upon the grant, he would write his sasine, or instrument of possession, on his skin with sharp pens and bloody ink.” Scotland has not unfrequently been deserted by her nobles at the most critical periods of her history, but just as often has she been saved by their valour and patriotism. On the present occasion, Angus was not moved to action, perhaps, by any really patriotic feeling. Had his own interests not been imperilled, he would in all probability have remained an idle spectator of the ruin and devastation which, like a flood, was rushing over the land. Be this as it may, he acted with promptitude and effect. Having been joined by the Regent, who brought with him a small and hastily-gathered force, Angus challenged the English army at Melrose; and, though at first he was compelled to retreat, he hung upon the rear of the enemy until, joined by Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch and the redoubtable Norman Leslie, he gave them battle on Ancrum Moor. The English, flushed with confidence by their former successes, rushed precipitately upon the Scottish army, believing that their ranks had fallen into confusion, and were preparing for flight. It was not long ere they were undeceived. The Scots were ready for the encounter, and in a short time completely routed the formidable host by which they were assailed. The battle speedily became a slaughter. Sir Ralph Eure and Sir Brian Layton both lay dead on the field, a thousand prisoners were taken, among them being many persons of rank, for whom high ransoms were exacted. It is said that the peasantry of the neighbourhood, hitherto only spectators of the short conflict, drew near to intercept and cut down the English; and women, whose hearts had been steeled against the fugitives by their atrocious barbarities, joined in the pursuit, and spurred on the conquerors by calling upon them to “remember Broomhouse.” One of these heroines has been immortalized. Her monument may still be seen in the neighbourhood of Ancrum. On it were inscribed the following lines:—
“Fair maiden Lilliard lies under this stane,
Little was her stature, but great was her fame;
Upon the English loons she laid many thumps,
And when they cutted off her legs she fought upon her stumps.”