heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

150 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
entire pleasure at the prospect, and offering to return to Edinburgh to meet
him sooner than balk the Cardinal's wishes.
Early in 1544 war again broke out, and Henry sent a fleet of 200
vessels and an army of 20,000 men to invade Scotland by landing at Leith.
The Court fled to Edinburgh. Lord Eure, with 4,000 men, came in from
Berwick, having marked his way by a broad track of desolation, where
abbey and grange, castle and hamlet, were buried in a common ruin.
Edinburgh was fired, Holyrood pillaged, and the country for seven miles
round was wasted ; and then the main army was transported from Newcastle
to Calais, leaving a considerable number of men on the Border, under Eure
and Lord Wharton, to continue the work of destruction. What that was
may be gathered from the returns of the Wardens of the Marches between
July and November, 1554: "Towns, homesteads, barnekyns, parish churches,
" fortified houses, burnt and destroyed, 192 of
;
Scots slain, 403 of
; prisoners
" taken, 816. The spoil amounted to over 10,000 horned cattle, 12,000 sheep,
" 1,300 horses, 850 boles of corn." Scott says {Border Minstrelsy, vol.iv. p. 197)
"Eure burned the town of Broomhouse, with its lady (a noble and aged
" woman, says Leslie) and her whole family." Lord Eure continued through
the winter his desolating inroads. Jedburgh and Kelso were ravaged.
Coldingham was taken, and Arran disgracefully beaten back when he tried
to recover it
by assault. Eure and Sir Brian Layton vauntingly promised
to conquer the whole country south of the Forth.
But what the Scots could not attain by open attack they accomplished
by stratagem. A party of Scots (pretending to be confederates
with the English) brought information to Berwick that the Regent was
lying with a small force at Melrose, and might be surprised. Eure started
on Feb. 25th, 1544, with 4,000 men; reached Melrose, the Regent retiring
as he advanced ; and, disappointed of his expected assistance from the Earl
of Angus there, Eure vented his irritation by desecrating the tombs of the
princely ancestors of the earl. Then he continued his pursuit, the Regent
still retreating, until, wearied and disheartened, he began to return from
Melrose to Jedburgh, across Ancram Muir.
Hitherto the Douglas had at least affected goodwill towards Henry,
but this insult, combined with a quarrel which Eure had lately had with
Sir George Douglas, had turned the tide.
Henry had promised to Eure and
Layton all the lands which they could conquer in Merse and Teviotdale.
" I will write the instruments of possession upon their own bodies with
sharp pins and in blood-red ink," exclaimed the Earl of Angus, the chief of
the Douglas, " because they destroyed the tombs of my ancestors in the
" Abbey of Melrose," and co-operating with Arran, the Regent, he was
reinforced by Leslie of Rothes, with 300 men, and the laird of Buccleuch.*
* Tales of a Grandfather. Sir Walter Scott.