James fell fighting desperately, and reckless of life, on seeing the ruin he had provoked. Among the "chiefs, knights, and nobles, many a one," slain alongst with him in the disastrous battle, were John, Lord Maxwell, with his four brothers; Robert, Lord Herries, with Andrew his brother; the two sons of the Earl of Angus; two hundred gentlemen of the Douglas name, and numerous other men of note connected with Dumfriesshire and Galloway. In all the Border district, among high and low, there was great lamentation for friends or relatives left lifeless on the field.

This memorable battle was fought on the 9th of September, 1513. Stunning and terrible was the blow which it inflicted on the Scots; but, though thus deprived of their King and chief nobility, they rapidly recovered from its effects. Surrey, the victorious leader of the English, suffered so severely in the conflict that he was unable to enter Scotland and gather in the full harvest of his triumph. At first Margaret, the widowed Queen, was made Regent, but, as she was mistrusted on account of being the sister of the English monarch, and of having hurriedly contracted a marriage with Archibald, sixth Earl of Angus, she was soon deprived of the office, which was then conferred on John, Duke of Albany. As his accession was opposed by Angus, one of the new Regent's first acts was to banish the Queen and her husband out of the country.

Though no general invasion of Scotland took place, in consequence of the late defeat, the English King let loose large bands of armed men upon the devoted Border territory, which they wasted with fire and sword. One of these marauding parties, headed by Lord Dacre, entered Dumfriesshire in the spring of 1514; his motive being very different from that which drew him to Lochmaben, ten years before, to encounter, in a card-playing tourney, Scotland's chivalrous King. The leading men of the country, with hundreds of their followers, had been "wede away" in the carnage of the preceding autumn, so that the invaders met with little resistance; and they ravaged the district nearest them in a style of wanton barbarity. Dacre, in writing, on the 17th of May, an account of his destructive achievements to the English Council, says that he had laid waste Ewisdale, in which there were 140 ploughs

(plough-lands); that he had almost depopulated Lower Annandale and Eskdale, in which there were more than 400 ploughs; that he had wholly destroyed the town of Annan, and thirtythree other townships. He boasts that all these ploughs and townships "are now clearly wasted, and no man dwelling in any of them at this day, save only in the towns of Annan, Stepel, and Wauchope." The sanguinary and remorseless Warden concludes his report by intimating that he meant to continue his service "with diligence, from time to time, to the utmost annoyance of the Scots." Had not the Steward of Annandale been mouldering in his grave, and had not his son Robert, Lord Maxwell, been young, inexperienced, and with few retainers left on his muster-roll, Dacre would not have been in a condition to make such a report.

CHAPTER XVII.

OF

JAMES V. VISITS DUMFRIESSHIRE, TO OVERAWE AND PUNISH THE TURBULENT BORDERERS-JOHNNIE ARMSTRONG ENTERS INTO A BOND OF MARNENT WITH LORD MAXWELL AT DUMFRIES VISIT OF THE GUDEMAN BALLENGEICH" TO AMISFIELD TOWER-THE KING PROCEEDS TO ESKDALE -TRAGICAL FATE OF JOHNNIE ARMSTRONG -CONDITION OF THE DEBATABLE LAND-BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION-OPPOSITION GIVEN TO IT BY JAMES-ABORTIVE ATTEMPT OF ANGUS TO REGAIN HIS INFLUENCE BY ENGLISH AID-HENRY OF ENGLAND REVIVES THE CLAIM OF HIS PREDECESSORS TO THE SOVEREIGNTY OF SCOTLAND-VILLANOUS SCHEME OF LORD WHARTON TO CAPTURE THE KING OF SCOTS - BATTLE OF SOLWAY MOSSROUT OF THE SCOTS, AND CAPTURE OF LORD MAXWELL AND OTHER CHIEFS BY THE VICTORS WHARTON'S REPORT OF THE BATTLE TO KING HENRY -KING JAMES DIES OF A BROKEN HEART.

DURING the new King's minority, the Earl of Angus kept him almost as a prisoner, and ruled the country at his pleasure; but the youthful monarch having acquired his freedom by an ingenious stratagem, banished his autocratic keeper, and began to administer public affairs with extraordinary vigour. Turbulent chiefs and predatory bands kept the Border districts in (to use an expressive old term) perpetual "broilery." "These disturbers," said the King, "must be subdued, and rendered loyal and peaceable, at all hazards." For this purpose he entered Dumfriesshire at the head of a large army, letting it be known beforehand that he meant to 'make the rasch bush keep the cow;" in other words, that he would put down cattle-stealing-the chronic offence of the Borders-and render all ranks, high as well as low, amenable to his rule.

At this period the predatory clan of the Armstrongs occupied a large portion of the Debatable Land and its vicinity—their chief, the Laird of Mangerton, having become a feudatory of the Earl of Bothwell, when he acquired the lordship of Liddisdale, in 1491. When Lord Dacre wasted Eskdale and Lower Annandale in 1514, there is reason to suppose that he received a helping hand from the Armstrongs. The following

extract from the records of the Justiciary Court shows, at all events, that a few years afterwards they had been legally proceeded against on some serious charge: -"15th May, 1517.- Respite to the Armstrongs, Tailyors, and all their kinsmen, friends, servants, and other dependants on them of the clan Liddisdale now dwelling in the Debatable Land and Woods, that will deliver to the Governor sufficient pledges to remain for good rule where they sall be assigned." This act of grace was not appreciated by the lawless tribe. "Elliots and Armstrongs ride thieves all," was still a true proverb so far as they were concerned; and the King's representative in the district, Robert, the fourth Lord Maxwell, finding the Armstrongs irrepressible by force, endeavoured to keep them in check by means of a treaty obligation. That nobleman had a special interest in the matter. He was next door neighbour to the turbulent reivers of the Debatable Land: all around that den of doughty thieves lay rich possessions inherited by his family; and the corn and oxen upon them were not a bit more secure than others in the district, because they happened to belong to the Lord Warden of the Marches.

William, surnamed of Mangerton, seems to have been too tamely respectable for his position as a bandit chief; and on his brother, the renowned Johnnie Armstrong, devolved the virtual leadership of the clan. All Maxwell's overtures were therefore made to Johnnie, who, with all his love for fighting and foray, was willing, if tempting terms were offered, to turn over a new leaf. In obedience to a request received from Lord Maxwell, he, late in the autumn of 1525, left his Tower of Gilnockie, on the Esk, and, in company with his son Christie, met his lordship at Dumfries. What transpired at the interview is not recorded, but the result is known: a bond of marnent signed for Johnnie on the 3rd of November, 1525, "with his hand at the pen, as he could not subscribe his name;"† in which document the bold marauder swore submission to the Lord Warden, on condition of receiving his protection, and obtaining a grant of the lands of Langholm, with other pendicles in the same locality. Christie Armstrong entered into a similar bond on his own behalf-the material

* The Terregles Papers.

+ Ibid; and Barjarg MSS.

"consideration" in his case being a ten-pound land in Eskdale. These bonds were not very strictly interpreted by the Armstrongs. Perhaps they thought that all that was meant by them was immunity to the Warden's cattle from their ravages: but if they spared these, they continued their raids elsewhere; and when news on the subject reached King James, it was accompanied by the aggravating report that his own representative, whose special duty it was to keep the peace of the Border, was protecting the lawless, and living hand and glove with "broken men."

The first act of the young monarch, on entering Dumfriesshire, was a bold one. The Maxwells had all along maintained his cause against the Douglasses-and their influence was paramount in the County; but neither the memory of past favours, nor the apprehension of converting a friend into an enemy, prevented him from doing what he felt to be his duty. Maxwell was thrown into prison; Lord Home, the Lairds of Buccleuch, Polwart, and Kerr were also placed in ward: which chiefs, says Pitscottie, deserved punishment, since, instead of restraining the thievish Border clans, as in duty bound, they had “winked at their villanies, and given them way."

The King had also, if tradition is to be relied upon, a score to settle with the Laird of Amisfield. Before setting out from Stirling, a poor widow, it is said, who had travelled all the way from the neighbourhood of Lochmaben, laid before him a tale of cruel hardship, and claimed redress. A party of Englishmen had penetrated to her little toft, carried off her only son, and whole stock of cattle-two cows; and when Sir John Charteris, who was Deputy-Warden of the Marches at the time, was told of the outrage, he, instead of capturing the marauders, as he could easily have done, treated the complaining widow with rudeness and contempt, protesting that he had something else to do than to look after her paltry concerns. The gracious monarch dismissed the petitioner with the assurance that her case would be attended to.

On arriving in Nithsdale, he proceeded in disguise to Amisfield Tower, and, "tirling at the pin," apprised the porter who answered the summons that he was the bearer of an important message to his lord. "Sir John is at dinner, and cannot be