When the strength of the Scottish army had sunk, without wounds, and without renown, the principal chiefs were led captive into England.—­Among these was the Lord Maxwell, who was compelled, by the menaces of Henry, to swear allegiance to the English monarch.  There is still in existence the spirited instrument of vindication, by which he renounces his connection with England, and the honours and estates which had been proffered him, as the price of treason to his infant sovereign.  From various bonds of manrent, it appears, that all the western marches were swayed [Sidenote:  1543] by this powerful chieftain.  With Maxwell, and the other captives, returned to Scotland the banished Earl of Angus, and his brother, Sir George Douglas, after a banishment of fifteen years.  This powerful family regained at least a part of their influence upon the borders; and, grateful to the kingdom which had afforded them protection during their exile, became chiefs of the English faction in Scotland, whose object it was to urge a contract of marriage betwixt the young queen and the heir apparent of England.  The impetuosity of Henry, the ancient hatred betwixt the nations, and the wavering temper of the governor, Arran, prevented the success of this measure.  The wrath of the disappointed monarch discharged itself in a wide-wasting and furious invasion of the east marches, conducted by the Earl of Hertford.  Seton, Home, and Buccleuch, hanging on the mountains of Lammermoor, saw, with ineffectual regret, the fertile plains of Merse and Lothian, and the metropolis itself, reduced to a smoking desert.  Hertford had scarcely retreated with the main army, when Evers and Latoun laid waste the whole vale of Tiviot, with a ferocity of devastation, hitherto unheard of[15].  The same “lion mode of wooing,” being pursued during the minority of Edward VI., totally alienated the affections even of those Scots who were most attached to the English interest.  The Earl of Angus, in particular, united himself to the governor, and gave the English a sharp defeat at Ancram moor, [Sidenote:  1545] a particular account of which action is subjoined to the ballad, entituled, “The Eve of St. John.”  Even the fatal defeat at Pinky, which at once renewed the carnage of Flodden, and the disgrace of Solway, served to prejudice the cause of the victors.  The borders saw, with dread and detestation, the ruinous fortress of Roxburgh once more receive an English garrison, and the widow of Lord Home driven from his baronial castle, to [Sidenote:  1547] make room for the “Southern Reivers.”  Many of the barons made a reluctant submission to Somerset; but those of the higher part of the marches remained among their mountains, meditating revenge.  A similar incursion was made on the west borders by Lord Wharton, who, with five thousand men, ravaged and overran Annandale, Nithsdale, and Galloway, compelling the inhabitants to receive the yoke of England[16].

[Footnote 15:  In Haynes’ State Papers, from p. 43 to p. 64, is an account of these destructive forays.  One list of the places burned and destroyed enumerates—­