Lochmaben .................. 67 Town of Dumfries ........... 201 Lard of Gillersbie ............ 30 Town of Kircubrie .......... 36 Moffits ....................... 24 TIVIDALE.  Bells of Tostints ............ 142 Laird of Drumlire .......... 364 Bells of Tindills ............ 222 Caruthers .................. 71 Sir John Lawson ............... 32 Trumbells .................. 12 Town of Annan ................ 33 ESKDALE.  Roomes of Tordephe ........... 32 Battisons and Thomsons ..... 166

Total 7008 men under English assurance.

Nicolson, from Bell’s MS. Introduction to History of Cumberland, p. 65.]

The arrival of French auxiliaries, and of French gold, rendered vain the splendid successes of the English.  One by one, the fortresses which they occupied were recovered by force, or by stratagem; and the vindictive cruelty of the Scottish borderers made dreadful retaliation for the, injuries they had sustained.  An idea may be conceived of this horrible warfare, from the memoirs of Beauge, a French officer, serving in Scotland.

The castle of Fairnihirst, situated about three miles above Jedburgh, had been taken and garrisoned by the English.  The commander and his followers are accused of such excesses of lust and cruelty “as would,” says Beauge, “have made to tremble the most savage moor in Africa.”  A band of Frenchmen, with the laird of Fairnihirst, and [Sidenote:  1549] his borderers, assaulted this fortress.  The English archers showered their arrows down the steep ascent, leading to the castle, and from the outer wall by which it was surrounded.  A vigorous escalade, however, gained the base court, and the sharp fire of the French arquebusiers drove the bowmen into the square keep, or dungeon, of the fortress.  Here the English defended themselves, till a breach in the wall was made by mining.  Through this hole the commandant creeped forth; and, surrendering himself to De la Mothe-rouge, implored protection from the vengeance of the borderers.  But a Scottish marc-hman, eyeing in the captive the ravisher of his wife, approached him ere the French officer could guess his intention, and, at one blow, carried his head four paces from the trunk.  Above a hundred Scots rushed to wash their hands in the blood of their oppressor, bandied about the severed head, and expressed their joy in such shouts, as if they had stormed the city of London.  The prisoners, who fell into their merciless hands, were put to death, after their eyes had been torn out; the victors contending who should display the greatest address in severing their legs and arms, before inflicting a mortal wound.  When their own prisoners were slain, the Scottish, with an unextinguishable thirst for blood, purchased those of the French; parting willingly with their very arms, in exchange for an English captive.  “I myself,” says Beauge, with military sang-froid, “I myself sold them a prisoner for