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