day's march than other soldiers.
In this manner the Scots entered England, destroying and burning
everything as they passed. They seized more cattle than they knew what to
do with. Their army consisted of four thousand men at arms, knights, and
esquires, well mounted, besides twenty thousand men, bold and hardy, armed
after the manner of their country, and mounted upon little hackneys that
are never tied up or dressed, but are turned immediately after the day's
march to pasture on the heath or in the field."[21]

It may be said that this description--which, it may be remarked, is as
graphic in outline as it is minute in detail--applies rather to the
regular army than to those undisciplined marauding bands which infested
the Borders, and to which the name "reivers" or "mosstroopers" is usually
assigned. This is no doubt true. At the same time, it must not be
forgotten that many of the more important raids were undertaken by large
bodies of troops, numbering sometimes three or four thousand men. This
much at least is certain that the Border reiver was always well mounted,
and well armed with lance or spear, which, on occasion, he could use with
much dexterity and skill. With a steel cap on his head, a jack slung over
his shoulders, a pistol or hagbut at his belt, he was ever ready for the
fray, and prepared to give or take the hardest blows. He was naturally
fond of fighting. Like Dandie Dinmont's terriers he never could get enough
of it, and must have found life peculiarly irksome when he was compelled
to desist from his favourite pastime. He lived in the saddle, and was as
unaccustomed to the ordinary occupations of the world as the wild Arab of
the desert.

Even to enumerate the raids and forays on the one side or the other, of
which some record has been left either in the Histories of the two
Kingdoms, or in the archives of the State Paper Office, would be an almost
endless task, and moreover would serve no really useful purpose. The
details of the "burnings," "herschips," and "slaughters," which were the
necessary concomitants of these invasions, are much the same in all cases.
It is a dreary tale of theft and oppression, bloodshed and murder. The
following incidents may be taken as fairly illustrative examples.

During the reign of Henry VIII. the relations between the two kingdoms
were often of a most unsatisfactory and unsettled character. This was due
to a variety of causes, partly political and partly religious