We find that the Regents, when occasion demanded, were no less severe in their treatment of the unfortunate marauders. It would seem that about the middle of the sixteenth century the Borders had attained to an almost unexampled degree of lawlessness. Murder, robbery, and offences of all kinds prevailed to an intolerable extent. It is said that men who had been publicly outlawed walked abroad, deriding the terrors of justice. Hawick, a burgh of ancient renown, was the centre of these crimes. The Earl of Mar made a sudden and rapid march upon the town, encompassed it with his soldiers, and made a proclamation in the market place forbidding any one, on pain of death, to receive or shelter a thief. He apprehended fifty-three of the most noted outlaws, eighteen of whom, strange to state, he was under the necessity of drowning for "lack of trees and halters." Six were hanged in Edinburgh, and the rest either acquitted or put in prison. This sharp and salutary lesson was evidently laid to heart, as we learn that, for some time after, extraordinary quietness prevailed. In a few years, however, the state of matters on the Borders seems to have gone from bad to worse. The Scotts and the Ellwoods (Elliots) were at deadly feud, and as the result of their frequent and violent quarrels the whole district was thrown into confusion and disorder. Queen Mary had recently returned from France; and, hearing how things were going in this distracted part of her realm, came to Jedburgh to hold court in person. For more than a week she was busily engaged in hearing a great variety of cases that were brought before her, and imposing various modes and degrees of punishment on the offenders. It was on this occasion she made her famous visit to Hermitage Castle, in Liddesdale. The Earl of Bothwell had been stationed there for some time, in order if possible to "daunton" the "wicked limmers" by whom the district had long been infested. One day when in pursuit of a party of Elliots, having got considerably ahead of his company, he encountered a famous mosstrooper, John Elliot of Park, the "little Jock Elliot" of Border song (?), and drawing a "dag" or pistol fired at him, wounding him severely in the thigh. The gallant marauder turned upon his assailant, and, with a two-handed sword, which he wielded with amazing dexterity, bore him to the ground, leaving him to all appearance dead. Some have been wicked enough to wish that this _coup d'epee_ had been more effective, as both Queen and country would have been spared much trouble and many heart burnings had Elliot's well-aimed blow fallen with more deadly effect. Mary, hearing that her favourite courtier lay ill at Hermitage, resolved to pay him a friendly visit. Leaving Jedburgh early in the morning, in the company of her brother Murray, and other officers, she rode by way of Hawick over the hills to Liddesdale--a distance of twenty miles. The road was rough, and not without its hazards,