A few months after, Ferniehirst and Buccleuch mustered a great multitude of the Border thieves, and came to take vengeance on the burghers of Jedburgh. The town, assisted by Kerr of Cessford, stood to its defence; and when Lord Ruthven came with a party of horse to aid them, they were able to beat back the assailants, many of whom fell into their hands. * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG. 1.] ‘There was ane sow farried in William Davidson’s house, flesher in Edinburgh, of thirteen gryces [pigs], of the whilk there was ane a monster. It had the gruntle [snout] in the heich of the heid, and under that it had twa een, ane nose and mouth, ane brow, ane cheek, ane tongue, and lugs like to the similitude of man in all sorts; the remanent thereof was like ane other gryce without hair. This portendit some mischief to this burgh.’--_D. O._ * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG.] The Earl of Argyle, Robert Lord Boyd, and some other nobles, lately friends of the queen, were now brought over to the king’s side, after sundry meetings and discussions with the Regent. ‘The greedy and insatiable appetite of benefices was the maist cause thereof, for there was nane that was brought under the king’s obedience but for reward either given or promised. Als he [the Earl of Argyle] was greatumly persuadit hereto by Lord Boyd, wha persuadit the kirk to part the said earl and his wife, and [the earl] to marry his [Lord Boyd’s] daughter, wha was married upon the young laird of Cunninghamheid of before.’--_D. O._ After these particulars, it is instructive to read the epitaph inscribed on Lord Boyd’s tomb in the Laigh Kirk (Burns’s Laigh Kirk) of Kilmarnock: ‘Heir lyis y^t godlie, noble, wyis Lord Boyd, Quha kirk and king and commonweil decoird, Quhilk war (quhill they yis jowell all injoyd) Defendit, counsaild, governd, by that lord.’ &c. * * * * * [Sidenote: AUG. 28.] The Regent Lennox held a parliament at Stirling, where he made an oration to the nobility. The king, five years old, was present, and, while his grandfather was speaking, he looked up and espied a hole in the roof, occasioned by ‘the lack of some sclates.’ At the conclusion of the harangue, the child remarked: ‘I think there is ane hole in this parliament.’ [Sidenote: 1571.]