Fors Clavigera (Volume 3 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 3 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
Ruskin, John
Aesthetics; Conduct of life; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class -- Great Britain
"Please it your most gracious Highness to be advertised that my
comptroller, with Raynold Carnaby, desired licence of me to invade
the realm of Scotland, to the annoyance of your Highness's enemies,
and so they did meet upon Monday before night, at Warhope, upon North
Tyne water, to the number of 1500 men: and so invaded Scotland, at the
hour of eight of the clock at night, and actively did set upon a town
[51] called Branxholm, where the Lord of Buccleugh dwelleth, albeit
that knight he was not at home. And so they burnt the said Branxholm,
and other towns, and had ordered themselves so that sundry of the
said Lord Buccleugh's servants, who did issue forth of his gates,
were taken prisoners. They did not leave one house, one stack of corn,
nor one sheaf without the gate of the said Lord Buccleugh unburnt;
and so in the breaking of the day receded homeward. And thus, thanks
be to God, your Highness's subjects, about the hour of twelve of the
clock the same day, came into this, your Highness's realm, bringing
with them above forty Scotsmen prisoners, one of them named Scott,
of the surname and kin of the said Lord of Buccleugh. And of his
household they brought also three hundred nowte" (cattle), "and above
sixty horses and mares, keeping in safety from loss or hurt all your
said Highness's subjects."
They had met the evening before on the North Tyne, under Carter Fell;
(you will find the place partly marked as "Plashett's coal-fields"
in modern atlases;) rode and marched their twenty miles to Branxholm;
busied themselves there, as we hear, till dawn, and so back thirty
miles down Liddesdale,--a fifty miles' ride and walk altogether,
all finished before twelve on Tuesday: besides what pillaging and
burning had to be done.
Now, but one more point is to be noticed, and we will get on with
our genealogy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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