Jedburgh, deprived of her castle, was yet a strong place; but if her townsmen and the fierce men of Teviotdale imagined that by harrying and destroying the nest that so long had sheltered them, the English birds of prey would be permanently-scattered down the wind, they made a vast mistake. No more than a year had passed ere the English returned under Sir Robert Umphraville and burned the town about their ears; and in 1416 the same commander repeated the performance of six years earlier. Again and again as the years rolled on were fire and sword the fate of Jedworth. The town, with its flanking towers, was strong, strong in natural position, and, owing to the manner of building of its houses, difficult of access except by one or other of its four ports; but it had no walls or {097}defending fosse, and however brave its men, however skilled in the use of arms, their numbers were generally too meagre to cope with the formidable bands the English could bring against them. Time and again the place was sacked, and on each occasion her magnificent Abbey suffered grievously at the hands of the stormers. Founded about the year 1118, the ancient Abbey occupies the site of a building more ancient still by probably two or three hundred years, a church built in the ninth century by Ecgred, Bishop of Lindisfarne, who died A.D. 845. Osbert was the first Abbot of Jedburgh (1152-1174); previous to his day the establishment ranked merely as a Priory. In the troublous times between 1297 and 1300, the Abbey suffered much. Sacked and partially destroyed, the lead stripped from its roof, the conventual buildings to such an extent gutted that the brethren, fleeing, were forced to seek refuge for a time in Abbeys and Monasteries south of the Border, it can have been but the massiveness of its walls that then preserved it from total destruction. But compared to the treatment later meted out to Abbey and town by the Earl of Surrey, all former chastenings were as a comparatively mild scourging with whips; Surrey chastised with scorpions. In this matter, his little finger was thicker than the loins of those who had preceded him. In 1523, an English force--compared to the meagre number of defenders, a vast army--marched on the town. All that human power could do in defence of hearth and home was done that day by the men of Jedworth. When, since history began, has it ever been recorded of them that they shrank from battle? "And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds,"