Nor was the hereditary foe in any way reluctant to afford them opportunity. In 1544 Lord Evers stormed and captured the town; and again the roar and crackle of flaming houses smote on the ears of Jedburgh's women. According to an Englishman's account of "The late Expedition in Scotland made by the King's Highness' Army under the Conduct of the Right Honourable the Earl of Hertford, the year of owr Lord God 1544," an account "Sent to the Right Honourable Lord Russell, Lord Privy Seal; from the King's Army there, by a Friend of his," the men of Jedburgh on this occasion did not behave with their wonted valour. But if this writer is to be trusted, nowhere during Hertford's entire campaign of 1544 did the Scots make a stand. It was a sort of triumphal English progress; everywhere the Scots fled almost without striking a blow, everywhere they were cut down. Only occasionally, and almost as it were by accident, was an Englishman hurt, whilst the slaughter among the Scots was prodigious. They "used for their defence their light feet, and fled in so much haste that divers {101}English horses were tired in their pursuit: but overtaken there was a great number, whereof many were slain, partly by the fierceness of the Englishmen, partly by the guilty cowardice of the Scots.... And yet in this skirmish, not one Englishman taken, neither slain: thanks be to God." Everywhere it is the same story--a pleasant picnic for Hertford and his men; death and destruction, and panic flight for the Scots. Men, women, and children, it was all the same apparently in that campaign, if one may judge by incidents such as this at Dunbar: "And by reason that we took them in the mornynge, who, having wautched all nyghte for our comynge and perceyvynge our Army to dislodge and depart, thoughte themselves safe of us, were newly gone to their beds; and in theyr fyrste slepes closed in with fyre, men, women, and children were suffocated and burnt.... In these victories," comments this pious and humane scribe, "who is to bee moste highest lauded but God?" But war is a rough game, and such happenings were the natural outcome at that time of Henry's orders anent the giving of quarter, and to the "putting man, woman and child to fire and sword, without exception, when any resistance shall be made against you."