=32. First English Invasion.=--War was declared at Edinburgh by an English herald, May 1, 1544, and an English army under _Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford_, was sent by sea and landed at _Granton_. He was bidden to destroy _Edinburgh_ and as many other towns and villages as he conveniently could, and he carried out his orders to the letter. He sacked and burned _Leith_, a wealthy trading town, set fire to _Edinburgh_, though no resistance had been made to him there, robbed the burghs on the coast of _Fife_, and then marched south to the Border, burning, slaying, spoiling, and leaving a wasted land behind him. The only resistance he met with was near the Border, where a division of his army which had been sent to _Melrose_ to break open the tombs of the ancestors of _Angus_ was routed at _Ancrum_ by Angus himself and some of the Border lords. At the news of this success six hundred Borderers from the Scottish side, who had been fighting in the service of the English Wardens, changed sides and attacked their former brothers in arms. The rest of the nation then took heart, and a large force was mustered and brought to the Border, but did nothing. =33. Second English Invasion.=--Before the traces of his former ravages had disappeared, just when the next harvest was ready for the sickle, Hertford appeared again at the head of a motley host, swelled by half-savage Irish and by foreign hirelings, and repeated the wild work of the year before. The invaders attacked and plundered the religious houses. The ruins of _Kelso_, _Melrose_, _Dryburgh_, _Roxburgh_, and _Coldingham_ still bear witness to their zeal in carrying out the orders of their master. Towns, manors, churches, and between two and three hundred villages were left in ashes behind them. All this misery was wantonly inflicted without winning for Henry a foot of ground or a single new subject.