It would be a quite impossible task to chronicle the incessant clan-raids of the Border, and to narrate all the invasions that took place on either side would be to repeat in great measure the general history of England and Scotland. But at least two authentic reports, covering little more than a year, may be quoted as showing the extraordinary havoc and destruction caused by the latter. "In 1544 Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun, with an English army, invaded the Scottish Border, and between July and November they destroyed 192 towns, towers, barmkyns, parish churches, etc.; slew 403 Scots and took 816 prisoners; carried off 10,386 head of cattle, 12,492 sheep, 1296 horses, 200 goats, and 850 bolls of corn, besides an untold quantity of inside gear and plenishing. In one village alone--that of Lessudden (now St. Boswells)--Sir Ralph Evers writes that he burned 16 strong bastle-houses. Again in September of the following year, the Earl of Hertford a second time invaded the country, and between the 8th and the 23rd of that month, he razed and cast down the abbeys of Jedburgh, Kelso, Dryburgh, and Melrose, and burned the town of Kelso. At the same time he destroyed about 30 towns, towers and villages on the Tweed, 36 on the Teviot, 12 on Rulewater, 13 on the Jed, 45 on the Kale, 19 on the Bowmont, 109 in the parishes of Eccles and Duns in Berwickshire, with 20 other towns and villages in the same county. The places destroyed are all named in the report to the English king, along with a classified list of that terrible sixteen days' destruction, embracing 7 monasteries and friars' houses, 16 castles, towers and peels, 5 market-towns, the immense number of 243 villages, with 13 mills, and 3 hospitals." It cannot be forgotten that upon Border soil were fought at least six of the great historical battles of the nation, _viz._, Halidon Hill (1333); Otterburn (1388); Homildon Hill (1402); Flodden (1513); Solway Moss (1542); and Ancrum Moor (1544). Of mere internal contests there are the fight at Arkinholm (Langholm, 1455), between Scotsmen, where James II. broke the power of the Douglases; the battle of Hedgeley Moor (1464), and of Hexham (1464) between the English adherents of Lancaster and York, when the Lancastrians were defeated; the affair of Melrose (Skirmish Hill, 1526) between Borderers under the Earl of Angus and Buccleuch; and Philiphaugh (1645) when Leslie drove Montrose from the field. Of what were purely faction fights and deeds of daring such as the Raid of the Reidswire (1575), and the rescue of Kinmont Willie (1596), the ancient ballads will keep their memory green for many a year to come. PLATE 5 VIEW OF NORHAM CASTLE FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH PAINTED BY JAMES ORROCK, R.I. (_See pp. 39, 60, 93_) [Illustration]