IN the summer of 1570, the treacherous advice of Sussex had been followed, and, under pretence of punishing those who had given shelter to the rebellious Dacres, he had been sent, with an army of four thousand men, into Annandale, which he ravaged with such remorseless ferocity that, in his own words, not a stone house was left to an ill neighbour within twenty miles of Carlisle. This unjustifiable act of aggression may be looked upon as one of the immediate causes that led Grange decisively and irrevocably to throw in his lot with the party which refused to recognise the authority of Lennox. A two months’ truce delayed what had now become an inevitable step on his part. And even then, when the crisis came, it had been hurried on by Lennox’s action. On the 19th of March, before the actual expiration of the armistice, he caused proclamation to be made in Edinburgh, forbidding, upon pain of treason, that any should serve Grange, and commanding those who were already with him to leave him within three days. On the same afternoon, Kirkcaldy retaliated by causing Captain Melville to go through the town, with beat of drum, offering pay to all such as would repair to the Castle. Next day he took possession of the Abbey and of St Giles’s, and put men and munitions into them. He further levied provisions from the Leith merchants, and took every measure of prudence and precaution that a long military experience suggested, with a view to enabling the Castle to stand a long siege. He was so satisfied with the result of his efforts that he indulged in a ‘rowstie ryme’ in which, besides reviling his enemies and casting upon them the entire responsibility for the calamities under which the country was groaning, he proudly set forth all that he had done to resist any attempt on their part to drive him from his stronghold. For I haue men and meit aneugh, They know I am ane tuilyeour teoch, And wilbe rycht sone greved: When thei haue tint als mony teith, As thei did at the seige of Leith, They wilbe faine to leive it. Then quha, I pray you, salbe boun Thair tinsall to advance? Or gif sic compositione As thei got then of France? This sylit, begylit, They will bot get the glaikis; Cum thai heir, thir tuo yeir, They sall not misse thair paikis.[5] On the 13th of April, when, in answer to his call, a considerable number not only of soldiers, but of powerful noblemen and gentlemen also, had gathered about him, he issued a proclamation in which he charged the Earl of Lennox with having unlawfully usurped the government of the kingdom, and with having unjustifiably circulated calumnies, injuries, and untrue reports about him, and which, after declaring with pardonable pride and damaging truth, that he had risked his life for Scotland when the new Regent was against it, he closed with a characteristic challenge:--