But in spite of its castle and the stout town walls, Carlisle has been, many more times than can readily be counted, the scene of warfare, and was often sacked and burnt. It was thus ever a place of arms. In all the country round about, men went armed to the plough, and the great lords held their lands from the King under the strictest obligations to military service, and were captained by the Lord Warden, whose duties included the firing of beacons and the mustering of all men between the ages of sixteen and sixty. Small tenants held their fields and farms under the name of “nag-tenements” and “foot-tenements,” and were bound, according to their degree, to fight mounted or on foot. When the enemy crossed the Border, there was a stir in the city of Carlisle, like that which accompanies the overturning of an ant-heap. The muckle town-bell was rung, the citizens assembled under arms, and the women manned the walls (if the expression may be allowed) with kettles, boiling-water, and apronfuls of stones. There was no worse time in this long history than the reign of Henry the Eighth. War with Scotland had brought to that country the crushing defeat of Flodden, where, in the words of the Scottish lament, “The flowers of the forest were a’ weed awa”; but the result was anarchy in the Borders, where thousands of lawless men lived, whom no man could restrain. The Warden’s office was then no light task, and a Scot on the English side, or an Englishman on the Scottish, went in momentary danger of his life. Every man was required to explain his presence, and in the streets of Carlisle none might speak, without leave, to a Scot, and none of that nationality was permitted to live in the city. [Sidenote: _RAIDERS_]