The last raid took place actually in 1601, when the kingdoms were united by the accession of James the First, and while he was at Berwick, journeying to London. Several hundreds of Scots then came plundering past Carlisle, and many were captured and duly hanged. James, anxious to unite the kingdoms in reality, ordered that the name of “the Border,” standing for centuries of warfare, should give place to “the midlands,” but the new style does not seem ever to have come into general use; and the coming of the Stuarts meant in after years much more trouble for Carlisle and its surroundings; for it was in 1644-5 that the city endured the longest and most severe siege in its history. It was held for the King, and beleaguered for eight months by the Scottish General, Leslie. The citizens paid dearly for their loyalty, and were reduced to eating horses, dogs, and rats. Hungry folks chased errant cats hazardously across roof-tops, in view of the besiegers, who took long shots at them; and even hemp-seed became so dear that only the wealthy could afford it. Money current in the city was coined from silver plate; but there was so little food to purchase that, as a diarist of the time wrote, “the citizens were so shrunk from starvation, they could not choose but laugh at one another, to see their clothes hang upon them as upon men on gibbets.” It was upon the surrender ending this memorable siege that Carlisle Cathedral suffered so greatly. The visitor who first sets eyes upon the venerable pile finds himself bewildered by its unusual proportions, and has some difficulty in distinguishing which end is east and which west. He has been used, everywhere else, to see the nave of a cathedral much longer than its choir, and to see the building stretching away westward from the central tower five and six times the length of the eastern, or choir, limb. Here, however, when he has definitely settled his bearings, he perceives the choir to be more than thrice the length of the nave. This present odd aspect of the Cathedral, looking as though it had been twisted bodily round, is entirely owing to the fury with which the soldiery fell upon it, after the siege. Where there were once eight bays to the Early Norman nave, there are now but two: the rest all went as so much rough stone wherewith to repair the walls of the city and to erect guard-houses: a curious reversal of its early use, for it was from the ancient Roman wall that these stones came in Norman times. [Illustration: EAST END, CARLISLE CATHEDRAL.] [Sidenote: _THE STEEL THAT MAKES AFRAID_]