The Abbey was newly in ruin when Mary Queen rode down this way, only twenty-one years after Hertford's hurtful raid. Court was to be held here, the assizes of October, 1566, at this Border town. For the Border had been over-lively and was disputing the authority of the Scottish queen as though it had no loyalty. Bothwell had been sent down as Warden of the Marches to quell the marauding free-booters. He had met with Little Jock Elliott, a Jethart callant, a Border bandit, to whom we can forgive much, because of the old ballad. "My castle is aye my ain, An' herried it never shall be; For I maun fa' ere it's taen, An' wha daur meddle wi' me? Wi' my kuit in the rib o' my naig, My sword hangin' doun by my knee, For man I am never afraid, An' wha daur meddle wi' me? Wha daur meddle wi' me, Wha daur meddle wi' me? Oh, my name is little Jock Elliott, An' wha daur meddle wi' me? "I munt my gude naig wi' a will When the fray's in the wind, an' he Cocks his lugs as he tugs for the hill That enters the south countrie, Where pricking and spurring are rife, And the bluid boils up like the sea, But the Southrons gang doon i' the strife, An' wha daur meddle wi' me?" And perhaps we can forgive the reiver, since he dealt a blow to Bothwell that those of us who love Mary have longed to strike through the long centuries. Bothwell took Elliott in custody, Elliott not suspecting that a Scot could prove treacherous like a Southron, and was carrying him to the Hermitage. Jock asked pleasantly what would be his fate at the assize. "Gif ane assyises wald mak him clene, he was hertlie contentit, but he behuvit to pas to the Quenis grace." This was little promise to little Jock Elliott. He fled. Bothwell chased. Bothwell fired, wounded Jock, overtook him, and Jock managed to give Bothwell three vicious thrusts of his skene dhu--"Wha daur meddle wi' me!"--before Bothwell's whinger drove death into little Jock Elliott. Bothwell, wounded, perhaps to death, so word went up to Edinburgh, was carried to the Hermitage. Buchanan, the scandalous chronicler of the time--there were such in Scotland, then, and always for Mary--set down that "when news thereof was brought to Borthwick to the Queen, she flingeth away in haste like a madwoman by great journeys in post, in the sharp time of winter, first to Melrose, and then to Jedworth."