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 by the mortgage of some Crown lands, and in January, 1545, a new benevolence was demanded for the wars of France and Scotland.

For the subjugation of the latter country Henry had relied chiefly on the aid of the Douglases and of the Scotch heretics, who hated Cardinal Beton and desired the overthrow of the monasteries and the Church. But the Douglases were double-dealers, and, since Hertford's burning of Edinburgh, when the Governor released them from confinement to serve against the common enemy, they had shown so much loyalty to their country that they were absolved from attainder by the Scottish Parliament in December. The King on this gave ear to a project of Sir B^lph Evers and Brian Layton for subduing the domains of the Douglases, together with the whole country south of Forth. In February, 1545, accordingly, Evers and Layton raided the Scotch border in the usual fashion as far as Melrose, where they wrecked the Abbey and violated the tombs of the Douglases. Angus and Arran, however, met them at Ancrum Moor near Jedburgh and with greatly inferior numbers routed the English host, taking prisoners the leaders and some hundreds of their followers.

The war between France and England still went on, but was attended with little advantage to either side. Marshal du Biez formed the siege of Boulogne in January; but as England commanded the sea it was ineffectual; and, though renewed efforts were made in the summer, they were equally fruitless.

The French, indeed, collected a great fleet under Annebaut and entered the Soient, where a squadron drawn up at Portsmouth was unable for some time to attack them for lack of wind. In preparing for action, moreover, the English lost a fine vessel, the Mary Rose, which heeled over by accident and sank before the King's eyes, almost all her crew being drowned. The French, on the other hand, would have attacked the fleet in Portsmouth harbour, but could not approach with safety; and though they overran part of the Isle of Wight they were soon driven out. They were then carried eastward ofF the Sussex coast, which they attacked with little effect, and after an indecisive action in the Channel, ending at nightfall, they retired to their own coast. The siege of Boulogne was then abandoned, and in September Lord Lisle landed in Normandy and burned Tréport; but sickness had broken out in the fleet and it returned.

That same September the Earl of Hertford invaded the Scotch Marches, took Kelso, Home, Melrose, and Dryburgh, and even outdid previous works of destruction. Between the 8th and the 23rd of the month he demolished seven monasteries, sixteen castles, towers, or "piles," five market-towns, 243 villages, thirteen mills and three hospitals.

In November Parliament met and, besides granting the King a new and heavy subsidy, put at his disposal the property of all hospitals, colleges, and chantries to meet the cost of the wars. Oxford and Cambridge