Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/126

106 from their actions rather than their words; and the Wardens of the Marches, who had spared their estates so long as they were believed to be on the English side, had in the late inroads involved them in the general ruin.

The Scots could not bring a power into the field to meet their enemies openly; but stratagem might, perhaps, balance the inequality of force. High words passed in the middle of February between Evers and Sir George Douglas, on account of the rigorous execution of the last orders. A few days later a party of Scots, pretending to be confederates with the English, brought information to Berwick that the Regent was lying with a small force at Melrose, and might be surprised. Evers started to seize him, with from four to five thousand men. on the 25th of February. The Regent retired as he advanced. Evers took possession of the abbey, and, either disappointed of expected assistance from the Earl of Angus, or hearing that he was with the Regent, he allowed his irritation to provoke him into an act of gratuitous barbarism. The princely ancestors of the Earl, for centuries the arbiters of Scotland, slept in the aisles of Melrose Abbey. Evers insulted the waning greatness of an almost imperial family, by desecrating their tombs. He then turned in pursuit of the Regent, who hovered at a distance, and would not allow himself to be overtaken; and the English, after an ineffectual chase