Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/315

1547.] some up the river-side towards Dalkeith; some lay as if dead and let the chase pass by them. The Highlanders held together and saved themselves with an orderly retreat, but the crowd fell unresisting victims under the sabres of the avenging cavalry. It was a massacre more than a battle; for, of the English, at most, not more than two hundred fell, and those chiefly at the first charge under the lances of the pikemen; the number of Scots killed was from ten to fourteen thousand. Two causes provoked the English, it was said, to an especial vindictiveness; they resented ungenerously their own first repulse; but the chief reason was the treacherous surprise at Ancram Muir, and the death of Lord Evers, the hero of the Border troopers. Fifteen hundred prisoners were taken, but in general no quarter was given Gentlemen might have been spared for their ransoms; but, for some unknown cause, the noble and the peasant were dressed alike in white leather or fustian; there was little to distinguish them, and they were cut down in indiscriminate heaps along the roads and fields to the very walls of Edinburgh. Multitudes of priests, at one time, it was said, as many as four thousand, were among the slain. The banner of the kneeling Lady was taken amidst the scorn of the victors; and when at last the retreat was sounded, and the pursuers, weary with killing, gathered again into their camp, they sent up a shout which legend said was heard in Edinburgh Castle. The day closed with one more act of barbarity. A detachment of Scots had been stationed with cannon in a small fort overlooking the field, and had given some