Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/55

1544.] he might do his worst. Unfortunately for their courage, it had little opportunity to show itself. A heavy train of artillery had been landed from the fleet, to which there was no gun in Edinburgh better than Mons Meg to make an effective reply. The gates were blown in; the people who attempted to defend the streets were mown down by the fire; and the English troops followed the cannon, setting the houses in a blaze as they advanced. The intention of leaving garrisons had been for the present relinquished. Lord Hertford's orders were merely to teach a lesson of English power in the language which would be most easily understood. The miserable citizens broke, scattered, and fled into the open country, and for two days the metropolis of Scotland was sacked and wasted without resistance, while Evers and his northern troopers burnt the farms and villages for seven miles round. Holyrood was pillaged; Craigmillar and Seaton were destroyed, and every castle or fortified house in the neighbourhood except Dalkeith, which was spared, as belonging to the Douglases, and the Castle at Edinburgh, which could not be taken without loss and delay. There was no injury to life except where there was armed opposition; but the havoc of property was as complete as the skill and hate of the rough riders of the Border could make it; and the invaders, as it appeared to Knox, were thus 'executing the judgments of God' on breach of treaty and broken promises.