Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/56

36 By the end of the week they had done their work in Edinburgh, and returned upon Leith. Here the wooden pier was torn up, and the timber was made use of as fuel to assist the destruction of the houses. The ships which were found in the harbour were seized and freighted with the spoil; and the army then dividing, part re-embarked in the transports, and returned to Newcastle; part accompanied the cavalry to Berwick, destroying as they went. The retreat, like the advance, was unopposed; and by the fifteenth of the month the invaders were again collected in England, the insignificant number of forty persons being the entire loss which they had sustained.

The necessity must be regretted which compelled measures of so extreme severity. Those who condemn the severity itself must remember that it followed only after all other means had been tried in vain to bring the Scots to reasonable terms. They would keep no peace, and no treaties could bind them, while it was as impossible to leave them to themselves, to become the willing instruments of designs upon England, in the hands of the Pope or the King of France.

The main army was transported from Newcastle to Calais; a division remained on the Border, under the command of Evers and Lord Wharton, and through the summer and autumn performed a