Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/57

1544.] series of 'exploits,' resembling on a scarcely reduced scale the proceedings at Edinburgh. The returns of the "Wardens of the Marches for the months intervening between July and November, 1544, report, of 'towns, towers, homesteads, barnekyns, parish churches, fortified houses, burnt and destroyed, a hundred and ninety-two; of Scots slain, four hundred and three; of prisoners taken, eight hundred and sixteen.' The spoil amounted to something over ten thousand horned cattle, twelve thousand sheep, thirteen hundred horses, and eight hundred and fifty bolls of corn. In an age in which military service has become a separate profession, we endeavour, as far as possible, to confine the sufferings of war to those who have made war their occupation: on the Scotch Borders, in the sixteenth century, the distinction had no existence. Every male subject was a soldier, and his farm-stock was the commissariat which maintained him in a position to be dangerous.

But the invasion of Scotland was subsidiary to the larger movements which were in preparation on the Continent. If the marriage was to be completed at last between Prince Edward and Mary Stuart, the consent of the French King had first to be extorted on the soil of France.

The alliance with the Emperor seemed every day to grow closer; each despatch which was exchanged between London and Brussels was in terms of increased cordiality. Francis had continued indefatigably his