Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/279

 1 5 70. ] EXCOMMUNICA TION OF E LIZ ABE TH. 265 inhabitants, ' like unjust men ' (so Hunsdon called them), had stripped the thatch from their houses, and had set it on fire in the street, so that the soldiers could not enter the town and were obliged to sleep ' uneasily ' they had no tents with them in the open air. On Thursday morning they finished the work which the people had begun, by burning everything that was left ; after which, while Foster was making an end of ' the towns and villages ' adjoining, Sussex and Hunsdon, with two or three companies of horse, rode out to Branxholme to do vengeance on Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch. The Scotts were so powerful that Branxholme had been a kind of sanctuary. They found it ' a very strong house well set with pleasant gardens and orchards about it well kept/ a little island of beauty in the surrounding black desolation. Buccleuch had anticipated the invaders by himself applying the torch, and ' the woodwork was burnt to their hand as cruelly as they could have burnt it themselves ; ' but the place would still serve the purpose of a fortress; Sussex therefore laid powder barrels in the cellar, and of the present ' house ' there are but a few fragments which survived that desolating visit. From. Hawick the soldiers spread in parties about the country, converging back upon Jedburgh and Kelso, and thence at the end of the week they returned to Berwick, not a Scot having ventured a stroke to save his property. Scrope meanwhile had been no less active. Buc- cleuch and Fernihurst were the chief offenders on the