Battle of Ancrum Moor

The Battle of Ancrum Moor, which occurred on February 27, 1545, is well covered in Notes on the Eve of St. John, in Walter Scott's "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border". The note, some of which is contained below, discusses the actions of Lords Ralph Evers (or Eure) and Brian Latoun (or Layton), and how these actions pushed the people in the area to seek the security of King Henry VIII.  Scottish Earls Arran and Angus - James Hamilton and Archibald Douglas - turned this day into a Scottish victory, with Evers and Latoun both being slain.

'In 1545, Lord Evers and Latoun again entered Scotland, with an army consisting of 3000 mercenaries, 1500 English Borderers, and 700 assured Scottishmen, chiefly Armstrongs, Turnbulls, and other broken clans. In this second incursion, the English generals even exceeded their former cruelty. Evers burned the tower of Broomhouse, with its lady (a noble and aged woman, says Lesley), and her whole family. The English penetrated as far as Melrose, which they had destroyed last year, and which they now again pillaged. As they returned towards Jedburgh, they were followed by Angus, at the head of 1000 horse, who was shortly after joined by the famous Norman Lesley, with a body of Fife-men. The English, being probably unwilling to cross the Teviot, while the Scots hung upon their rear, halted upon Ancrum Moor, above the village of that name; and the Scottish general was deliberating whether to advance or retire, when Sir Walter Scott (1), of Buccleuch, came up at full speed, with a small, but chosen body of his retainers, the rest of whom were near at hand. By the advice of this experienced warrior (to whose conduct Pitscottie and Buchanan ascribe the success of the engagement), Angus withdrew from the height which he occupied, and drew up his forces behind it, upon a piece of low flat ground, called Panier-heugh, or Paniel-heugh. The spare horses being sent to an eminence in their rear, appeared to the English to be the main body of the Scots, in the act of flight. Under this persuasion, Evers and Latoun hurried precipitately forwards, and, having ascended the hill, which their foes had abandoned, were no less dismayed, than astonished, to find the phalanx of Scottish spearmen drawn up, in firm array, upon the flat ground below. The Scots in their turn became the assailants. A heron, roused from the marshes by the tumult, soared away betwixt the encountering armies: 'Oh!' exclaimed Angus, 'that I had here my white goss-hawk, that we might all yoke at once !'—Godscroft. The English, breathless and fatigued, having the setting sun and wind full in their faces, were unable to withstand the resolute and desperate charge of the Scottish lances. No sooner had they begun to waver, than their own allies, the assured Borderers, who had been waiting the event, threw aside their red crosses, and, joining their countrymen, made a most merciless slaughter among the English fugitives, the pursuers calling upon each other to 'remember Broomhouse !'—Lesley, p. 478.


In the battle fell Lord Evers, and his son, together with Sir Brian Latoun, and 800 Englishmen, many of whom were persons of rank. A thousand prisoners were taken. Among these was a patriotic alderman of London, Read by name, who, having contumaciously refused to pay his portion of a benevolence demanded from the city by Henry viii., was sent by royal authority to serve against the Scots. These, at settling his ransom, he found still more exorbitant in their exactions than the monarch.—Redpath's Border History, p. 563.


Evers was much regretted by King Henry, who swore to avenge his death upon Angus, against whom he conceived himself to have particular grounds of resentment, on account of favours received by the Earl at his hands. The answer of Angus was worthy of a Douglas: 'Is our brother-in-law offended,'' said he, 'that I, as a good Scotsman, have avenged my ravaged country, and the defaced tombs of my ancestors, upon Ralph Evers? They were better men than he, and I was bound to do no less—and will he take my life for that? Little knows King Henry the skirts of Kirnetable (2):' I can keep myself there against all his English host.'—Godscroft.


Such was the noted battle of Ancrum Moor. The spot, on which it was fought, is called Lilyard's Edge, from an Amazonian Scottish woman of that name, who is reported, by tradition, to have distinguished herself in the same manner as Squire Witherington (3). The old people point out her monument, now broken and defaced. The inscription is said to have been legible within this century, and to have run thus:—

'Fair maiden Lylliard lies under this stane,
Little was her stature, but great was her fame;
Upon the English louns she laid mony thumps,
And, when her legs were cutted off, she fought upon her stumps.'


-Vide Account of the Parish of Melrose.

(1) The Editor has found no instance upon record, of this family having taken assurance with England. Hence, they usually suffered dreadfully from the English forays. In August 1544 (the year preceding the battle), the whole lands belonging to Buccleuch, in West Teviotdale, were harried by Evers; the outworks, or barm-kin, of the tower of Branxholm burned; eight Scotts slain, thirty made prisoners, and an immense prey of horses, cattle, and sheep carried off. The lands upon Kale Water, belonging to the same chieftain, were also plundered, and much spoil obtained; 30 Scotts slain, and the Moss Tower (a fortress near Eokford), smoked very sore. Thus Buccleuch had a long account to settle at Ancrum Moor.—Murdin's State Papers, pp. 45, 46.


(2) Kirnetable, now called Cairntable, is a mountainous tract at the head of Douglasdale. [See notes to Castle Dangerous.— J. G. L.]



(3) [See 'Chevy Chase.'—J. G. L.]'

First Assassination by Gunshot

In January 1570, per Rampant Scotland, the 23rd, James Stewart, the Regent Moray, was assassinated.  The assassin, James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, shot Moray from a window.  This murder is the first recorded assassination by gunshot.  Hamilton was a supporter of Mary Queen of Scots.  Moray had been made regent on Mary's abdication of the throne.

In Frank Taylor's biography of "Regent Moray", he raises a question about Moray's end: ' Did Moray wish for the end? It is said that, though he was forewarned of Bothwellhaugh's preparations, he refused to institute a search. It is certain that he knew his peril, and yet neglected the most ordinary measures of precaution. He was never the man to risk his life without a cause, much less to fling it away in mere bravado. It may well be that he courted death, not because he was weary of living, but because he shrank from the future. Sooner or later he would be forced to deal with the occupants of the Castle, the struggle would be protracted and severe, in the event, the extreme penalty would be demanded and, with or without his consent, exacted. It may well be that he had some prescience of the day, when to sustain the mantic reputation of Knox, the foremost soldier of the Scottish Reformation would be hanged in the Grassmarket, and the brilliant Lethington driven "to end his life after the old Roman fashion." Already he had sacrificed a sister's love and an ancient friendship on the altar of his country. Who shall say that he was wholly satisfied in his own conscience of having done the right? At any rate, if he had steeled his heart against the loss of friends, he had not steeled it for their destruction. Two waves he had breasted, but he could not face the third. Suicide is ever a form of cowardice, yet that is a noble cowardice which prompts a man to lay down his life for a friend. If there be any truth in this surmise, what was said of Moray's voluntary exile after the murder of Darnley acquires a deeper and sadder meaning when applied to his own assassination. He was seeking death when it found him, "for he saw troubles breeding, in which he loved not to have a hand."...'

Sir Walter Scott was aware of the plot against Moray.  Not Scott the author, of course, but Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch.  According to the 'Dictionary of National Biography" by Sir Sidney Lee, 'SCOTT, WALTER, first Lord Scott OF Buccleuch (1565-1611), born in 1565, was the only son of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch (d. 1574), by his wife, Lady Margaret Douglas, eldest daughter of David, seventh earl of Angus, who afterwards married Francis Stewart Hepburn, fifth earl of Bothwell. The father, who latterly became a devoted adherent of Mary Queen of Scots, was privy to the design for the assassination of the regent Moray, and, counting on its occurrence, set out the day before with Ker of Ferniehirst on a devastating raid into England. In revenge his lands were laid waste by the Earl of Sussex and Lord Scrope, and his castle of Branxholm blown up with gunpowder. He was a principal leader of the raid to Stirling on 4 Sept. 1571, when an attempt was made to seize the regent Lennox, who was slain by one of the Hamiltons during the melee. Buccleuch, who had interposed to save the regent Morton, his kinsman, whom the Hamiltons intended also to have slain, was during the retreat taken prisoner by Morton (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 248), and was for some time confined in the castle of Doune in Menteith (Reg. P. C. Scotl. ii. 156).'