e infant Mary,
Queen of Scots.

The English conducted a series of savage forays across the Scottish
border. Their success led the leaders of the invading army to
represent to Henry that, owing to the distracted condition of
Scotland on account of the internal disorders, the time was peculiarly
auspicious for a permanent conquest of a large part of the border.
Under commission of the English king to effect such a conquest, they
returned and renewed their attack. The tower of Broomhouse, held by
an aged woman and her family, was consigned to the flames, and she and
her children perished in the conflagration. Melrose Abbey was wantonly
plundered and ruined, and the bones of the Douglases were taken from
their tombs and scattered about. Next, the little village of Maxton
was burned. All its inhabitants had made good their escape excepting
a maiden of high courage and deep devotion, who remained with her
bed-ridden parents. The approach of the enemy meant their destruction.
The village maid had a lover, who, on finding that she was not with
the refugees, returned to the town and forcibly carried her off,
although he was grievously wounded in the act of doing so. After he
had effected her rescue, the brave savior, breathing with his expiring
breath a prayer of thankfulness that he had been permitted to yield up
his life for her who was more than life to him, died of exhaustion
and of his wounds. The measure of iniquity was complete, and,
although many other bloody deeds were perpetrated in this warfare, the
instrument of vengeance was at hand; when the hour came that marked a
turn in the tide:

"Ancrum Moor
Ran red with English blood;
Where the Douglas true and the bold Buccleuch
'Gainst keen Lord Evers stood."

When the battle was over and the English had been driven with great
slaughter from the field, the body of the English general was found
near that of a young Scottish soldier with flowing yellow tresses, who
was mangled by many wounds. The delicacy of feature soon led to the
discovery that the slayer of the English leader was a woman, and her
identification as the maiden Liliard of the hamlet of Maxton followed.
So had she avenged the cruel slaughter of her aged and helpless
parents and that of the devoted lover who had laid down his life in
her behalf. In a borrowed suit of armor and weapons she had arrayed
herself under the Red Douglas, that she might seek out him who was
the author of h