iiijs. _Item_, for ane raip to hang them in ...--viijd.
_Item_, to the man that hangit the thieves in Canonby, be the King's
command ...--xiiijs. But all the details are not of this gruesome
character. The work of hanging, needful as it was, could give but "sma'
pleasure" even to a King, and so we find that entertainment of another
kind was plentifully provided for the youthful monarch. "He was attended
in his progress," says Tytler, "by his huntsmen, falconers, morris
dancers, and all the motley and various minions of his pleasure, as well
as by his judges and ministers of the law; and whilst troops of the
unfortunate marauders were seized and brought in irons to the encampment,
executions and entertainments appear to have succeeded each other with
extraordinary rapidity."[62]

Not long after the King made another visit to the Borders, coming on this
occasion also with a considerable following, to the Water of Rule, to
"daunton" the Turnbulls, whose excesses had filled the minds of the more
peaceful inhabitants with a feeling of terror. Leslie, in his own quaint
and picturesque style, thus describes the incident:--"The King raid furth
of Edinburgh, the viij. of November one the nycht, weill accumpaneit to
the watter of Roulle, quhair he tuik divers brokin men and brocht thame to
Jeduart; of quhom sum was justifyeit, and the principallis of the
trubillis [Turnbulls] come in lyning claythis, with nakitt sordis in thair
handis and wyddyis [ropes] about thair neckis, and pat thame in the Kingis
will; quha wes send to divers castells in ward, with sindrie utheris of
that cuntrey men also, quhair throchout the bordouris wes in greiter
quietnes thairefter."[63]

We find that the Regents, when occasion demanded, were no less severe in
their treatment of the unfortunate marauders. It would seem that about the
middle of the sixteenth century the Borders had attained to an almost
unexampled degree of lawlessness. Murder, robbery, and offences of all
kinds prevailed to an intolerable extent. It is said that men who had been
publicly outlawed walked abroad, deriding the terrors of justice. Hawick,
a burgh of ancient renown, was the centre of these crimes. The Earl of Mar
made a sudden and rapid march upon the town, encompassed it with his
soldiers, and made a proclamation in the market place forbidding any one,
on pain of death, to receive or shelter a thief. He apprehended
fifty-three of the most noted outlaws, eighteen of whom, s