Report of the Meetings for 1892. 69 



their part in the last hopeless struggle, when all was lost but honour. 

 Flodden ridge can be well seen fiom the slopes of Duns Law; and it 

 needs no violent eifort of imagination to picture the groups of curious 

 and anxious faces that were doubtless gazing, throughout that long 

 September afternoon, across the Merse, to the brown moor on the far 

 horizon lying enveloped in the smoke and dust of the awful strife. But 

 Duns has preserved no traditions of Flodden. It may be that, like most 

 of their immediate neighbours; its townsfolk were glad to bury in oblivion 

 all memories of that fatal day, unredeemed in their case by any display 

 of heroic devotion, such as made the hearts of the burghers of Selkirk 

 and Jedburgh swell as much with pride as with sorrow. 



1517. 20 Sept. Sir Anthony d'Arcy de la Bastie, who had been 

 appointed Warden of the Eastern Marches by the Duke of Albany, was 

 treacherously attacked near the Castle of Langton by Sir David Home of 

 Wedderburn, pursued through Duns, and slaughtered in a morass about 

 two miles to the north-east of the town. His head was exposed on the 

 market cross before being taken to Hume Castle. For details of the 

 tragedy, see Home of Godscroft's narrative, quoted in Vol. xii. of the 

 Club's Proceedings, pp. 103-106 ; Michel, Les Ecossais en France, Vol. i., pp.. 

 351-2 ; and an excellent paper on the death of de la Bastie, in Blackwood's 

 Magazine for July 1893. 



Whatever may have been the results to Duns of Flodden, there can be 

 no doubt as to its sliare in the events of 1544-45, when the Earl of Hert- 

 ford and his lieutenants, in obedience to the behests of Henry VIII. swept 

 the Borders with fire and sword, and " reduced the fairest provinces of 

 Scotland to a smoking desert." " Downes tower and towne awaretrown," 

 (overthrown) and " all the pares wch is 1 (parish which has 50) towns 

 and willaiges by longeyng to the said Downes" burned, is part of the 

 frightful inventory of the merciless ravages committed by the English in 

 Hertford's second expedition. This was the second time the town 

 suffered in these incursions. In July of the previous year (1544) Sir 

 George Bowes and others, with a force of 160 men, " rode into Scotland 

 and on Thursday the xvij of the same, burnt Dunse, a market towne, 

 which was not burnt these many yeres, and gatte baggage and other 

 insight gere. Naggs xvj, Scotts slayne vj, and divers taken." Talbot 

 Papers. [See also Appendix, p. Ixiv.. to Armstrong's Hist, of Liddesdale, 

 from Harleian Collection, B.M., No, 1757.] 



After its destruction the town, the main part of which is believed 

 to have originally stood on ground now known as " The Brnntons," 

 was rebuilt at a lower elevation, and a little farther south. From a 

 point near the southern end of the Castle Lake, it seems to have 

 stretched in a long straggling street as far as the church, with short 

 lateral lanes, now represented by Teindhill Green, Easter Street (in 

 old titles called the Easter Gate) and Langton Gate ; and round the lower 

 portion of this long irregular line the modern town has slowly grown. 

 On the north side of Newtown street, where it is joined by Gourlay's 

 Wynd, may be seen a house with the expressive name of " Cieckmae," 



