Army under Sir Thomas Wharton defeated a Scottish Army of 10,000 men, who were either killed, drowned, or taken prisoners.  One of the unfortunates was unearthed in later times by peat-diggers, a man on his horse, who had sunk in the bog.  The skeletons were well preserved, and the different parts of the armour easily recognisable.  The disastrous result of this battle so affected James V, King of Scotland, that he is said to have died of a broken heart.  Personally, we thought he deserved a greater punishment for the murder of Johnnie Armstrong and his followers twelve years before this event, for Armstrong was just the man who could and would have protected the Borders.

The River Esk was associated with Prince Charlie, who, with his soldiers, had to cross it when retreating before the army of the Duke of Cumberland.  It was a difficult operation to carry out, as the usually shallow ford had been converted by the melting snow into a swift-flowing current four feet deep.  The cavalry were drawn up in two lines across the stream, one to break the current and the other to prevent any of the foot-soldiers being washed away as they crossed the river between the two lines of cavalry.  Lower down the river still were Prince Charlie and his officers, who were better mounted than the others.  The foot-soldiers walked arm-in-arm, with their heads barely above the water, making the space between the cavalry lines to look as if it were set with paving-stones.  One poor soldier lost his hold on his comrade and was washed down the river, and would certainly have been drowned had not the Prince seized him by the hair, and, shouting in Gaelic for help, held on until both of them were rescued.  After being hunted in the Highland glens for months with a ransom of L30,000 placed on his head—­not a Celt betraying his whereabouts—­by the help of Flora Macdonald Prince Charlie escaped to Brittany, and finally died at Rome in the arms of the Master of Nairn in 1788.  In 1794 the Beds of Esk, a large sandbank where the tide meets the stream, presented an unusual spectacle, and a striking tribute to the dangerous character of the river especially when in flood.  Collected together on the beach were a varied assortment of animals and human beings, consisting of no less than 9 black cattle, 3 horses, 1,040 sheep, 45 dogs, 180 hares, many smaller animals, and 3 human beings, all of whom had been cut off by the rapidly advancing tide.

Many other events have happened in this neighbourhood, one of the most sensational perhaps being the death of King Edward I, “The Hammer of the Scots,” also nicknamed “Longshanks,” from the length of his lower limbs, who died in 1307 on these marshes, requesting his effeminate son, the Prince of Wales, as he bade him farewell, not to bury his body until the Scots were utterly subdued, but this wish was prevented by the defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn.