The Earl of Northumberland had dismissed as mere bragging the expressed intention of the Scottish government to try to do something about the Liddesdale robbers. Like Sim the Laird, he believed the Armstrongs were far too powerful for King James. But he was wrong. The young king had undertaken to “proceed to the sharpe and rygorouse pwnyssching of all transgressioune apone the bordourisâ€, and he now went to work, beginning with a gentle approach.
— from The Steel Bonnets, by George MacDonald Fraser, chapter 27.
Yes, the Scots. We may have been the bunk at spelling, but we’ve been pwning since 1529.