Border reivers were sometimes in demand as mercenary soldiers, owing to their recognized skills as light cavalry. Reivers sometimes served in English or Scottish armies in the Low Countries and in Ireland, often to avoid having harsher penalties enacted upon themselves and their families. Reivers fighting as levied soldiers played important roles in the battles at Flodden and Solway Moss. After meeting one reiver (the "Bold Buccleugh"), Queen Elizabeth I is quoted as having said that "with ten thousand such men, James VI could shake any throne in Europe."