English–Scottish border

“ They had many grounds for quarrel, and took advantage of them all. For one thing, the exact boundary of North Cumberland was never quite defined till 1552; up to which year there was a tract of land between the rivers Esk and Sark, which was claimed by both countries, and therefore called the "Debateable Land." Then the Scots maintained that they were overlords of Northumberland, while the English kings cherished the notion that they were overlords of the whole island of Britain, and the wild spirits on both sides were always ready to fight. ”

“ The extraordinary glamour which has been cast over the Tweed and its tributaries by the writings of Sir Walter Scott, the Ettrick Shepherd, John Leyden, and others, has given a prominence to the Scottish side which is nowhere [Pg 19] shared by its southern neighbour. But to say so is no disparagement to the English side. For what it lacks in literature it makes up in other admirable characteristics. Both Borders are rich in historical memories. Their natural features are not dissimilar, and in commercial prosperity they are much akin. In union they have long been happily wedded. ”

“ THERE was once a time when it was considered the height of fashionable conduct for the Scotch who lived upon the border, to dash into the Northern Counties of England, put the men they met with to the sword, burn their homesteads and stores, and carry off the women and cattle. It is quite true that the English, on their part, considered it fit and proper to cross the Scottish border, to raid the lands, and carry off women and cattle from the lower shires of “Bonnie Scotland;” ”

“ No part of our island has more beautiful valleys than those of the Border.
This bold, rough district, well adapted to defence, and situated also just where the island of Great Britain is almost at its narrowest, became, after many a struggle, the boundary between England and Scotland. The character of the country was suited to the rearing of hardy Moorland sheep and cattle; its inhabitants therefore were a tough, open-air race of men, strong, strapping fellows, fearless riders, always ready for an adventure, especially if it meant a fight. ”

“ They held, that property was common to all who stood in want of it; but they abhorred and avoided the crime of unnecessary homicide.—Lesley, p. 63. This was, perhaps, partly owing to the habits of intimacy betwixt the borderers of both kingdoms, notwithstanding their mutual hostility, and reciprocal depredations. A natural intercourse took place between the English and Scottish marchers, at border meetings, and during the short intervals of peace. They met frequently at parties of the chace and foot-ball ”

“ The charming rivers that hem it in show no traces of the bloodshed of the past. Yet here have contended painted Pict and war-trained Roman; here the most skilful leaders of the Celts, Saxons, and Danes have led their brave and sturdy men to battle; here Norman knight has fought with hardy Scot, and fierce Border factions have wrangled and sought speedy justice; Puritan has fought Cavalier, and Jacobite has faced Hanoverian; kings, generals, and warriors of many centuries have found a fitting meeting-place before or behind the walls of Carlisle. ”

“ We have no occasion to trace the state of the borders during the long and obscure period of Scottish history, which preceded the accession of the Stuart family. To illustrate a few ballads, [ii] the earliest of which is hardly coeval with James V. such an enquiry would be equally difficult and vain. If we may trust the Welch bards, in their account of the wars betwixt the Saxons and Danes of Deira and the Cumraig, imagination can hardly form any idea of conflicts more desperate, than were [570] maintained, on the borders, between the ancient British and their Teutonic invaders. ”

“ The blood of many thousands of bold warriors has been spilt on that land which now teems with the blessings of wealth and peace.
Part of this old border land, or the most southern part of the present Scotland, from the Cheviot Hills to the narrow neck of land between the Firths of Clyde and Forth,—a tract of about sixty English miles—has not a much more mountainous character than the north of England. The hills undulate in the same gentle forms; and it is only here and there that a single rugged mountain shows its heath-covered or bare and peaked top. ”

“ Probably each nation was suspicious of the other. The movement of Scottish troops towards the Border may have been no more than a precautionary measure, but it was interpreted, not unnaturally, as a hostile act. The English King's council were advised that the Scots intended instant invasion, unless peace were conceded on the only terms acceptable to them. Consequently, the English barons were summoned to meet their King at Newcastle on April 5th, where preparations on a large scale were made for the invasion of Scotland. ”

“ These Middle Marches however are so essentially Scottish, the splendour and the romance, the history and the tragedy, that one would fain keep them so, and come upon them as did the kings from David I, or even the Celtic kings before him, who sought refuge from the bleak Scottish north in this smiling land of dales and haughs, of burns and lochs. Not at any moment could life become monotonous even in this realm of romance, since the Border was near, and danger and dispute so imminent, so incessant. ”

“ The independence of Scotland was, however, as impregnable to the mines of superstition, as to the steel of our more powerful and more wealthy neighbours. The war of Scotland is, thank God, at an end; but it is ended without her people having either crouched, like hares, in their form, or being drowned in their flight "for faute of ships,"—thank God for that too. ”

“ Almost everywhere in the land portion of the Border line—the Cheviots generally—the boundary is such that one may stand with one foot in England and the other in Scotland, and the rather curious fact will be noted, says one who has made this Border pilgrimage par excellence, that Scotland nowhere receives a single rivulet from England, whilst she sends to England tiny head-streams of the Coquet and Tyne only. ”

“ If, like the salmon, we prefer the North to the South Tyne, it is after all but a selection between good things; for the valley of the former, winding for 30 miles to its source just over the Scottish frontier, is, together with its tributary the Rede, the absolute embodiment, the quintessence, not merely of Border and Cheviot scenery, but of{116} that stirring past which gives the Anglo-Scottish Border an atmosphere all its own. The Welsh Marches are instinct with the same spirit. ”

“ The district called the Border is one of the most interesting in Great Britain. It consists of that part of England that is nearest Scotland, and that part of Scotland that is nearest England, mainly the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, and Dumfriesshire.
The country is very picturesque and highly romantic. It abounds in great rolling, breezy hills, with swift streamlets or "burns" running down their sides to swell the rushing rivers. ”

“ Even during the period when relations between England and Scotland were strained, the sovereigns of both countries recognized it to be their duty to protect property and regulate the lawlessness of the borders. The frontier was divided into the East, Middle and West Marches, each under the control of an English and a Scots warden. The posts were generally filled by eminent and capable men who had to keep the peace, enforce punishment for breach of the law, and take care that neither country encroached on the boundary of the other. ”

“ All the rebels who could escape fled across the Border to Scotland, where the Borderers, who were till then their enemies, received them with that open and fair hospitality which was one of their many great qualities. Elizabeth demanded that the leading noblemen should be given up to her; but although the Scottish Regent, Murray, made a pretence of trying to secure the Earl of Westmoreland, the Scots had too much sense of honour to allow him to proceed. ”

“ And how time and time and time again, French fleets had sailed in here to help their continuing ally, Scotland. And how kings had sailed out from here to France, and how Scots knights had sailed out from here for France, the Crusades, anywhere that promised adventure. And here Saxon Margaret had sailed in to be Scotland's queen. And here Scottish Mary had sailed in to be Scotland's queen, and not to be. Far out in the offing the sun shone golden upon the brown sails of a single fishing boat, tacking to catch a homing wind, a ghost where once had sailed the war and merchant fleets of nations. ”

“ In examining Scottish Border records of those times, nothing strikes one more than the power of the Kirk Sessions; it is indeed hard to imagine a country more priest ridden than Scotland in the eighteenth century. The "Sabbath" was then as easy to break as a hedge-sparrow's egg, and there were a thousand—to modern eyes not very heinous—ways of breaking it. ”

“ We cannot pretend within our scope to follow chronologically “the fightings and flockings of kites and crows,” in “a wolf-age, a war-age,” when the Northmen from all Scandinavian lands, and the Danes, who had acquired much of Ireland, were flying at the throat of England and hanging on the flanks of Scotland; while the Britons of Strathclyde struck in, and the Scottish kings again and again raided or sought to occupy the fertile region of Lothian between Forth and Tweed. ”

“ In January 1668 the commissioners met. The Scotsmen demanded that Scotland should enjoy the privilege of trading to the English colonies which was granted, by the Act of Navigation, to the Irish and to the Welsh, and that they should be allowed to bring in goods as freely as the English, with no other restrictions than those laid on Ireland and Wales. They were willing to give assurances that goods transported from English colonies would be brought to England, except the small quantities which were consumed in Scotland. ”

“ It was at once proved that England could put a much harder pinch on Scotland than Scotland could inflict on England. Scottish drovers were no longer to sell cattle south of the Border, Scottish ships trading with France were to be seized, Scottish coals and linen were to be excluded, and regiments of regular troops were to be sent to the Border if Scotland did not accept the Hanoverian succession before Christmas 1705. If it came to war, Scotland could expect no help from her ancient ally, France, unless she raised the standard of King James. ”

“ The English had arranged that, if the Scots entered the country through Cumberland and Carlisle, they would ride into Scotland by Berwick and Dunbar, for they said, theirs is an open country that can be entered anywhere, but ours is a country with strong and well fortified towns and castles. ”

“ They were prepared, however, to permit Scotsmen to go and settle as merchants in the colonies; but they refused to allow Scottish ships to carry foreign produce into English ports. “The kingdom of Scotland,” they said, “being wholly independent, and not subject to the Crown of England, we cannot have reasonable security [135] and satisfaction that the said kingdom will keep up, and tie itself, to the strict observation of the restrictions and limitations set down in the Act of Navigation, with relation to this matter.” ”

“ Thus, a border-line is always determined by some natural feature of the country which gives the defenders an advantage.
The attackers will not always operate from the same locality, and the defenders will not always fall back in the same direction; the two sides, also, will vary in power from time to time. For these reasons a border-line, especially in the old fighting days, was often altered.
When the Romans invaded Britain they gradually conquered the southern part of it, but they could not subdue the wilder north; one of their boundary lines was drawn from the Solway to the Tyne ”

“ Scotland has won for itself a position in Britain and in Europe altogether out of proportion to its size and population. But it has not done this by virtue of its strictly Scottish element. ♦Greatness of Scotland due to its English element.♦ The Irish settlers who first brought the Scottish name into Britain [88] could never have made Scotland what it really became. What founded the greatness of the Scottish kingdom was the fact that part of England gradually took the name of Scotland and its inhabitants took the name of Scots. ”

“ If only that nation is to be reckoned happy which has few laws, but is accustomed to obey them, then [Pg 42] Scotland, and the Borders in particular, must have been in a most unfortunate condition during a lengthened period of its history. ”

“ The Scottish Border, where Mary lived, is the seat of many superstitions and other worldly beliefs. The fairies of Scotland are more terrible than those of Ireland, as the dells and streams and woods are of greater grandeur, and the character of the people more serious. ”

“ Before dealing in detail with the stirring stories of Border history and legend, to retell which is the purpose of this book, we will first inquire—What is it that settles exactly the position of the border-line between two countries? To find the answer we must think what happens when a country is invaded.
If the invaders are stronger than the people whom they attack, they go on thrusting back their foes till these reach some strong position where, by the aid of mountain, river, or marsh, they are able, at any rate for a time, to hold their own. ”