Liddesdale

“ Over all this district, indeed, that seems to have been the case. Chapels were numerous among these hills; in this part of Liddesdale there were no fewer than five, and the Wheel Chapel itself is not more than six miles or 380so, as the crow flies, from Southdean, where it is certain that about the date of the battle of Otterburne the population was much more dense than it is at the present day.
What changes little more than one hundred years have wrought in this countryside. Six years before the Statistical Account of 1798 was penned, there were neither roads nor bridges in Liddesdale ”

“ It may be said, indeed, that, of all places in the south of Scotland, the attention of the great novelist was first fixed upon Liddesdale. In his second literary effort—the Lay of the Last Minstrel—he confined himself in a great measure to Teviotdale, in the upper part of which, about three miles above Hawick, stands Branxholm Castle, the chief scene of the poem. The old house has been much altered since the supposed era of the Lay; but it has nevertheless more of an ancient than a modern appearance, and does not much disappoint a modern beholder. ”

“ There is another road into Liddesdale from the north, that which comes from Hawick up the Slitrig, past Stohs camp, then through the gap in the hills by Shankend and over the watershed by Limekilnedge, where Whitterhope Burn—tributary of Hermitage Water—takes its rise. As you drop down to heights less elevated, you pass on your left the Nine Stane Rig, a Druidical Circle, but locally more famed as the spot where the cruel and detestable Sorcerer, Lord Soulis, came to his grisly end. ”

“ In later times Hermitage is chiefly associated with the names of Bothwell and Buccleuch. It is still in the possession of the latter noble family, and is one of the most interesting of all the old Border castles.
In the olden time Liddesdale was chiefly inhabited by two numerous and powerful families—the Armstrongs and the Elliots. The laird of Mangerton was the head of the former, and the laird of Redheugh of the latter. Both families were, almost without exception, notorious freebooters. Reiving was the business of their lives. ”

“ The men to whom they were assigned must have been regarded, one would naturally suppose, as utterly disreputable characters, even by those who associated with them in the invidious calling to which they were devoted.
It is probable that the men of Liddesdale were to a certain extent corrupted by their propinquity to the lawless hordes which inhabited the Debateable land. This was a tract of country lying between the Esk and the Sark, of some fifty or sixty square miles in extent, which was regarded as belonging neither to the one kingdom nor the other. ”

“ In this countrie also are the thrée vales or dales, whereof men haue doubted whether théeues or true men doo most abound in them, that is to saie, Riddesdale, Tuidale, and Liddesdale: this last being for the most part Scotish, and without the marches of England. ”

“ An epithet bestowed upon the borderers, from the names of their various districts; as Tiviotdale, Liddesdale, Eskdale, Ewsdale, Annandale, &c. Hence, an old ballad distinguishes the north as the country,
"Where every river gives name to a dale,"
Ex-ale-tation of Ale. ”

“ Dægsastane is most probably Dawstone in Liddesdale, where certain standing stones on Nine Stone Rig and in the neighbourhood and a huge cairn may be taken as marking the site of the battle, while there are also strong earthworks not far off (Skene, Celtic Scotland, p. 162) . ”

“ The Ritterford and Kershopeford are noted fords on the river Liddel. 36. The Dinlay is a mountain in Liddesdale. 44. Stanegirthside: a house belonging to the Foresters, situated on the English side of the Liddel. ”

“ The great rampart called the Catrail, which separated the Anglic kingdom from that of the Strathclyde Britons, crosses the upper part of the vale of the Liddel. Its remains appear at Dawstaneburn, whence it goes on to Dawstanerig, and here, before he could cross the mountain range which separates Liddesdale from these valleys, Aidan was encountered by Aedilfrid and completely defeated, his army being cut to pieces at a place called by Bede ‘Degsastan,’ in which we can recognise the name of Dawstane, still known there. ”

“ About this time, Bothwell was understood to be retired to his great estate in Liddesdale, and to be there engaged in a kind of work which is usually the privilege of royalty. ‘His majesty was informed that Bothwell had ane that cunyied false cunyie in the house of Row in Liddesdale.... His majesty wrate to the Lord Ochiltree, desiring him to go to the said house, and to bring sic men to his majesty as he fand there, together with all sic instruments as could be there had for cunying, with power to raise the haill country if need were.... ”

“ Kershope-burn, where Hobbie met his treacherous companions, falls into the Liddel, from the English side, at a place called Turnersholm, where, according to tradition, turneys and games of chivalry were often solemnized. The Mains was anciently a border-keep, near Castletoun, on the north side of the Liddel, but is now totally demolished.
Askerton is an old castle, now ruinous, situated in the wilds of Cumberland, about seventeen miles north-east of Carlisle, amidst that mountainous and desolate tract of country, bordering upon Liddesdale, emphatically termed the Waste of Bewcastle. ”

“ The chief point of interest in the valley, however, is Hermitage Castle, a vast, massive H-shaped fortress of enormous strength, one of the oldest baronial buildings in Scotland. It stands on a hill overlooking Hermitage Water, a tributary of the Liddel. ”

“ In 1710 he was ordained deacon, and in 1711 priest, by Sharp, archbishop of York; and in the last year entered the family of Sir Henry Liddel of Ravensworth Castle, Durham, who presented him to the small livings of Lamesby and Tanfield. He wrote a new sermon every week for four years, and afterwards burnt 250 sermons in order that his son might be forced to follow the example of original composition. In 1715 he married Sarah, daughter of Christopher Broomhead, of Sheffield, and left Sir H. Liddel to settle in a house of his own, called Cox-Close, in the neighbourhood. ”

“ It is, I think, to this Paradise that good birds go when they die, where the ruthless small boy's raiding hand is kept in check, and every bird may find ideal nesting place.
The district is most famous in ballad, song and story, Leaderdale, being apparently equivalent to Lauderdale, giving a title to the Earl of Lauderdale, the chief of the Maitlands. "They call it Leader town," says the enigmatic ballad of Auld Maitland, speaking of the stronghold of a Maitland of the days of Wallace, a shadowy figure still well remembered in the folk lore of the reign of Mary Stuart. ”

“ Business being concluded, Kinmont Willie took his leave, and made his way along the Scottish side of the Liddel river, which at that point is the boundary between England and Scotland. The English deputy and his party spied him from their side of the stream; and bearing an ancient grudge against him as a notorious cattle-lifter 50 and thief, they pursued and captured him, and he was placed in the castle of Carlisle.
This brings us to the ballad. ‘Hairibee’ (1.4) is the place of execution at Carlisle. The ‘Liddel-rack’ in 3.4 is a ford over the Liddel river. ”

“ Though he did not raise his voice, the General spoke with so much intensity that Ridsdale started.
“That may be; but—ah—Sir John, you won’t easily get—ah—other people to share your opinions.”
“I’ll get him to share them, and that’ll be enough for me. Ridsdale, you’re not a woman—you needn’t take your cue from Lady Jane and urge moderation. At least you can guess at what I’m feeling.”
“Yes; but I think without cause—quite without cause.”
“This century or the last, it must be the same code when things dearer than life are at stake. That’s how I feel. ”

“ Liddon lived to the end at Oxford, when out of residence at St. Paul's; and there he gave himself heart and soul to the foundation in 1870 of Keble College, and he interested himself in the Pusey House from its inception in 1883. Both institutions seemed to him to give the church new security in Oxford, now that her old habitations were withdrawn from her. In spite of his indignation at the work of the university commission of 1881 he found himself cheered by the sympathetic affection of the younger generation, whose devotion never swerved. ”

“ For some ten miles it is a wild mountain stream, flowing dark and sullen through a rocky glen, but as it reaches lower ground the glen widens and softens into a beautiful valley with trees and fine pasture land, whilst lower still are fertile fields. The Liddel has many tributaries, whereof we will only mention Hermitage Water, near the source. It is a wild mountain stream, and at its wildest part, amidst morasses and bare desolate mountains, stand the ruins of grim old Hermitage Castle, with its thick towers and walls and rare narrow windows. ”

“ Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love. Will Ladislaw had written chatty letters, half to her and half to Lydgate, and she had replied: their separation, she felt, was not likely to be final, and the change she now most longed for was that Lydgate should go to live in London ”

“ Liddell was one of the kindest of men, with all the genial courtesy of a race of country gentlemen now almost extinct, and his wife was a beautiful old lady, with much that was interesting to tell of past times and people. ”

“ The hermit of Liddeside with his long beard and foul garments, such as they had seen him when they went raiding up Dunbar way, had swept into that place and had imperiously bidden him up from his knees to drive the Scots from Barnside, but he had known that the anchorite had been dead this three years and, seeing that the Warden of the Eastern Marches and the Bishop of Durham, with all his own father's forces and all theirs, lay in the castle and its sheilings, it was not likely that the false Scots would be so near. ”

“ THE KEEPER OF THE CASTLE
The former glories of Lydford have long since vanished away; yet once it was among the most ancient of Devon boroughs, and stood only second to Exeter in credit and renown. Before the Norman Conquest Lydford flourished as a fortified town; when, "for largeness in lands and liberties" no western centre of civilization might compare with it. But hither came the bloody Danes by way of Tavistock, to consume with fire and sword, and raze this Saxon stronghold to the ground. ”

“ And after that the big chief had written something with a pen on a sheet of paper, and he had tossed it to the messenger, bidding him contemptuously to be gone and take it to the white men who had dared to send him there.
"Oh, the man's raving!" Ridsdale said. "He's either that or he's a born journalist without knowing it. I suppose you could find novelists in this part of the world even. If this chap were only educated, he would knock some of those writing chaps at home silly. Still, it's clever. He's a humorist. Just think of a nigger with a ring through his nose and an eyeglass! ”

“ Luckily, news was received from Lord Listerdale himself from East Africa. He invested his cousin, Colonel Carfax, with power of attorney. It is the latter who conducts all Lord Listerdale's affairs. Yes, rather eccentric, I fear. He has always been a great traveller in the wilds-it is quite on the cards that he may not return for years to England, though he is getting on in years."
"Surely he is not so very old," said Mrs St Vincent, with a sudden memory of a bluff, bearded face, rather like an Elizabethan sailor, which she had once noticed in an illustrated magazine. ”

“ LIDDERDALE, WILLIAM (1832–1902) , governor of the Bank of England, born at St. Petersburg on 16 July 1832, was second of the six sons of John Lidderdale, a Russia merchant, by his wife Ann Morgan. When ten years old he was brought to England, and after education at a private school at Birkenhead he began his commercial career in 1847 in the office of Heath and Co., Russia merchants of Liverpool. He next became cashier to Rathbone Bros, and Co. ”

“ It was just here that Lidgerwood, staring absently at the passing panorama of shifting hill shoulders framing itself in the open side-door of the tool-car, missed a point. If he had been less absorbed in the personal problem he could scarcely have failed to mark the searching scrutiny in the shrewd eyes shaded by Gridley's soft hat.
"I don't know," he said, half hesitantly. "Civilization means something—or it should mean something—even in the Red Desert, Mr. Gridley. I suppose there is some semblance of legal protection in Angels, as elsewhere, isn't there?" ”

“ Elmsdale had any other office besides the library at River Hall?"
"No," was the reply, "none whatever. When he gave up his offices in town, he moved every one of his papers to River Hall. He was a reserved, but not a secret man; not a man, for instance, at all likely to lead a double life of any sort."
"And yet he betted," I suggested.
"Certainly that does puzzle me," said Mr. Craven. "And it is all against my statement, for I am certain no human being, unless it might be Mr. Harringford, who knew him in business, was aware of the fact." ”

“ Elmsdale's suicide, the unsatisfactory state of his affairs, the prejudice against River Hall, the defection of Colonel Morris—all these things she laid at my door, and insisted on making me responsible for them.
"And now," she finished, pushing back her bonnet and pulling off her gloves, "I'll just write my opinion of you to Mr. Craven, and I'll wait till you direct the envelope, and I'll go with you to the post, and I'll see you put the letter in the box. If you and your fine Colonel Morris think you can frighten or flatter me, you are both much mistaken, I can tell you that!" ”