Scottish border

“ Yet, peaceful and beautiful as this Scottish Tempe now is, it was for ages the scene of rapine, blood, and battle—of all those Border feuds which, from age to age, concentrated on this point, till the waters of the Liddel ran red, and its green banks were dyed with the blood of vassal and lord, of Scotchman and Englishman, of Douglas, Hume, Howard, Graham, and Percy. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An army of extraordinary power and splendour was assembled; and the King, attended by his uncles and all the principal nobles of the kingdom, set out for the Scottish Border. If he expected to reap a rich harvest of booty by this invasion of the Scottish kingdom he was doomed to bitter disappointment. As he passed through Liddesdale and Teviotdale at the head of his army he found that the country had been cleared of everything that could be conveniently carried off. The cattle had been driven into the forest and mountain fastnesses ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fact was, that for many centuries no owner of land near the Scottish border could live without some kind of defence, and a careful survey, while it might fail to discover traces of some of the above, would probably establish those of many as yet unrecorded. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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;” ”

“ In “Skene’s Acts of Parliament” a Roll of the Border clans is given, from which it would appear that there were seventeen distinct septs, or families, mostly in the south-western portion of the Scottish Borders. The Middle March was inhabited by Elliots, Armstrongs, Nicksons, and Crosiers. The West March by Scotts, Beatisons, Littles, Thomsones, Glendinnings, Irvinges, Belles, Carrutherses, Grahams, Johnstones, Jardines, Moffettes, and Latimers. These clans are described as having “Captaines, Chieftaines, quhome on they depend, oft-times against the willes of their Landislordes.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ CHAPTER I BERWICK, TWEED, WHITADDER The "Border" is a magical word, and on either side of a line that constantly varied in the course of English and Scottish victories and defeats, all is enchanted ground, the home of memories of forays and fairies, of raids and recoveries, of loves and battles long ago. In the most ancient times of which record remains, the English sway, on the east, might extend to and include Edinburgh; and Forth, or even Tay, might be the southern boundary of the kingdom of the Scots. On the west, Strathclyde, originally Cymric or Welsh, might extend over Cumberland ”

“ 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. ”

“ XIII. MINIONS OF THE MOON.
he more famous reivers whose names have been handed down in the traditions, poetry, and history of the Scottish Border, are seldom regarded with any very pronounced feelings of aversion. The Armstrongs, Elliots, Græmes, Stories, Burneses, and Bells; the Scotts, Kers, Maxwells, and Johnstones—whose depredations have been recorded with much fulness of detail in the annals of the country, were no [Pg 238] doubt quite as bad as they have been described. They cannot be acquitted of grave moral delinquencies, judged even by the standard of the age in which they lived. ”

“ The fortress of Dunbar was always a very important one to the Scots. It commanded the coast road from England across the Border to Edinburgh, not only one of the best routes in itself, but one which had the additional advantage to the English that by following it they could keep in touch with their ships. ”

“ The one nation that we would not recognise as a nation in theory is the one that we have been forced to recognise as a nation in arms. The Scottish Patriotic Association has no need to draw my attention to the importance of the separate national sentiment or the need of keeping the Border as a sacred line. The case is quite sufficiently proved by the positive history of Scotland. The place of Scottish loyalty to England has been taken by English admiration of Scotland. They do not need to envy us our titular leadership, when we seem to envy them their separation. ”

“ In those days of Border strife there was hardly such a thing as international justice, that is to say, the people of one nation were not very particular as to what they did to people of another nation; therefore these bold, hardy Border men, Englishmen and Scot alike, were fond of creeping across the boundary to steal the cattle of their neighbours. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Gilderoy was a celebrated and most daring highwayman, who roamed far, and was well-known all over Scotland and indeed in London. His death inspired a very striking ballad, but this is hardly a Border Lowland ballad, but refers chiefly to another Border district, namely, that between the Lowlands and Highlands. Just as the Scottish Lowlanders thought the English their legitimate quarry, so the Highlanders in turn looked upon the Lowlanders as created to supply them with all they lacked. ”

“ But the border counties, exposed from their situation to the incursions of the English, deprived of many of their most gallant chiefs, and harassed by the intestine struggles of the survivors, were reduced to a wilderness, inhabited only by the beasts of the field, and by a few more brutal warriors. Lord Home, the chamberlain and favourite of James IV., leagued with the Earl of Angus, who married the widow of his sovereign, held, for a time, the chief sway upon the east border. ”

“ In the border counties of Scotland, it was formerly customary, when any rancorous enmity subsisted between two clans, to leave the right hand of male children unchristened, that it might deal the more deadly, or, according to the popular phrase, "unhallowed" blows, to their enemies. ”

“ Here the English—at most not a sixth part so numerous as the Scots—charging down on the Scottish right flank threw them into hopeless confusion, and from that minute all was over. 405Panic seized the Scots: men cast aside whatever might hamper their flight, and, plunging into the water, scrambled for what safety they might find among the Grahams and the English borderers of Liddesdale—which, as it turned out, meant little better than scrambling from the frying pan into the fire. ”

“ This impolitic expedient, by which the Scottish prince, unable to execute justice on his turbulent subjects, committed to a rival sovereign the power of unlimited chastisement, was a principal cause of the savage state of the borders. For the inhabitants, finding that the sword of revenge was substituted for that of justice, were loosened from their attachment to Scotland, and boldly threatened to carry on their depredations, in spite of the efforts of both kingdoms. ”

“ Spies brought word to Northumberland of what was afoot, and the English took all necessary steps to upset the Scottish plan of campaign. If the Scots decided to come by way of Carlisle, then the English resolved that they, on their part, would burst into Scotland by way of Berwick, or by Dunbar. Thus, said they, "we shall do them more dommage than they can do us, for their countrey is all open; we maye go where we lyst, and our countre is strong, and the townes and castelles well closed." ”

“ 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. ”

“ In no place are such feelings more vivid, or such exclamations more rife, than on the Scottish Borders, whose good-humoured natives have always been distinguished for enterprising energy, as well as warmth of heart, producing a disposition both to rove and to return.
On the east coast—somewhere between Berwick and St Abb's Head—a village is situated at the mouth of a small stream, which gives it an immediate access to, and egress from the open sea. ”