Printed at the Courier and Herald Offices, Dumfries, for THOMAS FRASER, DALBEATTIE....

The object we have had in view in the following pages has been (1) to indicate briefly the causes which produced Border reiving; (2) to show the extent to which the system was ultimately developed; (3) to describe the means adopted by both Governments for its suppression; (4) to illustrate the way in which the rugging and riving —to use a well-known phrase—was carried on; (5) to explain how these abnormal conditions were in the end effectually removed; and (6) to set forth in brief outline some

T here are few more remarkable phenomena in the political or social life of Scotland than what is familiarly known as “Border Reiving.” In olden times it prevailed along the whole line of the Borders from Berwick to the Solway, embracing the counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, and Dumfries. During a period of some three or four hundred years these districts were chiefly inhabited by hordes of moss-troopers, who made it the chief business of their lives to harry and despoil their Eng

T he Battle of Otterburn, which took place in the autumn of 1388, is without question one of the most interesting episodes in Border history, and is especially significant as an illustration of the prowess and chivalry of the Border Chiefs. The chief combatants on the Scottish side were the Earls of Douglas, Moray, March, and Crawford, the Lord Montgomery, and Patrick Hepburn of Hales, and his son. On the English side were Sir Henry (Hotspur) and Sir Ralph Percy, sons of the Earl of Northumberla

W e have seen that the feeling of hatred to the English which prevailed on the Scottish Borders was due to some extent to the memory of the wrongs which the Borderers had suffered at the hands of their hereditary enemies. That this feeling had something to do with the existence and development of the reiving system, must be apparent to every student of history and of human nature. It was the most natural thing in the world that the dwellers on the Scottish Border should seek to retaliate; and as

  T o give anything like an adequate account of the various raids and forays, on the one side of the Border and the other, would fill many volumes. These raids, as we have already noticed, began at an early period, and were carried on almost without intermission for at least three hundred years. The Armstrongs and Elliots in Liddesdale, and many of the other noted clans in Merse and Teviotdale, were “always riding.” As an English warden remarks in one of his despatches to the Government:—“They l

O wing to the peculiar circumstances in which the Borders were placed, it was found necessary, for the preservation of order, and the detection and punishment of crime, to appoint special officers, or wardens, armed with the most extensive powers. On either side of the Border there were three Marches, lying opposite each other, called the East, West, and Middle Marches. The wardens were, as a general rule, officers of high rank, holding special commissions from the Crown. The English government

  T he arrangements made for dealing with offences against Border law, though of a primitive, were by no means of an ineffective, character. All things considered, they were perhaps as good as could have been devised in the circumstances. During the period when Border reiving was most rampant, though the population was by no means sparse, little or no provision had been made for detaining prisoners in custody. The jails were few and far between, and such as were available were generally in such

T he difficulties with which the Borderers had to contend were of a varied character. They had to be constantly on the watch against the aggressions and incursions of their enemies on the opposite Marches. But it frequently happened that their most dangerous and inveterate foes were to be found amongst their own countrymen. This was the case more especially when blood-feuds arose, setting family against family, and clan against clan. An interesting, if not very luminous, account of the origin of

T he intermittent and ineffective manner in which the law was generally administered on the Borders was the occasion, if not the cause, of much of the turbulence and lawlessness which prevailed. The Border thieves were now and then placed under the most rigid surveillance, and their misdeeds visited with condign punishment; but for the most part they were left to work out their own sweet will, none daring to make them afraid. This method of treatment could not be expected to produce beneficial r

  T hough reiving may be said to have been a characteristic of the inhabitants along the whole Border line from Berwick to the Solway, yet it was only in the district known as Liddesdale where it attained, what we might designate, its complete development as a thoroughly organized system. This part of Roxburghshire is, to a certain extent, detached from the rest of the county by reason of the fact that it lies south of the range of hills which form the watershed between the Solway and the German

  W e have already seen that the Armstrongs were a numerous and powerful clan, and that for a considerable period they had been known on the Borders as “notour thieves and limmers.” They levied blackmail over a wide district, and appropriated whatever came readiest to hand with a sublime indifference either to neighbourhood or nationality. “They stole the beeves that made them broth From Scotland and from England both.” King James V. having succeeded in shaking himself free from the tyranny of t

T he incidents in the predatory warfare so long carried on by the dwellers on both sides of the Border were not all of a painful or tragic character. The spirit of fun sometimes predominated over the more selfish and aggressive instincts. There was a grim kind of humour characteristic of the Border reiver. He certainly was not disposed to laugh on the slightest provocation,—his calling was much too serious for that,—but when he once relaxed, his mirth was not easily controlled. And, however degr

  W hile reflecting great credit on the prowess of the Bold Buccleuch, the rescue of Kinmont Willie gave rise to many serious local as well as international complications. As we have seen, the English Queen was deeply offended. She resented the high-handed and arbitrary manner in which the release of this famous prisoner had been effected. It constituted a gross insult to the Crown, and she was determined that those responsible for the deed should suffer for their temerity. The anger of Elizabet

  T 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 doubt quite as bad as they have been described. They cannot be acquitted of grave moral delinquenci

A s might be expected, the existence of such an extraordinary phenomenon as Border reiving did not escape the attention of the Church. Such a peculiar state of affairs could not be regarded with favour, or treated with indifference. It may be said, no doubt, that the continued existence of such an abnormally lawless and chaotic condition of society on the Borders indicated that the ecclesiastical authorities were either singularly inept, or reprehensibly careless. Why was some attempt not made l

W hen we turn our attention to the study of the causes which ultimately resulted in the abolition of Border reiving, we find that this desirable end was brought about, to a considerable extent at least, by a change of environment. Conditions were gradually created which made the old system not only undesirable, but unnecessary, both from a political and economic point of view. An important step was taken when Buccleuch, at the instigation of “the powers that be,” drafted off large numbers of the

  T o those familiar with the history of Border reiving it may appear, on the first glance, somewhat inexplicable that in those districts where the system was most deeply rooted there should now be found one of the most orderly and law-abiding communities in the country. The old leaven, it would seem, has worked itself out, and that, too, with a rapidity and thoroughness which some may find difficult to reconcile with the modern doctrine of heredity. The laws of evolution, whether in the physica