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BORDER RAIDS AND REIVERS.




  BORDER RAIDS
  AND
  REIVERS


  BY
  ROBERT BORLAND

  _MINISTER OF YARROW_


  DALBEATTIE: THOMAS FRASER.
  MDCCCXCVIII.



  PRINTED AT THE COURIER AND HERALD OFFICES,
  DUMFRIES,
  FOR
  THOMAS FRASER, DALBEATTIE.




CONTENTS.


PREFACE                                                           xv.


I.

THE AULD ENEMY.
                                                                PAGE.

Extent of Border reiving--Plunder and reprisal--All classes
implicated--Double dose of original sin--Victims of an evil
fate--Invasions--Threatened annexation of Scotland--Edward's
twofold policy--Sacking of Berwick--Feeling of
hostility produced--Edward visits Scone and carries off
Scottish Sceptre and Crown--Douglas and Edward Bruce--
Borderers animated by a spirit of revenge                        1-14


II.

PERCY'S PENNON.

Battle of Otterburn--Chief combatants--How the encounter was
brought about--Destruction of the Abbeys--Meeting of the
Scots at Aberdeen--Scottish army assembles at Yetholm--
Method of attack determined upon--Earl Douglas marches
through Northumberland--Ravages Durham--Returns to
Newcastle--Hotspur and Douglas--Otterburn--Preparations for
battle--The English assault--The Douglas slain--Hotspur
taken prisoner--Humanity of Borderers                           15-32


III.

POOR AND LAWLESS.

Condition of Scotland--Ancient monasteries--Description of
country by AEneas Sylvius--Ignorance of the people--Laws
cannot be enforced--The Barons supreme--Law against
harbouring thieves--Every man's hand against his neighbour--
Pledges demanded--Banished north of the Forth--Scottish
Borderers forbidden to marry daughters of "broken men"
in England--No respect paid to the law--Execrable murders
committed--Without religion--Hand-fasting                       33-54


IV.

RAIDS AND FORAYS.

Invasions constantly occurring--Many lives sacrificed--How
the reivers conducted their expeditions--Leslie's account--
Tracked by bloodhounds--Froissart's description of
Borderers--Invasion by Earl of Hertford--Raid by Sir Ralph
Eure--Battle of Ancrum Moor--Lord Dacre's devastations--
Borderers retaliate--Horrid cruelties practised--Raid of
the Reidswire--Indignation of English Queen--Morton's
concessions                                                     55-80


V.

WARDENS OF THE MARCHES.

Generally officers of high rank--Scottish King limited in
his choice--Wardens invested with arbitrary powers--Bonds
of alliance--Of little or no value--Ignored when
convenient--Wardens well remunerated--Duties pertaining to
the office                                                      81-96


VI.

THE DAY OF TRUCE.

Arrangements for dealing with offenders--Of a primitive
character--Prisoners could not be detained in custody--Often
took "leg-bail"--Day of Truce every month--Date and place
made known by proclamation--The meeting of the Wardens--
Regulations for conduct of business--Administering the
oath--Three ways of trying cases--Bogus bills--Value of
goods--Bills "fouled" or "cleared"--The hot-trod--
Baughling--Lord Russell shot--Foster's explanations            97-115


VII.

THE DEADLY FEUD.

Origin of the expression--Feuds of everyday occurrence--
Occasioned by trifling circumstances--Inherited--Made the
administration of the law difficult--Feud betwixt the Kers
and Scotts--How occasioned--The Maxwells and Johnstones--A
disastrous feud--Battle of Dryfe Sands--Murder of Johnstone--
Lord Maxwell imprisoned--Returns to the Borders--Betrayed by
Earl of Caithness--Beheaded in Edinburgh--Ker of Cessford
slain--Pursuit of his murderers--How feuds staunched--Bonds
of Assurance--Marriage--Pilgrimage--Assythment                116-135


VIII.

THE THIEVES DAUNTONED.

The "Family Tree"--Man's first right--The King connives at
Border reiving--The Wardens often indifferent--The King's
visit to Dumfries--Tytler's account of what transpired--The
Turnbulls of Rule Water punished--The Earl of Mar in
Hawick--Lack of trees and halters--Queen Mary at Jedburgh--
The Earl of Bothwell--John Elliot of Park--The Queen visits
Hermitage--Struck down with fever--The suppression of
Liddesdale--Buccleuch and Ferniherst--Mangerton destroyed--
The whole district given to the flames--Geordie Bourne--
Found guilty of March treason--Executed--Milder measures--
The Tower of Netherby--Cary's success                         136-154


IX.

LIDDESDALE LIMMERS.

Border keeps and peels--Description of them--Hermitage--
Lord Soulis--Nine-stane-rig--Black Knight of Liddesdale--
Ramsay of Dalhousie starved to death--Armstrongs and
Elliots--Maitland