History of England
With Henry VII's accession to the throne in 1485, the Wars of the Roses came to an end, and Tudors would continue to rule England for 118 years. Traditionally, the Battle of Bosworth Field is considered to mark the end of the Middle Ages in England, although Henry did not introduce any new concept of monarchy, and for most of his reign his hold on power was tenuous. He claimed the throne by conquest and God's judgement in battle. Parliament quickly recognized him as king, but the Yorkists were far from defeated. Nonetheless, he married Edward IV's eldest daughter Elizabeth in January 1486, thereby uniting the houses of York and Lancaster.
History of Routledge surname 15th to 18th centuries
AD 1569. With religious reformation well underway in both England and Scotland, Protestant versus Catholic clashes added religious zeal to civil breakdown among nobility and commoners alike. The reign of England's zealously Catholic Mary Tudor (1516-1558) had come and gone as had that of her Protestant half-brother, Edward VI (1537-1553), who died at the age of 16. Elizabeth I (1533-1603) , the last of the Tudor monarchs, held the throne of England. Elizabeth's cousin, Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587), a devout Catholic, had returned from France to assume her disastrous reign in Scotland. By 1569, she had been forced to abdicate and was on the run. Her Protestant half-brother, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray (1530-1570), as Regent of Scotland, assembled a force supposedly to rid border communities of disorderly reivers, including those of the surname Routlaige. But more than one historian concluded that this cleanup foray was a thinly disguised excuse for retaliating against any border family that had rallied against the Protestant party to fight on the side of Queen Mary.
. . .thirty-two of the principal barons, provosts, and bailies of towns, and other chief men, subscribed a band [bond] at Kelso, on the 6th April 1569. Representing the counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, they bound themselves to concur to resist the rebellious people of Liddesdale, Ewesdale, Eskdale, and Annandale, and especially all of the names of Armstrong, Elliot, Nixon, Liddel, Bateson, Thompson, Irving, Bell, Johnston, Glendonyng, Routlaige, Henderson, and Scotts of Ewesdale. Further, they undertook that they would not intercommune with any of them, nor suffer any meat, drink, or victuals to be bought or carried to them nor suffer them to resort to markets or trysts within the bounds, nor permit them to pasture their flocks or abide upon any lands 'outwith Liddesdale,' unless within eight days they should find sufficient and responsible sureties. 'And all others not finding sureties within said space, we shall pursue to the death with fire and sword, and all other kinds of hostility.'. . . signed [by] Lord Home, Walter Ker of Cessford, Thomas Ker of Fernihirst, and Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch. NOTE: Printed in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, from the Original in H.M. General Register House, Edinburgh.