Borders

Borders, THE, as denoting the tract of country lying immediately on both sides of the frontier line between England and Scotland, is a term somewhat elastic in its signification. Geographically, the frontier line runs diagonally north-east or south-west, between the head of the Solway Firth at the latter extremity, and a point a little north of the mouth of the Tweed at the other extremity; the counties touching upon this line being Cumberland and Northumberland on the English side, and Dumfries, Roxburgh, and Berwick on the Scottish side. The distance between the two extremities is nearly 70 miles as the crow flies; but, following the frontier line in its irregularities, about 110 miles. The line of division is for the most part a natural one. The middle portion, extending 35 miles, is formed by the high barrier of the Cheviot range, the watershed of which may be regarded as in general the line of division. Leaving the Cheviots in the south-west, the line descends for nearly 22 miles by the Kershope Burn, and the waters of the Liddel, the Esk, and the Sark, to the Solway Firth. From the north-east extremity of the Cheviots, the windings of the Tweed, for about 13 miles eastward, form the natural boundary. But at a point about 5 miles from the mouth of that river, the line strikes out semicircularly in a north-easterly direction, till it reaches the east coast a few miles north of the town of Berwick-on-Tweed; the space thus inclosed, embracing within it what are known as the 'Liberties' of that town, having been at one time regarded as neutral territory between the two kingdoms. On the western Border, near the Solway, was a corresponding tract of country claimed by both kingdoms, and hence called the 'Debateable Land.'

While the above may be taken roughly as defining the Border in the geographical sense, the word has for historical purposes a wider signification, especially on the Scottish side. In old Scots Acts of Parliament applying to the Border district, and in general in Scottish history, the counties of Selkirk and Peebles, though they nowhere touch the frontier line, are embraced within the term. While, therefore, the southern limit of the English Border may be defined by a line drawn from Carlisle to Newcastle, following nearly the route of the Roman Wall, the Scottish Border may for historical purposes be described as a truncated or rounded triangle, its base-line extending from Wigtown Bay on the west to the mouth of the Tweed on the east, the apex or central portion running as far north as the town of Peebles, nearly 40 miles from the Cheviots. The territory thus indicated as the Scottish Border includes the whole of the counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, a considerable portion of Dumfriesshire, and part of Galloway.

There is yet a third and more popular sense in which the word Border is used, and here again affecting the Scottish side. This, which may be called the literary sense of the term, arises out of the extraordinary prominence which has been given to the vale of the Tweed, including its tributaries the Yarrow, the Ettrick, and the Teviot, by the splendid romances and poems of Sir Walter Scott, by the poetry of Leyden and the Ettrick Shepherd, by the ancient and traditional ballads relating to the district, and by the pathetic songs and legends more immediately connected with the Yarrow, and glorified by the genius of Wordsworth. While, indeed, all these three senses of the word—the geographical, the historical, and the literary—fall to be recognised in any formal treatise on the subject, it must be admitted that in ordinary usage the third or literary sense predominates. Hence, when Border tales or Border ballads or Border traditions are spoken of, it is the Scottish rather than the English side of the frontier that is referred to.

Although the name of the Border, or Borders, is not perhaps older than the 13th century, it is of interest to note that from the very dawn of British history the district so called has exhibited in its annals the characteristics of a frontier or borderland, in so far as it has almost constantly formed the boundary or point of contact between contending races and nations. It is first made known to us by Tacitus as part of the kingdom of Brigantia, or the territory of the Brigantes—probably a Welsh-speaking race of Celts—who ruled all the country between the Humber and Mersey as far north as the Firth of Forth. They were a strong, courageous, and warlike people, able for many years to keep the Roman cohorts at bay, and thus to serve as a check upon the northward progress of the invaders. It has even been suggested, on plausible grounds, that the great earthwork which runs almost parallel with the Roman Wall between Carlisle and Newcastle, was the work, not of the invaders, as hitherto supposed, but of these native tribes, and erected by them as a barrier against the advance of the Romans. The earthwork faces south, and is therefore presumed to have been built as a defence against the south (see paper by Professor Hughes

‘On the Ancient Earthworks between the Solway and the Mouth of the Tyne,’ in Communications of Cambridge Antiquarian Society, vol. vi., 1887-88). If so, we have here a defined frontier line as far back as the 1st century of the era. The district immediately to the north of this line and the Solway Firth was subsequently, however, conquered by Agricola, and held by the Romans, though not without many insurrections on the part of the natives, until the departure of the former from the kingdom. The district then became the common battle-ground successively of Picts and Britons and Angles, until the 6th century, when we again find it appearing in history under the name of Bernicia (a name regarded by Professor Rhys as traceable to the older Brigantia), and occupied by an English-speaking people. Bernicia, in the succeeding century, was conjoined with Deira to form the great kingdom of Northumbria, which kingdom as Brigantia had done, included all the territory between the Humber and the Forth. From the 7th to the 11th centuries, what we now call the Border district still continued to be the meeting-point of hostile races, the Scots of Dalriada and the Picts, and latterly the Scots alone, contending, now with the Angles, and now with the usurping Danes, for the possession of the country watered by the Tweed. At length, in 1018, the Scots, under Malcolm II., defeated the Angles of Northumbria in a great battle at Carham, near Coldstream, whereupon the Northumbrians ceded to the Scots the district then known as Lothian (q.v.), that is, the whole of the territory between the Tweed and the Forth. The Scots afterwards obtained possession also of Cumberland, but this was wrested from them by William Rufus in 1092. The Tweed, however, still remained as the boundary between England and Scotland on the eastern Border, until the frontier was finally adjusted, much as it exists, by a commission of both countries in 1222.

From the time of the rise of the Celtic dynasty of Scottish kings in the person of Malcolm II. a change for good is observable in the condition of the Scottish Border. Under his descendant, Malcolm Canmore, the aristocracy was strengthened by the settlement of noble Saxons and Normans; and by David I. were planted the great religious houses of Kelso, Melrose, Jedburgh, and Dryburgh, which could not fail to have a civilising and ameliorating effect upon the people and the country. On the English side the church had a less vigorous growth, having no such munificent patron as King David, yet there also it could boast of the fine cathedral of Carlisle, the Premonstratensian abbey of Alnwick, the ancient monastery and priory of Hexham, and the still more ancient and classic shrine of Lindisfarne or the Holy Island. The Scottish side of the Border made, moreover, at this time a great advance as compared with the English side. This advance was due not a little to its physical superiority. Northumberland, which marches with Scotland for fifty miles, and almost of itself constitutes the English Border, was mostly, with the exception of the south-eastern portion, a barren and bleak country. Even now, its western and northerly parts, with their high and uncongenial exposure, are little better than moorlands. The soil, being cold and wet and sour, is unfavourable to plant-life, and for miles on miles, in some places, scarcely a tree is visible. On the other hand, the Scottish Border, with its broad and fertile valleys fed by numerous streams, its valuable woodlands, and its green hill-pastures, was extremely favourable, notwithstanding its exposure to hostile inroads, for the settlement and support of a numerous and thriving population. Hence Berwick and Jedburgh and Roxburgh rose in the 13th century into towns of great wealth and im- portance, having an extensive home and foreign trade, Berwick being described as the greatest seaport in the British island. But with the death of Alexander III., and the outbreak of the War of Succession, all this was changed. Berwick was captured by the English king and sacked; the castles of Jedburgh and Roxburgh were from time to time taken and retaken, being alternately garrisoned and demolished. Of the ancient busy trading town of Roxburgh, not one stone is left upon another; and of its great castle and fortress, but the merest vestiges. Even the splendid religious establishments—the abbeys, churches, and monasteries—did not escape spoliation and destruction, Melrose requiring, after the time of Edward I., to be almost rebuilt. On the English Border, the ruinous effects of these national wars were felt also, though not to the same extent; for in Northumberland was no town to speak of nearer than Newcastle, and the intervening moors and mosses afforded but scant booty to the spoiler. The Scots, therefore, in their reprisals, while not omitting to ravage the nearer dales of the Rede and the Till, were obliged to extend their inroads beyond the high and barren tracts of Northumberland; and it was the richer though more distant valleys of Durham and Yorkshire that heard the fierce war-cry of Randolph and the Douglas, and yielded to the invaders the harvest of the sword. Weardale and Teesdale were better hunting-grounds in which to ‘drive a prey,’ than the upper waters of the Coquet and the Tyne.

It was doubtless due to the exigencies occasioned by these constantly recurring Border wars and raids, from the 13th to the 16th century, that the whole country on both sides of the frontier became so thickly studded with castles and peel-towers, the numerous ruins of which still form a distinctive feature in Border scenery. These castles and towers, generally planted on heights overlooking the river-valleys, stood as a rule within sight one of another, in order that the signals of invasion or alarm might be the more rapidly spread from point to point. From a survey made in 1460, we find that Northumberland alone possessed thirty-seven castles and seventy-eight towers; and the Scottish side was equally well strengthened and defended. Among the larger and more important fortresses on the English side, were the castles of Wark, Norham, Alnwick, Newcastle, Carlisle, Naworth, and Cockermouth; and on the Scottish side, the castles of Berwick, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Ferniehirst, Cessford, Branxholme, Hermitage, Lochmaben, Caerlaverock, and Threave; besides the hundreds of peel-towers and bastel-houses scattered over the country. On both Borders also grew up many fortified towns, upon whose walls the citizens by turns kept nightly watch and ward.

To narrate all the invasions that took place on either side of the Border would be to repeat great part of the general history of England and Scotland; but as giving some idea of the extraordinary havoc and destruction occasioned by these wars and invasions, two authentic reports may be referred to. In 1544 Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun, with an English army, invaded the Scottish Border, and between July and November they destroyed 192 towns, towers, barmkyns, parish churches, &c.; slew 403 Scots and took 816 prisoners; carried off 10,386 head of cattle, 12,492 sheep, 1296 horses, 200 goats, and 850 bolls of corn, besides an untold quantity of ‘inside gear and plening.’ In one village alone—that of Lesudden (now St Boswells)—Sir Ralph Evers writes that he burned ‘16 strong bastel-houses.’ Again, in September of the following year, the Earl of Hertford a second time invaded the country, and between the 8th and 23d of that month, he ‘razed and cast down' the abbeys of Jedburgh, Kelso, Dryburgh, and Melrose, and burned the town of Kelso. At the same time he destroyed about 30 towns, towers, and villages on the Tweed, 36 on the Teviot, 12 on Rule Water, 13 on the Jed, 45 on the Kale, 19 on the Bowmont, 109 in the parishes of Eccles and Duns in Berwickshire, with 20 other towers and villages in the same county. The places destroyed are all named in the report to the English king, along with a classified list of that terrible sixteen days' destruction, embracing 7 monasteries and friars' houses, 16 castles, towers, and peels, 5 market-towns, the immense number of 243 villages, with 13 mills, and 3 'spitals and hospitals.'

The Borders have likewise been the scene of some great historical battles. Of what may be called national contests, in which Scots and English armies were opposed to each other, there is the battle of Halidon Hill (1333), Otterburn (1388), Homildon Hill (1402), Piperden (1435), Flodden (1513), Solway Moss (1542), and Ancrum Moor (1544). In three of these battles—Otterburn, Piperden, and Ancrum Moor—the Scots were victorious. Of what may be called internal contests, we have the fight at Arkinholm, now Langholm (1455), between Scotsmen, when James II. broke the power of the Douglasses; the battles of Hedgeley Moor, near Percy's Cross, and of the Levels, near Hexham (1463), between the English adherents of Lancaster and York, when the Lancastrians were defeated; the skirmish of Haliden, near Melrose (1525), between Scotsmen under Angus and Buccleuch, when Angus vanquished the Border chief; and the battle of Philiphaugh (1645), when Leslie drove Montrose off the field. Of many faction fights and deeds of daring, such as the Raid of the Reidswire (1575) and the rescue of Kinmont Willie from Carlisle Castle (1596), the ancient ballad-writers are the best historians.

In order to provide against the exceptional tendencies of the Borderers on the one side of the frontier to fall out with and plunder those on the other side, the governments of both countries, in the 14th century, divided the frontier into the East, West, and Middle Marches, over each of which divisions wardens were appointed by their respective sovereigns. These wardens were salaried officials, and endowed with great administrative and judicial powers. They stood to their respective districts in the place of the sovereign; and the office was at one time hereditary, being practically vested as the prerogative of a few of the higher nobles who had estates on the Borders. At certain times, a day of truce was held, when the English and Scottish wardens met, examined each other's credentials, and settled any questions that might be in dispute between their followers. As in the case of the Raid of the Reidswire, these meetings did not always end peacefully. (For details as to the duties of the wardens, and the laws and usages of the warden courts, see The History of Liddesdale and the Debateable Land, by R. B. Armstrong, part i. 1883.) One district which was the cause of much trouble to the wardens of the West March, was that known as the Debateable Land, which lay partly in England and partly in Scotland. Its south boundary was formed by the Esk, from its junction with the Liddel to where it enters the Solway; and within the Debateable Land were comprehended the baronies of Kirkandrews and Morton in Cumberland, and Brettalach or Bryntallone (now Canonbie) in Dumfriesshire. It is first mentioned in a proclamation of 15th November 1449, as 'the lands called Batable or Threep lands.' Its chief families were the Armstrongs and Grahams, both clans being noted as desperate thieves and freebooters.

They had frequently to be dealt with by force of arms, till in the 17th century the Grahams were transported to Ireland, and forbidden to return upon pain of death. Other districts of the Borders from time to time called forth hostile visitations from the Scottish kings or their commissioners, when great numbers of the robbers were frequently seized and hanged. So late as 1606, the Earl of Dunbar executed as many as 140 of them. The union of the crowns removed some obvious grounds of contention between the English and Scottish people, and after the middle of the 17th century the Borders gradually subsided into a more peaceful condition.

The character and habits of the Borderers were much alike both on the English and the Scottish side. While the greater nobles lived in large and strong castles, the inferior gentry occupied the peel-towers, in which the accommodation might barely suffice for the wants of a small farmer of the present day. And yet the accommodation, meagre as our modern ideas would esteem it, was probably sufficient for the simple wants of a rude and hardy people, who must have set but little value upon movable and perishable property, knowing how liable they were to have it stolen or consumed, and how readily, by equally predatory means, they might replace it from the stores of others. The tie or feudal bond, on the Scottish Border at least, between the chiefs and the principal men of their clans, was that implied in the term 'kindly tenant'—i.e. a tenant who was of the kith, kin, or family of the chieftain, or who had held his lands in succession, from father to son, for several generations. This tie was not dependent upon payment of rent either in money or in kind, but upon kinship, and was for the binding together of the leading members of the clan in the common objects of self-interest and self-defence (see Edinburgh Review, July 1887, pp. 12, 13). In a state of society so constituted, it was inevitable that there should be much strife and contention, not only between the residents on opposite frontiers, but among the clans themselves, and many instances of cruelty and almost savage vindictiveness have been left on record; yet what to some extent redeemed this state of things from sheer barbarity, was the fine and elevating spirit of chivalry which actuated both knights and nobles, and which spread itself from them through men of less degree. Hence the achievements which have found lasting enshrinement in the Border ballads, instinct as these are with the poetry of action, of chivalrous bearing in love and war.

For the early history of the district, see Dr Skene's Celtic Scotland (3 vols. 1876-80); Professor Rhys's Celtic Britain (2d ed. 1884). For later periods: Ridpath's Border History of England and Scotland (1776); History of Northumberland, by Wallis (2 vols. 1769); by Hodgson (7 vols. 1820-58); F. H. Groome's Short History of the Borders (1887); and Family Histories by Sir William Fraser (q.v.). For general antiquities: Dr Collingwood Bruce's Roman Wall (3d ed. 1867); W. Sidney Gibson's Descriptive and Historical Notices of Northumberland Castles, Churches, and Antiquities (3 series); Scott's Border Antiquities of England and Scotland (2 vols. 1814-17); Sir T. Dick Lauder's Scottish Rivers (1874); and the great History of Northumberland (1893 et seq.); and Proceedings of Scottish Society of Antiquaries, Archaeologia Eliana (Newcastle), Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, and Hawick Archaeological Society. For manners, customs, dress, weapons, superstitions, poetry, &c.: Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (3 vols. 1802-3); Professor Veitch's History and Poetry of the Scottish Border (1877; new ed. 1893); Henderson's Folklore of the Northern Counties (2d ed. 1879). For local history: Tate's History of Ayrshire (2 vols. 1866); A. Jeffrey's History and Antiquities of Roxburghshire (4 vols. 1858-69); Dr W. Chambers's History of Peeblesshire (1864); T. Craig-Brown's History of Selkirk- shire (2 vols. 1886); Mrs Oliver's Upper Teviotdale, and the Scotts of Buccleuch (1887). See BALLADS, CASTLE, PEEL-TOWER.