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Border Reivers
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Border Reivers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border (Border country), for nearly three hundred years from the late 13th century to the end of the 16th century, although their heyday was perhaps in the last hundred years of their existence, during the Tudor dynasty in England.
and and Scotland were frequently at war during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.
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Border Reivers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border (Border country), for nearly three hundred years from the late 13th century to the end of the 16th century, although their heyday was perhaps in the last hundred years of their existence, during the Tudor dynasty in England.
Background
England and Scotland were frequently at war during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. During these wars, the livelihood of the people on the borders was devastated by the contending armies. Even when the countries were not at war, tension remained high, and royal authority in one or the other kingdom was often weak. The uncertainty of existence meant that communities or peoples kindred to each other would seek security through their own strength and cunning, and improve their livelihoods at their nominal enemies' expense. Loyalty to a feeble or distant monarch and reliance on the effectiveness of the law usually made people a target for depredations rather than conferring any security.
There were several other factors which promoted a predatory mode of living. Among them was the survival in the Borders of the inheritance system of gavelkind, by which estates were divided equally between all sons on a man's death, so that many people owned insufficient land to maintain themselves. Also, much of the border region is mountainous or open moorland, unsuitable for arable farming but good for grazing. Livestock was easily rustled and driven back to raiders' territory by mounted reivers who knew the country well. (The raiders also often removed "insight", easily portable household goods or valuables, and took prisoners for ransom.)
The attitudes of the English and Scottish governments towards the border clans alternated between indulgence or even encouragement, as these fierce families served as the first line of defence against invasion from the other side of the border, and draconian and indiscriminate punishment when their lawlessness became intolerable to the authorities.
The popular story handed down within reiver families is that from earliest times, reivers would visit the homesteads prior to wars or invasions and remove the cattle and items of value to a place of safety. Lords and Wardens unable to guarantee their masters' supply lines would claim wrongdoing by ruffians and broken men. It is easy to conjecture that this attitude of defiance to authority would grow into outright lawlessness.
"Reive" is an early English word for "to rob", from the Scots Inglis verb reifen from the Old English reafian, and thus related to the archaic Standard English verb reave ("to plunder", "to rob") .
Nature
The reivers were both English and Scottish and raided both sides of the border impartially, so long as the people they hit had no powerful protectors and no connection to their own kin. Their activities, although usually within a day's ride of the Border, extended both north and south of their main haunts. English raiders were reported to have hit the outskirts of Edinburgh, and Scottish raids were known as far south as Yorkshire. The main raiding season ran through the winter months, when the nights were longest and the cattle and horses fat from having spent the summer grazing.
The inhabitants had to live in a state of constant alert, and for self-protection, they built fortified tower houses, such as the bastle houses and Peel towers which are characteristic of this area and period. Smailholm is one of many surviving Peel towers.
When raiding, or riding, as it was termed, the Reivers rode light on hardy nags or ponies renowned for the ability to pick their way over the boggy moss lands. The original dress of a shepherd's plaid was later replaced by light armour such as Brigandines or jacks of plaite (a type of sleeveless doublet into which small plates of steel were stitched), and a metal helmet such as a burgonet or morion; hence their nickname of the steel bonnets. They were armed with a lance and small shield, and sometimes also with a longbow, or a light crossbow known as a "latch", or later on in their history with one or more pistols. They invariably also carried a sword and dirk.
Borders horse
As soldiers, the Border Reivers were considered among the finest light cavalry in all of Europe. After meeting one Reiver (the Bold Buccleugh), Queen Elizabeth I is quoted as having said that "with ten thousand such men, James (VI) could shake any throne in Europe." Many Reivers served as mercenaries, or were forced to serve in English and Scots armies in the Low Countries and in Ireland; such service was often handed down as a penalty in lieu of that of death upon their families.
Reivers fighting as levied soldiers played important parts at the battles of Flodden Field and Solway Moss. When fighting as part of larger English or Scottish armies, borderers were difficult to control. Many Borderers had relatives on each side of the line, despite laws forbidding international marriage, and could claim to be of either nationality, describing themselves as Scottish if forced, English at will and a Reiver by grace of blood. They were badly-behaved in camp, frequently plundered for their own benefit instead of obeying orders, and there were always questions about how loyal they were. At battles such as Ancrum Moor in Scotland in 1545, borderers changed sides in mid-battle, to curry favour with the likely victors, and at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547, an observer (William Patten) noticed that the Scottish and English borderers were talking to each other in the midst of battle, and on being spotted put on a show of fighting.
Law and order
During periods of nominal peace, a special body of customary law, known as Border Law, grew up to deal with the situation. Under Border Law, a person who had been raided had the right to mount a counter-raid within six days, even across the border, to recover his goods. This Hot Trod had to proceed with "hound and horne, hew and cry", making a racket and carrying a piece of burning turf on a spear point to openly announce their purpose, to distinguish themselves from unlawful raiders proceeding covertly. Any person meeting this counter-raid was required to ride along and offer such help as he could, on pain of being considered complicit with the raiders. The Cold Trod mounted after six days required official sanction. On occasions March Wardens could make Warden Roades to recover loot, and to make a point to raiders and officials.
Both Borders were divided into "Marches", each under a "March Warden". The respective kingdoms' March Wardens would meet at appointed times along the border itself to settle claims against people on their side of the border by people from the other kingdom. These occasions, known as "Days of Truce," were much like fairs, with entertainment and much socializing. For many Reivers it was an opportunity to meet (lawfully) with relatives or friends normally separated by the border. It was not unknown for violence to break out even at such truce days.
March Wardens (and the lesser officers such as "Keepers" of fortified places) were rarely effective at maintaining the law. The Scottish Wardens were usually borderers themselves, and were complicit in riding. They almost invariably showed favour to their own kindred, which caused jealousy and even hatred among other Scottish border families. Many English officers were from southern counties in England and could not often command the loyalty or respect of their locally-recruited subordinates or the local population. Some local officers such as Sir John Forster, who was Warden of the Middle March for almost 35 years, became quite as well known for venality as some of his most notorious Scottish counterparts.
By the death of Elizabeth I of England, things had come to such a pitch along the Border that the English government considered re-fortifying and rebuilding Hadrian's Wall.. When Elizabeth died, there was an especially violent outbreak of raiding known as "Ill Week", resulting from the convenient belief that the laws of a kingdom were suspended between the death of a sovereign and the proclamation of the successor. Upon his accession to the English throne, James VI of Scotland (who became James I of England) moved hard against the reivers, abolishing Border Law and the very term "Borders" in favour of "Middle Shires," and dealing out stern justice to many known Reivers.
Border 'Names' and Clan status
The border families can be referred to as 'clans', as the Scots themselves appear to have used both terms interchangeably until the 19th century. In an Act of the Scottish Parliament of 1597 we have the description of the "Chiftanis and chieffis of all clannis...duelland in the hielands or bordouris" - thus using the word clan and chief to describe both Highland and Lowland families. The act goes on to list the various Border clans. Later, Sir George MacKenzie of Rosehaugh, the Lord Advocate (Attorney General) writing in 1680 said "By the term 'chief' we call the representative of the family from the word chef or head and in the Irish (Gaelic) with us the chief of the family is called the head of the clan". So it can be seen that all along the words chief or head and clan or family are interchangeable. It is therefore possible to talk of the MacDonald family or the Maxwell clan. The idea that Highlanders should be listed as clans while the Lowlanders are listed as families originated as a 19th century convention.
Other terms were also used to describe the Border families, such as the "Riding Surnames" and the "Graynes" thereof. This can be equated to the system of the Highland Clans and their septs. e.g. Clan Donald and Clan MacDonald of Sleat, can be compared with the Scotts of Buccleuch and the Scotts of Harden and elsewhere. Both Border Graynes and Highland septs however, had the essential feature of patriarchal leadership by the chief of the name, and had territories in which a majority of their kindred lived. Border families did practice some customs similar to those of the Gaels, such as tutorship when an heir who was a minor succeeded to the chiefship, and giving bonds of manrent. Although feudalism existed, tribal loyalty was much more important and this is what distinguished the Borderers from other lowland Scots. English families were as active along the border as their Scottish counterparts, and many families lived on both sides of the border.
In 1597 the Parliament of Scotland passed a statute: “For the quieting and keping in obiedince of the disorderit subjectis inhabitantis of the borders hielands and Ilis.”.
Attached to the statute was a Roll of surnames from both the Borders and Highlands. The Borders portion listed the 17 'clannis' with a Chief and their associated Marches:
- MIDDLE MARCH: Elliot, Armstrong, Nixon, Crosier
- WEST MARCH: Scott, Bates, Little, Thomson, Glendenning, Irving, Bell, Carruthers, Graham, Johnstone, Jardine, Moffett and Latimer.
Of the Border Clans or Graynes listed on this roll, Elliot, Armstrong, Scott, Little, Irving, Bell, Graham, Johnstone, Jardine and Moffett are registered with the Court of Lord Lyon in Edinburgh as Scottish Clans.
The historic riding surnames, as recorded by George MacDonald Fraser in The Steel Bonnets, are:
- East March
- Scotland: Hume, Trotter, Dixon, Bromfield, Craw, Cranston.
- England: Forster, Selby, Gray, Dunn.
- Middle March
- Scotland: Burn, Kerr, Young, Pringle, Davison, Gilchrist, Tait of East Teviotdale. Scott, Oliver, Turnbull, Rutherford of West Teviotdale. Armstrong, Croser, Elliot, Nixon, Douglas, Laidlaw, Turner, Henderson of Liddesdale.
- England: Anderson, Potts, Reed, Hall, Hedley of Redesdale. Charlton, Robson, Dodd, Milburn, Yarrow, Stapleton of Tynedale. Also Fenwick, Ogle, Heron, Witherington, Medford, Collingwood, Carnaby, Shaftoe, Ridley, Stokoe, Stamper, Wilkinson, Hunter, Thomson, Jamieson.
- West March
- Scotland: Bell, Irvine, Johnstone, Maxwell, Carlisle, Beattie, Little, Carruthers, Glendenning, Moffat.
- England: Graham, Hetherington, Musgrave, Storey, Lowther, Curwen, Salkeld, Dacre, Harden, Hodgson, Routledge, Tailor, Noble.
Relationships between the Border clans varied from uneasy alliance to open "deadly feud". It took little to start a feud; a chance quarrel or misuse of office was sufficient. Feuds might continue for years until patched up in the face of invasion from the other kingdoms, or when the outbreak of other feuds caused alliances to shift. The border was easily destabilised if Graynes from opposite sides of the border were at feud. Feuds also provided ready excuse for particularly murderous raids or pursuits.
Aftermath
Long after they were gone, the reivers were romanticized by writers such as Sir Walter Scott (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border), although he got some things wrong; the term Moss-trooper more correctly refers to one of the robbers that existed after the real Reivers had been put down. Nevertheless, Scott was a native of the borders, writing down histories which had been passed on in folk tradition or ballad. The stories of legendary border reivers like Kinmont Willie Armstrong were often retold in folk-song as Border ballads. There are also local legends, such as the "Dish of Spurs" which would be served to a border chieftain of the Charltons to remind him that the larder was empty and it was time to acquire some more plunder.
Scottish author Nigel Tranter revisited many of these themes in his historical and contemporary novels.
The names of the Reiver families are still very much apparent amongst the inhabitants of the Borders, Northumberland and Cumbria today. Reiving families (particularly those large or brutal enough to carry significant influence) have left legacies in the region meaning many of the local population are passionate about their territory on both sides of the Border. Newspapers have described the local cross-border rugby fixtures as 'annual re-runs of the bloody Battle of Otterburn'. Despite this there has been much cross-border migration since the Pacification of the Borders, and families that were once Scots now identify them selves as English and vice versa.
Hawick in Scotland holds an annual Reivers' festival as do the Schomberg Society in Kilkeel, Northern Ireland (the two often co-operate). The summer festival in the Borders town of Duns is headed by the "Reiver" and "Reiver's Lass", a young man and young woman elected from the inhabitants of the town and surrounding area. The Ulster-Scots Agency's first two leaflets from the ‘Scots Legacy’ series feature the story of the historic Ulster tartan and the origins of the kilt and the Border Reivers.
Many Borderers (particularly those banished by James I of England) took part in the plantation of Ulster becoming the people known as Ulster-Scots (Scots-Irish in America). Reiver descendants can be found throughout Ulster with names such as Elliot, Armstrong, Beattie, Bell, Hume and Heron, Rutledge, and Turnbulls amongst others.
Author George MacDonald Fraser wryly observed or imagined several border traits and names among controversial people in modern American history; Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, among others. It is also noted that a descendent of the Borderers, Neil Armstrong, was one of the first people to land on the moon in 1969. In 1970, Mr. Armstrong visited the town of Langholm, home of his ancestors
Border Reivers in Fiction
The Graphic Novel "War Stories - Volume 2" written by Garth Ennis included the story "The Reivers" about the origins of the SAS during WWII in the Middle East. The men of the SAS, in the story, remark that they are essentially the spiritual descendants of the original Border Reivers.
See also
External links
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