[BORDER WARFARE]
Of Border warfare it were impossible to treat within the limits of a library. In no part of the kingdom was the fighting and raiding spirit more rampant. The Border clans were constantly at war with one another, the slightest excuse provoking an attack, and not unfrequently was there no raison d'être whatever for the accompanying ruin and desolation. It ran apparently in the blood of those old Borderers to live on unfriendly terms with their neighbours, and to seize every possible opportunity against them. The record of the raids does not lean more to one side than another for aggressiveness, though generally the Scot has been credited for this quality. But as a matter of fact both sides were equally at fault and equally determined. And the onslaughts were often of the most savage and persistent kind, and were almost entirely unchecked by the legal restraints which were set in force. The division of the district into East, West and Middle Marches, with a sort of vice-regal Warden appointed over each, was not always conducive to peace and good feeling. At certain times, a day of truce was held when the Wardens of both sides met and settled any questions that might be in dispute between their followers, but occasionally the decision was anything but harmonious—as in the case of the Reidswire, for instance. In the "Debateable or Threep Lands," which lay partly in England and partly in Scotland, between the Esk and the Sark, no end of worry and difficulty was experienced. "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."
It was doubtless due to the exigencies occasioned by those frequently recurring 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, although from times much earlier the castles and strongholds were characteristic elements in the old Scottish landscape. Alexander Hume, of Polwarth, the poet-preacher of Logie, near Stirling, in his fine description of a "Summer's Day," thus refers to them:—
"The rayons of the sunne we see
Diminish in their strength;
The shade of everie tower and tree,
Extended is in length.
Great is the calm for everie quhair
The wind is settlin' downe;
The reik thrawes right up in the air,
From everie tower and towne."
Generally these towers were planted on heights overlooking the river-valleys, and, as a rule, within sight of one another, in order that the signals of invasion or alarm—flashed by means of the bale fire—might be the more rapidly spread from point to point. Very few of them are now entire—the best-preserved on the Scottish side being, perhaps, Barns, at the entrance to the Manor valley; Bemersyde, still inhabited; and Oakwood on the Ettrick, incorporated in the present farm buildings; and on the English side, Corbridge and Doddington and Whittingham. From a return made in 1460 we find that Northumberland alone possessed 37 castles and 78 towers, and the Scottish side was equally well strengthened and defended. Amongst the larger and more important fortresses on the English side were the Castles of Alnwick, Bothal, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Coupland, Dilston, Elsdon, Etal, Ford, Naworth, Norham, Prudhoe, Wark, Warkworth; and on the Scottish side, Berwick, Branxholme, Caerlaverock (the true Ellangowan of "Guy Mannering"), Cessford, Ferniherst, Hermitage, Hume, Jedburgh, Neidpath, Peebles, Roxburgh, Threave, Traquair, besides, as has been said, hundreds of peel and bastle-houses scattered all over the country.
It would be a quite impossible task to chronicle the incessant clan-raids of the Border, and to narrate all the invasions that took place on either side would be to repeat in great measure the general history of England and Scotland. But at least two authentic reports, covering little more than a year, may be quoted as showing the extraordinary havoc and destruction caused by the latter. "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, etc.; 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 plenishing. In one village alone—that of Lessudden (now St. Boswells)—Sir Ralph Evers writes that he burned 16 strong bastle-houses. Again in September of the following year, the Earl of Hertford a second time invaded the country, and between the 8th and the 23rd 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 Rulewater, 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 towns 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 hospitals."
It cannot be forgotten that upon Border soil were fought at least six of the great historical battles of the nation, viz., Halidon Hill (1333); Otterburn (1388); Homildon Hill (1402); Flodden (1513); Solway Moss (1542); and Ancrum Moor (1544). Of mere internal contests there are the fight at Arkinholm (Langholm, 1455), between Scotsmen, where James II. broke the power of the Douglases; the battle of Hedgeley Moor (1464), and of Hexham (1464) between the English adherents of Lancaster and York, when the Lancastrians were defeated; the affair of Melrose (Skirmish Hill, 1526) between Borderers under the Earl of Angus and Buccleuch; and Philiphaugh (1645) when Leslie drove Montrose from the field. Of what were purely faction fights and deeds of daring such as the Raid of the Reidswire (1575), and the rescue of Kinmont Willie (1596), the ancient ballads will keep their memory green for many a year to come.