In the Border Country

by W. S. Crockett

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. [24] , [44] , [45] , [71] , [73] )

[THE MAKING OF THE BORDER]

It is from the Roman historian Tacitus that the light of history falls for the first time on the Border Country. It is a mere glimpse, however. But it is enough to show us the calibre of the men who held its forests and fastnesses at that remote period. They were the Brigantes, a branch probably of the Celts, who were the first to reach Britain, coming from the common home-land of the Ayrian race somewhere in Central Asia. Their kingdom, Brigantia, embraced all the country between the Mersey and Humber and the Links of Forth. They are spoken of as a strong, courageous and warlike people, able for many years to keep the Roman cohorts at bay and to check the northward progress of the invaders. The Roman Conquest of Britain, as is well known, was begun by Julius Caesar as far back as B.C. 55. It was not, however, till the time of Julius Agricola (A.D. 78-84) that the Romans obtained a firm footing on the island. Agricola's generalship was more than a match for the sturdy Brigantes. He carried the Roman eagles to the Forth and Clyde, fixing his main line of defence and his northmost frontier on the isthmus between these two firths. But about A.D. 120, when the Emperor Hadrian visited Britain, his chief work was the delimitation of the Roman territory by the great stone wall still bearing his name, stretching from the Tyne to the Solway, a distance of 73½ miles. Twenty years later, however, Lollius Urbicus, the Emperor's lieutenant in Britain, appears to have revived and restored Agricola's boundary, so that what we now know as the Border Country, for more than three hundred years (A.D. 78-410), formed a part of the mightiest empire of the ancient world. Hadrian's rampart, the great camps at Cappuck, near Jedburgh, at Lyne in Peeblesshire, and Newstead at the base of the Eildons—the undoubted Roman Trimontium—with the roads known as Watling Street and the Wheel Causeway are the chief memorials of a singularly historic Occupation. Following the withdrawal of the Roman legions the district became the arena of constant warfare between Picts and Scots and Britons, until the sixth century, when it appears again in history as a kingdom of the Saxon Heptarchy under the name of Bernicia, and occupied by a colony of Angles and Saxons from the Low Countries of the Continent, the progenitors of the English-speaking race. Ida the Good governed Bernicia, having for his capital the proud rock-fortress of Bibbanburgh (so named from his queen Bibba), the modern Bamborough. In the following century Bernicia was combined with Deira, its southern neighbour (corresponding to Yorkshire) to form the powerful kingdom of Northumbria, extending, as Brigantia had done, from the Humber to the Forth. For the next three or four hundred years the story of the Border was little more than a wild record of lawlessness and bloodshed. It had grown to be a kind of happy hunting-ground for every hostile tribe within fighting distance, and for some even who were drawn from long distances, like the Danes, the latest of the invading hordes. But there is nothing of importance to narrate at this period. From a monarchy, Northumbria fell to the level of an Earldom in 954, and in 1018, the Scots, consolidated to some extent under Malcolm II., crushed the Angles of Northumbria in a great victory at Carham-on-Tweed (near Coldstream), of which the result was the cession to Scotland of the district known as Lothian—the land lying between the Tweed and Forth. Thus at the dawn of the 11th century we have the Tweed constituting the virtual boundary between the two countries. Cumberland, to be sure, was for a time Scots territory, but this the intrepid Rufus wrested back in 1092. So that by the close of that century the Border line appears to have taken the quite natural course of delimitation—the Tweed, the Cheviots, and the Solway, though it was not till as late as 1222 that a commission of both countries was appointed to adjust the final demarcation.

[THE CHRISTIANIZING OF THE BORDER]

It would be interesting to know precisely when and how the light of the Christian faith first penetrated the Border Country, but neither the time nor the manner can be ascertained with certainty. Indeed, it is impossible to say who were the real pioneers of the Gospel within the realm itself. The probability is that in the first instance it was the beneficent work of the Romans in whose legions were to be found many sincere Christians, many faithful soldiers of the Cross. From the "saints of Cæsar's household"—not a mere picturesque dream—mayhap the Gospel found its way to the coasts of Britain, the greatest boon that could be conferred on a nation. An unvarying Peeblesshire tradition, for example, avers that among the first to witness for Christ and His truth by the banks of the Tweed and its tributaries were Roman soldiers from the great military station at Hall Lyne, and out of whose quiet fellowship-meetings in the recesses of the Manor, sprang the church of that valley, one of the oldest in the county, and dedicated to Saint Gordian, either the Emperor of that name, or what is more likely, "Gordian the well-beloved," Deputy of Gaul, who suffered martyrdom about the year 362. Be that as it may, it is at any rate certain that long before the departure of the Romans from Britain, Christianity had made considerable headway in the island. St. Ninian's is the earliest definite name which has come down to us, about the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century. His labours were confined chiefly to the Galloway side of the Border, where the remains of his Candida Casa, or White House, may still be seen at Whithorn on the shores of Wigtown Bay. It is more than possible that some of Ninian's missionaries, or a rumour of his work and teaching at all events, had passed beyond the Solway to the Clyde and Tweed watersheds. But, on the other hand, the difficulties following the departure of the Romans in the constant incursions from the Continent and the terrible internecine struggles of the time, would be sufficient to extinguish whatever light had faintly begun to shine. And it is not until well on in the 6th century that the darkness begins to grow less dense. Such names as Augustine, Paulinus, Columba, Kentigern or Mungo, Aidan and Cuthbert, come upon the scene, with each of whom seems to rest, as it were, the hope of the Church of Christ in Britain. In the year 597 Augustine arrived in Kent with forty monks in his train. The incident, apocryphal perhaps, which led to his mission, is at least interesting. The story has been told again and again, but it will bear repeating. Ælla, King of Deira, had defeated his northern neighbour, and with a portion of the spoil hastened to fill the Roman slave-market. Gregory the Great, in the days that preceded his pontificate, passed one day through the market-place when it was crowded with people, all attracted by the arrival of fresh cargoes of merchandise; and he saw three boys set for sale. They were white-complexioned, fair and light, and with noble heads of hair. Filled with compassion, he enquired of the dealer from what part of the world they had come, and was told "from Britain, where all the inhabitants have the same fair complexion." He next asked whether the people of this strange land were Christians or pagans, and hearing that they were pagans he heaved a deep sigh, and remarked it was sad to think that beings so bright and fair should be in the power of the Prince of Darkness. He next enquired the name of their nation. "Angles," was the reply. "'Tis well," he answered, playing on the word, "rightly are they called Angles, for their faces are the faces of angels, and they ought to be fellow-heirs with the angels of heaven." "And what is the name," he proceeded, "of the province from which they have been brought?" "From Deira," was the answer. Catching its name, he rejoined, "Rightly are they named Deirans. Plucked from ire, and called to the mercy of Christ." "And who," he asked once more, "is the King of this province?" "Ælla," was the reply. The word recalled the Hebrew expression of praise, and he answered, "Allelujah! the praise of God shall be chanted in that clime!" And as Green so beautifully puts it in his "Making of England," "he passed on, musing how the angel faces should be brought to sing it." And brought to sing it they were when the evangelist Paulinus found his way in the best sense, to the heart of heathen Northumbria. Paulinus, whom men long remembered,