This family, I believe, are the Winters noticed by Sir Walter Scott, in Blackwood’s Magazine, as follows:
“A gang (of Gipsies), of the name of Winters, long inhabited the wastes of Northumberland, and committed many crimes; among others, a murder upon a poor woman, with singular atrocity, for which one of them was hung in chains near Tonpitt, in Reedsdale. The mortal reliques having decayed, the lord of the manor has replaced them by a wooden effigy, and still maintains the gibbet. The remnant of this gang came to Scotland, about fifteen years ago, and assumed the Roxburghshire name of Wintirip, as they found their own something odious. They settled at a cottage within about four miles of Earlston, and became great plagues to the country, until they were secured, after a tight battle, tried before the circuit court at Jedburgh, and banished back to their native country of England. The dalesmen of Reedwater showed great reluctance to receive these returned emigrants. After the Sunday service at a little chapel near Otterbourne, one of the squires rose, and, addressing the congregation, told them they would be accounted no longer Reedsdale men, but Reedsdale women, if they permitted this marked and atrocious family to enter their district. The people answered that they would not permit them to come that way; and the proscribed family, hearing of the unanimous resolution to oppose their passage, went more southernly, by the heads of the Tyne, and I never heard more of them, but I have little doubt they are all hanged.”[50]
[41] Hoyland.
[42] A quarto work by S. R., published to detect and expose the art of juggling and legerdemain, in 1612.
[43] Hoyland.
[44] English acts of Parliament.
[45] This does not appear to be necessarily the case. These Englishmen may have married Gipsies, become Gipsies by adoption, and so learned the language, as happens at the present day.—Ed.
[46] Hoyland.
[47] The number of the British Gipsies mentioned here is greatly understated. See [Disquisition] on the Gipsies.—Ed.