Bonnie Scotland and what we owe her

by William Elliot Griffis

After the invasions of the Romans, there followed the Teutonic incursions and settlements, which were by the mediæval kingdoms, and the struggles between the Northerners and Southrons, but no regular boundary was recognized until 1532. For a millennium and a half, or from Roman times, this border land was a region given up to lawlessness, nor did anything approaching order seem possible until Christianity had been generally accepted. Faith transformed both society and the face of nature. By the twelfth century, churches, abbeys, and monasteries had made the rugged landscape smile in beauty, while softening somewhat the manners of the rude inhabitants. Yet even within times of written history, nine great battles and innumerable raids, of which several are notable in record, song, or ballad, took place in this region. These, for the most part, were either race struggles or contests for the supremacy of kings.

In modern days, when “the border,” though no longer a legal term, holds its place in history and literature, it has been common to speak of the country “north of the Tweed” as meaning Scotland. Yet this river forms fewer than twenty miles of the recognized boundary, which in a straight line would be but seventy miles, but which, following natural features of river, hill burn, moor, arm of the sea, and imaginary lines, measures one hundred and eight miles. The ridge of the Cheviot Hills is the main feature of demarcation for about twenty-five miles. A tributary of the Esk prolongs the line, and the Sark and the Solway Firth complete the frontier which divides the two lands. The English counties of Northumberland and Cumberland are thus separated from the Scottish shires of Berwick, Roxburghe, and Dumfries. In former times, “the frontier shifted according to the surging tides of war and diplomacy.”

Even to the eleventh century, the old Kingdom of Northumbria included part of what is now Scotland, up to the Firth of Forth and as far west as Stirling. In 1081, however, the Earl of Northumberland ceded the district which made the Tweed the southern boundary of the Kingdom of the Scots. Hence the honor of antiquity belonging to the Tweed as the eastern border-line! On the west, however, William the Conqueror wrenched Cumberland from the Scottish sceptre, and ever since it has remained in England.

For six hundred years, from the eleventh to near the end of the seventeenth century, war was the normal condition. Peace was only occasional. In this era were built hundreds of those three-storied square towers with turrets at the corners, of which so many ruins or overgrown sites remain. On each floor was one room, the lower one for cattle, the upper for the laird and his family, and a few ready-armed retainers. Around this bastel-house, or fortified dwelling, were ranged the thatched huts of the followers of the chief. These, on the signal of approaching enemies, or armed force, crowded into the stronghold. In feudal days, when these strong towers were like links in a chain, prompt and effective notice of approaching marauders could be sent many leagues by means of beacon fires kindled in the tower-tops and on the walls. Human existence in these abodes, during a prolonged siege, may be imagined.

Perhaps the best picture of castle and tower life in this era, though somewhat glorified, is that of Branksome Hall, in “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” The nine and twenty knights, in full armor night and day, “drank the red wine through their helmets barred.” The glamour of Scott, the literary wizard, makes castle life seem almost enviable—but oh, the reality! Happily to-day lovely homes have taken the place of these ancient strongholds.

On the Scottish side, besides numerous small streams, are many stretches of fertile land with rich valleys and intervales, while much of the scenery is romantic and beautiful. In the southwestern corner, one does not forget that from the eighth to the twelfth century flourished the Kingdom of Strathclyde, which bordered on the Clyde River. In the Rhins of Galloway is the parish of Kirkmaiden, which is Scotland’s most southern point. The common, local expression, “from Maidenkirk to John o’ Groat’s House,” is like that of “from Dan to Beersheba.” Now, however, not a few sites famous in song and story and once part of the Scots’ land are in England, notably, Flodden Field, and in the sea, Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle, so famous in “Marmion.” To-day, on Holy Isle, the summer tourists make merry and few perhaps think of the story of Constance the nun, betrayed by Marmion the knight, condemned by her superior, incarcerated in the dungeons, and sent to her death.

Probably the ages to come will show us that the most enduring monuments of centuries of strife, in this borderland, must not be looked for in its memorials of stone, but in language. The “winged words” may outlast what, because of material solidity, was meant for permanence and strength. Minstrelsy and ballad, poem and song, keep alive the acts of courage and the gallantry of the men and the sacrifice and devotion of the women which light up these dark centuries. To Scott, Billings, and Percy we owe a debt of gratitude, for rescuing from oblivion the gems of poet and harpist.

When feudalism gave way to industry, the business of the moss trooper, the swashbuckler, and the cattle-thief ceased to be either romantic or useful. The same fate which, in the Japan of my experience, met the ruffians and professional gentlemen-assassins, was visited upon the Scottish borderers. These fellows could not understand just how and why they were now deemed common ruffians and vile murderers, who had before been powerful chiefs or loyal retainers. Instead of minstrels singing in praise of their exploits, the gallows, planted on a hundred hills, awaited them. The Japanese handled their problem by ordering to the common public execution grounds the cowardly assassins of foreigners, instead of allowing them, as gentlemen, to commit the ceremony of hara-kiri, within decorated areas curtained with white silk, to be followed by posthumous floral offerings laid on their tombs by admiring friends.

In both Scotland and Japan, the effectual method, in the new climate of public opinion, was to deprive the thief and murderer of all glory and honor. In both lands, the police took the place of the military. The club of justice fell unerringly on the right noddle, instead of having innocent bystanders killed by the bullets of soldiers. In place of harmless peasants suffering the loss of their houses, crops, and cattle, the border malefactors, who later furnished themes for the cheap stage and the dime novel, paid in person the penalty of their misdeeds.

Yet until a Scottish king sat on an English throne, the attempts to create a peaceful border region were more or less fitful and but partially successful. It is true that the area had long before been marked off into three districts, or marches,—east, middle, and west,—with officers called “wardens.” These, aided by commissioners, put down petty insurrections and punished cattle-thieves. Occasionally a warden would be slain at a border meeting, as was Sir Robert Kerr, whose murder was avenged by one of his loyal followers, who pursued the assassin as far as York, dragged him out of concealment, and brought his head to their new master. This exploit almost duplicated the approved episode of the Japanese Forty-seven Ronins in Yedo, though on a smaller scale. Further to carry out the fashion, which I used to see often illustrated in Japan, the head was exposed in Edinburgh, on the king’s cross.