Northumberland: England's Border Country

Contemporary Review, Oct, 1999 by Irene Waters

For ordinary people there was little point in trying to lead a settled existence or plan for the future. Since they never knew when the next attack would come they developed a way of life based on a system of armed plunder which peaked in the sixteenth century. George MacDonald Fraser in The Steel Bonnets describes great numbers of people inhabiting the frontier territory . . . lived by despoiling each other . . . when robbery and blackmail were everyday professions, when raiding, arson, kidnapping, murder and extortion were an important part of the social system . . . It was a way of life, pursued in peacetime, by people who accepted it as normal.' These were the notorious Border Reivers, who bequeathed us the term 'bereave'.

The Armstrongs, who controlled Liddesdale, Eskdale and Annandale and often allied themselves with England, were the most feared and dangerous clan of the whole frontier. It is said they could put 3,000 men in the saddle in the 1520s and 1530s and do more damage by foray than any other two families combined. The Charltons of Tynedale were one of the most intractable families on the English side of the border, and were alternately allied to and at feud with Scottish clans.

Recorded incidents graphically illustrate the scale of these raids. One 1581 night Dickie Armstrong and his band of about 100 burned a mill and 12 houses, murdering the miller and another man and reiving 100 beasts. Two nights later they destroyed nine houses at Hecky Noble's, burning alive his son and pregnant daughter-in-law and taking 200 beasts. Widow Margaret Forster had her home ransacked a couple of months later and lost 18 cattle.

The main time for reiving was autumn to spring, when the nights were longest. Bands of a dozen to 50 riders were normal though 2,000 - 3,000 might take part in large forays. It is said that when a housewife found food supplies dwindling she would place the covered platter in front of her husband at dinner as usual but, when he lifted the lid, instead of meat he found only his spurs - a hint that the larder needed replenishing.

Although both governments officially deplored reiving they nevertheless exploited it as an ever-ready source of fighting men. However, to establish some semblance of law and order, from the mid-thirteenth century the Borders were divided into Marches: Eastern, Middle and Western, each with a Warden.

On the Scottish side Wardens were generally local men - and often caught up in feuding themselves - whereas English Wardens, appointed by the monarch, were more impartial but their masters (accused of parsimony and procrastination) never understood the isolation and anxiety resulting from being among an alien people. Most did not last long.

The Warden's well-nigh impossible task was to enforce the unique international Law of the Marches. When a complaint was made he passed it on to his opposite number and Truce Days were arranged when retribution and restitution were meted out according to set rules. In practice many people were too terrified to complain for fear of worse atrocities, and it was not uncommon for a Truce Day to end in a pitched battle.