Redheugh
Robin Elliot of Redheugh was the chief man
of the hard-riding clan in 1583. A year later he was summoned before the
Scottish King along with Martin Elliot and Lancie Armstrong, Laird of
Whitehaugh, to stand as pledges for all of Liddesdale on pain of hanging, but
the three refused and would only answer for the own ‘graynes’ of their
families, which saw them committed to Edinburgh Castle.
But the spell in jail must have softened
his resolve as eight months later Robin did give assurances to Sir John
Forster, the English March Warden, at Hermitage Castle
for all the Elliots with a number of Nixons, Crosers, Armstrongs, Douglases,
Hendersons and Beatties also swearing.
Mind, by 1590 Robin’s crew – including the
superbly nicknamed ‘Ill wild Will’ Elliot and Clemmy Nixon ‘The Clash’ - were
up in a huge number of Forster’s bills for raiding in the English Middle March.
Robin is said to have gone into exile in Fife following the Border clampdowns after 1603.
The Elliots were reputed to have been moved
to the Borders by Robert the Bruce after he took Hermitage Castle
from William de Soulis with Redheugh being built sometime around 1320.
Parts of the original tower are probably
incorporated into the stonework of the private farmhouse that stands at
Redheugh north of Newcastleton today.
