About

About the Cheviot Goat

The Anglo Scottish border forms the frontier between two of the proudest and most influential countries in the history of the world. The Border has been fought over, disputed and moved over the centuries before finally settling into the diagonal line today that runs from just north of Berwick-upon-Tweed in the East to just South of Gretna in the West, crossing the isolated Cheviot Hills and some of the most beautiful and peaceful countryside in Britain along the way. You can have a day on the Border with nothing but the sound of the wind and birdsong in your ears, passing only the occasional sheep or wild goat. But between the 14th and 17th Centuries it was a place with a reputation as bad as Sicily or Corsica for what we would now term Mafia-type crime.

Almost constant warfare between the two nations saw the locals’ crops decimated, their homes burned and their people killed by marauding armies from either side of the line. The people of the Border bore the brunt of every battle between the Lion and the Unicorn. So many of them took to a social system of plunder, blackmail and thieving to survive in a culture that spanned three centuries and was more often than not encouraged by the Crowns, who had their own interest in keeping the land in turmoil.

However, the main thing to remember about the Border reivers is that they were not primarily concerned with the affairs or fortunes of their countries of birth, but with the survival and accumulated wealth of their family. Scottish borderers assisted English raiders and vice versa. The reivers would take payment from anyone, if it suited their needs. It was about money, status and violence as much as anything else. Many raids were little more than one or two man affairs that included lifting a few sheep or breaking into a house while others could contain hundreds or even thousands of riders sweeping into an entire town to wreak mayhem. The local landowning Chiefs and their tenant farmers organised themselves into criminal family gangs that demanded honour, respect and fear just like their modern day counterparts in the Neapolitan Camorra, the Sicilian Mafia, the Corsican Unione Corse or the American Cosa Nostra. Someone like Robert Kerr of Cessford would have recognised Carlo Gambino in an instant. The reivers were the original Mafia; the price of entry your surname, the cost, very possibly, your liberty – or your life.

The grip that the gangsters held on the area for a couple of centuries was only broken after 1603 when King James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne and clamped down on the borderers with hangings, drowning and deportation to Ireland for those families that were considered the worst offenders.

This guide intends to give a general idea of some of the key places to visit and get a sense of history of the time. Northern England and Southern Scotland were littered with hundreds of pele towers, bastles and defensive castles during the Troubles between the two nations. Many are long gone, now just a few bits of stone rubble in a sheep field; some have gable walls standing, some are incorporated into farm buildings while others are impressive monuments under the care of the nations. Others have gone on to become private residences, grand hotels and stately homes.

But they all pay tribute to the memory and testament to of the often forgotten people that inhabited the wildest frontier of them all – the great Anglo Scottish Border.

Border Law

When the lands around the Border were divided into six marches, the people where subjected to laws different from those of England and Scotland, known as Border or March Law.

The Wardens, with six knights selected by either side, would meet at places on the Borders to hear complaints from both countries and dish out justice at Truce Days.

The English March Wardens were often brought in from Southern England with powerful local families such as the Percys, Forsters, Fenwicks, Dacres and Lowthers all retaining a large influence while the Scots Wardens were selected on a more hereditary line with the East March generally under the jurisdiction of a Hume, the Middle March under either the Cessford or Ferniehurst Kerrs and the West March under either the Maxwells or Johnstons. Liddesdale, Annandale, Redesdale and Tynedale had their own keepers.

Often the Wardens – men who were supposed to maintain order and keep the peace – were as heavily involved in reiving as the wild men that they were meant to keep in check.

There were also deputy wardens, captains, bailiffs and other officials known as water keepers, one for each Warden, who were able to enter the marches without licence and carry messages between them. They also acted as border control to stop men without licence entering the other realm.

Truce days were held at various points along the Border; Hadden Stank, Redden Burn, and Lochmaben; Cocklaw near Roxburgh and the Redeswire, the Sands in Carlisle, Rockcliffe and Kershopefoot. Norham, Coldstream, Wark, Ebchester and Berwick-upon-Tweed were all used as meeting spots for days of truce.

Blood feuds were very common and pursued relentlessly once engaged while there were ‘trods’ to recover stolen goods. A Hot Trod took place directly after a raid while a Cold Trod could be taken days or weeks after cattle had been lifted. It was an offence not to join a trod.

An anonymous Northumbrian complained in a letter to Queen Elizabeth I in 1597 that the Scots had a custom of entering deadly feud with anyone vowing a bill against them, in another sinister echo of modern Mafia crime.

There were also laws forbidding cross-border marriages and horse trading.