Border Reivers at Tosson Tower

Genealogy is an inexact science. The path can be littered with errors and omissions. When it comes to Coats of Arms – presented to an individual, not a family, though they can be passed down the direct line – the Public Register in Scotland only goes back as far as 1672. So while the armorial bearings of the Taits of Pirn remain, others don’t.  Patrick Tait wasn’t just a fixer for old Lady Buccleuch (Elizabeth Kerr) – he was also a Knight of the Scottish realm. Sir Patrick was an official ‘procurator’ responsible for moving Lady Buccleuch’s cattle around and also looking out for them. He was placing her cattle on land in 1539 with the consent of her husband, the Knight Walter Scott of Branxholm, and was representing her at days of truce at the Redden Burn regarding stolen livestock from around 1536. He’d also been accused of pasturing sheep in England, with others of the family, in 1523, and of being involved in reiving with a number of the most notorious Armstrongs and Elliots a...

A partial and incomplete list of Border Reivers, in no particular order, known to have been executed during the first six years of the Pacification of the Borders between 1605 and 1611 at Newcastle, Carlisle, Dumfries, Peebles, Selkirk, Hawick and Jedburgh. 1. Simon Armstrong, Laird of Mangerton 2. Simon Armstrong, Laird of Whithaugh 3. William Elliot 4. Andrew Armstrong 5. Martin Elliot 6. John ‘Jock Stowlugs’ Armstrong 7. Edward’s Tom Armstrong 8. Christopher Irving alias ‘Gifford Carleton’ 9. Thomas ‘Geordie’s Tom’ Armstrong 10. Thomas ‘Souter’s Tom’ Armstrong 11. Robert Graham 12. William ‘Flangtail’ Graham 13. John Pott 14. Alexander Davidson 15. Anthony Stokoe 16. Reynold Charlton 17. Henry Dodds 18. Arthur Robson 19. Archie Rogers 20. John Hall, 21. Archie Armstrong 22. Thomas Armstrong 23. Cuthbert Charlton 24. William Charlton 25. George Reed 26. George Nixon 27. Bartram Potts 28. William Elliot 29. Gawen Reed 30. John Gibson 31. William Ormsby...

On the 12 th and 13 th of September 1543, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a consultation involving Lord Wharton, the English Lord Deputy Warden General, the three deputy wardens and the captains of the castles at Carlisle, Norham, Wark and other strategic spots, appointed a number of watches to be set on the Border for ‘Peace and Quiet of the Frontiers.’ The watches were to be set nightly, with some in day time, ‘according to the ancient customs of the Marches’ and other clauses included that every man should follow a trod, upon pain of death, no man to harbour, aid or abet any fugitives, rebel, felon, murderer, English or Scottish, or ‘practice with them,’ also punishable by death. Those that signed the document were Lord Wharton, Lord Eure, Deputy Warden of the East March, Lord Ogle of the Middle March and Sir Thomas Dacre of the West. Sir Richard Musgrave, captain of Carlisle, Mr. Dunye, captain of Berwick, Sir John Horsley, captain of Bamburgh, Richard Bowes, captain of No...