The Reivers

The Story of the Border Reivers

Alistair Moffat

• Publisher: Birlinn
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781780274454
• eBook ISBN: 9780857901156
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Militär- & Seefahrtsgeschichte

An "exciting and dramatic" history of the raiders who ruled the lawless Anglo-Scottish borderlands for over a century ( Cumberland News).
Nowhere else in Britain in the modern era, or indeed in Europe, did civil order break down over such a wide area, or for such a long time, as on the border country between Scotland and England. For more than a century, the hoofbeats of countless raiding parties drummed over the border. From Dumfriesshire to the high wastes of East Cumbria, from Roxburghshire to Redesdale, from the lonely valley of Liddesdale to the fortress city of Carlisle, swords and spears spoke while the law remained silent. Fierce family loyalty counted for everything, while the rules of nationality counted for nothing. The whole range of the Cheviot Hills, its watershed ridges and the river valleys that flowed out of them, became the landscape of larceny while Maxwells, Grahams, Fenwicks, Carletons, Armstrongs, and Elliots rode hard and often for plunder.
These were the Riding Times and in modern European history, they have no parallel. This book tells the remarkable story of the Reivers and how they made the Borders.

Part I

1

Moonlight

The night wind whistled out of the west, sudden squalls spattering the ramparts, keeping the sentries moving, stamping their feet against the November chill. When the clouds scudded away into the formless mirk and the sky cleared, the moon lit the pale winter landscape. Bewcastle Waste stretched away to the north of the old fort, and beyond it lay Liddesdale, Teviotdale and trouble.

Leaning on their spears, the sentries peered into the darkness, searching the horizon, scanning the dark heads of the fells. Sometimes a shape seemed to move but another pair of eyes saw it was nothing. The cold and the wet – and the sleepless hour – could numb the senses and make a fool of the most experienced soldier. The Captain had set four troopers on the night watch but allowed only one brazier between them. While two warmed themselves, the others walked the rampart, watching for raiders, for horsemen who might appear out of nowhere, from any direction. But it was a foul night, surely even the most desperate thieves on the Border would stay snug by their fire.

Ten miles to the north, silently snaking through the hills, they were coming. Walter Scott of Buccleuch led 120 riders up over the pass at Whitrope, their ponies looking for the glint of the burn and the narrow path beside it. There was none of the martial jingle of heavily armed cavalry as the column wound its way quietly down through the willow scrub to the mosses of Liddesdale. Sodden now, but much better than nothing, cloaks were wound tight against the midnight chill. Looming out of the darkness, off to their right, Scott and his captains could see the black shape of the castle at Hermitage. No lights showed and if there was a watch, it was only nominal and probably looking the other way. The riders stayed on the east bank of the burn and moved silently on. No patrol would come out of the castle gate but it would not do to embarrass the Keeper by making the presence of a passing raiding party obvious. Only a short way downstream Whithaugh and the tryst with the Armstrongs were waiting.

At the end of September, having left them out on the fells as late as he dared, Willie Routledge and his herd-laddies had ingathered their cattle for the winter. The high summer pastures of the Bewcastle fells had begun to die back and the ground around the sikes and burns had churned to clinging clatch. After cropping for winter hay, Routledge’s inbye fields had recovered and his cows would keep their summer condition on through the turn of the year and maybe beyond, if only the incessant rains of last winter would hold off. And his prized ponies were fat and sleek, swinging big grass-bellies in their winter coats.

All four sentries heard it. Each looked up and out to the north. And then at each other. Birdcalls in the dead of a winter’s night? Only when their roost is disturbed. Was it a fox – or something more? The sentries waited for clouds to clear the full moon, holding their breath for another shriek from out in the waste, straining to focus in the formless dark. The Captain slept warm in his chamber; who would be bold enough to rattle down the rickety wooden stairs and wake him because a bird had called? Moments passed. No other alarm. Whatever it was had moved on, nothing of any moment. It came on to rain, again.

Sim’s Jock Armstrong was in no doubt. Simplest was best, particularly on a filthy night like this. The old reiver wheeled his pony to come alongside Scott’s, his eyes were hooded by the dripping rim of his steel bonnet but his rasping voice was clear enough. Scott and his riders should cross the border at Kershopefoot and then strike directly south towards the Bewcastle Fells. And they should come back on exactly the same track. The ponies would find their own scent and their own hoofprints in the dark. And once they had regained the Scottish side, everything should be left to the Armstrongs. They would be waiting, and not even Scott would see them as he passed. It was their ground and they knew its every brake and bush. By early morning all would be done, one way or another, and it would be done well, would it not? Sim’s Jock and his riders would earn their cut. Walter Scott smiled and nodded. The board was set – let the game begin.

In the hay barn, the Routledge’s dogs dozed in their own body-warmth, cocking an occasional ear as rats scratched and scuttled in the ratters. Bielded from the breeze by the farm steading, most of the ponies were quiet, some sleeping on their feet, all waiting patiently for the night to pass. And the black cattle snuffled in small groups, nosing around the inbye fields, nibbling now and again at the cold and bitter winter grass. One or two splashed across the burn to the farther pasture. The beasts at night somehow seemed peaceful to Willie Routledge, their steaming warmth consoling, their herding instincts a comfort. He and his boys had had a good summer with plenty of calves to sell on at Brampton Market and some to keep through the winter. Up on the shielings, the summertowns, the sun had shone and the good grass grown up through the yellow tussocks of the old. Next year would be even better. If only they could get through the long dark winter stretching out before them.

Towards midnight mist crept over the moonlit landscape, muffling sound, its damp chill seeping through the sentries’ warmest cloaks. Beyond the ramparts the world slept, cold and still under a grey blanket. Only wakefulness kept the men warm; it was easy to lean on a spear and nod into a doze. But to allow that was to numb the bones for the rest of the long night. Activity, doing their duty, was what helped and after all Bewcastle Fort had been built and regularly repaired for good reason. It guarded a well-trodden byway into the west marches of England. To its south were vulnerable farmsteads, valuable herds and poorly defended villages.

They were in England now. Nothing could disguise their purpose as Scott’s riders kicked their ponies on up the rising ground above the Kershope Burn. They would circle well to the west of Bewcastle Fort. Its new Captain, Steven Ellis, was his name, was reckoned to be more than usually anxious to please his masters in London, old Francis Walsingham and the rest. No courtly fawner or sponger, he was a professional soldier who saw his posting to Elizabeth’s northern frontier as an opportunity to distinguish himself in action rather than words, to become part of what the Warden of the East Marches, Robert Carey, called ‘a stirring world’. Ellis’ troopers were also newcomers to the Border and none had yet compromised their loyalty. Time would surely change that, but for the moment Walter Scott would be cautious, not wishing to alert the Bewcastle garrison and have them clatter out of the fort and after him. Willie Routledge’s cows were what he and his men wanted, and anything else they could carry off besides.

Scouts reported back. Dismounting, tying their ponies in the thickets down by the burn, they had crept up a ridge above the farm, seen no light, no watchers, noted that the herd was grazing the inbye fields and noticed some handsome nags in amongst them. Speed and stealth now. Scott’s men were well armed, bristling with swords, daggers, pistols and spears. They wore steel caps and thick padded jerkins while their captains and a few others were protected by backs and breasts armour. It was not Willie Routledge and his sons who worried the riders but the long road home and the real possibility that the Bewcastle garrison would give chase and that they might have to cut their way through to the border and beyond.

Despite carrying 18 to 20 stone of kit and man, the ponies moved nimbly over the tussocks towards the farmhouse, keeping it between them and the cattle. Suddenness would unsettle the beasts and raise the house. Scott had split his force. Most waited to round up the cows and oxen and catch the ponies while a dozen dismounted. With Scott leading, they crept towards the thatched farmhouse like foxes.

Too experienced and too wily for needless drama, Scott lifted the latch and tiptoed inside. By the glow of the dying fire his men could see the sleeping family become restive – until their leader woke them by holding his pistol to Willie Routledge’s head. A moment’s uproar was immediately suppressed by some rough handling. All were quickly dragged and bundled into a corner of the room as Scott went out to supervise the roundup. The men raked around the farmhouse for valuables as Routledge swore and cursed at them. One pulled out a cowering, squealing daughter by the hair, forced her to kneel by the fire and held a dagger to her throat to encourage her father and terrified family to keep quiet.

Out in the fields the raiders caught up the ponies in halters and gathered the cattle into a tight pack. Once they were ready to move off, Scott’s men tied up all of the Routledges and doused their fire. Let them shiver and make no signal. Anything to slow down the likely pursuit. Across rough ground and in the winter dark, cows were slow to drive and one or two would slip through the screen of ponies and need to be herded back.

All had been managed quickly and with scarcely a raised voice. No sound carried as far as the ramparts at Bewcastle, its sentries saw nothing amiss in the November night. But news was travelling. Young Edward Routledge had wriggled free of his bonds, untied the others and while his father and his brothers began quickly to build a beacon to blaze and raise the countryside, he ran, stumbling and falling, over the moorland to the soldiers and their fort.

Scott did not delay, riding up and down, hurrying his men. They had lifted about 40 head of cows and oxen and 20 ponies, most of them mares. The Routledge farm had yielded little in the way of valuables and no man was over-encumbered. But goading and whacking the lowing cows into a trot was difficult – and noisy. At this pace the border was perhaps an hour away, the dawn another hour beyond that.

Pinpointed in the distance, Edward saw the sentries’ brazier and began breathlessly to holler and whoop. By the time he had scrambled over the old Roman ditches and ramparts and reached the outer gate at Bewcastle Fort, its Captain was awake and buckling on his breastplate. Over to the west the Routledge’s beacon crackled into life and lit the night sky. Within a few minutes 40 troopers were in the saddle and Edward on his way back to the farm with spare mounts. It was Scott they were after. Routledge knew for certain, and he would most likely be on the trail to the Kershope Burn and the Scottish side.

Even though those leading the stolen ponies could make better time, Walter Scott knew that his raiding party needed to keep all its strength together. If caught up, he would turn and fight while some of his riders kept the cattle from stampede. If they scattered into the darkness and the unfenced moorland, what was the point? Scott rode at the rear, often turning and straining to listen, screening out the grunt and low of the beasts as the herd moved northwards, nearer to Scotland and safety. Not that the frontier itself would protect him, government officials on both sides had the right to pursue raiders across it regardless of jurisdiction. Scott wanted to reach the Kershope Burn because the Armstrongs waited there, well hidden.

Captain Ellis and his troopers hurried along the trail, not far behind and not waiting for Routledge and his boys or anyone else. The rain was holding off, the moon glowed pale as it set and the ponies would somehow find good enough ground to trot. Often they could make out the hoofprints of cows and horses in the muddy sikes. They were gaining, closing fast on the raiders.

Willie Routledge and his sons followed on quickly through the half-light, hoping to catch up the Captain’s troop before they engaged with Scott and his men. Willie hated the taunt, ‘a Routledge – every man’s prey’, and was determined to show his family was no soft touch.

Against the paler blue of the dawning sky, on the ridge above the Kershope Burn, Ellis could make out the silhouettes of the raiding party and the cattle clearly. And just faintly he could hear them. The captain would catch them all, red-handed, as they stumbled downhill and across the water. His men spurred on.

Scott could hear them coming. Some of the Bewcastle troopers had booted their ponies into a canter. Silly. Could easily break a leg. But they might be lucky and be upon them soon. The leading raiders were skittering down to the burn, and breaking his silence, Scott roared for support to come up to him on the ridge. The cows splashed over the burn, riders whacking them on. It was difficult to know how close Ellis was. When all were across safely and moving into the woods on the Scottish side, Scott turned his men downhill and followed. At that moment the Bewcastle troop burst out of the mirk, only 40 yards away. Now at the banks of the burn, Scott’s men scrambled over. But as Ellis’ troop found the level ground, scores of riders erupted from nowhere. The Armstrongs had broken cover. Four Bewcastle men were immediately shot out of the saddle. Many others were badly wounded and the troop routed before their Captain had time to rally them to him. Careless of the grey light and the uneven ground, his men scattered in all directions.

Scott turned in the saddle to look back at the melee. The Armstrong ambush had been expertly sprung, the cows and horses were theirs and a good night’s work had been done. On the high ground above the Kershope Burn Willie Routledge and his sons sat on their ponies and watched. If only the young Captain had waited, Willie would have told him why the raiders had returned on the same road. He could have warned them what was waiting.

These things happened. In November 1588 Walter Scott of Buccleuch rode out of his stronghold of Branxholme, near Hawick, with 120 reivers. He had made a tryst with the Armstrongs of Whithaugh in Liddesdale. Here is the full text of the complaint later made:

Captain Ellis and the surname of the Routledges in Bewcastle complain upon the said Laird of Buccleuch, the Laird of Chesame, the Laird of Whithaugh and their accomplices to the number of 120 horsemen arrayed with jacks, steel caps, spears, guns, lances and pistols, swords and daggers purposely mustered by Buccleuch, who broke the house of Willie Routledge, took 40 cows and oxen, 20 horses and mares, and also laid an ambush to slay the soldiers and others who should follow the fray, whereby they cruelly slew and murdered Mr Rowden, Nichol Tweddle, Jeffrey Nartbie and Edward Stainton, soldiers; maimed sundry others and drove 12 horses and mares, whereof they crave redress.

The raid is the core of this story. It is the essence of all the extraordinary events which took place from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century on either side of the border between England and Scotland. Thousands of raids like Walter Scott’s foray to Bewcastle were run, often several on one winter’s night. They formed the focus of a unique criminal society. Over an enormous area of Britain, perhaps a twelfth of the landmass of the island, there existed a people who lived beyond the laws of England and Scotland, who ignored the persistent efforts of central government to impose order, who took their social form and norms from the ancient conventions of tribalism, who invented ever more sophisticated variants on theft, cattle rustling, murder and extortion – and gave them names, like ‘blackmail’. And they spoke and sang beautiful, sad poetry and told a string of stirring, unforgettable stories.

In the modern historical period, the tale of the Border Reivers is a tale without parallel in all of western Europe.

2

The Lords of the Names

Queens were executed, monasteries swept into oblivion and a Reformation forced upon his people by Henry VIII of England in his desperation to father a male heir and continue the Tudor line. And once Prince Edward had been safely delivered, this most brutal of English kings began to cast around for a bride for his boy. When James V of Scotland d...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Part I
• Part II
• Envoi
• Appendix 1 The Border Ballads
• Appendix 2 The Names
• Appendix 3 Kings and Queens
• Appendix 4 How the Ferniehurst Kerrs Stopped Reiving and Became Part of the British Establishment
• Appendix 5 The Common Riding Year
• Bibliography
• Index
• Also Available