The Border Reivers

In the last two decades of the 16th century, England and Scotland were officially at peace. However the border between England and Scotland was in constant dispute between the two crowns.

In the last quarter of the 16th century organised lawlessness had increased to such an extent that by the late 1580's and 1590's there existed what can fairly be described as a reign of terror.

The downward spiral into lawlessness in the border region can be explained by the particular history the border area had endured. Raids, rebellion and war between England and Scotland were bitter and long-drawn out. The border region was the playing field of this upheaval. War, physical hardship and repeated devastation had shaped the border people and their country, and left the legacy of gang warfare and organised crime.

Reiving

Reiv - means to steal. The Reiver period is roughly categorised as 1450 - 1610. The movement came to its height in the late 1500's and ended around 1610. The reiver history is a mixture of fact and folklore. The English crown destroyed almost all of the documentation relating to reiver life and so the reiver's story has passed down through oral history and folk traditions, rather than formal documentation. As a result, it is hard to untangle the mythological from the material when describing the reiver movement.

The reivers were clans who lived in the border territories. The Armstrongs, the Humes, the Watsons and the Grahams were some of the 200 or so clan families who occupied the border areas. Due to this constant upheaval border life was fast and furious.

The clans were pragmatic survivors who would turn any circumstance to their advantage. Some historians would say that the reivers lifestyle developed as constant violent upheaval of the border meant that people were pushed into reiving as a retaliation for their lands being invaded, and pillaged by enemy armies.

However, others say that the clans were just gangs who deliberately cultivated a lifestyle of reprobates.

The Reiver

The Border revier, in modern terms, could be described as a small-holder or gentleman farmer, but he was also a professional cattle rustler. He was a fighting man, a guerrilla soldier of great resource to whom the arts of theft, raid, tracking and ambush were second nature.

He was also often a gangster organised on highly professional lines, who had perfected the protection racket three centuries before Chicago was built. The border reivier came from every class, and from both sides of the England/Scotland border.

The Border country

The Border country was divided for administrative purposed into three Marches - East, Middle and West - with a boundary for the English and Scottish side of each March. Each of the six marches had a governing officer known as a Warden, appointed by their respective governments.

The warden's duties were to defend the frontier against invasion from the opposite realm in wartime, and in peace to put down crime and co-operate with the Wardens across the Border for the maintenance of law and order. The wardens tended to be either locals or too far from home to be accountable and the majority were susceptible to corruption.

With reckless thieving and violence, keeping the peace seemed a hopeless task and corruption and adversity was rife. Only the English warden's complaints have survived in the records. They describe the place as "ungovernable".

In one memorandum of 1579 a warden attempted to list the reasons for the increasing deterioration of the English Marches.

It lists:

• • Private English feuds
• • Scottish spoils
• • The long peace, which led to the neglect of horses and weapons
• • Dishonest Scottish wardens; and
• • Blackmail

The debatable land

The debatable land was an area 20 miles long by 8 miles wide between the realms of Scotland and England that belonged to neither crown. In practice it was a no mans land, with its own 'laws', which in practice, were virtually impossible to impose. The clans who lived there were notoriously mercurial in their political allegiances and the debatable land was known to be "English at its pleasure and Scottish at its will".

The border clans were outsiders in every sense of the word. By their lawlessness but also socially and politically. The people who lived in this area were detached from the crown realms of England and Scotland. As a result they were a mercurial lot, who would change their allegiance between countries to suit their own ends and swap alliances between clans within the border territories if it would provide dividends.

Scot pillaged Scot, Englishman robbed Englishman just as readily as they raided across the border frontier. Feuds were just as deadly between families on the same side of the border as those from opposite sides.

Blackmail

The practice of protection money was begun in this area. The first use of the word 'Blackmayle' stems from here. 'Greenmayle' was the word for rent paid by tenant farmers for their agricultural land. 'Blackmayle' was the word for rent collected at night, by the reivers.

'Blackmayle' was paid to a powerful reiver or outlaw and in return the reiver not only left the farmer alone, but also was also obliged to protect him from other raiders and to recover his goods if they were carried off. There was no secrecy about this. The Grahams were inclined to view themselves as rather robust insurance companies than extortionists.

However, the poor and those unable to pay blackmayle were "ridden upon daily and spoiled" and had their goods carried off by the Graham raiders. In 1596 Rowland Robson of Allenstead testified that more than 60 tenants in the Lanercost areas were paying blackmail to Richie Graham of Brackehnill.

The Hot Trod

Whilst the debateable land sat outside crown law and order there was an informal system of border laws and as a result, occasional peace. Days of Truce were called when the wardens from either side of the border would meet and discuss troublemakers, grievances would be aired and fines imposed. These informal meetings were known as the 'courts of the border'.

One of the mainstays of border law was the Hot Trod. This was the 24 - 48 hour time limit allowed for reivers to give chase, catch their rivals and reclaim goods. If they couldn't do it within this time then the reviers would have to appeal to the warden and lodge their complaint. However, as many wardens were as corrupt as the reivers, to ensure any action was taken, extortion money was often paid back to the crown!

Brutal lives

Reiver life was brutal especially when it came to issues of crime and punishment. The border marches were occupied by a series of towers and beacons every few miles interspersed with large castles, such as Hermitage in Liddlesdale, which were the warden's residences and important as prisons as well as for defence. For those reivers that were caught by wardens, they met a sticky end. Many were executed.

Some of the castles had dungeons which were deep holes fitted with iron spikes pointing upward out of the floor. The reivers who were caught stealing or pilfering on their land would literally be thrown overboard onto the dungeons lethal spikes, and to their deaths. For some, a stranger fate awaited. Some of the dungeons were fitted with human cages, built for captive reivers who were more socially significant and 'worth something'.

Kidnapping was a legacy from the old Border wars, in which it had been recognised as a legitimate practice to hold prisoners for ransom. In peacetime, the taking of prisoners was unlawful. However, it was common for reivers to operate this kind of kidnap system too.

The penalty for this was imprisonment and payment of compensation, and the legislation, which was passed from time to time to prevent kidnapped persons from entering into bonds and assurance with their captor, was generally disregarded.

In practice, reiver prisoners were normally ransomed, sometimes for a few shillings however a hostage might be lifted to use as a bargaining tool for the release of another captured reiver by a rival clan or warden.

Ritchie Graham would have used Brackenhill Tower to house rival reivers as prisoners. However, unlike the wardens, reivers would not risk incurring the wrath of rival clans by killing their captors. The prisoner would be fed and watered but not abused. Rather they would utilise their captive to for the return of stolen goods, or for bartering for the return of someone from their family who had been kidnapped.

This way of life meant that no man could walk about unarmed, no householder could sleep secure, no beast or cattle left unguarded. Life was tense.

The End

Reiving continued unbounded until the early 1600's. But the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 allowed James VI of Scotland to also become James I of England and the reivers days were numbered.

In the week following the death of Queen Elizabeth I the Graham, Armstrong and Elliot clans, celebrated with one last, almighty rampage lifting over four thousand cattle. This is known as 'Ill Week' and much of the English/Scots border was left ruined.

After this the political and social climate in which the reivers had thrived became untenable. The Union of the Crowns created a 'Great Britain' and James I set out to eradicate the reivers and the turbulent life of the border by establishing a far-reaching campaign, known as "pacifying the borders".

There was now to be only one realm. The marches would cease to exist and the border region would be 'rechristened' the Middle shires. The reivers were no longer able to avoid prosecution and take sanctuary in the limbo of the debatable lands. Suddenly, there was nowhere left to hide.

Courts were set up in the Border towns and known reivers were arrested. The more troublesome and lower classes were executed, without trial, known as 'Jeddart (Jedburgh) Justice' and mass hanging soon became a common occurrence.

It took James I ten years, but he succeeded and the borders became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under central law and order.

The Border Laws, which both crowns- and the reivers - had frequently used for their own ends, were abolished and the law of the land was to be obeyed by one and all. Some nationalist Scottish historians describe this campaign as tantamount to 'ethnic cleansing'.