[xxviii]
The arrival of French auxiliaries, and of French gold, rendered vain the splendid successes of the English. One by one, the fortresses which they occupied were recovered by force, or by stratagem; and the vindictive cruelty of the Scottish borderers made dreadful retaliation for the, injuries they had sustained. An idea may be conceived of[xxix]this horrible warfare, from the memoirs of Beaugé, a French officer, serving in Scotland.
The castle of Fairnihirst, situated about three miles above Jedburgh, had been taken and garrisoned by the English. The commander and his[xxx]followers are accused of such excesses of lust and cruelty "as would," says Beaugé, "have made to tremble the most savage moor in Africa." A band of Frenchmen, with the laird of Fairnihirst, and[1549]his borderers, assaulted this fortress. The English archers showered their arrows down the steep ascent, leading to the castle, and from the outer wall by which it was surrounded. A vigorous escalade, however, gained the base court, and the sharp fire of the French arquebusiers drove the bowmen into the square keep, or dungeon, of the fortress. Here the English defended themselves, till a breach in the wall was made by mining. Through this hole the commandant creeped forth; and, surrendering himself to De la Mothe-rouge, implored protection from the vengeance of the borderers. But a Scottish marc-hman, eyeing in the captive the ravisher of his wife, approached him ere the French officer could guess his intention, and, at one blow, carried his head four paces from the trunk. Above a hundred Scots rushed to wash their hands in the blood of their oppressor, bandied about the severed head, and expressed their joy in such shouts, as if they had stormed the city of London. The prisoners, who[xxxi]fell into their merciless hands, were put to death, after their eyes had been torn out; the victors contending who should display the greatest address in severing their legs and arms, before inflicting a mortal wound. When their own prisoners were slain, the Scottish, with an unextinguishable thirst for blood, purchased those of the French; parting willingly with their very arms, in exchange for an English captive. "I myself," says Beaugé, with military sang-froid, "I myself sold them a prisoner for a small horse. They laid him down upon the ground, galloped over him with their lances in rest, and wounded him as they passed. When slain, they cut his body in pieces, and bore the mangled gobbets, in triumph, on the points of their spears. I cannot greatly praise the Scottish for this practice. But the truth is, that the English tyrannized over the borders in a most barbarous manner; and I think it was but fair to repay them, according to the proverb, in their own coin."—
Campagnes de Beaugé.
A peace, in 1551, put an end to this war; the most destructive which, for a length of time, had ravaged Scotland. Some attention was paid by the governor and queen-mother, to the administration of justice on the border; and the chieftains, who had distinguished themselves during the late troubles, received the honour of knighthood[17].[1522]At this time, also, the Debateable Land, a tract of country, situated betwixt the Esk and Sarke, claimed by both kingdoms, was divided by royal commissioners, appointed by the two crowns.—By their award, this land of contention was separated by a line, drawn from east to west, betwixt the rivers. The upper half was adjudged to Scotland, and the more eastern part to England. Yet the Debateable Land continued long after to be the residence of the thieves and banditti, to whom its dubious state had afforded a desirable refuge[18].
[xxxii]
In 1557, a new war broke out, in which rencounters on the borders were, as usual, numerous, and with varied success. In some of these, the too famous Bothwell is said to have given proofs of his courage, which was at other times very questionable[19]. About this time the Scottish borderers seem to have acquired some ascendency over their southern neighbours.—Strype, Vol. III. p. 437—In 1559, peace was again restored.
The flame of reformation, long stifled in Scotland, now burst forth, with the violence of a volcanic eruption. The siege of Leith was commenced, by the combined forces of the Congregation and of England. The borderers cared little about speculative points of religion; but[xxxiii]they shewed themselves much interested in the treasures which passed through their country, for payment of the English forces at Edinburgh. Much alarm was excited, lest the marchers should intercept these weighty protestant arguments; and it was, probably, by voluntarily imparting a share in them to Lord Home, that he became a sudden convert to the new faith[20].
Upon the arrival of the ill-fated Mary in her native country, she found the borders in a state of great disorder. The exertions of her natural brother (afterwards the famous regent, Murray) were necessary to restore some degree of tranquillity. He marched to Jedburgh, executed twenty or thirty of the transgressors, burned many houses, and brought a number of prisoners to Edinburgh. The chieftains of the principal clans were also obliged to grant pledges for their future obedience. A noted convention (for the particulars of which, see[xxxiv]Border Laws, p. 84.) adopted various regulations, which were attended with great advantage to the marches[21].
The unhappy match, betwixt Henry Darnley and his sovereign, led to new dissentions on the border. The Homes, Kerrs, and other east marchers, hastened to support the queen, against Murray, Chatelherault, and other nobles, whom her marriage had offended. For the same purpose the Johnstones, Jardines, and clans of Annandale entered into bonds of confederacy. But Liddesdale was under the influence of England; in so much, that Randolph, the English minister, proposed to hire a band ofstrapping Elliots, to find Home business at home, in looking after his corn and cattle.—Keith, p. 265.App. 133.
This storm was hardly overblown, when Bothwell received the commission of lieutenant upon the borders; but, as void of parts as of principle, he could not even recover to the queen's allegiance his own domains in[xxxv]Liddesdale.—Keith, App. 165. The queen herself advanced to the borders, to remedy this evil, and to hold courts at Jedburgh. Bothwell was already in Liddesdale, where he had been severely wounded, in an attempt to seize John Elliot, of the Parke, a desperate freebooter; and happy had it been for Mary, had the dagger of the moss-trooper struck more home. Bothwell being transported to his castle of Hermitage, the queen, upon hearing the tidings, hastened thither, A dangerous morass, still called theQueen's Mire[22], is pointed out by tradition as the spot where the lovely Mary, and her white palfrey, were in danger of perishing. The distance betwixt Hermitage and Jedburgh, by the way of Hawick, is nearly twenty-four English[xxxvi]miles. The queen went and returned the same day. Whether she visited a wounded subject, or a lover in danger, has been warmly disputed in our latter days.
To the death of Henry Darnley, it is said, some of the border lords were privy. But the subsequent marriage, betwixt the queen and Bothwell, alienated from her the affections of the chieftains of the marches, most of whom aided the association of the insurgent barons. A few gentlemen of the Merse, however, joined the army which Mary brought to Carberry-hill. But no one was willing to fight for the detested Bothwell, nor did Bothwell himself shew any inclination to put his person in jeopardy. The result to Mary was a rigorous captivity in Lochleven castle; and the name of Bothwell scarcely again pollutes the page of Scottish history.
The distress of a beautiful and afflicted princess softened the hearts of her subjects; and, when she escaped from her severe captivity, the most powerful barons in Scotland crowded around her standard. Among these were many of the west border men, under the lords Maxwell[xxxvii]and Herries[23]. But the defeat at Langside was a death-blow to her interest in Scotland.
The death of the regent Murray, in 1569, excited the party of Mary to hope and to exertion. It seems, that the design of Bothwelhaugh, who slew him, was well known upon the borders; for, the very day on which the slaughter happened, Buccleuch and Fairnihirst, with their clans, broke into England, and spread devastation along the frontiers, with unusual ferocity. It is probable they well knew that the controuling hand of the regent was that day palsied by death. Buchanan exclaims loudly against this breach of truce with Elizabeth, charging Queen Mary's party with having "houndit furth proude and uncircumspecte young men, to hery, burne, and slay, and tak prisoneris, in her realme, and use all misordour and crueltie, not only usit in weir, but detestabil to all barbar and wild Tartaris, in slaying of prisoneris, and contrair to all humanitie and justice, keeping na promeis to[xxxviii]miserabil catives resavit anis to thair mercy "—Admonitioun to the trew lordis, Striveling, 1571. He numbers, among these insurgents, highlanders as well as borderers, Buccleuch and Fairnihirst, the Johnstons and Armstrongs, the Grants, and the clan Chattan. Besides these powerful clans, Mary numbered among her adherents, the Maxwells, and almost all the west border leaders, excepting Drumlanrig, and Jardine of Applegirth. On the eastern border, the faction of the infant king was more powerful; for, although deserted by Lord Home, the greater part of his clan, under the influence of Wedderburn, remained attached to that party. The laird of Cessford wished them well, and the Earl of Angus naturally followed the steps of his uncle Morton. A sharp and bloody invasion of the middle march, under the command of the Earl of Sussex, avenged with interest the raids of Buccleuch and Fairnihirst. The domains of these chiefs were laid waste, their castles burned and destroyed. The narrow vales of Beaumont and Kale, belonging to Buccleuch, were treated with peculiar severity; and the forrays of Hertford were equalled by that of Sussex. In vain did the chiefs request assistance from the government to[xxxix]defend their fortresses. Through the predominating interest of Elizabeth in the Scottish councils, this was refused to all but Home, whose castle, nevertheless, again received an English garrison; while Buccleuch and Fairnihirst complained bitterly that those, who had instigated their invasion, durst not even come so far as Lauder, to shew countenance to their defence against the English. The bickerings, which followed, distracted the whole kingdom. One celebrated exploit may be selected, as an illustration of the border fashion of war.
The Earl of Lennox, who had succeeded Murray in the regency, held a parliament at Stirling, in 1571. The young king was exhibited to the great council of his nation. He had been tutored to repeat a set speech, composed for the occasion; but, observing that the roof of the building was a little decayed, he interrupted his recitation, and exclaimed, with childish levity, "that there was a hole in the parliament,"—words which, in these days, were held to presage the[xl]deadly breach shortly to be made in that body, by the death of him in whose name it was convoked.
Amid the most undisturbed security of confidence, the lords, who composed this parliament, were roused at day-break, by the shouts of their enemies in the heart of the town.God and the Queen! resounded from every quarter, and, in a few minutes, the regent, with the astonished nobles of his party, were prisoners to a band of two hundred border cavalry, led by Scott of Buccleuch, and to the Lord Claud Hamilton, at the head of three hundred infantry. These enterprising chiefs, by a rapid and well concerted manoeuvre, had reached Stirling in a night march from Edinburgh, and, without so much as being bayed at by a watch-dog had seized the principal street of the town.—The fortunate obstinacy of Morton saved his party. Stubborn and undaunted, he defended his house till the assailants set it in flames, and then yielded with reluctance to his kinsman, Buccleuch. But the time, which he had gained, effectually served his cause. The borderers had dispersed to plunder the stables of the nobility; the infantry thronged tumultuously together on the main street, when the[xli]Earl of Mar, issuing from the castle, placed one or two small pieces of ordnance in his own half-built house[24], which commands the market place. Hardly had the artillery begun to scour the street, when the assailants, surprised in their turn, fled with precipitation. Their alarm was increased by the townsmen thronging to arms. Those, who had been so lately triumphant, were now, in many instances, asking the protection of their own prisoners. In all probability, not a man would have escaped death, or captivity, but for the characteristic rapacity of Buccleuch's marauders, who, having seized and carried off all the horses in the town, left the victors no means of following the chace. The regent was slain by an officer, named Caulder, in order to prevent his being rescued. Spens of Ormeston, to whom he had surrendered, lost his life in a generous attempt to protect him[25]. Hardly does our history present another enterprise, so well planned, so happily[xlii]commenced, and so strangely disconcerted. To the licence of the marchmen the failure was attributed; but the same cause ensured a safe retreat.—Spottiswoode, Godscroft, Robertson, Melville.
[xliii]
The wily Earl of Morton, who, after the short intervening regency of Mar, succeeded to the supreme authority, contrived, by force or artifice, to render the party of the king every where superior. Even on the middle borders, he had the address to engage in his cause the powerful, though savage and licentious, clans of Rutherford and Turnbull, as well as the citizens of Jedburgh. He was thus enabled to counterpoise his powerful opponents, Buccleuch and Fairnihirst,[xliv]in their own country; and, after an unsuccessful attempt to surprise Jedburgh even these warm adherents of Mary relinquished her cause in despair.
While Morton swayed the state, his attachment to Elizabeth, and the humiliation which many of the border chiefs had undergone, contributed to maintain good order on the marches, till James VI. himself assumed the reigns of government.—The intervening skirmish of the Reidswire (see the ballad under that title) was but a sudden explosion of the rivalry and suppressed hatred of the borderers of both kingdoms. In truth, the stern rule of Morton, and of his delegates, men unconnected with the borders by birth, maintained in that country more strict discipline than had ever been there exercised. Perhaps this hastened his fall.
The unpopularity of Morton, acquired partly by the strict administration of justice, and partly by avarice and severity, forced him from the regency. In 1578, he retired, apparently, from state affairs, to his castle of Dalkeith; which the populace, emphatically[xlv]expressing their awe and dread of his person, termed theLion's Den. But Morton could not live in retirement; and, early in the same year, the aged lion again rushed from his cavern. By a mixture of policy and violence, he possessed himself of the fortress of Stirling, and of the person of James. His nephew, Angus, hastened to his assistance. Against him appeared his follower Cessford, with many of the Homes, and the citizens of Edinburgh. Alluding to the restraint of the king's person, they bore his effigy on their banners, with a rude rhyme, demanding liberty or death.—Birrel's Diary, ad annum, 1578. The Earl of Morton marched against his foes as far as Falkirk, and a desperate action must have ensued, but for the persuasions of Bowes, the English ambassador. The only blood, then spilt, was in a duel betwixt Tait, a follower of Cessford, and Johnstone, a west border man, attending upon Angus. They fought with lances, and on horseback, according to the fashion of the borders.—The former was unhorsed and slain, the latter desperately wounded.—Godscroft, Vol. II. p. 261. The prudence of the late regent appears to have abandoned him, when he was decoyed into a treaty upon this occasion.[xlvi]It was not long before Morton the veteran warrior, and the crafty statesman, was forced bend his neck to an engine of death[26], the use of which he himself had introduced into Scotland.
Released from the thraldom of Morton, the king, with more than youthful levity, threw his supreme power into the hands of Lennox and Arran. The religion of the first, and the infamous character of the second favourite, excited the hatred of the commons, while their exclusive and engrossing power awakened the jealousy of the other nobles. James, doomed to be the sport of contending factions was seized at Stirling by the nobles, confederated in what was termed the Raid of Ruthven. But the conspirators soon suffered their prize to escape, and were rewarded for their enterprize by exile or death.
In 1585, an affray took place at a border meeting in which Lord Russel, the Earl of Bedford's eldest son, chanced to be slain. Queen Elizabeth imputed the guilt of this slaughter to Thomas Kerr of[xlvii]Fairnihirst, instigated by Arran. Upon the imperious demand of the English ambassador, both were committed to prison; but the minion, Arran, was soon restored to liberty and favour; while Fairnihirst, the dread of the English borderers and the gallant defender of Queen Mary, died in his confinement, of a broken heart.—Spottiswoodep. 341.
The tyranny of Arran becoming daily more insupportable the exiled lords, joined by Maxwell, Home, Bothwell, and other border chieftains, seized the town of Stirling, which was pillaged by their disorderly followers, invested the castle, which surrendered at discretion, and drove the favourite from the king's council[27].
The king, perceiving the Earl of Bothwell among the armed barons, to whom he surrendered his person addressed him in these prophetic words:— "Francis, Francis, what moved thee to come in arms against[xlviii]thy prince, who never wronged thee? I wish thee a more quiet spirit, else I foresee thy destruction."—Spottiswoode, p. 343.
In fact, the extraordinary enterprizes of this nobleman disturbed the next ten years of James's reign. Francis Stuart, son to a bastard of James V., had been invested with the titles and estates belonging to his maternal uncle, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, upon the forfeiture of that infamous man; and consequently became lord of Liddesdale, and of the castle of Hermitage.—This acquisition of power upon the borders, where he could easily levy followers, willing to undertake the most desperate enterprize, joined to the man's native daring and violent spirit, rendered Bothwell the most turbulent insurgent, that ever disturbed the tranquillity of a kingdom. During the king's absence in Denmark, Bothwell, swayed by the superstition of his age, had tampered with certain soothsayers and witches, by whose pretended art he hoped to atchieve the death of his monarch. In one of the courts of inquisition, which James delighted to hold upon the professors of the occult sciences, some of his cousin's proceedings[xlix]were brought to light, for which he was put in ward in the castle of Edinburgh. Burning with revenge, he broke from his confinement, and lurked for some time upon the borders, where he hoped for the countenance of his son-in-law, Buccleuch. Undeterred by the absence of that chief, who, in obedience to the royal command, had prudently retired to France, Bothwell attempted the desperate enterprize of seizing the person of the king, while residing in his metropolis. At the dead of night, followed by a band of borderers, he occupied the court of the palace of Holyrood, and began to burst open the doors of the royal apartments. The nobility, distrustful of each other, and ignorant of the extent of the conspiracy, only endeavoured to make good the defence of their separate lodgings; but darkness and confusion prevented the assailants from profiting by their disunion. Melville, who was present, gives a lively picture of the scene of disorder, transiently illuminated by the glare of passing torches; while the report of fire arms, the clatter of armour, the din of hammers thundering on the gates, mingled wildly with the war-cry of[xlx]the borderers, who shouted incessantly, "Justice! Justice! A Bothwell! A Bothwell!" The citizens of Edinburgh at length began to assemble for the defence of their sovereign; and Bothwell was compelled to retreat, which he did without considerable loss.—Melville, p. 356. A similar attempt on the person of James, while residing at Faulkland, also misgave; but the credit which Bothwell obtained on the borders, by these bold and desperate enterprizes, was incredible "All Tiviotdale," says Spottiswoode, "ran after him;" so that he finally obtained his object; and, at Edinburgh, in 1593, he stood before James, an unexpected apparition, with his naked sword in his hand. "Strike!" said James, with royal dignity—"Strike, and end thy work! I will not survive my dishonour." But Bothwell with unexpected moderation, only stipulated for remission of his forfeiture, and did not even insist on remaining at court, whence his party was shortly expelled, by the return of the Lord Home, and his other enemies. Incensed at this reverse, Bothwell levied a body of four hundred cavalry, and attacked the king's guard in broad day, upon the Borough[xlxi]Moor, near Edinburgh.—The ready succour of the citizens saved James from falling once more into the hands of his turbulent subject[28]. On a subsequent day, Bothwell met the laird of Cessford, riding near Edinburgh, with whom he fought a single combat, which lasted for two hours[29]. But his credit was now fallen; he retreated to England, whence he was driven by Elizabeth, and then wandered to Spain and Italy, where he subsisted, in indigence and obscurity, on the bread which he earned by apostatizing to the faith of Rome. So fell this agitator of domestic broils, whose name passed into a proverb, denoting a powerful and turbulent demagogue[30].
[xlxii]
While these scenes were passing in the metropolis the borders were furiously agitated by civil discord. The families of Cessford and Fairnihirst disputed their right to the wardenry of the middle marches, and to the provostry of Jedburgh; and William Kerr of Ancram, a follower of the latter, was murdered by the young chief of Cessford, at the instigation of his mother.—Spottiswoode, p. 383. But this was trifling, compared to the civil war, waged on the western frontier, between the Johnstones and Maxwells, of which there is a minute account in the introduction to the ballad, entitled, "Maxwell's Goodnight." Prefixed to that termed "Kinmont Willie" the reader will find an account of the last warden raids performed upon the border.
My sketch of border history now draws to a close. The accession of James to the English crown converted the extremity into the centre of his kingdom.
The east marches of Scotland were, at this momentous period, in a[xlxiii]state of comparative civilization. The rich soil of Berwickshire soon invited the inhabitants to the arts of agriculture.—Even in the days of Lesley, the nobles and barons of the Merse differed in manners from the other borderers, administered justice with regularity, and abstained from plunder and depredation.—De moribus Scotorum, p. 7. But, on the middle and western marches, the inhabitants were unrestrained moss-troopers and cattle drivers, knowing no measure of law, says Camden, but the length of their swords. The sterility of the mountainous country, which they inhabited, offered little encouragement to industry; and, for the long series of centuries, which we have hastily reviewed, the hands of rapine were never there folded in inactivity, nor the sword of violence returned to the scabbard. Various proclamations were in vain issued for interdicting the use of horses and arms upon the west border of England and Scotland[31].
[xlxiv]
The evil was found to require the radical cure of extirpation. Buccleuch collected under his banners the most desperate of the border warriors, of whom he formed a legion, for the service of the states of Holland; who had as much reason to rejoice on their arrival upon the continent, as Britain to congratulate herself upon their departure. It may be presumed, that few of this corps ever returned to their native country. The clan of Graeme, a hardy and ferocious set of freebooters inhabiting chiefly the Debateable Land, by a very summary exertion of authority, was transported to Ireland, and their return prohibited under pain of death. Against other offenders, measures, equally arbitrary, were without hesitation pursued. Numbers of border riders were executed, without even the formality of a trial; and it is even[xlxv]said, that, in mockery of justice, assizes were held upon them after they had suffered. For these acts of tyranny, seeJohnston, p. 374, 414, 39, 93. The memory of Dunbar's legal proceedings at Jedburgh, are preserved in the proverbial phrase,Jeddart Justice, which signifies, trial after execution. By this rigour though sternly and unconscientiously exercised the border marauders were, in the course of years, either reclaimed or exterminated; though nearly a century elapsed ere their manners were altogether assimilated to those of their countrymen[32].
In these hasty sketches of border history, I have endeavoured to select, such incidents, as may introduce to the reader the character of the marchmen, more briefly and better than a formal essay upon their manners. If I have been successful in the attempt, he is already acquainted with the mixture of courage and rapacity by which they were distinguished; and has reviewed some of the scenes in which they acted a principal part. It is, therefore only necessary to notice, more minutely, some of their peculiar customs and modes of life.
Their morality was of a singular kind. The ranpine, by which they[xlxvi]subsisted, they accounted lawful and honourable. Ever liable to lose their whole substance, by an incursion of the English, on a sudden breach of truce, they cared little to waste their time in cultivating crops, to be reaped by their foes. Their cattle was, therefore, their chief property; and these were nightly exposed to the southern borderers, as rapacious and active as themselves. Hence, robbery assumed the appearance of fair reprisal. The fatal privilege of pursuing the marauders into their own country, for recovery of stolen goods, led to continual skirmishes The warden also, himself frequently the chieftain of a border horde, when redress was not instantly granted by the opposite officer, for depredations sustained by his district, was entitled to retaliate upon England by a warden raid. In such cases, the moss-troopers, who crowded to his standard, found themselves pursuing their craft under legal authority, and became the favourites and followers of the military magistrate, whose duty it was to have checked and suppressed them. See the curious history ofGeordie Bourne, App. No. II. Equally unable and unwilling to[xlxvii]make nice distinctions, they were not to be convinced, that what was to-day fair booty, was to-morrow a subject of theft. National animosity usually gave an additional stimulus to their rapacity; although it must be owned, that their depredations extended also to the more cultivated parts of their own country[33].
Satchells, who lived when the old border ideas ofmeumandtuumwere still in some force, endeavours to draw a very nice distinction betwixt a freebooter and a thief; and thus sings he of the Armstrongs:
On that border was the Armstrongs, able men;
Somewhat unruly, and very ill to tame.
I would have none think that I call them thieves,
For, if I did, it would be arrant lies.
[xlxviii]
Near a border frontier, in the time of war,
There's ne'er a man but he's a freebooter.
Because to all men it may appear,
The freebooter he is a volunteer;
In the muster rolls he has no desire to stay;
He lives by purchase, he gets no pay.
It's most clear a freebooter doth live in hazard's train;
A freebooter's a cavalier that ventures life for gain:
But, since King James the Sixth to England went,
Ther has been no cause of grief;
And he that hath transgress'd since then,
Is noFreebooter, but aThief.
History of the name of Scott.
The inhabitants of the inland counties did not understand these subtle distinctions. Sir David Lindsay, in the curious drama, published by Mr Pinkerton, introduces, as one of hisdramatis personae, Common Thift, a borderer, who is supposed to come to Fife to steal the Earl of Rothes' best hackney, and Lord Lindsay's brown jennet.Oppressionalso (another personage there introduced), seems to be connected with the borders; for, finding himself in danger, he exclaims,—
War God that I were sound and haill,
Now liftit into Liddesdail;
The Mers sowld fynd me beiff and caill,
What rack of breid?
[xlxix]
War I thair lyftit with my lyfe,
The devill sowld styk me with a knyffe,
An' ever I cum agane in Fyfe,
Till I were deid.—
Pinkerton's Scotish Poems, Vol. II p. 180.
Again, whenCommon Thiftis brought to condign punishment, he remembers his border friends in his dying speech:
The widdefow wardanis tuik my geir,
And left me nowthir horse nor meir,
Nor erdly gud that me belangit;
Now, walloway! I mon be hangit.
Adew! my bruthir Annan thieves,
That holpit me in my mischevis:
Adew! Grossars, Niksonis, and Bells,
Oft have we fairne owthreuch the fells:
Adew! Robsons, Howis, and Pylis,
That in our craft hes mony wilis:
Littlis, Trumbells, and Armestranges;
Adew! all theeves, that me belangis;
Baileowes, Erewynis, and Elwandis,
Speedy of flicht, and slicht of handis:
The Scotts of Eisdale, and the Gramis,
I half na time to tell your namis.
Ib. p. 156.
WhenCommon Thiftis executed (which is performed
upon the stage),Falset(Falsehood), who is
also brought forth for punishment, pronounces
over him the following eulogy:
[xlxx]
Waes me for thee, gude Common Thift!
Was never man made more honest chift,
His living for to win:
Thair wes not, in all Liddesdail,
That ky mair craftelly could steil,
Whar thou hingis on that pin!
Ib. p. 194.
Sir Richard Maitland, incensed at the boldness and impunity of the thieves of Liddesdale in his time, has attacked them with keen iambicks. His satire, which, I suppose, had very little effect at the time, forms No. III, of the appendix to this introduction.
The borderers had, in fact, little reason to regard the inland Scots as their fellow subjects, or to respect the power of the crown. They were frequently resigned, by express compact, to the bloody retaliation of the English, without experiencing any assistance from their prince, and his more immediate subjects. If they beheld him, it was more frequently in the character of an avenging judge, than of a protecting sovereign. They were, in truth, during the time of peace, a kind of outcasts, against whom the united powers of England and Scotland were often employed. Hence, the men of the borders had little[xlxxi]attachment to the monarchs, whom they termed, in derision, the kings of Fife and Lothian; provinces which they were not legally entitled to inhabit[34], and which, therefore, they pillaged with as little remorse as if they had belonged to a foreign country. This strange, precarious, and adventurous mode of life, led by the borderers, was not without its pleasures, and seems, in all probability, hardly so disagreeable to us, as the monotony of regulated society must have been to those, who had been long accustomed to a state of rapine. Well has it been remarked, by the eloquent Burke, that the shifting tides of fear and hope, the flight and pursuit, the peril and escape, alternate famine and feast, of the savage and the robber, after a time render all course of slow, steady, progressive, unvaried occupation and the prospect only of a limited mediocrity at the end of long labour, to the last degree tame, languid, and insipid. The interesting nature of their exploits may be conceived from the account of Camden.
[xlxxii]
"What manner of cattle stealers they are, that inhabit these valleys in the marches of both kingdoms, John Lesley, a Scotchman himself, and bishop of Ross, will inform you. They sally out of their own borders, in the night, in troops, through unfrequented bye-ways, and many intricate windings. All the day-time, they refresh themselves and their horses in lurking holes they had pitched upon before, till they arrive in the dark at those places they have a design upon. As soon as they have seized upon the booty, they, in like manner, return home in the night, through blind ways, and fetching many a compass. The more skilful any captain is to pass through those wild deserts, crooked turnings, and deep precipices, in the thickest mists and darkness, his reputation is the greater, and he is looked upon as a man of an excellent head.—And they are so very cunning, that they seldom have their booty taken from them, unless sometimes, when, by the help of blood-hounds following them exactly upon the tract, they may chance to fall into the hands of their adversaries. When being taken, they have[xlxxiii]so much persuasive eloquence, and so many smooth insinuating words at command, that if they do not move their judges, nay, and even their adversaries (notwithstanding the severity of their natures), to have mercy, yet they incite them to admiration and compassion."—Camden's Britannia.The reader is requested to compare this curious account, given by Lesley, with the ballad, calledHobble Noble[35].