marched to Jedburgh, executed twenty or thirty of moreland took place upon the Borders of England. the transgressors, burnt many houses, and brought Their tumultuary forces were soon dispersed, and a number of prisoners to Edinburgh. The chieftains the Earls themselves, with their principal followers, of the principal clans were also obliged to grant sought refuge upon the Scottish Marches. Norpledges for their future obedience. A noted conven- thumberland was betrayed into the hands of the tion (for the particulars of which, see Border Laws, Regent; but Westmoreland, with his followers, p. 84) adopted various regulations, which were at- took refuge in the Castle of Fairnihirst, where he tended with great advantage to the Marches.* was protected by its powerful owner. The Regent The unhappy match betwixt Henry Darnley and himself came to Jedburgh, to obtain possession of his sovereign led to new dissensions on the Borders. these important pledges; but as he marched towards The Homes, Kers, and other East Marchers, hast- the Castle of Fairnihirst, his men shrunk from him ened to support the Queen, against Murray, Chatel- by degrees, till he was left with a small body of his herault, and other nobles, whom her marriage had own personal dependents, inadequate to the task offended. For the same purpose, the Johnstones, for which he had undertaken the expedition. WestJardines, and clans of Annandale, entered into moreland afterwards escaped to Flanders by sea. bonds of confederacy. But Liddesdale was under Robert Constable, a spy sent by Sir Ralph Sadler the influence of England; insomuch, that Ran- into Scotland, gives a lively account of the state of dolph, the meddling English minister, proposed to the Borders at this time.§ hire a band of strapping Elliots, to find Home business at Home, in looking after his corn and cattle.KEITH, p. 265. App. 133.

Not long afterwards occurred that period of gene-day of truce," ral confusion on the Borders, when the insurrection of the Catholic earls of Northumberland and West

The Commissioners on the English side were, the elder Lord Scroope of Bolton, Sir John Foster, Sir Thomas Gargrave, and Dr. Rookby. On the Scottish side, appeared Sir John Maxwell of Terreagles, and Sir John Bellenden.

The Queen's Mire is still a pass of danger, exhibiting, in many places, the bones of the horses which have been entangled in it. For what reason the Queen chose to enter Liddesdale, by the circuitous route of Hawick, is not told. There are other two passages from Jedburgh to Hermitage Castle; the one by the Note of the Gate, the other over the mountain called Winburgh. Either of these, but especially the latter, is several miles shorter than that by Hawick and the Queen's Mire. But, by the circuitous way of Hawick, the Queen could traverse the districts of more friendly clans, than by going directly into the disorderly province of Liddesdale.

1 The followers of these barons are said to have stolen the horses of their friends, while they were engaged in the battle.

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 Fairnihìrst, in their own country; and, after an unsuccessful attempt to surprise Jedburgh, even these warm adherents of Mary relinquished her cause in despair.

lanrig, and Jardine of Applegirth. On the Eastern | does our history present another enterprise, so well Border, the faction of the infant King was more planned, so happily commenced, and so strangely powerful; for, although deserted by Lord Home, the disconcerted. To the license of the Marchmen the greater part of his clan, under the influence of Wed-failure was attributed; but the same cause ensured a derburn, remained attached to that party. The safe retreat.-SPOTTISWOODE, GODSCROFT, ROBERTLaird of Cessford wished them well, and the Earl soN, MELVILLE. 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 lad waste, their castles burned and destroyed. The narrow vales of Beaumont and Kale, belonging to Buccleuch, were treated with peculiar severity; and the forays of Hertford were equalled by that of Sussex. In vain did the chiefs request assistance from the government to 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 show 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 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 those days, were held to presage the deadly breach shortly to be made in that body, by the death of him in whose name it was convoked.

war.

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 reins 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 before 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 expressing their awe and dread of his person, termed the Lion's Den. But Morton could not live in retirement; and, early in the same year, Amid the most undisturbed security of confidence, the aged lion again rushed from his cavern. By a the lords who composed this parliament were roused mixture of policy and violence, he possessed himat daybreak by the shouts of their enemies, in the self of the fortress of Stirling, and of the person of heart of the town. God and the Queen! resounded James. His nephew, Angus, hastened to his asfrom every quarter, and in a few minutes, the Resistance. Against him appeared his own old adhegent, with the astonished nobles of his party, were rent Cessford, with many of the Homes, and the prisoners to a band of two hundred Border cavalry, led by Scott of Buccleuch, and to the Lord Claud from a journal of principal events, in the years 1570, 1571, 1572, and part of 1573, kept by Richard Bannatyne, amanuensis to John Hamilton, at the head of three hundred infantry. Knox. The fourt of September, they of Edinburgh, horsemen These enterprising chiefs, by a rapid and well-con- and futmen, (and, as was reported, the most part of Clidisdaill, certed manoeuvre, had reached Stirling in a night that pertenit to the Hamiltons,) come to Striveling, the number of ini or iii e men, on hors bak, guydit be ane George Bell, their hacmarch from Edinburgh, and, without so much as butteris being all horsed, enterit in Striveling, be fyve houris in the being bayed at by a watch-dog, had seized the prin- morning, (whair thair was never one to mak watche.) crying this cipal street of the town. The fortunate obstinacy slogane, God and the Queen! Ane Hamiltoune! Think on the of Morton saved his party. Stubborn and undaunt- Bishop of St. Androis-all is owres; and so a certaine come to everie grit manis ludgene, and apprehendit the Lordis Mortoun ed, he defended his house till the assailants set it in and Glencarne; but Mortounis hous they set on fyre, wha rander fames, and then yielded with reluctance to his kins-it him to the Laird of Baleleuch. Wormestoun being appointed man, Buccleuch. But the time which he had gain- to the Regentes hous, desyred him to cum furth, which he had ed effectually served his cause. The Borderers had him, tho't it best to come in will, nor to byde the extremitie, beno will to doc, yet, be perswasione of Garleys, and otheris with dispersed to plunder the stables of the nobility; the caus they supposed there was no resistance, and saw the Regent infantry thronged tumultuously together on the come furth, and was rendered to Wormestoune, under promeis to main street, when the Earl of Mar, issuing from the save his lyfe. Captayne Crawfurde, being in the town, gat sum men out of the castell, and uther gentlemen being in the town, castle, placed one or two small pieces of ordnance, come as they my't best to the geat, chased them out of the town. in his own half-built house, which commands the The Regent was shot by ane Captaine Cader, who confessed that market-place. Hardly had the artillery begun to he did it at commande of George Bell, wha was commandit so to doe be the Lord Huntlie and Claud Hamilton. Some says, that scour the street, when the assailants, surprised in Wormestoun was schot by the same schot that slew the Regent, their turn, fled with precipitation. Their alarm was but alwayis he was slane, notwithstanding the Regent cryed to increased by the townsmen thronging to arms. save him, but it enld not be, the furie was so grit of the persew Those who had been so lately triumphant, were now, aris, who, following so fast, the Lord of Mortone said to Balcleuch, I sall save you as ye savit me,' and so he was tane. in many instances, asking the protection of their own Garleys, and sindrie otheris, ware slane at the Port, in the pursute prisoners. In all probability, not a man would have of thame. Thair war ten or twelve gentlemen slane of the King's escaped death, or captivity, but for the characteristic folks, and als mony of theris, or mea, as was said, and a dozen or rapacity of Buccleuch's marauders, who, having lane also. This Cader, that schot the Regent, was once turned xvi tane. Twa especiall servantis of the Lord Argyle's were seized and carried off all the horses in the town, bak off the toune, and was send again (as is said) be the Lord left the victors no means of following the chase. Huntlie, to cause Wormistoun retire; but, before he come agane, The Regent was slain by an officer, named Caulder, he was dispatched, and had gottin deidis woundis. in order to prevent his being rescued. Spens of Ormiston, to whom he had surrendered, lost his life in a generous attempt to protect him. Hardly *This building still (1802) remains in the unfinished state which it then presented.

Barrel says, that "the Regent was shot by an unhappy fellow, while sitting on horseback behind the Laird of Buccleuch."-The following curious account of the whole transaction, is extracted D

"The Regent being schot, (as said is.) was brought to the castel, what he callit for ane phisitione, one for his soule, ane uther for his bodie. But all hope of life was past, for he was schot in his entreallis; and swa, after sumthingis spokin to the Lordis,

which I know not, he departed in the feare of God, and made a blised end; whilk the rest of the Lordis, that tho't thame to his hiert, and lyile reguardit him, shall not mak so blised ane end, unles they mend their maneirs."

This curious manuscript has been published under the inspection of John Graham Dalyell, Esq.

*

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 enterprise 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 Ker of 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.-SPOTTISWOODE, p. 341.

citizens of Edinburgh. Alluding to the restraint of or perhaps to achieve, the death of his monarch. the King's person, they bore his effigy on their ban-In one of the courts of inquisition, which James ners, with a rude rhyme, demanding liberty or delighted to hold upon the professors of the occult death.-BIRREL's Diary, ad annum 1578. The Earl sciences, some of his cousin's proceedings were of Morton marched against his foes as far as Fal- brought to light, for which he was put in ward in kirk, and a desperate action must have ensued, but the Castle of Edinburgh. Burning with revenge, for the persuasion of Bowes, the English ambassa- he broke from his confinement, and lurked for some dor. The only blood then spilt, was in a duel be-time upon the Borders, where he hoped for the twixt Tait, the follower of Cessford, and Johnstone, countenance of his son-in-law, Buccleuch. Undea West Border man, attending upon Angus. They terred by the absence of that chief, who, in obedience fought with lances, and on horseback, according to to the royal command, had prudently retired to the fashion of the Borders. The former was un- France, Bothwell attempted the desperate enterhorsed and slain, the latter desperately wounded.- prise of seizing the person of the King, while residing GODSCROFT, vol. ii. p. 261. The prudence of the late in his metropolis. At the dead of the night, folRegent appears to have abandoned him, when he lowed by a band of Borderers, he occupied the court was decoyed into a treaty upon this occasion. It of the palace of Holyrood, and began to burst open was not long before Morton, the veteran warrior, the doors of the royal apartments. The nobility, and the crafty statesman, was forced to bend his distrustful of each other, and ignorant of the extent neck to an engine of death, the use of which he of the conspiracy, only endeavoured to make good himself had introduced into Scotland. 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 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 enterprises, 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 modeThe tyranny of Arran becoming daily more in- ration, only stipulated for remission of his forfeiture, supportable, the exiled lords, joined by Maxwell, and did not even insist on remaining at court, Home, Bothwell, and other Border chieftains, seized whence his party was shortly expelled, by the rethe town of Stirling, which was pillaged by their turn of the Lord Home, and his other enemies. disorderly followers, invested the castle, which sur-Incensed at this reverse, Bothwell levied a body of rendered at discretion, and drove the favourite from four hundred cavalry, and attacked the King's guard the King's council.† in broad day upon the Borough Moor near Edinburgh. The ready succour of the citizens saved James from falling once more into the hands of his turbulent subject. 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. 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.ll

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 thy prince, who never wronged thee? I wish thee a more quiet spirit, else I foresee thy destruction."-SPOTTISWOODE, p. 343.

While these scenes were passing in the metropolis, the Middle and Western Borders were furiously agitated. The families of Cessford and Fairnihirst dis

In fact, the extraordinary enterprises 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 enterprises, joined to the man's native daring : Spottiswoode says, the King awaited this charge with firmand violent spirit, rendered Bothwell the most tur-author, instead of the firm deportment of James, when seized ness; but Birrel avers, that he fled upon the gallop. The same bulent insurgent that ever distracted the tranquillity by Bothwell, describes the king's majestie" as "flying down the of a kingdom. During the King's absence in Den-back stair, with his breeches in his hand, in great fear."-BIRmark, Bothwell, swayed by the superstition of his age, had tampered with certain soothsayers and witches, by whose pretended art he hoped to foretel,

* A rude sort of guillotine, called the maiden. The implement is now in possession of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries. [By a curious coincidence, one of the very first that suffered by the Guillotine, is said to have been the surgeon who invented and gave his name to that more celebrated maiden-Er.]

The associated nobles seem to have owed their success chiefly to the Border spearmen; for though they had a band of mercenaries, who used fire-arms, yet they were such bad masters of their craft, their captain was heard to observe, that those, who knew his soldiers as well as he did, would hardly choose to march be fore them."-GODSCROFT vol. ii. p. 268.

RELL, apud DALYELL, p. 30. Such is the difference betwixt the narrative of the courtly archbishop, and that of the Presbyterian

burgess of Edinburgh.

This rencounter took place at Humbie, in East Lothian. Bothwell was attended by a servant, called Gibson, and Cessford by one of the Rutherfords, who was hurt in the cheek. The combatants parted from pure fatigue; for the defensive armour of the times was so completely impenetrable, that the wearer sel dom sustained much damage by actual wounds.

Sir Walter Raleigh, in writing of Essex, then in prison, says "Let the Queen hold Bothwell while she bath him."-MURDIN, vol. ii. p. 812. It appears from Creichton's Memoirs, that Bothwell's grandson, though so nearly related to the royal family, actually rode a private in the Scottish horse guards, in the reign of Charles II--Edinburgh, 1731, p. 42.

[See Notes to Old Mortality.-ED.]

puted their right to the wardenry of the Middle IN these hasty sketches of Border history, I have Marches, and to the provostry of Jedburgh; and endeavoured to select such incidents as may introWilliam Kerr of Ancram, a follower of the latter, duce to the reader the character of the Marchmen, was murdered by the young chief of Cessford, at more briefly and better than a formal essay upon the instigation of his mother.-SPOTTISWOODE, P. their manners. If I have been successful in the at353. But this was trifling, compared to the civil tempt, he is already acquainted with the mixture of war waged on the western frontier, between the courage and rapacity by which they were distinJohnstones and Maxwells, of which there is a mi-guished, and has reviewed some of the scenes in nute account in the introduction to the ballad, en- which they acted a principal part.. It is, therefore, titled. "Marwell's Goodnight." Prefixed to that only necessary to notice, more minutely, some of termed Kinmont Willie," the reader will find an their peculiar customs and modes of life. account of the last warden raids performed on 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 state of comparative civilizaton. 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. 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 Bri-parts of their own country.§ tain to congratulate herself upon their departure. It may be presumed that few of this corps ever returned to their native country. The clan of Græme, a hardy and ferocious set of freebooters, inhabiting chiefly the Debateable Land, were, by a very summary exertion of authority, 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 said that, in mockery of justice, assizes were held upon them after they had suffered. For these acts of tyranny, see JOHNSTON, pp. 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.

Their morality was of a singular kind. The rapine, by which they 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 followers and favourites of the military magistrate, whose ordinary duty it was to check and suppress them. See the curious history of Geordie Bourne, App. No. II. Equally unable and unwilling to 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

Satchells, who lived when the old Border ideas of meum and tuum were 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.

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:
curious extracts from Mercurius Politicus, a newspaper, pub-
lished during the usurpation.
"Thursday, November 11, 1662.
"Edinburgh.-The Scotts and Moss-troopers have again re-
vived their old custom of robbing and nurthering the English,
whether soldiers or other, upon all opportunities, within these
three weeks. We have had notice of several robberies and mur-
other of Col. Overton's regiment, returning from England, were
robbed not far from Dunbarr. A lieutenant, lately master of the
this place; and four foot-soldiers of Col. Overton's were killed,
customs at Kirkcudbright, was killed about twenty miles from
going to their quarters, by some mossers, who, after they had
given them quarter, tied their hands behind them, and then threw
them down a steep hill or rock, as it was related by a Scotch-
man, who was with them, but escaped."

• "Proclamation shall be made, that all inhabiting within Tyders, committed by them. Among the rest, a lieutenant, and one pedale and Riddesdale, in Northumberland; Bewcastledale, Willgavey, the north part of Gisland, Esk, and Leven, in Cum berland: East and West Tividale, Lidderdale, Eskdale, Ewsdale, and Annerdale, in Scotland, (saving noblemen and gentlemen un; suspected of felony and theft, and not being of broken clans, and their household servants, dwelling within those several places, befure recited shall put away all armour and weapons, as well offensive as defensive, as jacks, spears, lances, swords, daggers, steel-caps, harkbets, pistols, plate-sleeves, and such like; and shal not keep any horse, gelding, or mare, above the value of fifty stallings sterling, or thirty pounds Scots, upon the like pain of imprisonment."-Proceedings of the Border Commissioners, 186. Introduction to History of Cumberland, p. 127.

A similar proverb in England of the same interpretation, is Lydford Lair, derived from Lydford, a corporation in Devonshire, where, it seems, the same irregular administration of justice pre

A burlesque copy of verses on this town begins,
"I oft have heard of Lydford Law,
How in the morn they hang and draw,
And sit in judgment after."

See WESCOTT'S History of Devonshire.

: See the arts 19 Cha. II. ch. 3, and 30 Cha. II. ch. 2, against the Border Moss-troopers; to which we may add the following

Ibidem." October 13, 1663.-The Parliament, October 12, past felons, (commonly called, or known, by the name of Moss-troopan act, declaring, any person that shall discover any felon, or ers,) residing upon the Borders of England and Scotland, shal. have a reward of ten pound upon their conviction."

The armorial bearings, adopted by many of the Border tribes, show how little they were ashamed of their trade of rapine. Like Falstaff, they were "Gentlemen of the night, minions of the moon," under whose countenance they committed their depredations. Hence, the emblematic moons and stars so frequently charged in the arms of Border families. Their mottos also bear an allusion to their profession :-" Reparabit cornua Phœbe," i. e. "We'll have moonlight again," is that of the family of Harden; "Ye shall want, ere I want," that of Cranstoun; Watch weel," of Haliburton, &c.

But, since King James the Sixth to England went,
There has been no cause of grief;
And he that hath transgressed since then

Is no Freebooter, but a Thief."

History of the Name of Scott.

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

and insipid. The interesting nature of their exploits
may be conceived from the account of Camden.
"What manner of cattle-stealers they are that in-
habit 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

The inhabitants of the inland counties did not understand these subtle distinctions. Sir David Lind-end of long fabour, to the last degree tame, languid, say, in the curious drama, published by Mr. Pinkerton, introduces as one of his dramatis persona, 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. Oppression also, (another personage there introduced,) seems to be connected with the Borders: for, find-Borders, in the night, in troops, through unfrequenting himself in danger, he exclaims,-

PINKERTON'S Scottish Poems, vol. ii. p. 180.

ed by-ways, and many intricate windings. All the daytime 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 pre

Again, when Common Thift is brought to condigncipices, in the thickest mists and darkness, his repunishment, he remembers his Border friends in his putation is the greater, and he is looked upon as a dying speech:

"The widdefow wardanis tuik my geir,
And left me nowthir horse nor meir,
Nor erdly guid that me belangit;
Now, walloway! I mon be hangit.

Adew my bruthir Annan thieves,
That holpit me in my mischevis;
Adew! Grossars, Nicksonis, and Bells,
Oft have we fairne owrthreuch the fells:
Adew! Robsons, Howis, and Pylis,
That in our craft has mony wilis:
Littlis, Trumbells, and Armestranges;
Adew all theeves, that me belangis;
Bailowes, Erewynis, and Elwandis,
Speedy of flicht, and slicht of handis;
The Scotts of Eisdale, and the Gramis,
1 haif na time to tell your nameis."

PINKERTON'S Scottish Poems, vol. ii. p. 156. When Common Thift is executed, (which is performed upon the stage,) Falset, (Falsehood,) who is also brought forth for punishment, pronounces over him the following elegy:

"Wacs me for thee, gude Common Thift!
Was never man made more honest chift,
His living for to win:

Thair wes not, in all Liddesdaill,
That ky mair craftily could steil,

Whar thou hingis on that pin!"

PINKERTON's Scottish Poems, vol. ii. p. 194.

Sir Richard Maitland, incensed at the boldness and impunity of the thieves of Liddesdale in his time, has attacked them with keen iambics. His satire, which, I suppose, had very little effect at the time, forms No. III. of the Appendix to this introduction.

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 track, they may chance to fall into the hands of their adversaries. When being taken, they have 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 excite them to admiration and compassion."-CAMDEN'S Britannia. The reader is requested to compare this curious account, given by Lesley, with the ballad called Hobbie Noble.t

The inroads of the Marchers, when stimulated only by the desire of plunder, were never marked with cruelty, and seldom even with bloodshed, unless in the case of opposition. They held, that property was common to all who stood in want of it; but they abhorred and avoided the crime of unnecessary homicide.-LESLEY, p. 63. This was, perhaps, partly owing to the habits of intimacy betwixt the Borderers of both kingdoms, notwithstanding their mutual hostility and reciprocal depredations. A natural intercourse took place between the English and Scottish Marchers at Border meetings, and during the short intervals of peace. They met frequently at parties of the chase and football; and

required many and strict regulations on both sides, to prevent them from forming intermarriages, and from cultivating too close a degree of intimacy.Scottish Acts, 1587, c. 105; WHARTON'S Regulations, 6th Edward VI. The custom, also, of paying blackThe Borderers had, in fact, little reason to re- mail, or protection-rent, introduced a connexion begard the inland Scots as their fellow-subjects, or to twixt the countries; for a Scottish Borderer, taking respect the power of the Crown. They were fre-black-mail from an English inhabitant, was not quently resigned, by express compact, to the bloody only himself bound to abstain from injuring such retaliation of the English, without experiencing any his property, if carried off by others. Hence, a person, but also to maintain his quarrel, and recover assistance from their prince, and his more immediate subjects. If they beheld him, it was more fre- union arose betwixt the parties, founded upon muquently in the character of an avenging judge, than tual interest, which counteracted, in many instances, The similarity of of a protecting sovereign. They were in truth, du- the effects of national prejudice. ring the time of peace, a kind of outcasts, against The following tradition is also illustrative of Lesley's acwhom the united powers of England and Scotland count. Veitch of Dawyk, a man of great strength and bravery, were often employed. Hence the men of the Bor-who flourished in the 16th century, is said by tradition to have ders had little attachment to their monarchs, whom been upon bad terms with a neighbouring proprietor, Tweedie of they termed, in derision, the Kings of Fife and Lo-Drummelzier, dwelling also near the source of Tweed. By some accident a flock of Dawyk's sheep had strayed over into Drumthian; provinces which they were not legally entitled melzier's grounds, at the time when Dickie of the Den, a Lidto inhabit, and which, therefore, they pillaged with desdale outlaw, was making his rounds in Tweeddale. Seeing as little remorse as if they had belonged to a foreign this flock of sheep, he drove them off without ceremony. Next morning, Veitch, perceiving his loss, summoned his servants and country. This strange, precarious, and adventurous retainers, laid a blood hound upon the traces of the robber, by mode of life, led by the Borderers, was not without whom they were guided for many miles, till, on the banks of Lidits pleasures, and seems, in all probability, hardly del, the dog stayed upon a very large hay-stack. The pursuers so disagreeable to us, as the monotony of regulated were a good deal surprised at the obstinate pause of the bloodhound, till Dawyk pulled down some of the hay, and discovered society must have been to those who had been long a large excavation, containing the robber and his spoil. He inaccustomed to a state of rapine. Well has it been stantly flew upon Dickie, and was about to poniard him, when remarked, by the eloquent Burke, that the shifting the marauder, with the address noticed by Lesley, protested that he would never have touched a cloot (hoof) of the booty, had he not taken them for Drummelzier's property. This dexterous ap poal to Veitch's passions saved the life of the freebooter.

By an act 1587, c. 96, Borderers are expelled from the inland counties, unless they can find security for their quiet deportment.