George Fraser - The Steel Bonnets

George MacDonald Fraser

THE STEEL BONNETS

The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers

“If Jesus Christ were emongest

them, they would deceave him,

if he woulde heere, trust and

followe theire wicked councells!”

RICHARD FENWICK 1597

HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Previously published in trade paperback by Harvill 1989

Reprinted five times

First published by Harvill 1986

First published in Great Britain by

Barrie &Jenkins 1971

Copyright © George MacDonald Fraser 1971

The Author asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

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In memory of

Corporal IKE BLAKELEY

of the Border Regiment, killed

by a Japanese sniper at Kinde Wood,

Central Burma, 1945, and for

BOB GRAHAM and SLIM IRVINE

wounded in the same action.

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Maps

Introduction: The Border Reivers

Part One: THE MAKING OF A FRONTIER

I: Hadrian draws the line

II: The moving boundaries

III: England v. Scotland, 1286–1500

Part Two: PEOPLE OF THE MARCHES

IV: Border country

V: “A martial kind of men”

VI: Food and shelter

VII: The riding surnames

VIII: Hands across the Border

IX: Bangtail and company

X: The game and the song

Part Three: “SHAKE LOOSE THE BORDER”

XI: Lance and steel bonnet

XII: How the reivers rode

XIII: Nothing too hot or too heavy

XIV: A parcel of rogues (William Armstrong of Kinmont, Walter Scott of Harden, Geordie Burn)

XV: Carleton’s raid

XVI: Hot trod and red hand

XVII: The ability to kill

XVIII: The Wardens of the Marches

XIX: Leges Marchiarum

XX: Days of truce

XXI: The unblessed hand (Maxwells v. Johnstones, Grahams v. Irvines, Kerrs v. Scotts, Scotts v. Elliots, Selbys v. Grays)

XXII: Terror, blackmail, kidnapping and “decaie”

XXIII: “Fyre and sword upon Tuesday next”

Part Four: THE LONG GOOD-NIGHT, 1503–1603

XXIV: Flodden and after. Biographical note on Thomas Dacre

XXV: The Devil, and Lord Angus

XXVI: Armstrongs in action

XXVII: A rope for Black Jock

XXVIII: The violent peace

XXIX: The road to Solway Moss. Note on the prisoners of Solway Moss

XXX: The rough wooing

XXXI: Wharton and Maxwell

XXXII: England’s grip broken

XXXIII: The Debateable Land

XXXIV: The women’s touch

XXXV: Queen on the Marches

XXXVI: The Countess and the reivers

XXXVII: The last armies

XXXVIII: Reidswire and Windygyle

XXXIX: The stirring world of Robert Carey

XL: “Fyrebrande”

XLI: Lances to Carlisle

XLII: The Carleton Brothers

Part Five: THE MIDDLE SHIRES

XLIII: Carey’s ride

XLIV: Breaking the Border

XLV: Malefactors of the name of Graham

XLVI: The thieves dauntoned

XLVII: After the riding

Appendix I: The Archbishop of Glasgow’s “Monition of Cursing” against the Border reivers

Appendix II: The ballad of Kinmont Willie

Bibliography

Glossary

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

At one moment when President Richard Nixon was taking part in his inauguration ceremony, he appeared flanked by Lyndon Johnson and Billy Graham. To anyone familiar with Border history it was one of those historical coincidences which send a little shudder through the mind: in that moment, thousands of miles and centuries in time away from the Debateable Land, the threads came together again; the descendants of three notable Anglo-Scottish Border tribes—families who lived and fought within a few miles of each other on the West Marches in Queen Elizabeth’s time—were standing side by side, and it took very little effort of the imagination to replace the custom-made suits with leather jacks or backs-and-breasts. Only a political commentator would be tactless enough to pursue the resemblance to Border reivers beyond the physical, but there the similarity is strong.

Lyndon Johnson’s is a face and figure that everyone in Dumfriesshire knows; the lined, leathery Northern head and rangy, rather loose-jointed frame belong to one of the commonest Border types. The only mystery is when the “t” which distinguishes Border Johnstones from the others of the name was dropped from his surname. Billy Graham has frequently advertised his Scottishness, perhaps a little thoughtlessly, since there are more Grahams on the southern side of the line than on the northern, but again, the face is familiar.

Richard Nixon, however, is the perfect example. The blunt, heavy features, the dark complexion, the burly body, and the whole air of dour hardness are as typical of the Anglo-Scottish frontier as the Roman Wall. Take thirty years off his age and you could put him straight into the front row of the Hawick scrum and hope to keep out of his way. It is difficult to think of any face that would fit better under a steel bonnet.

None of this, possibly, is capable of definite proof, but one can at least say that the names go with the faces, and that Johnson and Nixon especially are excellent specimens of two distinct but common Border types.

It seems reasonable to suppose that the people of the Border country have not changed a great deal, physically or characteristically, in four centuries. Although the frontier line still lies between Scot and Englishman, they are now considerably mixed in the racial sense, particularly on the English side. A good half of the people of Carlisle are at least partly Scottish; there are as many Armstrongs and Johnstones as there are Forsters and Hetheringtons. But the racial composition of the Borderland generally has not altered so very much; the Elliots and Fenwicks, Bells and Nixons, Littles and Scotts, Maxwells and Kerrs (and Carrs) are still where they were in the sixteenth century, and although the Border is in many ways an even greater mental barrier than it once was, one can say that both sides together form a distinct and separate cultural and social bloc which is apart from the rest of the British people.