The Debatable Land

by Graham Robb

  ‘now duelland in the Debatable Land’: Livingstone, I, 454; Pitcairn, I, 1, 235.

  ‘ar in the Debatable landis’: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 211; Hannay, 124.

  the Storeys, ‘Lang Will’ and his eight sons: T. Musgrave to Burghley, end 1583: CBP, I, 124–5; Mackay MacKenzie, 117.

  ‘Let slip Tynedale and Redesdale’: Northumberland to Henry VIII, 23 August 1532: LPH8, V, 541.

  Hedderskale bog: T. Dacre to R. Maxwell, 24 June 1517: LPH8, II, 1082; R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 209. The name, not otherwise recorded, referred to a part of Solway Moss.

  ‘Scottish when they will, and English at their pleasure’: T. Musgrave to Burghley, end 1583: CBP, I, 126.

  ‘wilde and mysguyded menn’: Dr Magnus to Cumberland, 1526: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 231.

  ‘That same Debatable grounde’: T. Wharton to English Privy Council, 25 September 1541: HP, I, 101–2.

  ‘to brenne, destroye, waiste’: T. Dacre to Scots Privy Council, 6 July 1517: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 209 n.

  an immodest report: T. Dacre to English Privy Council, 17 May 1514: LPH8, I, 1261; Johnstone, 51–2.

  ‘only remnants of old houses’: T. Dacre to Wolsey, 11 June 1524: LPH8, IV, 174; Hyslop, 349.

  ‘None of the people of Beaucastell’: W. Dacre to Wolsey, 4 August 1526: LPH8, IV, 1060.

  assembled two thousand soldiers: ‘The true Copie of th’Indictament of Riche Grahame of Esk’: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. xxvi.

  the new pele tower at Holehouse: Letters of W. Dacre and bills of R. Maxwell: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, pp. xxiv–xxv. On pele towers and bastles generally: P. Dixon; Durham; Maxwell-Irving.

  ‘Black Jock’: R. B. Armstrong, pt 2, f. 8, distinguishing John Armestrange alias Black Jock from John of Gilnockie.

  ‘a great host’: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 247.

  ‘burnt and destroyed’: W. Dacre to Wolsey, 2 April 1528: SPH8, IV, 492.

  a mass attack was launched: LPH8, IV, 1935.

  ‘a privy postern’: W. Dacre to Wolsey, 2 April 1528: SPH8, IV, 489.

  ‘loveynge bedfello’, Elizabeth: E. Dacre to W. Dacre, 2 June 1528: LPH8, IV, 1901.

  ‘common theft and reset of theft’: Pitcairn, I, 1, 152–4 (quoting several other accounts).

  ‘Farewell! my bonny Gilnock hall’: W. Scott (1803), I, 69.

  ‘the lordship of Eskdale’: Livingstone et al., VIII, 195; Pitcairn, I, 1, 154 (8 July 1530: ‘the Gift of all gudis movabill and unmovabill . . . quhilkis pertenit to umquhill Johnne Armstrange’).

  ‘a parcell of the Debatable grounde’: W. Dacre, answer to R. Maxwell’s bill, 1528: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. xxv.

  17. ‘Rube, Burne, Spoyll, Slaye, Murder and Destrewe’

  proclamations were usually ignored: ‘There was ane Act of Parliament needed in Scotland, a decree to enforce the observance of the others’ (George Buchanan, quoted in Borland, 40).

  ‘all Inglichemene annde Scottesmene’: ‘A Remembrance of an Order for the Debatable Lannde’ (1537): R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. xxxvii.

  ‘the West Marches of England’: T. Wharton to T. Cromwell, 26 December 1538: LPH8, XIII, 2, 476.

  Battle of Solway Moss: Contemporary reports: W. Musgrave to Anthony Browne, 24 November 1542 (HP, I, 307–8); T. Wharton, ‘A remembrance [of] the overthrow given to the Scots between Heske and Levyn [Esk and Lyne]’, 29 November 1542 (LPH8, XVII, 624–5).

  ‘sack’, ‘rase’ and ‘deface’: HP, II, 326 (Privy Council, transmitting the King’s orders to the Earl of Hertford).

  set fire to the woods: LPH8, XVIII, 1, 444.

  ‘the douncasting of certane houssis’: ALHTS, IX, 437. On fears of a Franco-Scottish invasion of the Debatable Land in 1550–51: Turnbull, ed., 52–3 and 83.

  ‘Archebald Armestronge’: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. lxi.

  ‘by assent and appointment’: ‘Patten’s Account of Somerset’s Expedition’: W. Scott (1803), I, lxix; also Anon. (1801), 166–7.

  without obtaining a licence: Luders et al., III, 751 (‘Felonyes uppon conveying of Horses into Scotland’).

  ‘the Scotland v. England internationals’: G. M. Fraser, 76.

  ‘drynkyng hard at Bewcastle house’: H. Woodrington to R. Carey, 18 May 1599: CBP, II, 605.

  John Whytfeild: CBP, II, 605.

  the ‘wild’ women of Kielder: W. Scott (1927), 462 (7 October 1827, probably referring to the late 1750s).

  Isabell Rowtledge: CBP, I, 69.

  Margaret Forster: CBP, I, 558.

  ‘Old Rich of Netherby’: CBP, I, 125.

  ‘Little was her stature’: Inscribed on her tombstone on the battlefield.

  ‘the riders and ill doers both of England and Scotland’: T. Musgrave to Cecil, end 1583: CBP, I, 120–27.

  ‘Thus your lordshipe may see’: CBP, I, 126.

  ‘the blessed union or rather reuniting’: ‘A Proclamation for the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland’: Nicolson and Burn, I, cxxii.

  hanged . . . in the market place at Haltwhistle: Archie Graeme and Mary Fenwick: Sitwell, 228.

  18. The Final Partition

  ‘wherein I perceive the Scots take great courage’: W. Dacre to Privy Council, 17 September 1550: Nicolson and Burn, I, lxxx. English fears of French influence can also be seen in a caption on the version of Bullock’s map rediscovered by R. B. Armstrong (pt 2, f. 37): ‘Lang holme where the French men have builded a strong fort of Earth’.

  ‘It is covenanted, concorded and concluded’: W. Nicolson, 58.

  burned and depopulated the Debatable Land: ALHTS, X, xvii; Boscher, 135–6.

  partition . . . proposed by the Scots in 1510: Rymer, XIII, 276; R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 198.

  ‘perusing of olde writinges and examinacion of old men’: APCE, IV, 17 (10 April 1552).

  ‘the lesse pryvey the Borderers be made’: APCE, III, 493 (28 February 1551).

  at ‘muche charge and trouble’: APCE, III, 493.

  in the middle of the Solway Firth: Boscher, 138, quoting British Library, Mss. Cotton Caligula B, VII, ff. 461–5; Burton and Masson, I, 124–5.

  the ‘juste and true’ map: APCE, III, 493 (28 February 1551; Bullock’s map was completed by May 1552).

  maps drawn of their estates: Harvey, 38; McRae, 189.

  ‘burstit of his ryding’: ALHTS, X, 82 (May 1552).

  ‘a vast extent of view’: Pennant, 85; a similar remark in Skene (97–8), who saw Liddel Moat in the 1860s.

  ‘faithfull subjectes’: APCE, III, 108.

  the commissioners’ ‘indenture’ (24 September 1552): Bain, ed. (1898–1969), I, 191.

  the cost of the ‘diche’: APCE, IV, 241.

  ‘groves and holes’: ‘The partitione of the laite Debatable lande’, 1552: CBP, II, 821.

  Blackbank: Boscher, 129–30. Its strategic importance seems to have been recognized by the Romans (here). It was also proposed as the site of a fort in ‘Military Report on the West March and Liddesdale . . . prepared . . . between the years 1563 and 1566’ (R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. cxiii).

  neither side was much concerned: E.g. Salisbury, I, no. 386: ‘if [the Commissioners] cannot reduce the Scots to the very direct division, as the Linea Stellata leadeth, they may have authority to relent to the Scots somewhat from the said right line’ (21 June 1552); also Haynes, ed., 120–21.

  ‘Gallic rigour’: Crofton, 44.

  the border line dipped abruptly: First shown on John Thomson’s map of Dumfriesshire (1828), the area was marked ‘Disputed’ on Thomas Donald’s map of Cumberland (1774), but not on Roy’s survey of 1752–5.

  19. Hector of ye Harlawe

  ‘dykes and ditches of the Debatable Land’: ALHTS, X, 170.

  ‘incursions, murders, burnings’: Nicolson and Burn, I, lxxxi.

  ‘The common thieves of Liddesdale’: R. Maitland, 52–5 (‘Aganis the Theivis of Liddisdaill’).

  ‘ane byrnyng irne’: ALHTS, X, 208.

  Dacre family had fallen into disfavour: M. James, 99.

 
‘idle and unprofitable’: Boscher, 203.

  ‘narrow and somewhat crooked’: Boscher, 202, quoting British Library, Mss. Cotton Caligula B, V, ff. 50–58. This became standard practice in the Borders: e.g. Stevenson, ed., IV, 223 (August 1561).

  ‘occupyt and manurit’: W. Fraser (1873), I, 219.

  watches were to be kept: ‘The orders of the Watches upon the West Marches made by the lord Wharton’, October 1552: Lemon et al., VI, 415; Nicolson and Burn, I, lxxxiv.

  In 1561, more than one hundred: Spence, ‘The Graham Clans’, 86 and appendix A.

  their ‘service might be acceptable’: Edward Aglionby, ‘The devision of the severall charge of the West Borders of England and Scotland’, March 1592: CBP, I, 393.

  ‘shall not suffice to make them good men’: Lord Herries (William Maxwell), 23 January 1578: W. Fraser (1873), II, 487.

  a report to the English Privy Council: CBP, I, 120–7.

  Keepers of Liddesdale: A list of the Keepers in Macpherson, 506.

  ‘Little Jock’ Elliot: E.g. Birrell, 5–6.

  ‘a warre might arise’: R. Bowes to Burghley, 8 September 1582: Bowes (1842), 183.

  ‘verie ticklie and dangerous’: John Forster to Walsingham, 23 April 1584: CBP, I, 132.

  the extraordinary sum of £4,000: G. F. Elliot, 141–2.

  ‘the gude auld Lord’: ‘Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead’, v. 93: W. Scott (1803), I, 102.

  ‘But since nae war’s between the lands’: ‘Kinmont Willie’, vv. 57–60: W. Scott (1803), I, 147.

  ‘Sparing neither age nor sex’: W. Fraser (1878), I, 58; paraphrased in CBP, II, 305.

  ‘which is theire chefest profitt’: Ralph Eure to Burghley, 29 April 1597: CBP, II, 311.

  ‘my Lord Buckpleugh did wapp the outlaws’: Lowther, 176.

  A Scottish statute of 1587: Goodare, ch. 8; Groundwater, 9. Act passed on 29 July 1587: ‘For the quieting and keping in obedience of the disorderit subjectis, inhabitantis of the bordouris, hielandis and ilis’ (RPS, 1587/7/70).

  the Isles of Lewis and Skye: Macpherson, 443.

  ‘a set of wild men’: Carey (1759), xxviii (editor’s introduction).

  ‘lurking and hiding themselves’: R. Sadler to W. Cecil, 24 December 1569: Sadler, II, 71.

  ‘to fly to one of the Armstrongs’: Earl of Sussex to Burghley, end 1569: M. Green, ed. (1871), 162.

  The site of Hector’s tower: T. Graham (1914), 137–8: ‘Mr. William Armstrong of Calside remembers the site being pointed out to him by the carter who removed the foundation stones.’ The ‘Site of Harelaw Tower’ is marked on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1862 (survey of 1858).

  ‘despised and neglected’: Watt, 291.

  ‘to take Hector’s cloak’: Percy, I, 279.

  a member of the Elliot family: Anon. (1833), 154.

  ‘a cottage not to be compared to a dog kennel’: Earl of Sussex to Burghley, end 1569: M. Green (1871), 162.

  ‘his own nearest kinsmen’: J. Maxwell, 119.

  a fantasy of the poem-writing commissioner: R. Maitland, 132 (‘Inveccyde Aganis the Delyverance of the Erle of Northumberland’, attributed to Maitland by John Pinkerton).

  ‘Hector Armestronge of the Harlawe’: CBP, I, 122 (end 1583).

  ‘Hector of the Griefs and Cuts’: R. B. Armstrong, pt 2, f. 267; W. Scott (1810), 377.

  a map of 1590: ‘A Platt of the opposete Borders of Scotland to ye west marches of England’: British Library, Royal MS 18 D.III f. 76. Also by Edward Aglionby, a version titled ‘A tract of the Bounders of the West Marches of England towardes Scotland’: TNA MPF 1/285. See illustrations.

  20. Scrope

  ‘Many servants brought in the meat’: Johnstone, 91–2.

  ‘better to hear the chirp of the bird’: B. Dixon, 141.

  ‘Yf I were further from the tempestuousnes’: Baron Willoughby (Peregrine Bertie) to R. Cecil, 12 December 1600: CBP, II, 718.

  ‘so given over to drunkenness’: R. Carey, ‘Report on the Middle March’, September 1595: CBP, II, 57.

  plague, which reached Carlisle: Nicolson and Burn, II, 234; cf. Stedman, 36.

  ‘The frontier here is very broken’: T. Scrope to Burghley, 20 August 1593: CBP, I, 494.

  a ‘mapp or card’: T. Scrope to Burghley, 20 April 1597: CBP, II, 301–2.

  ‘greate waters and flouds’: Lowther to Burghley, 28 September 1592: CBP, I, 410.

  apprentices born beyond Blackford: The ‘Dormont Book’, in Ferguson and Nanson, 66.

  ‘newlie comde to the grounde’: R. Eure to Burghley, 18 February 1596: CBP, II, 106.

  ‘in great ruine and decaye’: Anon. (1891), 36. The survey is analysed by G. P. Jones.

  ‘not worth his pay’: R. Musgrave to Burghley, 13 February 1596: CBP, II, 105–6.

  ‘the especial and peculiar property’: Walpole, 436.

  Kinmont Willie: On his arrest and escape: CBP, II, 121 ff.; Cameron, I, 292–9; Child (ballad and notes); W. Scott (1803), I, 129–43; Spottiswood, 413–15.

  Day Holm: See fig. 1. Not, as often stated, Tourney Holm, two miles downstream at Kershopefoot.

  ‘a note of pryde in him selfe’: T. Scrope, ‘A breviate of part of Buccleuch’s dealings with me since he became keeper of Liddesdale’, 18 March 1596: CBP, II, 114.

  ‘her Majesties castle of Carlel’: ‘The examination of Andrew Grame’, 25 April 1597: CBP, II, 368.

  ‘the two who lay dead at the gate’: CBP, II, 121; cf. Moysie, 126 (three guards killed).

  ‘were gotten under some covert’: CBP, II, 121.

  no more than thirty horsemen: CBP, II, 476.

  ‘With spur on heel, and splent on spauld’: ‘Kinmont Willie’, vv. 67–8: W. Scott (1803), I, 147.

  reality and border legend: On Scott’s sources and ‘conjectural emendations’ of the ballads: Zug, 237.

  ‘a bombastic piece of Scottish propaganda’: G. M. Fraser, 330.

  ‘The same 6 of Apryll 1596’: Birrell, 37.

  ‘a night laroun’: CSPRS, XII, 250; Thorpe, II, 714.

  ‘by secret passage’: CSPRS, XII, 217.

  ‘I wonder how base mynded’: Rymer, XVI, 318.

  ‘the breach in the door and wall’: CSPRS, XII, 287.

  ‘growing werie of the towne’: J. Carey to R. Cecil, 20 November 1597: CBP, II, 456–7.

  ‘two and two together on a leash like dogs’: Scottish bill against Scrope: CBP, II, 259.

  force should be applied only in extremis: Vice-Chamberlain and R. Cecil to T. Scrope, 29 December 1602: Salisbury, XII, 530–31.

  misdefined ‘pune’ as ‘armed justice’: CBP, II, 260; cf. CBP, II, 105, 116, 260, 303 and 668.

  ‘as pictures and shadowes to bodies and lyfe’: CBP, II, 260.

  ‘The dishonour to her Majesty’: CBP, II, 359.

  21. Tarras Moss

  ‘I made them welcome’: Carey (1759), 133–4; Carey (1972), 56–7.

  ‘the onelye man that hath runn a dyrect course’: CBP, II, 631.

  ‘and they to be my own servants’: Carey (1759), 111; Carey (1972), 47.

  ‘inbred thieves’: Carey (1759), 129; Carey (1972), 55.

  Carmichael . . . was shot in the back: CBP, II, 743; Pitcairn, II, pt 2, pp. 504–6.

  prevents the sword from being drawn: Godfrey Watson, 110.

  ‘I cannot keep this March’: R. Lowther to R. Cecil, 17 June 1600: CBP, II, 662.

  The Bishop of Carlisle was preaching: 26 July 1600: T. Scrope to R. Cecil, CBP, II, 671. The Bishop of Carlisle was Henry Robinson.

  ‘England and Scotland is all one’: Carey to R. Cecil, 1 August 1600: CBP, II, 674.

  ‘He was well pleased I should do my worst’: Carey to R. Cecil, 8 September 1600: CBP, II, 685.

  ‘caterpillers’: Scrope to Privy Council, 31 July, 1596: CBP, II, 160.

  ‘all fugitives, Scots or English’: Carey to R. Cecil, 27 October 1600: CBP, II, 700.

  ‘I have power enough’: Carey to R. Cecil, 13 May 1601: CBP, II, 750.

  ‘In Tynedale, w
here I was born’: Ridley (Bishop of London), 145 (‘Conferences with Latimer’).

  ‘before the next winter was ended’: Carey (1759), 117; Carey (1972), 50.

  ‘running up and down the streets’: Carey (1759), 118; Carey (1972), 50.

  within spitting distance of the Spanish Armada: Carey (1759), 18–20; Carey (1972), 9–10.

  ‘[They] did assure me’: Carey (1759), 119–20; Carey (1972), 51. The following account of Carey’s raid on Tarras Moss is largely based on Carey (1759), 121–6, and Carey (1972), 51–3.

  ‘there are now no trees in Liddesdale’: W. Scott (1803), I, 55 n.; also Arkle, 67 n. (in 1795); Oram, 28–9.

  After riding north for twenty miles: According to Carey’s original account to Robert Cecil (CBP, II, 763). His memoirs state thirty miles and five rather than three ringleaders caught.

  a map of 1821: Ainslie’s Map of the Southern Part of Scotland (1821). The Tarras Water Roman road was speculatively described in 1793: Roy, 105 (IV, 2). This would have been the first road, coming from the south, to head for the fort at Newstead after the crossing of the Liddel.

  ‘while he was besieging the outlaws’: W. Scott (1803), I, 56.

  The ‘uncommodious’ house: Carey to Burghley, 15 July 1598: CBP, II, 549.

  22. ‘A Factious and Naughty People’

  a guide to Newcastle upon Tyne: Gray, 47.

  ‘a little world within itself’: ‘A Proclamation for the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland’: Nicolson and Burn, I, cxxii.

  a play recently staged in London: Shakespeare, 3–4 (quoting P. Hammer and J. Bate).

  a ‘fortress built by nature for herself’: Shakespeare, II, 1.

  ‘the Navell or Umbilick of both Kingdomes’: ‘A Speach to Both the Houses of Parliament’, 31 March 1607: James VI and I, 169.

  ‘mean nags’ for tilling fields: Muncaster, 229 (14 February 1604).

  ‘put away all armour and weapons’: Nicolson and Burn, I, cxxviii.

  Sleuth hounds or ‘slough dogs’: Nicolson and Burn, I, cxxx.

  ‘live in sleuth and idleness’: Monnipennie, 4 pp. from end (unpaginated): ‘A Memorial of the Most Rare and Wonderfull Things in Scotland’.

  ‘Where there was nothing before . . . but bloodshed’: James VI and I, 169.

  ‘rebels, thieves, plunderers’: ‘Grant by Letters Patent of King James I to George, Earl of Cumberland’, 20 February 1604: Cumbria Archive Centre, D GN 4/1.