by Robert Low
Hepburn, the Keeper of Liddesdale, Arran the Regent, Thomas Wharton and Wat Scott are all real, as is the the plot to kidnap the new-born Mary Queen of Scots, fomented by Henry VIII following the death of King James and the refusal of the Scots to fall in with his plan to marry the baby to his son, Prince Edward. Such a hare-brained scheme was never implemented, but the delicious what-if of it was too good a plot to ignore. After all, another wild plot of Henry’s was put into operation and succeeded – the assassination of Henry’s implacable Catholic foe, Cardinal Beaton.
The Borders was – and is – a beautiful, wild, bleak place. And though their hospitality to strangers is improved, there remains a hardy, suspicious, brave breed still living in the Debatable Land.
I hope I have done them all justice.
Glossary
APOSTLES – A collection of wooden, stoppered flasks filled with an exact amount of powder and ball for a single pistol or caliver shot, which made for quicker and more reliable loading. They were suspended by a cord from a leather bandolier worn by arquebusiers, seven flasks in front and five in back, for a total of twelve, hence the name.
BASTEL (OR BASTLE) HOUSE – Probably derived from the French bastille, a family dwelling along the Scottish-English border designed for defence against raiding. It had one-metre-thick stone walls, a slate rather than thatched roof and was two storeys high. The lower floor was used to secure beasts – cattle and horses – and had a double door, the outer in stout wood-timbers, the inner a metal grille called a ‘yett’. There was an internal ladder to the upper levels, which might also include a garret space underneath the roof, which was usually drawn up at night and the trapdoor closed. The windows were small or even just arrow slits.
BARMKIN – A defensive wall built round a castle or keep, usually with a walkway for sentries.
BIRL – To spin round
BILL – An official warrant, issued by a March Warden or the like, demanding that a suspected miscreant present himself for judgement. If ignored – fouled – then someone appointed by the authorities would go and fetch him. This was Batty’s job until open war ended all Warden activity.
BLACKMEAL – A payment made ‘off the books’ to answer extortion or threat from a neighbour. Paid, usually, in goods particularly grain (meal) or livestock, it was the basis of ensuring some measure of peace along a Border area essentially ruled by the equivalent of Mafia mob bosses. The origin, of course, of the word ‘blackmail’.
CALIVER – An improved version of the arquebus, in that it had standard bore, making loading faster and firing more accurate.
CRUCK HOUSE – A building made of frame of curved timbers set in pairs. Used to build small huts up to large barns, it was the simplest cheapest building method of the medieval age.
CRUSIE – A simple container with a wick that provided light.
CUSTRIN – A rogue, base fellow or varlet.
DAGG – A pistol as opposed to a long-barrel musket.
DEBATABLE LAND – An area ten miles long and four wide whose ownership was disputed between Scotland and England, resulting in edicts against either country settling it. The area’s people promptly ignored this and powerful clans moved in, notably the Armstrongs. For three hundred years they and others effectively controlled the land, resisting all attempts by Scotland or England to interfere. It became a haven for outlaws of all sides.
FOUTIE – Despicably underhand.
GRAYNE – Borders word for ‘clan’. ‘Name’ is another version of it.
HEMPIE – A rogue likely to be hanged (‘hemped’).
HIRPLE – Limp
HOT TROD – The formalities of pursuing reivers, usually by the forces of the Wardens. Up to six days after the siezure of any cattle by thieves taking them across the other side of the Border, the forces attempting to recover them and apprehend the guilty were permitted to also cross the Border freely in pursuit. They had to do it with ‘hue and cry, with horn and hound’ and were also obliged to carry a smouldering peat on the point of a lance to signify the task they were on.
HUNKER-SLIDING – Someone creeping while crouched; obviously up to no good.
JACK – The ubiquitous garment of the Border warrior – the jack of plates. Most ordinary Border fighters had a jack, a sleeveless jerkin with either iron or the cheaper horn plates sewn between two layers of felt or canvas.
JALOUSE – To surmise or suspect.
JEDDART STAFF – A Scottish polearm, said to have originated in Jedburgh and consisting of a spear point, a thin glaive on one side and a hook or spike on the other. Able – by Border riders – to be used horsed or on foot.
KERTCH – A kerchief, usually used by married women to cover their hair.
KISTING – Funeral. A kist is a chest or a box.
KITHAN – A sneak-thief.
LATCHBOW – A cheap crossbow, light enough to be used from horseback, with a firing mechanism as simple as a door latch. The power was light but at close range it would wound or kill an unprotected man and knock the wind out of one wearing a jack.
PERJINK – Proper, neat.
PHTHISIS – Sixteenth-century term for pulmonary tuberculosis or similar wasting disease.
PRIMERO – 16th century poker where you attempt to bluff your competitors out of betting against you. Players vie or vye by stating how high a hand they are claiming to have and can flat-out lie to overstate it. It was played using a 40-card deck, but there are no surviving written rules, only descriptions.
RAMSTAMPIT – Blustering loud boaster.
RIDE/RIDING – The raids mounted by one reiver family, or Name, against another, either for robbery or revenge. Depending on how many family members and affiliated Names you could get to join you, these were brief affairs of one night or ones involving several thousand men who could lay waste to entire villages and towns on either side of the Border. The usual Riding times lasted from Lammas (Aug 1) to Candlemas (Feb 2).
SCUMFISH – How raiders got people out of their bastel houses – the modern definition is ‘to disgust or stifle’ which is what raiders did, by getting on the roof and throwing damp burning bracken down the chimney, essentially smoking out the inhabitants. The defenders kept covered wooden buckets handy, forked the burning bracken into them and closed the lid until the contents could be thrown back outside.
SKLIMMING – Moving fast. Can also mean throwing stones across a pond.
SLORACH – Any bog or morass or filthy mess you might step in.
SLOW MATCH – Early firearms were called ‘matchlocks’ because they were ignited by a smouldering fuse, called a slow-match, brought down into the pan. Keeping a slow-match smouldering required constant vigilance, a good manufacturer – and no rain. By the middle of the 16th century, wheel locks, were being made. More reliable, they had a spinning striker that created a flint spark as igniter.
SNELL – Cold, icy.
STRAVAIGIN – Wandering or scattered.
TESTOON – Coin minted during the last days of Henry VIII, with more copper than silver in it, so that the portrait of Henry on one side wore down to the copper on his embossed nose; they became known as ‘coppernoses’ as a result. Eventually became the English shilling of pre-decimal currency.
YALDSON – Yet one more insult: son of a prostitute.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Copyright © Robert Low, 2020
The moral right of Robert Low to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788639545
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Derek Stewart and Julia Stewart for supplying reenactment images used on the cover artwork.
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