Loe raamatut: «Border Raids and Reivers», lehekülg 15

XV.
THE TRIUMPH OF LAW

 
’Tis 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,
There’s been no cause of grief or discontent,
And he that hath transgressed the law since then,
Is no freebooter but a thief from men.
 

Satchell.

When we turn our attention to the study of the causes which ultimately resulted in the abolition of Border reiving, we find that this desirable end was brought about, to a considerable extent at least, by a change of environment. Conditions were gradually created which made the old system not only undesirable, but unnecessary, both from a political and economic point of view. An important step was taken when Buccleuch, at the instigation of “the powers that be,” drafted off large numbers of the “broken men” to the Belgic wars. In the campaigns which were then being conducted in the Low Countries, these hardy, valiant Borderers no doubt gave a good account of themselves; but, so far as can be ascertained, few of them ever returned to “tell the tale.” Still more drastic measures were adopted in order to get rid of the Græmes, who inhabited the Debateable land, and whose depredations had provoked a bitter feeling of resentment on both sides of the Border. It seemed hopeless to expect any improvement in their habits so long as they were allowed to remain where they were, and so they were banished from the country, shipped across the channel to the Emerald Isle, where it is to be hoped they found a congenial sphere, and sufficient scope for their abilities. Perhaps in course of time they settled down to a more orderly, if less exciting, mode of life than that to which they had hitherto been accustomed.

But, notwithstanding the removal of these lawless men from the Borders, it was found that those who had been left at home were either unwilling or unable to abandon their reiving habits. The disease had long been chronic, and those responsible for the government of the country began to realise that the cure was not to be effected in any instantaneous fashion. Time and patience were alike necessary in order to the successful accomplishment of the end desiderated. The task of restoring order, more especially in the Liddesdale district, was committed to the able hands of the “Bold Buccleuch.” When he returned from abroad he was invested with the most arbitrary powers to execute justice on the malefactors, and he went about his work in the most resolute and business-like manner. Well known thieves were apprehended and immediately put to death. There were no prisons to lodge them in, and as it would have been, in most cases, a sheer waste of time to subject them to any form of trial – most of them being well known depredators who gloried in their crimes – they were executed without ceremony. In this way large numbers of the worst characters were disposed of, and a wholesome fear created in the minds of those who were fortunate enough to escape the gallows. If Buccleuch, in his rash and impetuous youth, was responsible for much of the mischief done on the Borders, he amply atoned for his indiscretions by the splendid services he now rendered to the State in suppressing lawlessness, and inaugurating, in this distracted region, the reign of law and order. His name will remain indissolubly associated with one of the most eventful and stirring periods in Border history, and we feel certain that the fame of his prowess will not suffer from a more minute acquaintance with the varied incidents of his remarkable career.

But the main factors in the social and moral regeneration of the Borders were —

(1) The Union of the Crowns.

(2) The Planting of Schools.

(3) The Restoration of the Church.

This order may not represent, and we do not think it does represent, the relative value of the influences which produced the radical and significant change which now took place in the habits and life of the people on both sides of the Border. But it will best suit our purpose to consider these agencies in the order stated.

For a period of wellnigh four hundred years it had been the ambition of successive English monarchs to reduce Scotland to a state of vassalage. From the time of Edward this object was never altogether lost sight of. Again and again the project seemed on the eve of accomplishment, but some untoward event always occurred to render the scheme abortive. Doubtless, had the union of the Crowns taken place at an earlier period, both countries would have escaped some unpleasant and regrettable experiences. There can be no doubt that the hostility which marked the relationships of the two nations, had – at least from an economic point of view – an injurious effect on the people of Scotland. Industry in all its branches was crippled by the constant turmoil which prevailed. The Scottish kings, moreover, were “cribb’d, cabin’d, confin’d” by the ambitions and jealousies of a turbulent and factious nobility, who, in their relations to the State, were too frequently dominated by unpatriotic and selfish motives. Had it been possible for the sovereign to lay a strong hand on his nobles, and compel them to pay more regard to imperial interests than to their own private ends and petty jealousies, all might have been well. But such a course was often practically impossible. The barons were all powerful within their own domain, and when it served their purposes they seldom hesitated even to usurp the authority of the king. This abnormal condition of affairs made the government of the country a matter of extreme difficulty, and gave rise to endless trouble and vexation. No doubt it may legitimately be argued that, painful as this state of matters undoubtedly was, it was after all better that the Scottish nation should have retained its independence, with all the drawbacks attaching thereto, than that it should have conceded the demand of England for annexation. The difficulties of the situation were the making of the people. This may be frankly admitted. But, at the same time, it was a good thing for the country when at last the Scottish king ascended the English throne, and became the ruler of both nations. A new era was thus inaugurated, an era of progressive wellbeing in nearly every department of national life.

It is worthy of note that, for a few years before James succeeded to the throne of England, his feeling towards the Scottish Borderers had become considerably modified. Whether this was due to the influence of the reproachful letters on the state of the Borders addressed to him by Elizabeth, or to the additional subsidy of £2000 per annum, now guaranteed to him out of the English exchequer, is a question about which there may, legitimately, be difference of opinion. In any case he now saw that it would be advantageous, from a personal as well as from a national point of view, to curb as far as he possibly could the lawless propensities of the reiving fraternity. In so doing he was wisely anticipating the time when he would be responsible for good rule on both sides of the Border. It may thus be said that even the prospect of the union of the Crowns under James had a beneficial effect. Coming events cast their shadows before. It led to the adoption of a wiser policy in regard to this particular part of the realm, with the result that for some years prior to 1603, a noticeable improvement had taken place in Border affairs. The wardens had become more anxious than before to discharge the duties of their high office with impartiality, and to use their utmost endeavour to restrain the more lawless spirits among the clansmen over whom they exercised authority. Crime was at once more expeditiously and severely punished. A firm hand was laid on the ringleaders in Border strife; and though these men were not easily daunted, and chafed bitterly under the restraints laid upon them by those in authority, yet they were soon made to realise that a new spirit was being infused into the administration, and that in consequence reiving was becoming an increasingly difficult and perilous business. But great social revolutions are not brought about in a day; and, as we shall see, it was long ere the Borders settled down into their present normal condition.

When James ascended the throne of England, the change which had been silently taking place in the management of Border affairs became at once more marked and widespread. The effect of this event was unmistakable in every department of the national life. It created, no doubt, considerable bitterness and jealousy in certain sections of society in England, as it was believed that the King was unduly partial to his own countrymen in the bestowment of his favours. This was certainly not the case, as James was far more anxious to conciliate his English subjects than to favour his native land. It would have been well for him, and his successors in office, had he discharged his duty to Scotland with less regard to English prejudices.

He was determined, however, at all hazards to suppress Border reiving. Ten days after his arrival in London he issued a proclamation requiring all those guilty of the foul and insolent outrages lately committed on the Borders, to submit themselves to his mercy before the twentieth of June, under penalty of being excluded from it for ever. Two days after this proclamation had been made he emitted another, declaring his fixed resolution to accomplish the union of the two realms; in consequence of which, the bounds possessed by the rebellious Borderers should no more be the extremities but the middle, and the inhabitants thereof reduced to a perfect obedience. He said that he had found in the hearts of his best disposed subjects of both realms, a most earnest desire for this union; and he undertook, with the advice and consent of the Estates of both Parliaments, to bring it about. In the meantime he declared that he considered the two kingdoms as presently united; and required his subjects to view them in the same light, and in consequence thereof, to abstain from mutual outrages and injuries of whatever kind, under the penalty of his highest displeasure and of suffering the strictest rigour of justice.¹³⁰

In pursuance of this policy, and in order to extinguish all past hostilities between his kingdoms, the King prohibited the name of Borders any longer to be used, substituting in its place the name Middleshires. He also ordered all the places of strength, with the exception of the habitations of noblemen and barons, to be demolished; their iron gates to be converted into ploughshares; and the inhabitants were enjoined to betake themselves to agriculture and other works of peace.

But these severe measures, accompanied as they were by the summary execution of large numbers of the worst characters on the Borders, who, as we have seen, were sent to the gallows without ceremony, would not have been sufficient of themselves to eradicate the evil. More potent influences, however, were brought into operation. The law was now administered, not spasmodically as before, but with a continuity and impartiality hitherto unknown and unattainable. It was the interest of the King and of the Government to repress disorder, to punish the lawless and disobedient, and to establish order and good rule throughout both kingdoms; and the consequence was that, in course of time, the Border reivers were made to realise that they must, perforce, abandon their old habits and betake themselves to a new mode of life. This desirable end was not attained without difficulty. Border reiving did not altogether cease for nearly a hundred years after the union of the Crowns; but the beginning of the seventeenth century inaugurated the period of its decline.

“The succession of James to the Crown of England,” Ridpath remarks, “and both kingdoms thus devolving on one sovereign, was an event fruitful of blessing to each nation. The Borders, which for many ages had been almost a constant scene of rapine and devastation, enjoyed, from this happy era, a quiet and order which they had never before experienced; and the island of Britain derived from the union of the two Crowns, a tranquility and serenity hitherto unknown, and was enabled to exert its whole native force. National prejudices, and a mutual resentment, owing to a series of wars betwixt the kingdoms, carried on for centuries, still however subsisted, and disappointed James’ favourite scheme of an entire and indissoluble union. From the same source also arose frequent disputes and feuds upon the Marches, which by the attention of the sovereign were soon and easily composed; and are not of moment enough to merit a particular relation. But it required almost a hundred years, though England and Scotland were governed all the time by a succession of the same princes, to wear off the jealousies and prepossessions of the formerly hostile nations, and to work such a change in their tempers and views, as to admit of an incorporating and an effectual union.”¹³¹

But another and most important agent in the pacification and social regeneration of the Borders was the development, under the fostering care of the Church, of what is known as the Parochial system of education. The Roman Catholic Church in earlier times was not, as has sometimes been erroneously supposed, inimical to the intellectual culture of the nation. In its palmy days it undertook the work of educating the people with an enthusiasm which commands the respect of most unbiased students of our national history.

In this respect the monasteries, especially, rendered important services to the community. Long before the Reformation there were at least three classes of schools in Scotland – the “Sang Schools,” connected with the Cathedrals or more important Churches – the “Grammar Schools,” which were founded in the principal burghs in the country – and the “Monastic Schools,” which were, as the name implies, connected with the monasteries. “The interest in education,” says Prof. Story, “which had distinguished the Columban Church, was not seriously impaired by its amalgamation with the Church of Rome. It survived in active force, and before the foundation of any of the existing public schools of England (the oldest of which is Winchester, founded in 1387), we find the charge of the schools of Roxburghshire intrusted in 1241 to the monks of Kelso, over whom was an official called ‘The Rector of the Schools.’”¹³²

But for a considerable period prior to the Reformation, the interest of the Roman Catholic Church in education, as well as in regard to the moral and spiritual well-being of the people, had become enfeebled. The monasteries had ceased to be, what they were in earlier times, centres of gracious intellectual and spiritual influence. And nowhere was this more conspicuously the case than on the Borders. The lawlessness of the clans reacted on the life of the Church, and instead of the Church overcoming the malign and disintegrating influences by which it was assailed, it was unhappily overcome by them. Education in all its branches was shamefully neglected. The most eminent barons in the land were often unable even to write their own names. When they were under the necessity of adhibiting their signatures to deed or charter, the pen had to be guided by the hand of the notary. In these circumstances it is not difficult to imagine how densely ignorant the great body of the people must have been.

Whatever may be said for or against the Reformation, there will be a general consensus of opinion, among educationists especially, that the scheme propounded by John Knox for the education of the people is in many respects an ideal one. It is thus outlined in the Book of Discipline: – “Of necessitie therefore we judge it, that every several kirk have one schoolmaister appointed, such a one at least as is able to teach grammar and the Latin tongue, if the town be of any reputation. If it be upland where the people convene to the doctrine but once in the week, then must either the reader or the minister there appointed take care of the children and youth of the parish, to instruct them in the first rudiments, especially in the Catechism [Calvin’s Catechism] as we have it now translated in the Book of Common Order, called the Order of Geneva. And furder, we think it expedient, that in every notable town, and specially in the town of the superintendent, there be erected a Colledge, in which the arts, at least logick and rhetorick, together with the tongues, be read by sufficient masters, for whom honest stipends must be appointed. As also that provision be made for those that be poore, and not able by themselves nor by their friends to be sustained at letters, and in special these that come from landward.”¹³³

Unfortunately, owing to the rapacity of the nobles, this splendid scheme of national education was not carried out in its entirety. But though the enlightened views which the Reformers thus endeavoured to impress both upon the Parliament and the country were not so heartily and widely adopted as they should have been, a beginning was made in the establishment of parochial schools, and by this means the benefits of education were brought within the reach of the great body of the people. It has been justly remarked that if the counsel of the Reformers had been followed, no country in the world would have been so well supplied as Scotland with the means of extending the benefits of a liberal education to every man capable of intellectual improvement.

The state of the Borders, however, for at least fifty years after the Reformation, was such as to make it difficult in some places, and all but impossible in others, to establish and maintain parochial schools. But in course of time, as things began to improve, owing to the more systematic and impartial administration of the law, the work of training the youth of the district was entered upon with energy and enthusiasm. The beneficial results of the new regime in matters educational soon became apparent. Crime steadily decreased. The old reiving habits were gradually, if with difficulty, abandoned, and increased attention was given to the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and other industries; and out of the social chaos which had so long been a notorious feature of Border life, a healthy, vigorous, law-abiding community was evolved.

But the most potent factor in the pacification and moral regeneration of the Borders was the influence and teaching of the Church. The religious condition of the people in this part of the country, both before and after the Reformation, can only be described as utterly deplorable. The fierce fighting Border clans had practically broken with institutional religion in all its forms. It is frequently said of them, and not without good reason, that they feared neither God nor man. They delighted in robbing and burning churches, and held both priest and presbyter in high disdain. Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie is credited with having destroyed, during the course of his career, no fewer than fifty-two parish churches. The picture of the religious condition of the Borders, as reflected in the State Papers, is well fitted to awaken painful reflections. Eure, for example, in a letter addressed to Queen Elizabeth, in the year 1596, says: – “Another most grievous decay is the ‘want of knowledge of God,’ whereby the better sort forget oath and duty, let malefactors go without evidence, and favour a partie belonging to them or their friends. The churches mostly ruined to the ground, ministers and preachers ‘comfortless to come and remain where such heathenish people are,’ so there are neither teachers nor taught.”¹³⁴ In a still more doleful strain the Bishop of Durham describes the irreligious condition of the Borders. “Diverse persons,” he says, “under pretext of danger to their persons, and some through a careless regard of their conscience toward their flocks, besides also other out of a continual corruption of their patrons, turn residence into absence, whereby the people are almost totally negligent and ignorant of the truth professed by us, and so the more subject to every subtile seducer.”¹³⁵ So completely, indeed, had religious teaching fallen into abeyance that one writer even goes the length of affirming that “many die, and cannot say the Lord’s Prayer.”¹³⁶

The Commission appointed to inquire into the state of affairs on the Borders, after the breaking of Carlisle castle by Buccleuch, and to discover, if possible, some remedy for the clamant evils which prevailed, suggested in the first paragraph of their report “that ministers be planted at every Border Church to inform the lawless people of their duty, and watch over their manners – the principals of each parish giving their prime surety for due reverence to the pastor in his office; the said churches to be timely repaired.”¹³⁷

The propriety and wisdom of this deliverance will not be seriously questioned by those who have some knowledge of the motives and principles by which human life is moulded and governed. Religion is the bulwark of society and the State – the necessary condition alike of their existence and wellbeing. It was therefore clearly perceived by those responsible for the social and moral wellbeing of this much distracted region that some effective measures must be adopted to revive the religious life of the people. The task was none of the easiest. Ruined churches had to be restored; ministers had to be found, and “honest stipends” provided; and the community from an ecclesiastical point of view reorganized. And, as might be expected, the changes contemplated were not easily or quickly effected. Old habits are not readily abandoned, and consequently it took many years to raise the general religious life of the Borders to the level of that of other districts of the country where the conditions, to begin with, were more favourable. Even in the beginning of the eighteenth century, when that renowned minister, the Rev. Thomas Boston, began his pastorate in Ettrick, the state of matters from a religious point of view was such as might well have appalled the stoutest heart. His parishioners were rude and lawless to a degree. We are told that on Sundays some of them went, not to church, but to the churchyard, and tried to drown the voice of the preacher by producing all sorts of discordant sounds; and even those who ventured within the walls ostensibly to worship, would rise up during the service with “rude noise and seeming impatience,” and leave the building. The condition of this parish – and others in the district were probably not much better – has been not inaptly described as “an unploughed field covered with tangled weeds and thorns, and sheltering many foul creatures.” But the morals of the people, under the influence of the faithful ministrations of Boston, were gradually reformed, and the desert was made to bud and blossom like the rose. And what was effected in this particular district may be taken as a fair sample of the good work accomplished by the Church throughout the whole length of the Borders. Its influence was potent and far-reaching, and mighty to the pulling down of the strongholds of evil. “How did it happen,” says a modern writer, “that the raiding and reiving race which inhabited the Borders became so peaceful and law-abiding? That were a long tale to tell, but the credit of it belongs to those preachers Sir Walter was too superfine and cavalier to understand. In this work his own great-grandfather, for nineteen years the faithful and diligent minister of Yarrow, bore his own part, and, though the great-grandson owed his genius to his mother, the minister’s grand-daughter, he failed to appreciate the most characteristic treasure of his inheritance. He remembered that Richard Cameron – founder of the Cameronians, sternest of Presbyterian sects – was once chaplain to the Harden Scotts, but he could see no heroism in the uncompromising preacher, who had dared to rebuke Harden’s too compliant faith and indulgent temper. Yet over Annandale, throughout Moffatdale, thence flowing over into the Forest, the name of Cameron was one of power. The heroic strain in him suited the mood of the ancient reivers, who loved strength and iron in the blood. But the Scotts had ridden and lorded it over the Marches too long to love iron in any blood save their own. Their feud with the preachers began early, for John Welsh, Knox’s son-in-law, was persecuted out of Selkirk, whither he had gone to convert the souters and reform the freebooters of the Forest, by a Scott of Headshaw. But the man who ought here to be placed foremost is a man who became minister of Ettrick three years before John Rutherford, Scott’s ancestor, died – Thomas Boston. Cotter Morrison quoted some of his fierce sayings with the horror of a son of light suddenly confronting an altogether incredible darkness. But no man ignorant of the deeds of Boston can judge his speech. In some of his words there is a wonderful tenderness, in his acts a marvellous integrity, and in his thought a rare power to move the hearts, stir the consciences, and awaken the intellects of his people. It was a brave thing to make the stern Presbyterian discipline a reality among these men of the Forest, in whom the old reiving instinct was still strong, at once kept alive and glorified by the ballads which were known in every cottage, and recited at every hearth. But the man was patient and strong enough to do it; nothing was too minute to escape his eye; nothing was too inveterate to silence or too ancient to overcome his religion.”¹³⁸ It is undoubtedly to the influence of such preachers, men of faith and character, scholarship and genius, that Borderers owe many of the best qualities, both of intellect and heart, for which, in later times, they have become distinguished.