Scottish Borders

Border History Tent

The Other Scottish History

     The history of Scotland is very much associated with the Highlands.  Highland Games, kilts, and all the romance of the north of Scotland has put attention back on Scotland.  While lacking the sheer charisma of the highlands in today’s world, there is another history in Scotland.  Here, much, if not most of the work-a-day history of Scotland and Celts was written upon the face of the world.  No, not Glasgow or even Edinburgh, but…. The Scottish Borders.

     The Borders is an area on each side of the Anglo-Scottish border.  In the 1400’s they were officially divided into east, middle, and west marches, on both the English & Scottish sides.  Today, the term “Scottish

Borders” also means a governmental division of Scotland covering roughly what was the middle to east marches.

     The recorded history of Scotland literally starts at the Scottish border with the Roman Hadrian's Wall.  The Antonine Wall was added farther north creating a “No mans land”. The Roman Army settled thousands of Sarmation cavalrymen and their families in this area. They melded with the Celtic horsemen to cement an equine tradition that would define the region.  This was to be “The Borders” for the next two millennia.

     Romans vs. Celts; Sarmations; Picts vs. Brittons; Brittons vs. Saxons; Danes, Angles, Norse, Normans; English vs. Scots.  All these conflicts met there on the Borders.  All these cultures made the border people both culturally & physically what Winston Churchill called “the greatest light Calvary that Europe has ever seen”. 

     For eighteen hundred years no generation was free of warfare.  Starting with a warlike people, then honing each successive son or daughter in the art of survival, discarding that which did not excel or was unlucky, this land produced a people extremely adaptable to violence. It produced Scotland’s two greatest heroes, William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce. Arguably, the historical figure Arthur is from here. There are also later heroes like Gen. Douglas Haig and Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding.

     All the violence ultimately produced the Reiver.  Reiver is a Scots term for robber or cattle thief.  A Border Reiver was of no one ethnic group nor was there any class distinction.  These were not bands of people who hid out in the mountains between raids.  They were the normal people of the borders.  The violence of the area would impoverish a noble as easily as a man with a few cows.  A band of Scot Reivers were about as likely to raid a Scot family they feuded against as they were an English target, and vise versa.  Their enemy could be anyone outside their clan or family.

Robbery, raiding, and even murder were every day affairs.  The words “blackmail” and “bereaved” were given to us by Reivers.  However, a Reiver’s word was said to never be broken.  A mans word, given freely, was preferred over a signed document.  Perhaps because their word was all they had, they held it in high esteem.    

The “Hot Trod” tradition allowed victims of a raid to give chase to recover their stolen goods, if taken up within 6 days.  It also allowed able-bodied men met during the chase to be impressed into the group.  This would eventually evolve into the “Posse” of the old American West.

     This period came to an end when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne and became James I of Britain in 1603.  Now the same king ruled both countries, and wanted no trouble on the borders.  However, the engrained temperament and skill gained in 20 centuries of war and life was not to be changed so easily.  Many borderers and border families were prosecuted and persecuted for the same acts they had been honored for only a generation or so before.

     Many of these malcontents moved to America in the 1600’s, but many were to move to Ireland, to the Ulster Plantations.  These became the Scottish-Irish, who after another few generation of honing their fighting skills, moved on to the American Colonies to become the backbone of a new nation of Warriors.

     These are the families that have become so American we no longer think of them as anything else.  There is no 0’ or von or Mac in front of their name, nor does it end with a….ski or an ..itelli, but where would we be without Elliotts, Douglas’, Johnsons, Murrays, Littles, Chisholms, Hallidays or Davidsons.

Are you a Borderer?

Come to the Border History Tent and learn more. 

There will be re-enactors in period dress to answer your questions. 

Drop by.  More than likely, we’re kin.