Chronology

43	Roman invasion of southern Britannia.
83 or 84	Agricola invades Caledonia.
122 – c. 126	Building of Hadrian’s Wall.
142 – c. 154	Building of Antonine Wall.
c. 150	Maps of the British Isles collated by Ptolemy.
c. 183–4	Invasion of Scottish lowlands and northern England by Caledonian tribes.
208–11	Punitive campaigns of Septimius Severus against tribes north of Hadrian’s Wall.
400s	Roman withdrawal from Britannia.
573	Battle of Arfderydd.
600s	Formation of kingdom (later, earldom) of Northumbria.
603	Battle of Daegsastan (Dawstane Rig, Liddesdale?): Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata (Argyll and Antrim) defeated by Æthelfrith, King of Bernicia and Deira (Northumbria).
c. 828	Historia Brittonum.
843–58	Kenneth MacAlpin, king of the Picts, claims land between Forth and Tweed.
900s	Expansion of kingdom of Strathclyde into Cumbria; earliest Viking settlements in Cumbria.
1018	Battle of Carham confirms Scottish possession of lands north of the Tweed; Carlisle and Cumbria under Scottish rule.
1092	Capture of Carlisle by William II, son of the Conqueror; Anglo-Scottish border set by English but unrecognized by Scots.
1136	David I of Scotland takes Carlisle and Cumberland (retaken by England in 1157).
c. 1153	Foundation of Canonbie Priory.
1216	Alexander II of Scotland takes Carlisle (retaken by England in 1217).
1237	Treaty of York confirms Esk–Solway border.
1245	October 13 – Scottish and English knights meet at confluence of Reddenburn and Tweed to establish the ‘true and ancient marches and divisions between the two kingdoms’.
1295	October 23 – Franco-Scottish Treaty of Paris (‘the Auld Alliance’).
1296	March – Edward I sacks Berwick. First War of Scottish Independence (to 1306).
1297	September 11 – William Wallace defeats English at Battle of Stirling Bridge and invades Cumberland and Northumbria.
c. 1300	First English and Scottish Wardens of the Marches.
1307	July 7 – Death of Edward I.
1314	June 24 – Battle of Bannockburn: defeat of Edward II by Robert the Bruce.
1315	July 22–31 – Siege of Carlisle by Robert the Bruce.
1328	March – Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton: confirmation of border.
1332–57	Second War of Scottish Independence: Battle of Annan, 1332; Battle of Dornock, 1333.
1388	August 5 or 19 – Battle of Otterburn.
1448	October 23 – Battle of Sark / Lochmaben Stone.
1449–57	Anglo-Scottish treaties confirm ancient neutrality of Debatable Land.
1474	Esk fish garth discussed at Westminster (here).
1482	Berwick captured by English.
1485	August – Accession of Henry VII of England.
1488	June – Accession of James IV of Scotland.
1494	First survey of Debatable Land boundaries by Scottish and English commissioners.
1502	January – Treaty of Perpetual Peace between Scotland and England.
1509	April – Accession of Henry VIII.
1510	Second survey of Debatable Land boundaries.
1513	September 9 – Battle of Flodden Field; death of James IV; accession of James V.
c. 1516	Armstrongs and Grahams settle in the Debatable Land.
1517	First government raids on the Debatable Land.
1525	October – ‘Monition of Cursing’ against the Border reivers by Gavin Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow.
1528	Before April 2 – William Dacre, English warden of the West March, lays waste to Debatable Land and destroys Armstrong pele tower at Hollows; December 14 – Treaty of Berwick: reconfirmation of neutrality of Debatable Land, to be inhabited ‘neither with stub, stake, nor otherwise, but with bit of mouth for pasturing of cattle between sunrise and sunset’.
1530	May – Capture and execution of Johnnie Armstrong by James V.
1534	November – Act of Supremacy: Henry VIII ‘the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England’.
1537	Legalization of murder, arson, theft, etc. in the Debatable Land. (Proclamation renewed in 1551.)
1542	Survey of Anglo-Scottish border by Robert Bowes (also 1551); November 24 – Battle of Solway Moss; December 8 – Birth of Mary Stuart; December 14 – Death of James V; accession of Mary Stuart; Scottish regency.
1544	Henry VIII orders devastation of the Scottish lowlands (start of ‘The Rough Wooing’); May 3 – Sack and burning of Edinburgh.
1545	February 27 – Battle of Ancrum Moor.
1547	January – Death of Henry VIII; accession of Edward VI.
1548	August 7 – Mary Stuart sails for France.
1551	June – Treaty of Norham: English troops to leave Scotland; Debatable Land to be depopulated.
1552	Before June – Map of the Debatable Land by Henry Bullock; September 24 – Decree of the Border Commissioners: Debatable Land to be divided between England and Scotland.
1553	After March – Construction of Scots’ Dike / March Bank; July – Death of Edward VI; accession of Mary I of England (Mary Tudor).
1558	April – Mary Stuart marries the Dauphin, son of Henri II; November 17 – Death of Mary Tudor; accession of Elizabeth I.
1559	July – Mary Stuart Queen consort of France.
1560	August – Scottish Reformation Parliament: abrogation of the authority of ‘the bishop of Rome called the pope’.
1561	August – Mary Stuart returns to Scotland after the death of her husband, François II.
1566	October 16 – Mary Stuart visits Earl of Bothwell, Keeper of Liddesdale, at Hermitage Castle.
1567	July 24 – Forced abdication of Mary Stuart; accession of James VI.
1569	December 24 – Roman Catholic ‘Rising of the North’; betrayal of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, by Hector of Harelaw.
1575	July 7 – Redeswire Fray: skirmish between English and Scottish wardens of the Middle Marches at Redeswire (Carter Bar).
1579	Lord Herries (John Maxwell, warden of Scottish West March), report on Debatable Land population: ‘in the year 1542, they did not exceed the number of 20 or 30 men at most. Now they are grown to three or four hundred’.
1583	Thomas Musgrave, Captain of Bewcastle, report on ‘the riders and ill doers both of England and Scotland’.
1587	February 8 – Execution of Mary Stuart; July 29 – James VI, Act of Parliament ‘for the quieting and keeping in obedience of the disordered subjects, inhabitants of the borders, highlands and islands’.
1593	December 6 – Battle of Dryfe Sands (Johnstone–Maxwell feud).
1594–97	Poor harvests and famine.
1596	March 17 – Arrest and imprisonment in Carlisle Castle of Kinmont Willie; April 13 – Rescue of Kinmont Willie; early August: Thomas Scrope, warden of English West March, invades Liddesdale.
1597	May 5 – Treaty of Carlisle: Anglo-Scottish cooperation in policing of the border.
1598	Summer – Plague in Carlisle, Penrith and Kendal.
1600	June 16 – Murder of Sir John Carmichael, warden of the West March, by Armstrongs and Carlisles; November 14: Thomas Armstrong hanged in Edinburgh.
1601	June – July – Siege of Tarras Moss and defeat of Armstrongs by Robert Carey.
1603	March 24 – Death of Elizabeth I; ‘Busy Week’ (or ‘Ill Week’); July 11 – Union of the Crowns; James VI becomes king of ‘Great Britain’; Border counties renamed the Middle Shires; post of warden abolished; Border strongholds to be dismantled; March law replaced by the law of the land.
1604	‘Survaie of the Debatable and Border Lands, Belonginge to the Crowne of Englande’; February 14 – Borderers ‘forbidden the use of all manner of armour and weapons, and of horses saving only mean nags for tillage’; offenders to be ‘removed to some other place’.
1605	April – August – Deportation of Grahams to the Netherlands.
1606	February – Hanging of other murderers of warden Carmichael in Edinburgh; Summer – Deportation of Grahams to Ireland.
1608	Purge of Borders and Debatable Land by Lord Scott of Buccleuch.
1609 -	Rebuilding of Arthuret Church.
1625	March – Accession of Charles I.
1628	Richard Graham (knighted 1629), MP for Carlisle, acquires Netherby estate.
1707	May 1 – Creation of the United Kingdom (Acts of Union, 1706–7).
1745	Jacobite Rebellion: November 18 – Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) enters Carlisle.
1757 -	Development of Netherby, Longtown and Sarkfoot by Rev. Robert Graham.
1771	November 16–17 – Eruption of Solway Moss.
1792	Late summer – Walter Scott enters Liddesdale for the first time.
1793	Newcastleton (Copshawholm) founded by Duke of Buccleuch as a centre for the weaving industry.