Abbreviations
ALHTS: Dickson et al., eds, Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland.
APCE: Dasent, ed., Acts of the Privy Council of England.
CBP: Calendar of Border Papers (i.e. Bain, ed., The Border Papers).
CDRS: Bain et al., eds, Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland.
CSPRI: Russell and Prendergast, eds, Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Ireland.
CSPRS: Bain et al., eds, Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland.
HP: Bain, ed., The Hamilton Papers.
LPH8: Brewer, ed., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII.
Muncaster: Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, The Manuscripts of the Earl of Westmorland, Captain Stewart, Lord Stafford, Lord Muncaster, and Others.
RIB: Collingwood and Wright et al., eds, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain.
RPS: Brown et al., eds, The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707.
SPH8: Strahan et al., eds, State Papers Published Under the Authority of His Majesty’s Commission: King Henry the Eighth.
‘all Englishmen and Scottishmen. . .’: ‘A Remembrance of an Order for the Debatable Lannde’ (1537): R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. xxxvii.
A hundred years ago: Earliest recorded version: ‘The Widow in the Train’: Wood (attributed to ‘Colonel Ewart’).
‘Down a steep bank we slid’: Evens, 57.
‘It is hard to be right with the Scots!’: Ridley (Baron Ridley of Liddesdale), 125.
4. The True and Ancient Border
Hugh de Bolbec: Shirley, I, 186–8 (Latin text); Stones, no. 8 (edition of text). See also Barrow, 36–7. Often misdated 1222 (CDRS, I, no. 832) or 1249, which is the date of the subsequent Border treaty (W. Nicolson, 1–7 and Reid, 479–80; T. Thomson et al., I, 413 ff.).
the Chevyotte ‘mounteyne’: Bowes (1550), 203.
‘ingates and passages forth of Scotland’: LPH8, XVIII, 2, 285.
5. ‘The Sewer of Abandoned Men’
‘surnames’ or ‘clans’: E.g. Cardew, 83 ff.; Groundwater, 52–5.
government officials known as wardens: On March wardens: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, pp. 2–7; Pease; Rae, 24 and 100; Reid; Godfrey Watson, 37–8.
appointed in the early fourteenth century: The title ‘Warden of the Marches’ dates from October 1309, when Robert Clifford was appointed ‘custodem Marchie Scotie in partibus Karlioli contra inimicos et rebelles nostros’ (Reid, 482). In 1301, ‘keepers of the march’: CDRS, V, 167.
‘Nae living man I’ll love again’: ‘The Lament of the Border Widow’, vv. 25–8: W. Scott (1803), III, 84.
Great Monition of Cursing: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, pp. 223–5; SPH8, IV, 371 and 416–19.
‘from their cradells bredd’: TNA SP 14/6/43: Spence, ‘The Graham Clans’, 87.
‘a set of wild men’: Carey (1759), xxviii (editor’s introduction).
‘ane spelunc and hurd of thewis’: Thomas Scott of Pitgorno to T. Cromwell, in SPH8, V, 126.
‘the sink and receptacle of proscribed wretches’: Clarke, x.
‘a land of contention, rapine, bloodshed’: Hutchinson, II, 535–6.
a ‘degraded piece of land’: Hutton, 46.
‘the sewer of abandoned men’: Pease, 62.
‘a monument to the intractable character of the natives’: Hay, 82.
‘suspicious and taciturn’: G. M. Fraser, 2.
‘racial composition’: G. M. Fraser, 2.
‘Border types’: G. M. Fraser, 1.
‘the people of that countrey’: Bowes (1550), 243.
‘spies and lookers into the privity [secrets] of the country’: Mayor of Berwick on ‘the Drie Marches into Northumberland’, 1584: CBP, I, 142.
marks cut in a smooth patch of turf: W. Scott (1803), I, lxxxiii–lxxxiv.
a complex communications network: E.g. Godfrey Watson, 132–3.
bedsheets spread on hedges and hillsides: Tradition reported to R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, 78 n. 1.
‘rumours are swift messengers’: T. Scrope to R. Cecil, 1598: CBP, II, 569.
a recent book about the border line: Crofton, 68.
the origins of the Armstrongs: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, pp. 175–7 (the name is recorded in Cumberland from 1235).
grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne: Fletcher, 46.
‘May still thy hospitable swains be blest’: J. Armstrong, 66 (‘Exercise’, vv. 79–85); Mack, 126.
‘savagely romantic’: Lockhart, 114 (letter of 30 September 1792).
‘These have been all dug up’: Lockhart, 113 (letter of 30 September 1792).
‘wild and inaccessible district of Liddesdale’: Lockhart, 115.
‘for about 16 miles along the Liddal’: Arkle, 73; Chambers, I, 111.
‘blind roads’: W. Scott (1815), 117 (ch. 22).
‘the people stared with no small wonder’: W. Scott, Guy Mannering, note at end of ch. 38 (omitted from some editions).
‘England and Scotland is all one’: R. Carey to R. Cecil, 1 August 1600: CBP, II, 674.
‘hideous and unearthly’ sounds: Lockhart, 117.
‘suited himsel’ to everybody’: Lockhart, 117 (quoting Robert Shortreed).
‘the bloodiest valley in Britain’: G. M. Fraser, 39.
‘the Edge’: E.g. Rutherford, 234–5.
‘the hardest of all the routes’: Foxwell, 563.
‘leane, hungry, and a wast’: Camden (1610), 786.
twenty-three-year-old Queen of Scotland: On Mary’s official (rather than romantic) visit to Hermitage Castle, see especially A. Fraser, 330–31; Mackie, 322.
‘the insolence of the rebellious subjectis’: ‘Instructionis to oure trusty Counsallour the Bischope of Dunblane’, May 1567 (Keith, I, 594).
‘the most offensive’: E. Aglionby to Burghley, 1592: CBP, I, 394.
Queen’s Mire: E.g. W. Scott (1803), I, xxxvi; Mackie, 138 n.
another Queen’s Mire: On the Roman road from Raeburnfoot (Margary, 463).
‘Sorbytrees’: The Times, 25 April 1851, p. 8, and 9 September 1851, p. 8; New York Times, 27 September 1851 (from The London Examiner). Summary and pictures in Moss.
Black Knight of Liddesdale: W. Scott (1812–17), II, 163.
types of boulder clay: Davitt and Bonner.
a silver spur, several bronze spurs and a gold signet ring: Elder, 70; Murray, 32; A. Strickland, V, 19.
‘supposed to have been deposited’: T. Elliot, 92.
this ‘pass of danger’: W. Scott (1803), I, xxxvi.
Reivers . . . would ‘entice their pursuers’: W. Scott (1812–17) (English), II, lxiii; see Lesley (1677), 61–2 (Latin) and Lesley (1596), I, 99 (Scots).
‘I ken very weel’: Chambers, I, 113.
‘Every farmer rides well’: W. Scott (1815), 141 (ch. 26).
‘a great disgrace’ to go on foot: W. Scott (1812–17), II, lxiii; Lesley (1578), I, 62; Lesley (1596), 99.
‘for they have a persuasion’: W. Scott (1812–17), II, lxv; Lesley (1578), I, 63; Lesley (1596), 100–101.
‘a highly successful fashion model’: G. M. Fraser, 288.
‘remained attached to the Roman Catholic faith’: W. Scott (1803), I, lxxxv.
This ‘bauchling’: CBP, II, 724 (‘Manner of holding days of truce’, 1600): ‘Bawchling is a publicke reprooffe’, etc.
to ‘deal the more deadly or “unhallowed” blows’: Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 89. Cf. Henderson, 16: ‘the reason alleged is . . . that he may gather riches’.
‘[Bernard] Gilpin did preach’: Collingwood, 166.
‘they’re a’ buried at that weary Caerl’: Whellan, 18. First reported by Bruce (1852), 482.
believed to conceal the remains of enemies: Godfrey Watson, 180. ‘Deid-stane’ is Middle Scots for ‘tombstone’ (Scottish National Dictionary).
The laws and customs of the borderers: See especially W. Nicolson; also CBP (e.g. II, 724), but beware of self-serving misinterpretations by Border officials: e.g. here. Generally: Balfour; Leeson; Neville; Rae; Reid; Tough.
‘The lawis of marchis’: Balfour, 602.
the last and still lively remnant: E.g. Neville, 2.
‘commoun and indifferent to the subjectis of baith the realmis’: Balfour, 602.
‘decentralized system of cross-border criminal law’: Leeson, 473 and 499.
An entire season’s reiving: CBP, I, 346 ff.
between 1579 and 1587: CBP, I, 314–15.
One of the largest raids in the winter of 1589–90: CBP, I, 348.
‘They sett him on his bare buttockes’: CBP, I, 431.
‘in the dead of winter’: In a letter to R. Cecil: CBP, II, 629.
‘never heard of in those parts before’: Carey (1759), 114; Carey (1972), 48.
‘run brandy’: Lockhart, 119.
‘Liddesdale drow’: Jamieson, II, 41; also George Watson, 118.
‘I set furthe’: CBP, I, 166.
the human population: Spence, ‘The Graham Clans’, 86; Stedman, 33; Tough, 26–8.
‘Ride, Rowley, hough’s i’ th’ pot’: Sandford, 50. ‘Rowley’ was a Graham.
a dish of spurs: Rev. John Marriott, ‘The Feast of Spurs’, quoted in W. Scott (1806), III, 452–6; also reported of the Charltons of Hesleyside in Tynedale. The Scott family legend is depicted in a drawing at Abbotsford: ‘The Dish of Spurs’, by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe.
‘Every now and then, about sundown’: McMurtry, 21.
‘there cannot be a greater mark of disgrace’: W. Scott (1812–17), II, lxv; Lesley (1578), I, 63; Lesley (1596), 100–101.
‘this bribenge they call Blackmeale’: CBP, II, 164.
‘such money as he had expended’: CBP, II, 144.
making blackmail a capital offence: T. Scrope to Privy Council, June 1600: CBP, II, 665.
‘the sink and receptacle of proscribed wretches’: Clarke, x.
not to be cultivated, ploughed or ‘opened’: ‘Proviso semper quod nemo utriusque regni edificet, aret, aut colat vel aperiat terram’: Bowes (1550), 177. A similar text in October 1531: LPH8, V, 220 (‘A proclamation made at Dumfries by the Commissioners of Scotland’).
‘there is no strife for the boundes’: T. Dacre to Scots Privy Council, 6 July 1517: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 209 n.
‘batable’ or ‘battable land’: ‘Batable landez or Threpelandez’ in 1449 (CDRS, IV, 247; also 251, 256, 261); ‘Batabelle Grounde’ in 1484 (Cardew, 13; Gairdner, I, 56); ‘Super Bundis Terrae Batabilis in Marchiis Scotiae’ in 1493 (Rymer, XII, 551); ‘Batable Land’ in 1510 (Caley, II, 574); ‘Bayttable grond’ in 1526 (R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 231 n.). Also Wharton to Henry VIII, June 1543 (LPH8, XVIII, 1, 444); Bowes (1550), 171–3 and 175; letters to and from Lord Dacre, 7, 21 and 29 August 1550 (Nicolson and Burn, I, lxx–lxxiii); M. d’Oysel to M. de Noailles, 23 August 1555 (Vertot, V, 93–4); T. Scrope to Burghley, April 1597 (CBP, II, 301); Camden (1610), 782; Leland, 56.
‘terra contentiosa’: E.g. Nicolson and Burn, II, 516; Rymer, XV, 315.
‘There is a grounde’: Thomas Dacre, warden of the English West March, to the Scottish Privy Council, 6 July 1517.
‘two fertill and plentifull regions’: Holinshed, V, 9.
‘land . . . such as is rich and fertile in nutrition’: Boucher et al., pt 2 (‘Batable’).
the cantref or hundred of Arwystli: Smith, 191–2 (referring to a paper by A. D. Carr).
It was not ‘common land’: On common land in Northern England and the Scottish Borders: Winchester (2000).
‘come to take away her grannie’s tombstone’: Mack, 111.
‘three parts surrounded by the Debatable ground’: ‘inveronned of thre partis with the Debatable grounde . . . soo that noo parte therof adjoynethe upon Scotlande, and hathe bene alwayes used as a hous of prayers, and newtre betuixt bothe the realmes’: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, pp. xxxii–xxxiii; also LPH8, V, 220. On Canonbie’s earlier history: Ratcliff, 151–7. Its status was officially discussed from 1493. Later claims that Canonbie was either English or Scottish are suspect and circumstantial. Its inhabitants paid to use Carlisle markets – a privilege denied to the Scots. See Mackay MacKenzie, 113–15. On the distinction of parish and Debatable Land boundaries, see here.
knowledge of the boundaries: The key documents are Bullock’s map of 1552 (TNA MPF 1/257) and the variant copy rediscovered by R. B. Armstrong (pt 2, f. 37). The main texts describing the boundaries are ‘The Boundes and Meares of the Batable Land Belonging to England and Scotland’ (Bowes (1550), 171–5); ‘The partitione of the laite Debatable lande’ (1552: CBP, II, 821); ‘A breviate of the bounder and marches of the West wardenrie betwixt England and Scotland’ (1590: CBP, II, 821); ‘A note of the devision of the bounders of the West Marches betwixt England and Scotland, and a devision of the Batable ground of both the Marches’ (T. Scrope to R. Cecil, 1597: CBP, II, 301); ‘An Abreviate of the survey of . . . the Debateable lands’ (Anon. (1604), 12–16); ‘Act in favouris of James Maxuell and Robert Douglas’ (1605: RPS, 1605/6/108); ‘Act in favouris of James Maxwell anent the debaitable landis’ (1609: RPS, 1609/4/40). The translation of RPS, 1605 is inaccurate: e.g. Quhitliesyde is Whitlawside, not Watleyhirst. See also Carlyle, 1–2.
‘wele knowne by the subjects of bothe the realmes’: T. Dacre to Scots Privy Council, 6 July 1517: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 209 n.
Surveys were conducted in 1494 and 1510: CDRS, IV, 418; LPH8, I, 304; Caley, II, 574; Rymer, XIII, 276–7.
‘wasted and destroyed in our passage’: Bowes (1550), 175.
‘The said bounds and meares’: Bowes (1550), 171.
‘Cocclay rigge’: Cf. the otherwise unknown version of Bullock’s map in R. B. Armstrong, pt 2, f. 37: ‘The great bough called also Cock key rig’.
the ‘Bateable grounds’ in 1597: T. Scrope to R. Cecil, CBP, II, 301: ‘A note of the devision of the bounders of the West Marches’, etc.
his ‘favourite cow’: W. Scott (1803), I, xxxii.
a private estate track: Locally known as the Funeral Road – a corpse road probably dating from the seventeenth century.
‘in campo inter Lidel et Carwanolow’: Fordun, I, 136.
‘Arfderydd’ is plausibly identified with Arthuret: On the name: A. Breeze (2012).
‘While her mother did fret’: Marmion (1808), canto V, 12 (‘Lochinvar’).
the ghosts of two children: Goodman.
Lady Graham’s prized jewellery: Lady Hermione Graham is referred to locally as ‘Lady Graham’.
a murderous ‘ladder gang’: Articles from the Carlisle Journal and the Carlisle Patriot, 1885–6, in http://www.longtown19.co.uk/the_netherby_hall_burglars.83.xhtml#The Netherby_Hall_Burglars
‘strange and great ruins of an ancient Citie’: Camden (1610), 781.
the West Marches were in an unusually peaceful state: T. Wharton to T. Cromwell, 26 December 1538: LPH8, XIII, 2, 476.
‘Ther hath bene mervelus buyldinges’: Leland, 47.
Castra Exploratorum: The name is known from the second route of the third-century Antonine Itinerary. On early visitors to Roman Netherby: E. Birley (1953).
‘Men alyve have sene rynges’: Leland, 47.
an inland port: On sea levels in the Solway Plain in Roman times (up to 4.8 metres above present levels): G. D. B. Jones, 291–2 n. Modern flood maps give some idea of the river’s former domain.
‘great marks of a ruinous Town’: Gordon, 97.
‘Scafae exploratoriae’: Vegetius, 4:37; also Emanuele, 28; Shotter (1973).
the road from Luguvalium: On possible Roman roads in the area: Birley (1953), 28–30; W. Maitland, I, 204; Roy, 105 (IV, 2); Wilson (1999), 19 n.; also Richmond (Eskdalemuir).
Another road, crossing the Esk: A crossing at Netherby on direct roads from Blatobulgium (Birrens) and Luguvalium (Carlisle) is implied by the (usually correct) distances of the Antonine Itinerary.
Titullinia Pussitta: Collingwood, Wright et al.; RIB, 984.
‘As for the houses of the cottagers’: Stukeley, 58.
The eruption of Solway Moss: Gilpin, 135–7; Hutchinson, II, 538–41 (account of J. Farish); Lang, 406–8; Pennant, 75–6.
‘several foundations of houses’: Richard Gough, in Camden (1789), III, 201.
a temporary marching camp: Pastscape monument no. 1566735: photographed from the air by Dave Cowley in July 2010. The Roman road once thought to have branched off at Westlinton, where the flood defences were mistaken for a vallum, probably ran along the line of the Sandysike Industrial Estate road near Longtown towards the marching camp.
‘the greatest factory on Earth’: Its story is told in the Devil’s Porridge Museum at Eastriggs.
smuggled across the Solway: McIntire, 168.
first recorded in 1398 as the ‘Clochmabanestane’: Rymer, VIII, 58 (6 November 1398). Perhaps the ‘Locus Maponi’ of the Ravenna Cosmography (c. AD 700).
Maponus, a Celtic god: Inscriptions at Birrens, Brampton, Corbridge, Ribchester and Vindolanda: RIB, 583, 1120–22, 2063, 2431.2 (in RIB II), 3482 (in RIB III).
‘Grass decays and man he dies’: Engraving in R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, facing p. 120.
Debatable Land chapels: Generally, Brooke; Winchester (1987), 23–4.
‘I was on the central boss’: John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), ch. 5.
the ‘dry march’ of the ‘Bateable grounds’: T. Scrope to R. Cecil, CBP, II, 301. Probably the same as ‘the marche of Auchinbedrig’ (James VI, ‘Act in favouris of James Maxwell anent the debaitable landis’, 12 April 1609: RPS, 1609/4/40). Auchinbetrig is the old name of Solwaybank (Burton (1849), 168), an Armstrong ‘hous of reasonable strenthe’ presumed to be in – rather than on the edge of – the Debatable Land in 1596 (CBP, II, 181); also D. Scott, 51.
an artery of the northern Roman road system: ‘Sheppard Frere has drawn my attention to the possibility that the old road from Langholm to Annan might mark a Roman road from Broomholm to Birrens crossing the Esk near the Irvine burn’ (Wilson (2003), 115 n. 21). The straight road to Irvine is shown on Ainslie’s Map of the Southern Part of Scotland (1821) and on later nineteenth-century maps as one of the main roads of the area.
‘Tarras . . . was of that strength’: Carey (1759), 124; Carey (1972), 53.
‘Was ne’er ane drown’d in Tarras’: W. Scott (1803), I, 49.
the ruin of a ‘chambered cairn’: Canmore ID 67899.
‘rae’, ‘mere’, ‘har’: Ragill is now Rae Gill, the hagill is Haw Gill, Meere bourne is Muir Burn, Harla is Harelaw.
the old, unimproved fields: Cole.
The oldest documents: ‘the Batable Landez in the West-marchez’ (November 1449: Rymer, XI, 245); ‘Batable landez or Threpelandez’ (November 1449: CDRS, IV, 247); also 251, 256, 261.
‘in tymis bigane’: The Lords of the Council of Scotland, 1526: SPH8, IV, 433.
in the reign of Edward VI: ‘Memoranda on the Borders’: CBP, I, 32 (in the hand of Walsingham’s secretary).
‘remained undivided’: Bowes (1550), 177.
dated to the days of Alexander III: Ridpath, 287.
‘the time of King John and his predecessors’: CDRS, I, no. 827.
obscure Brittonic name: A. Breeze (2008) suggests an origin in Welsh ‘serch’ (‘love’). On the significance of the Sark boundary: Barrow, 27; Todd.
‘the bounder of the forest of Nicholl’: Anon. (1891), 18.
The jug was unearthed at Whitlawside: A bronze tripod ewer (Dumfries Museum): Canmore ID 86394.
‘between AD 684 and 947’: Pastscape monument no. 1358759.
A hoard of rings: Canmore ID 67489; Hyslop, 144–5.
Brettalach: A. James, 51; Johnson-Ferguson, 148 (Brettalach in 1190; Bretellaugh in 1336); Morgan, 43–4.
Wobrethills: A. James, 51; T. Thomson, nos 212 (Wabritshill in 1653) and 242 (Wobrethills in 1661).
‘Bret’ place names: A. James, 51.
a small copper terret: Canmore ID 183461, found near Mouldyhills.
the matter was discussed at Westminster: Rymer, XI, 836 (3 December 1474).
‘fish garth’: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, pp. 171–4 (from 1474) and p. xvi (1494).
in 1494 and 1510: CDRS, IV, 418; LPH8, I, 304; Caley, II, 574; Rymer, XIII, 276–7.
‘the Fisigarthis on the West Marches’: Brenan and Statham, 74; Mack, 105–6.
the system of partible inheritance: Bowes (1550), 243: ‘There doe inhabite in some place three or fower howsholde soe that they cannot uppon so smalle fermes without any other Craftes live truely but either be stealing in England or Scotland’ (on Redesdale). The example of the Grahams: Spence, ‘The Graham Clans’, 84–5.
‘broken men’ or ‘clanless loons’: Pease, 102.
a ‘terra inhabitata’: Major (1521), I, f. 6 (ch. 5); Major (1892), 19.
‘peaceful Anglo-Scottish accommodation’: King and Penman, 6; Webster, 99.
to build a new Hadrian’s Wall: Anon. to Elizabeth I, 1587: CBP, I, 300–302.
‘nor by lande nor by water’: CDRS, IV, 247, 251, 256, 261.
‘stob and staik’: E.g. ‘A Remembrance of an Order for the Debatable Lannde’ (1537): R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. xxxvii.
‘6 miles of the water of Esk’: T. Dacre to Privy Council, 17 May 1514: LPH8, I, 1261.
‘I have four hundred outlaws’: T. Dacre to Wolsey, 23 August 1516: original text in Ellis, 132.
‘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.
‘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.
‘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.
‘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.
‘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, where 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.
the limits of ‘the debetable landis’: ‘Act in favouris of James Maxuell and Robert Douglas’ (1605: RPS, 1605/6/108).
two quite separate commissions: C. Ferguson, 106.
‘mysguyded menn’: Dr Magnus to Cumberland, [1526]: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. 231.
‘All theeves, murderers, oppressouris and vagabondis’: ‘1604. King’s Memoriale’: Salisbury, XVI, 405.
other presumed murderers of Carmichael: W. Scott (1803), I, 122–3.
‘utterlie frustrated and expyred’: C. Ferguson, 105.
‘Ireland or other far parts’: Council of Scotland to Earl of Cumberland, Warden of the West March of England, 4 July 1527: R. B. Armstrong, pt 1, p. xxiii.
‘no hope of amendment’: Muncaster, 229 (‘The King to the Commissioners’).
‘banish us (as a tumultuouse Collony)’: Spence (1977), 99; also Muncaster, 244.
Flushing and Brill: Muncaster, 230–35; Spence, ‘The Graham Clans’, 93.
walking openly in the streets of Edinburgh: Muncaster, 236–9, 248; also M. Green (1857–72), I, 237: ‘Some loose Grahams have returned’ (24 October 1605).
Sir Ralph Sidley: CSPRI, I, 577; Spence (1977), 113. Generally: ‘Transplantation of the Graemes’, in CSPRI, III, xcv–ciii; J. Graham, 133 ff.; T. Graham (1930).
‘their minds are so much at their homes’: CSPRI, II, 246.
A pathetic petition: J. Graham, 194.
his ‘race’ had been blackened: J. Graham, 190.
‘My thoughts must turn from intercepting of carracks’: Williamson, 235.
‘Even from their cradles’: TNA SP 14/6/43: Spence, ‘The Graham Clans’, 87. See also M. Green (1857–72), I, 73: ‘Statement [by the Earl of Cumberland] of the condition of the country since his arrival.’
‘both the time and anything they had’: CSPRI, II, 491.
‘a factious and naughty people’: ‘Lord Deputy’s Advices to Sir Thomas Ridgeway’, 1 April 1610: CSPRI, III, 421.
‘so turbulent and busy’: CSPRI, II, 245–6.
‘mossy ground’ or ‘marshland’: Hutchinson, II, 530; Nicolson and Burn, II, 465.
‘known ground’: Hutchinson, II, 530; Nicolson and Burn, II, 465.
‘the arable, lay-meadow, pasture’: Mordant, I, 420.
A list drawn up in 1602: Spence, ‘The Graham Clans’, 93–100 (from Richard Bell’s manuscript ‘History of the Borders’, ff. 211–15).
‘the poore are oppressed’: T. Musgrave to Burghley, end 1583: CBP, I, 126.
‘the poorer and least dangerous sort’: ‘The Commissioners of the Middle Shires to the Earl of Salisbury’, 13 September 1606: CSPRI, I, 578.
‘loth to take away the lives of his subjects’: Lords of Council to Sir Arthur Chichester, 3 June 1607: CSPRI, II, 16.
they had ‘impeded and stayed’: Masson and Brown, VIII, 292–3 (26 February 1607).
‘letter of approval and indemnity’: W. Fraser (1878), I, 230–32.
‘that letter . . . is a very important testimony’: W. Fraser (1878), I, 230; also Oliver, 265–6.
‘the stirring career of the Lord Buccleuch’: W. Fraser (1878), I, 233.
‘the rottin and cankered memberis’: Quoted in Meikle, 191.
‘Do you see that boy?’: Carey (1759), 56–7; Carey (1972), 24.
‘wet moorish mossy ground’: Lowther, 174.
‘The debateable land is three miles long’: Lowther, 175.
‘to inform the lawless people’: Carlisle Treaty of 1597: Spence (1977), 84. On the rebuilding of Debatable Land churches: Winkworth.
‘lewd vices’: Sir Richard Graham’s petition to the King, 2 June 1631: Spence (1977), 148.
‘By this church [Arthuret] is the Howe end’: Lowther, 174.
Sir Richard Graham: See Spence, ‘The First Sir Richard’.
‘having some spark of wit’: Sandford, 50 (interpolation in an unknown hand).
‘jested himself into a fair estate’: Lysons, 13.
‘Changes of Times surely cannot be small’: A. Armstrong, 6.
‘By my soul, . . . Had ye but four feet’: W. Scott (1803), I, cviii–cix.
‘From the foot of Sark’: R. Ferguson, 297.
Klaudios Ptolemaios: The principal reference is the two-volume Greek–German edition: Ptolemy (2006). The variants provide the coordinates of Codex Vaticanus Graecus 191 (‘X’). Two other Vatican mss. give the correct coordinates of Lincoln (Lindum): Ptolemy (1508), 46 recto, and Ptolemy (2006), 154 n. 7. For an ‘annotated translation of the theoretical chapters’: Ptolemy (2000). The following notes refer to the traditional divisions of the Geography.
some ‘precise maps’: Ptolemy, I, 19.
‘by using the researches’: Ptolemy, I, 19.
painted landscapes: Ptolemy, I, 1.
in ‘a crude manner’: Ptolemy, I, 4.
people with ‘scientific training’: Ptolemy, I, 2.
‘2 by 3’ for Gaul, ‘approximately 11 by 20’ for the British Isles: Ptolemy, VIII, 5.1 and VIII, 3.1.
Discoveries like this: I realize that this might sound too elementary to have been overlooked for seven hundred years. All I can say is that complex problems – and there are complexities – do not always require complex solutions, and, once the principles have been deduced, it is a simple matter to put the map to the test. The main reasons appear to be an assumption that no barbarian culture could have outdone the Graeco-Roman world in cartographic accuracy and, conversely, an over-readiness to dwell on Ptolemy’s ‘gross errors’.
The most detailed attempt to decode Ptolemy’s coordinates was made by Alastair Strang (1994, 1997 and 1998), who had the merit of supposing that they might derive from ‘an authoritative map’. The extreme complexity of Strang’s ‘rotational groups’ is a result of several misconceptions. 1. There was not one but several maps, each with its own graticule and orientation. 2. The coastal data was quite separate from the ‘town’ data. 3. Latitude and longitude readings were not inherent in the original maps, which were not based on a ‘projection’: the most accurate ancient maps were based on rhumb lines determined by triangulation rather than by geodetic measurement. (Strang relied on Ordnance Survey maps, which use a complex modern projection.) 4. The ‘vital clue’ to the lower half of the British map (the alignment of Catterick, Aldborough and York) is in fact its weakest link (here). 5. Decoding of the ‘map of Scotland’ (which includes three English towns) was based on the a priori misidentification of Trimontium and Colania with Newstead and Camelon. 6. The plotting of the original data was inconsistent or based on an unreliable edition.
tin and gold mines: E.g. Dibon-Smith.
Its only obviously exotic feature is its orientation: Modern maps are usually oriented with north at the top, though adjustments are often made for the convenience of the user or the map-maker – for example, certain road atlases or the 1552 map of the Debatable Land, which is tilted sixty degrees to the east in order to fit it onto the sheet. The term ‘orientation’ is a reminder that maps were often designed to be read with east (orient) at the top. The original map of northern England was tilted nineteen degrees west of north and thus aligned with the rising sun of Beltane, the Celtic festival which marked the beginning of summer. Curiously, the map of Ireland – where a tribe called the Brigantes was also present – uses the same orientation (fig. 9). This map is the strongest material evidence for the native rather than Roman military origin of the maps.
maps produced by triangulation: Davies.
fifty-nine Roman miles: Ptolemy, I, 15.6.
the Roman fort of Whitley Castle: Whitley Castle is unquestionably ‘Trimontium’ on Ptolemy’s map (see fig. 11). On the evidence of a milestone (RIB, 2313; G. Maxwell, 379–83), the original location of which is unknown, Trimontium is currently identified with the fort of Newstead (Melrose), under the three Eildon Hills. (The name might mean ‘three hills’ or simply ‘place in the hills’.) Ptolemy attributes the place to the Selgovae, whose territory lies much farther to the south. This would also be more consistent with the address on a Roman letter found under Tullie House Museum in Carlisle: ‘To Marcus Julius Martialis, either at Trimontium or Luguvalium’ (Carlisle): Frere, Hassall and Tomlin, 496–7.
almost one-third were inland ports: See, for example, B. Campbell, 289; Edwards, 366 (medieval water transport); Pedley, 252.
Strabo had asserted: Strabo, II, 5, 8.
The most likely candidate is Corbridge: Not ‘Coria’ (like ‘Alauna’, a common place name). ‘Corbridge’ is unlikely to derive from ‘Coria’ or ‘Corstopitum’.
the ‘ancient Citie’: Camden (1610), 781.
‘Dimmisdaill, as the common people say’: ‘vulgari sermone vocati Dimmisdaill’: Nicolson and Burn, II, 517; Rymer, XV, 315.
Three other Dymisdales or ‘Doomsdales’: Gallows Hill in Inverness; a Doomsdale outside Linlithgow, presumed site of feudal courts of justice; the prison at Launceston.
‘of doubtful ownership’: Tacitus, Germania, 29.
‘English scaremongering’: Groundwater, 27.
‘plain to be seen’ on Canonbie Moor: W. Maitland, I, 204; Roy, 105 (IV, 2).
Arthur’s Cross: T. Graham (1913), 53–4.
last shown on a map in 1823: Christopher Greenwood, Map of the County of Cumberland.
The ‘stone which none might lift’: T. Graham (1913), 53.
he may never have existed: On the problems of a historical Arthur: Halsall; Higham; Padel (1994 and 1995).
The ‘Arthurs’ of the North: On a northern Arthur: A. Breeze (2006, 2012, 2015 and 2016); Bromwich.
‘from the dayly and daungereous incurtyons’: Anon. to Elizabeth I, 1587: CBP, I, 301.
‘bearing torches in a bid to convince Scots’: ‘Tory’s Hadrian’s Wall pro-Union torch protest plan’, The Scotsman, 6 February 2014.
‘100,000 English people lined up on a wall’: S. Campbell.
‘In divers places of the Borders’: Spence (1977), 147.
‘Na, na, we’s all Armstrongs and Elliots’: Walter Scott heard a different version, referring to Annandale: ‘we are a’ Johnstones and Jardines’: W. Scott (1815), ch. 26 (omitted from some editions).
The list of the twelve battles of Arthur: Nennius, 50.
‘heaping together all [he] could find’: Nennius, 3.
the prototype of the [later] Arthur: Principal references to Arthur before Geoffrey of Monmouth: Y Gododdin, 99 (‘he was no Arthur’); Marwnad Cynddylan (‘sturdy Arthur’s cubs’); Historia Brittonum, 56 (Arthur’s battles) and 73 (legends of Arthur); Welsh Annals, AD 516 (Battle of Badon; also in Gildas, 26.1) and AD 537 (Battle of Camlann).
a poet’s fabrication: Halsall.
if they could be identified: Detailed attempts to identify the battle sites: Alcock, 59–71; A. Breeze (2006, 2012 and 2016); Field (1999 and 2008); T. Green; Jackson (1945, 1949 and 1953–8); Nitze (1943, 1949 and 1950); Padel (1994 and 1995); see also Rivet; Rivet and Jackson.
The Scottish Earls of Lindsay: Crawford, I, 3 and 22. On some older maps (e.g. Blaeu), the area is called ‘Crawford Lindsey’.
‘strictly speaking, its parent stream’: Clark.
first raised in 1924: Malone.
The great ‘barbarian conspiracy’: Ammianus Marcellinus, XXVII, 8 and XXVIII, 3.
‘the biggest war’ fought anywhere in the Roman Empire: Cassius Dio, LXXIII, 8.
27. The Great Caledonian Invasion
‘they proceeded to do much mischief’: Cassius Dio, LXXIII, 8.
signs of destruction or rebuilding: Salway, 223–5; also Burnham and Wacher, 60.
began to surround themselves with earthworks: Frere (1984); Salway, 262.
The Caledonian warriors were ‘very fond of plundering’: Cassius Dio, LXXVII, 12.
‘They plunge into the swamps’: Cassius Dio, LXXVII, 12.
the river ‘Bassas’: Practically every place in the British Isles beginning with ‘Bas’ – from Basingstoke to the Bass Rock – has been suggested. The likeliest pre-Saxon origin is late-Latin ‘bassus’ or Brittonic ‘bass-’, ‘shallow’ (e.g. Padel (1985), 18). A stream in Lanarkshire is called Bassy Burn. There are only two occurrences of the name ‘Bassy’ or ‘Bassie’ south of the Antonine Wall. The unusual name ‘Bassie’ may have been assimilated to the more familiar ‘Bessie’ (which is only occasionally related to a person called Bessie). Three of the fourteen ‘Bessies’ in lowland Scotland also occur along the Annan, which is remarkably shallow until it nears Lockerbie.
Celidon Wood: The wood where Myrddin took refuge after the Battle of Arfderydd (here), ‘apparently thought of as [being] in that neighbourhood’ (i.e. by Arthuret and Netherby): Jackson (1945), 48 n. 12.
Celtic ‘drumo’ (‘ridge’) and Greek ‘drumos’: A. James, 116. On the fabulous primeval forest: Rackham, 390–93.
an inscription of the AD 180s: RIB, 946; E. Birley (1986), 27–8; Tomlin and Hassall, 384–6.
‘Guinnion’ . . . ‘Vinnovium’: On the (contested) etymology of ‘Guinnion’: Field (2008), 15, Nitze (1949), 592, and references.
vestiges of a Roman fort: E.g. Shotter (2004), and generally on Roman and British North-West England.
‘in the city of the Legion’: On ‘urbs Legionis’ as York: Field (1999). The eighth and ninth battles would thus have been fought in the territory of the Brigantes, who had rebelled against the Romans two decades before. See Speidel, 235.
‘rearward works establishment’: Strickland and Davey.
The tenth battle, at ‘Tribruit’: ‘Tribruit’ means something like ‘blood-spattered’. The Vatican manuscripts of the Historia Brittonum call it a ‘traeth’, which, in this case, would indicate the strand of a tidal estuary. A battle site with an almost identical name – ‘Traethev Trywruid’ – is mentioned in an early Welsh poem, ‘Pa Gur yv y Porthaur?’. A warrior called Arthur fought at Edinburgh and then ‘on the strands of Trywruid’. The two places are paired twice, as though they were adjacent on the army’s route. Since the identifiable battles of the Historia Brittonum lie within a few days’ march of one another, the Traeth Tribruit may have been within striking distance of Breguoin, which is commonly agreed to be Bremenium. Thus: a tidal estuary on the North Sea, no great distance from Edinburgh and High Rochester, with a broad shore on which a battle might have been fought, served by a Roman road and quite possibly a port. It was also a place familiar to British readers several centuries later since the Vatican manuscripts refer to it, in the present tense, as ‘the riverbank which we call’ Traeth Tribruit.
South Shields: The port of Arbeia was served by two Roman roads, and, like many other northern forts, seems to have suffered damage in the 180s. Between the Roman fort and Trow Point, the Herd Sand has yielded evidence of a Roman shipwreck and finds dating from the late second century.
Bregion or Bregomion is the fort of Bremenium: Summary of discussion in Falileyev. Other manuscripts have ‘on the [unidentified] hill which is named Agned’. ‘Breguoin’, ‘Bregion’ or ‘Bregomion’ might have suited the rhyme scheme.
Three items of cookware: The Amiens Skillet (‘MAIS ABALLAVA VXELODVNVM CAMBOGS BANNA ESICA’); the Rudge Cup (‘A MAIS ABALLAVA VXELODUM CAMBOGLANS BANNA’); the Staffordshire Patera (‘MAIS COGGABATA VXELODVNVM CAMMOGLANNA’). See D. Breeze.
‘foundations of walls and streets’: Camden (1789), III, 201.
‘fallen in through age’: RIB, 1988.
The blight of landscaping: Bruce (1966), 185.
borrowed, corrupted and mislocated: Geoffrey of Monmouth, IX, 1–4.
the Insula Avallonis: Geoffrey of Monmouth, XI, 2.
‘he fought no battle’: Cassius Dio, LXXVII, 13.
From ‘Glan’ to ‘Camglann’: In the emerging Brittonic language, ‘Camboglanna’ became ‘Camglann’, and by the time the name was recorded in the Welsh Annals, the ‘g’ had disappeared by the process of ‘soft mutation’. ‘Camglann’ – from ‘glan’, ‘riverbank’ – might have echoed the name of the first battle, at the mouth of the river Glein – from ‘glan’, ‘clear’.
urban and rural voters: S. Thomson, 4–5.
‘Hands Across the Border’ cairn: Stewart.
adits were dug into the riverbank: Limeworks day book, 1829–31: Cumbria Archive Service, DCL/P8/24.
the vast Canonbie coalfield: E.g. Gibsone, 71–6.
the workable seams were exhausted: Canmore ID 92597.
‘a little world within itself’: Shakespeare, II, 1.