The Border Reivers of Scotland and England

Have you ever suspected your relatives as being horse thieves and murderers? Well, you can have your worst fears confirmed if your find their name among...

The REIVERS Family Names

Archbold	Armstrong	Beattie	Bell
Burns	Carleton	Carlisle	Carnaby
Carrs	Carruthers	Chamberlain	Charlton
Charleton	Collingwood	Crisp	Croser
Crozier	Cuthbert	Dacre	Davison
Dixon	Dodd	Douglas	Dunne
Elliot	Fenwick	Forster	Graham
Gray	Hall	Hedley	Henderson
Heron	Hetherington	Hume	Irvine
Irving	Johnstone	Kerr	Laidlaw
Little	Lowther	Maxwell	Milburn
Musgrove	Nixon	Noble	Ogle
Oliver	Potts	Pringle	Radcliffe
Reade	Ridley	Robson	Routledge
Rutherford	Salkeld	Scott	Selby
Shaftoe	Storey	Simpson	Tailor
Tait	Taylor	Trotter	Turnbull
Wake	Watson	Wilson	Woodrington
	Yarrow	Young

From the 14th to the late 17th centuries, the border between England and Scotland, The Debatable Lands, was a turbulent place. Inter-family warfare decimated the life of the local people as they fought to uphold their property and possessions in an area devoid of laws. For over 350 years, the Border Reivers carried out bloodthirsty raids in which the victims lost their homes, their cattle and sometimes their lives.

The stories of these raids are told in the Border Ballads, the dialect folk poems which have been handed down from generation to generation over three lawless centuries, and which feature surnames which have given the region its unique character.

The Maxwells, Nixons, Elliots, Armstrongs and Routledges are among the 77 known reiving families listed at Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery which is set between the Cathedral and the 12th Century Castle in Carlisle, England. The lawlessness of their activities caused an early Archbishop of Glasgow to utter one of the most comprehensive curses of all times...

I curse them going I curse them riding
I curse them sitting and I curse them standing,
I curse them eating and I curse them drinking,
I curse them waking and I curse them sleeping...

And the good Archbishop of Glasgow continued to vent his spleen for a good page and a half. But I am sure you can get the gist from this small extract.

Reiving was mainly a seasonal event as there was a preference for marauding from Lammas-tide (1 August) until the reconvening of the official judicial courts three months later, which gave the Reivers a good chance of escaping detection and retribution during that period.

The Reivers also wanted well fed cattle which had benefited from a summer's grazing and firm dry ground underfoot to ensure fast journeys over the Border.

In the addition to the warlike activities of the Reivers, it would seem that they played a basic version of the modern game of soccer.It had been recorded that Mary Queen of Scots watched a two hour match taking place in the meadow below the walls of Carlisle Castle where she was imprisoned. And, like today, there were incidents of violence as a result of the game. Some of these would end in bloodshed, even deaths, as in 1599 when six of the Armstong clan went to play at Bewcastle (on the English side of the Border) against six of the local men.

After the games, the two sides were involved in some hard drinking in Bewcastle, when one William Ridley saw it as an opportunity to capture the Armstrongs while they were on English ground. Ridley and his follower staged an ambush of the Armstrongs, but it seemed the intended victims had been tipped off, and the ambush party found the tables had been turned.

Ridley's men were set upon by a band of more than 200 riders, and in the resulting melee, Ridley and two of his friends were killed and 30 were taken prisoner.

Many were badly injured, including one John Whyfield whose injuries were such that his "bowells came out, but are sewed up againe".

Of all the reiving families, possibly the most feared and most dangerous were the Armstrongs, and one of the most infamous was William Armstrong of Kinmont, popularly known as Kinmont Willie.

He was a man who would not strike at single farms or villages, but at whole areas, spreading terror, death and destruction and unlike other Reivers, he liked to ride by day rather than under the cover of darkness. His first recorded raid was in August 1583 when he was in his forties.

When the raiding party left, it was with 800 stolen cattle, $300 worth of goods and 30 prisoners, while six men were killed and 11 wounded. His reiving led his name to be a by-word for violence, and in 1593 saw his biggest raid.

He rode with an army of 1,000 men who stole 2,000 beasts and $500 worth of goods. Three years later he was captured and imprisoned in Carlisle Castle, only to be set free by his sons in a daring rescue. The scale of his exploits declined somewhat after that, and he then became a victim of raiding parties.

...There came a man by midle day,
He spied his sport and went away;
And brought the king that very night,
Who broker my bower and slew my knight.

The Reivers left a lasting testament to the English language as many a grieving widow was left "bereaved" and families were "blackmailed". Rent payable to the landowner was referred to as "greenmail" and so protection money paid to the stronger reiving families became known as "blackmail".

In 1990, Tullie House decided to get involved in researching reiving surnames. Archive offices in the Border region, both English and Scottish, helped to compile a list of those families mentioned in documentary evidence, who were involved in reiving activities.

The list now provides these holders of those 77 surnames with the chance to discover their reiving ancestors.

Tullie House is now able to offer the services of a team of professional genealogists calling themselves Reivers Researchers. For further information about Reivers Research you may telephone or write to:

Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery
Castle Street
Carlisle, England CA3 8TP
Telephone (0228) 34781

Suggested Reading:
The Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Fraser (ISBN #: 0-00-272746-3)
The Border Reivers by Godfrey Watson (ISBN #: 0-946098-35-2)
The Border Reivers by Keith Burham and Angus McBride (ISBN # 1-85532-417-2)