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The Border Reivers |
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One of the statements made in defence of the good character of the Reiver was that they were averse to shedding blood. Sir Walter Scott, by no means the first to make this assertion, said “They abhorred and avoided the crime of unnecessary homicide”. However, as George MacDonald Fraser remarks, there seems to have been many occasions when the shedding of blood was apparently necessary. He lists several cases that show the Reiver as “… a nasty, cruel, mean spirited ruffian…” rather than as a hero. For example, he records the case of Hecky Noble, who was a victim of Dick Armstrong of Dryhope. Not only were cattle stolen, but several houses were destroyed and Hecky’s son and pregnant wife were burned alive. He suggests that if murder was less frequent than one might have expected in such a lawless society, this was because, in the clannish world of the Reiver, a killing could provoke a blood feud which could last for years.
Nor were those crimes that could not be justified as ‘necessary’ particularly unusual. They were committed by heroes later celebrated in the ballads and by those who held high office.
Memorial stone of Johnnie Armstrong
© Scran |
Sandie Scott, one of the band that are revered as heroes in ‘the Ballad of Johnny Armstrong,’ was burned alive because he had torched a house with women and children in it. Also notable was the apparently casual nature by which the crimes were carried out. On one occasion, Robert Kerr, Deputy Keeper of Liddesdale, received a visit from the messenger of one of the English wardens and , “…welcomed the messenger jovially, filled him with drink, and while the messenger was sleeping it off at Kerr’s house, slipped over the Border, murdered an Englishman with whom he had a quarrel, and then went home to bed.”
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