What's in a name?

Birth of the Reivers

Humble Beginnings - Hawick

Scott's and Routledges

Tarras Moss and the 500

The Curse

Routledge Raids and Reivers

1580's - 10 years of hell

Routledges of Bewcastle

Routledge Castles and Towers

Routledge Coat of Arms

American and Irish Rutledges

Historical and Leftovers

Links

Contacts and Bibliography

     Now the opening page to this website has already mentioned that the Routledges were Border Reivers; But what was a Border Reiver? Well to some people they may know the Reivers inside and out, and may have read every book or article about them. Some of you reading this may have only a vague idea of what and who they where, and others may not have a clue. Well hopefully this page will introduce or reintroduce who and what the Reivers were.

    When exactly the Border Reivers were born can not be pinned down to a single individual raid, nor a single person. There would have been petty theft and stealing going on along the borders long before they were given the title Reivers. However if the birth cannot be pinpointed their conception certainly can. And the illegitimate father to the Reivers would be indirectly Edward the I, or Longshanks as you may better know him. Now straight away thanks to Hollywood your mind has been cast back to thinking of the film Braveheart. Well yes you are in the right period but about 10 years after the Reivers conception took place.

     The Scottish king had died in 1286, and through a series of accidents to the heirs it meant that the throne to Scotland sat empty. Longshanks had long been wanting to extend his lands and turn Scotland into middle Englandshire, and had made this publicly know to his council in 1291, so to him this was an opportunity he could not let pass. His first act was to oversee the installment of John Balliol as King off Scotland in 1292. There had been much competition for the throne, however Balliol was probably not the greatest choice in the end for the Scottish people. He was a weak leader and an even weaker King, and would not be long before he tucked tail and abandoned his country. Edward, impatient headed north with his army and in 1296 arrived at Berwick. Berwick at the time was equal to Edinburgh in power and wealth and was one of the most important cities in Scotland. It was the gate way to the country.

    It was on 28th March 1296 that the English army crossed the Tweed and appeared before the walls of Berwick. Only three days earlier Edward had failed to sack Carlisle so was enraged and hungry for victory over the Scots. Berwick, though a formidable defense, did have a breech in the walls. The English army poured through and butchered the people of Berwick. It is claimed that they killed, indiscriminate of sex, up to 17,000 people; roughly the population of the city. This would become what some believe to be the catalyst for the birth of the Reivers.

     The Scottish and the English were already not getting along as it was, but with the birth of a new century the Scots would carry a bitter taste of violation and rage against the English. This would be felt no where more than along the Anglo-Scottish border. Imagine sharing your borders with the people you hated the most. Now the land along the border, at the time, was not the best so the Scottish took it upon them selves to take what they needed or wanted from English. This then led to the English thinking the same and taking what they had lost back, but not necessarily from those who had taken. Before long this would become a way of life.

     There is no one particular person that could be classed as the first ever Reiver due to the fact that petty crimes would have been going on long before the massacre of Berwick. But you can look at them slowly start to establish themselves. Unlike wars where there is two sides to the fight, along the borders there was no defined sides. Yes there was England and Scotland in the beginning, but as time went on, theft and plunder became a way of life and not just a patriotic right. Nationality was wavered as the border lines fell into disarray. Your family name was the only loyalty that mattered. 

      Neither monarch on either side could or would get the borders under control. The lawless families soon started to grow and gain power and land, while others fell victim to the raids and struggled to survive. Before long powerful families such as the Armstrong's, Scott's, Douglas's Elliot's and Grahams could organize devastating raids on English lands, or weak Scottish neighbour's; taking Oxen, sheep, goats and horses. It would not have taken long before lives were taken too; Widows and orphan's littered the border. Life was hard enough along this desolate moss ridden land, with out the loss of the husband or father and their skills. 

      So forget about the Reivers being English raiders going into Scotland as some patriotic rite, and forget about the Scottish stealing from the English, it was family against family, clan against clan, your name came first and patriotism was a distant second. 

"They shook loose the borders"

       In a list drawn up in 1561 and later in 1583 (a year which we will coming back to throughout this site) it shows the border families and where they dwelt. The Border, now completely out of control, had been divided into 'Marches', three on the Scottish side and three on the English side (above). Aptly named, West, Middle and East Marches, Six in total; and each governed by lords and lairds who were just as lawless as those who were suppose to be under their control. It is easy to forget that it was not just the common men and local thieves that were the Reivers, but everyone. If you or I lived on the Anglo-Scottish Border then we too would have been Reivers. Below is the list drawn up in 1583 showing which families and clans lived where (all the spellings are taken from the 1583 document).

     These 80 family names would form the sides to the Border Reiver fight. Now like I said before their was no two sides to this fight, so at times it can be hard to imagine 80 individual factions against each other with no allegiance to each other; Well at least not for long, as occasionally two surnames might ride together.

    So imagine a country pub, and in that country pub one day there are eighty people. Everyone of them has gone in there alone and knows no one else who is in there. Everything is ok till the landlord (Edward I) decides that he wants someone's newspaper, and takes it. Much to the persons annoyance he decides to go take some one else's, but while he is up someone who was standing takes his stool and so forth it goes on. And before you know it all 80 people in the bar are engaged in a full scale bar-room brawl. Some have the advantage of being on the pool table with the higher ground, while some are near the darts board. Others sit cowering in the corner trying just to not get hurt and wait for the fight to subside, and there is two people behind the bar (the Johnston's and Maxwell's) trying quiet happily to kill each other. And that is the best way I can describe the state of the borders. It was an eighty way, bar room brawl.

A Reivers Life

       So now we know how they came about, and where and who they were we can now take a little look at their day to day lives, arms, and homes. Now the reivers first came about in the early 1300's and spread themselves through to 1606 and the union of the crowns. Firstly we'll take a look at how the typical reiver dressed. 

Now not every reiver would have had lavish armour or a horse, but they would have probably all had the means to defend themselves and their homes. Their homes would not have been of substantial build, and more likely stone walls with a thatched roof and animal skin for a door. Nevertheless it was their home and their land. Some of the richer and more powerful reivers however did have more elaborate buildings to their name, such as pele towers, bastle houses and even the odd castle here and there.

As for their arms they would have had such equipment as swords, longbows, lances, spears, daggers and in later years match lock pistols. For protection some would have the characteristic steel bonnets (above center and right) and others would have wore pike mans helmets and a Spanish style of helmet know as comb morion (above left). As for their bodies they wore padded jackets or if lucky enough, a steel breast plate.

In 1580 along the marches a muster call was taken to determine who had what arms. Everyone with steel caps (caps), lances (la), or spears (sp) were listed so that the Captains of the marches knew who had what. In the West march we find the following Routledges in the Eskdale Ward bearing arms, 

ASKERTON: John Rowtledge [caps and sp], Willie, Rowland and Mathewe Rowtledge [la]. 

LANERCOST: Randell Routledge [caps and sp]. 

WATTON PARISH: Thomas and Andrew Routledge [caps and sp], William Routledge [la], 

SKAILBYE: Lanceolote Reutledge [sp]

and some in the East march mounted with horses. 

KILHAM: John, Christopher, Thomas and Rigmone Rutliche

Although this does give us an insight into the weaponry carried by the Routledges on the border, it is important to realise that this muster roll took place in 1580, only 26 years before the reivers would come to an end. This is the problem when people write or read about the Reiver, most of what they talk about is from the 1560's onwards. This is not down to any laziness on the researchers part, it is simply that from 1568 onwards there is what is know as the Calendar of Border Papers. This is a compellation of every letter or complaint made regarding the borders right up to 1603. And this leads to a lot of problems when trying to talk about the reivers. Yes, in 1580 these men were Reivers, but there had been 280 years worth of reivers before them and that should not be forgotten.

Going back to the weaponry, the swords that the reivers used is wide and varied subject. They would have used Basket-hilted Broadswords (center left), rapier swords (Right)  and earlier in their existence, hand and a half swords (Left), or more commonly know as bastard sword (due to the fact the did not fit into any group of swords). But most reivers would have had a lance (center) or spear as these could be easily manufactured.

So as you can see their arsenal was a varied one and quiet often no two family member would be armed the same on a raid. Armed with a mixture of passed down swords and home made lances they went about their reiveing for 300 years in what ever they had to arms. 

Nearly all the reiving would take place between Michaelmas day, marking the end of the harvest, and Whitsunday, marking the start of spring. The reason for this was not due to religious beliefs, but simply the oxen were fatter having been fed from the harvest, and the nights were longer providing greater cover for getting in and out without being followed. Although there was occasional raid was done by day light. I even came across one raid on 23rd of November 1583 where a group of Scot's had raided five Routledge brothers in Bewcastle and killed one, all on a Sunday morning at 11 o'clock while everyone else was in church. . . the heathens!

Which leads us to another story regarding the reivers and religion. Its more of a tale that has been passed down though rather than an recorded event, well that I can find anyway. It is the tale of a English man from the south passing through the borders some time in the 16th century when he was jumped by a group of Elliot's. With their swords out they pinned down the poor man to which he cried out:

"Are you not Christians?"  and the reply came back: "No man, We're Elliot's!"

So this again gives us another indication of where border loyalties lay. It was not with your country and not with your god, but with your family. And if anyone did harm to your family it could lead to a bitter blood feud between yours and another. A feud was not just a grudge held between two people, but was a bitter enraged hatred towards another surname that would be passed down over the generations. The worst of these blood feud was between the Johnson's and Maxwell's in the east march in Northumberland, where in one confrontation they nearly wiped each other out. Feud's where not only confined to inter family, for the Kerr family was spilt in two and hated each other.

But again to try and stop families uniting, the Scottish parliament came up with another pointless law for the people of the borders. This one they hope would stop any Anglo Scottish allegiances forming and would at least keep the border reivers fighting under a nationality and not just their own surname. It was a simple law that they passed, and one that came with a death penalty for any one who broke it. It stated that it was forbidden for the Scottish Borderers to marry the daughters of the "broken men" or thieves of England, as it was declared this was "not only a hindrance to his Majesty's service and obedience, but also to the common peace and quietness betwixt both Realms". As I said this not only carried death but all there goods would be confiscated too, regardless of any family left behind

An Overdue End

So what became of these armed farmers and lords who stole and raided as a way off life then? Well simply the reivers got completely out of hand in the end and sealed there own fate. The border was completely lawless and no man or woman from outside the border lands dared enter. In some parishes a town could be raided more than once in a single night. They would come, be chased out, then go behind them and raid again, and as they tried to pick up their homes they would come in a third time. Although three times by the same group of people was a rarity. Bewcastle is a good example where in 1582 a Routledge family was raided by the Elliot's and then by the Armstrong's in the same night.

But fate and their own lawlessness was soon to catch up to them. Elizabeth I of England died without an heir, leaving the thrown of England empty and James VI of Scotland was to become James I of England. But not before what was to become known as "ill week"

The week that Elizabeth died the borders ran wild. With no monarchy in place on the English thrown then in the eyes of the border reivers no law stood. So they could literally get away with murder. As they ran riot from Berwick to Carlisle the list of crimes and raids mounted. "Ill week" or "busy week" had mainly been instigated by the Grahams, Armstrong's and Elliot's, so no surprise who would feel the wrath when it came to the end. The riders broke loose all along the frontier, looting, burning, reiving, and driving deep into England in search of plunder. The West March riders, over 200 strong by-passed Carlisle and forayed as far as Penrith; on the East March they ventured as south as Newcastle and Durham.

    James who had now suffered the headache of the borders from both sides, set about pacifying the borders. Now some may say he was evil and villainous with his methods, but at the end of the day everything else had been tried and quiet frankly it had to be done. He installed his own Captains to enforce his justice and "Jeddart Justice" was born. It was sort of a hang now and hang anyone who asked questions later. James's intention was to pacify the borders of any reivers. Groups of reivers and even whole families were rounded up and hung in places such as Hawick, Jedburgh and Carlisle.

   He set up a commission to administer the law and among their first orders was to order the demolition of all strong holds along the borders. This order seems to have not been carried out with any constancy though, like all previous border laws passed. For example while the Elliot's had thirty to forty towers raised to the ground, some belonging to other surnames survived more or less intact. The Grahams were also to suffer at the biased hands of those passing the laws and pacification. Not only were large numbers of them rounded up and hung in the West and Middle March, but a vast majority off them were to be banished to Ireland, a fate which many Routledges were to suffer too. 

   Then came the laws that actually started to have an impact on the borders, one's that would effect the common man and the lord, although the Privy council and the commission was to mainly target the most "obnoxious inhabitants and districts". For example a Proclamation was made that all the inhabitants of these obnoxious area's must "put away all armour and weapons" and keep no horse worth more then fifty shillings sterling or thirty pounds Scots. Another blow to the reivers was the abolishment of all older border laws, with the introduction of much more harsher ones. For instance, "if and Englishman steal in Scotland or any Scotsman steal in England any good or cattle amounting to the value of 12d he shall be punished by death". 

    Meanwhile the rounding up of the notorious offenders continued and speeded up in what became know as Jeddart Justice, from the number of reivers who were justified (hanged) at Jedburgh, virtually without trial. In the September of 1606 Sir George Home was responsible for the "hanging of 140 of the nimblest and most powerful thieves in all the borders". That was three or four Reivers being hanged in just one town every day. Now multiply this along the length of the borders and you soon realise why the borders went quiet quickly. The Reivers that had once helped kill and steal so much now stained the frontier with their own blood. George Home in 1611 was able to report that there was "perfect and settled peace and quietness" in the borders. This however was not entirely true as four months later he brought another reivers to trial and executed 38 of them at Jedburgh and Dumfries. 

   And as for the Armstrong's, well they got the whole lot. If they were not banished to Ireland they were left swinging from ropes. Their towers burned and leveled and their lands sold off. Although they would never completely eradicate the Armstrong's they could at least subdue them. The Armstrong's like the Grahams found them selves banished to Connaught and Roscommon along with other families and clans such as the Routledges and Nixon's. And there you have it. 

"The Reivers were born with the death of a Scottish King and died with the death of an English one. But from 1300 to 1603 they ran lawless, wild and riot and shook loose the border"