Our First Raid

After all of the digging I did regarding this raid I figured it would only do it justice if I told the full story. The mystery was not just when the raid happened, but where? The mystery began in a book titled "The Scotts of Buccleuch" which stated,

"Walter Scott, grandson and heir of the deceased David Scott of Buccleuch, who obtained, on the 25th of June 1494, a decree of the Lords of Council in his favour in reference to the theft and plunder of his grandfather's property, by certain depredators of the Borders, -- Simon Routledge of the Prowis, Mathew Routledge his son, and their accomplices, had taken from the despoiled David Scott and his tenants, of five horses and mares, forty kye and oxen, and forty sheep, household plenishing to the value of forty pounds, two chalders of victual, thirty salt martis, eighty stones of cheese and butter, and two oxen 'besides burning and spoiling of the place and manor of Buccleuch"

So this set me off on my way with various questions to be answered such as, why was it the grandson that made the complaint, how did they get away with it, where was the manor and how big was it, when did it happen and finally why do the current Scotts know nothing off this?

How did we manage it?

    My first course of action I decided to take was to contact the current Scotts record offices and ask when the Manor at Buccleuch was burned down. To which I got the reply, "we've never had a manor at Buccleuch, although we do own the land". So this sort of stumped me for a bit. Although they did inform me that the David Scott I was referring to died in 1491, and his father had died in 1468. So this was my first breakthrough. The raid had to taken place while David was the Laird and so therefore it was between 1468 and 1491; a 23 year window.

    Sir David had been given the captaincy at Hermitage Castle by the Earl of Angus, Archibald Douglas, for him to run for him. This was in 1470. And in the 1480's David is often mentioned being in his seat in Parliament. So already in the 23 year period he was head of the family and  he was barely at home, and due to the isolation of Buccleuch it was a prime target to be raided as its laird was never around. It must have been irresistible to Simon and his son, a hardly used manor in the middle of nowhere. 

Looking west at the present day Buccleuch Farm

Where was it?

  But all this still didn't help find the location. So in sheer desperation I typed in Buccleuch on multimap and it came back with a farm west of Hawick. This was also where the legend of the name Buccleuch had came from. how a brave Scott had lain down a buck at the Scottish Kings feet, and as a reward he made him laird of all the land he could see. At last I was getting somewhere. I already new that the main residence of the Scotts of Buccleuch was Branxholm from the mid to late 1400's onwards, so my next step was finding out when the lands had come into the Scotts possession to see if this where the manor might have been. I needed a date, not just folk law.

      In the August of 1296 Richard le Scot of Murthoston's swore allegiance to King Edward the I of England, who on the 5th September restored his lands in the county of Selkirk, namely Rankilburn and Buccleuch. Before this the lands were owned by Nigel de Herris the kings forester. And if you count the Heirs from the above Richard to Sir David, David is the sixth heir and is referred to as the sixth laird of Buccleuch. So as best as I could prove it this is when they acquired the lands and also what ever was already on the land. I can only assume to have lands restored, they must have had them taken by the English at some point.

As for Sir David Scott, he was quite a busy man. His son David had died in 1486 who was always referred to as David the Younger as he was never a laird and the title passed straight to Walter Scott, David the Younger's son, who obtained the decree.

So now I knew when the lands where obtained and proof that David owned them. The land today sits just off the B711 and follows the course of Rankle Burn. At the north is two farms named aptly West and East Buccleuch. So I got out a more detailed OS map and had a look to see if there was anything of interest marked on the map. There was sadly nothing saying "site of old manor" nor was there any obvious field boundaries. Heading south along Rankle Burn though there is something of interest.

There is a ruins shown as Buccleuch Church which I have since found out dates back as the farmer put it, "hundreds of years" he also told me that it was not a Church but a cemetery, and that before the forest was planted they had found in the ground a large circular stone which turned out to be a catapult stone. What its was doing in a cemetery though is beyond me. Then I decided to look at some older maps of the area to see if it showed the church in better detail. But instead I got my 'x' marks the spot I was looking for.  On an older map, shown below, which I now own, where East Buccleuch farm stands it says "Site of Castle" and the site of the Church too.

1924 OS Map

So having found the site of a Buccleuch Castle, possibly my missing manor, I went back to the current Buccleuch estate managers and asked them what they could tell me about it. To which they replied, "what castle". Not really the best result I was looking for. So I asked the farmer at East Buccleuch. 

He confirmed that it had indeed been the site of a Castle hundreds of years ago and when the farm house was built in 1832 they incorporated stones from the castle into the design. One of the stones they had used was none other than the Scott symbol, the crescent moon, which had placed above the door as shown below. The 1832 is an addition and originally it was not white washed.

He also showed me the stone, believed by local experts, to be from the castle but was unsure as to were it was from or what it was used for. As well as this I was shown what is believed to be large foundation stones of possibly the castle. Both of which are shown below. But the most fascinating thing I was shown was when you sat in the living room at East Buccleuch you could hear as clear as crystal doors slamming and cars driving off at West Buccleuch. There is said to be an escape tunnel running from the old castle under the burn and comes out near the farm on the West side.

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland gave a brief account of both the church site and the Castle. For the Church site it says that  "The church was already ruinous by 1566" and that it used to serve the people of Rankle Parish, but there was no clues as to when it was built or demolished. All that can be seen today is the perimeter wall poking  out of the trees and any lumps and bumps have long since disappeared among the trees.

And as for the Castle who ever made wrote the initial information made an assumption and after talking to various historians they all agree with me. For the RCAHMS report states that "The farmhouse of East Buccleuch stands on the site of the manor-place of Buccleuch, which was burnt by Hertford in 1544" which when I first read I was concerned that the Routledges had not burned this site at all. However I soon found the sentence in the history books the mistake had come from. It had stated that in 1544 during the Earl of Hertford's devastating raid into Scotland, a year after Sacking Edinburgh, he had "ravaged the Lands at Buccleuch and burned the Branxholme Castle" Straight away I could see that they had mistaken the Scotts of Buccleuch and Branxholme title meaning that this was the Castle and that it was not the one at Branxholme. I soon proved this when I found out that the Branxholme Castle had existed in 1532 as it had been burned then too.

The Routledges had burned the manor or the castle at the head of the Rankle burn, and history had forgotten the might of the Routledges. So below is my tail of the raid, and how I imagine it in my head.

The Raid

Some time between 1484 and 1491 Simon de Routluge who had recently confirmed the next heir to the Douglas line decided to increase his holdings. Perhaps to the instructions of Douglas himself. Laird David Scott of Buccleuch was away at Hermitage Castle, mourning the death of his son David and raising his grandson Walter. The glen of Buccleuch was with out its laird and unprotected, the tenants grazed sheep, Kye and oxen on the hill sides with a small Church providing to their Religious needs in the parish of Rankle, and the Glen was quiet.

Then came the Routledges! Simon and his son rode side by side on horse back, their swords in one hand and reins in the other. They galloped down the hill side followed by their relatives, loyal followers, and even some of their labourers or tenants from Simon's lands at Burnflatt or Birkwood. They torched every building and stole the household goods, rounded up oxen, sheep and horse's. The Glen filled with the clash of steel and the screams of the unprepared. Then they descended on the castle ransacking the rooms and scaring the maids. The Routledges left the glen with as much haste as which they had descended as they Hotrod their way eastwards to the safety of their homes.

They left houses burning and lands torched, wives widowed and children orphaned, and the sorry smoking castle filled the glen with a shadow of bereavement. While the whole time David Scott sat in his comfort of Hermitage Castle, blissfully unaware as the what had become his manor and subjects.

The Routledges had Reived!

Home / Routledges, Raids and Reivers