The Border Law. to look at war from their own point of view, and fight for mere prisoners or plunder. To meet such conditions the Border laws were evolved. They were administered in chief by special officers called wardens. Either Border was portioned out into three Marches: the East, the Middle and the West (the lordship of Liddesdale was in cluded in the Scots Middle March, but sometimes it had a special keeper of almost equal dignity with a warden). Each of the three Scots wardens had a hundred pounds of yearly fee; he could appoint deputies, captains of strongholds, clerks, sergeants and dempsters; he could call out the full force of his district to invade or to beat back invasion; he represented the sovereign and was responsible for crimes. He must keep the clans in order by securing as hos tages several of their most conspicuous sons, and either these were quartered on nobles on the other side of the Firth, or they were held in safe keeping in the king's castles. He also held justice courts for the trial of the Scots subjects accused of offenses against the laws of their own country. He was commonly a great noble of the district, his office in early times being often heredi tary; and, as such, he had power of life and death, so that the need for holding special courts was little felt. A Scots anecdote pic tures an angry Highlander " banning " the lords of sessions as " kinless loons," be cause, though some were relatives, they had decided a case against him. These wardens were not " kinless loons," and they often used their office to favor a friend or depress a foe. On small pretext they put their ene mies " to the horn," as the process of out lawry (by trumpet blast) was called. True, the indifference with which those enemies "went to the horn" would scandalize the legal pedant. Sometimes a superior officer, a "lieuten ant," was sent to the Borders; the wardens were under him; he more fully represented the royal power. Now and again the sov
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ereign himself made a progress, administer ing a rough and ready justice, and to " dautoning the thieves of the Borders, and making the rush bush keep the cow." So it was said of the famous raid of James V in 1529. The chief incident was the capture ofJohnie Arm strong, of Gilnockie, the ruins of whose pic turesque tower at the Hollows still overlook the Esk. Gilnockie came to meet his king with a great band of horsemen richly appar elled. He was captain of Langholm Castle, and the ballad tells how he and his com panions exercised themselves in knightly sports on Langholm Lee, whilst the " ladies lukit frae their loft window." " God bring our men well hame agen! " the ladies said; and their apprehensions were more than justified. " What wants yon knave that a king should have?" asked the king in angry amaze. He ordered the band to instant execution; and in accordance with romantic precedent, one only is said to have escaped to tell the tale. Many of Johnie's name, among them Ill Will Armstrong, tersely described as " another stark theiff," went to their doom; but the act, however applauded at Edinburgh, was bitterly con demned on the Borders. Gilnockie only plundered the English, it was urged, and the king had caught him by a trick, un worthy of a Stuart. The country folk loved to tell how the dule trees faded away, and they loved to point out the graves of the Armstrongs in the lonely churchyard. But the ballad preserves the name better than all else. It unblushingly commends Gilnockie's love of honesty, his generosity, his patriotism, and directly accused his sov ereign of treachery, in which accusation there is perhaps some truth. Anyhow, the execution was the act of a weak and violent man, and had no permanent effect. The wardens had twofold duties: first, defense against the enemy; second, negotia tion in time of peace with the " mighty opposite." Thus the Border Laws were part police and part international, and were ad
