nobles or powerful chiefs, were constructed upon a limited and mean scale. Built usually in some situation of natural strength, and having very thick walls, strongly cemented, they could easily repel the attack of any desultory incursion; but they were neither victualled nor capable of receiving garrisons sufficient to defend them, excepting against a sudden assault. The village, which almost adjoined to the castle, contained the abodes of the retainers, who, upon the summons of the chieftain, took arms either for the defence of the fortresses, or for giving battle in the field. Of these, the greater part were called "kindly tenants," or "rentallers," deriving the former name from the close and intimate nature of their connexion with the lord of the soil, from whom they held their little possessions by favor, rather than bargain; and the latter, from the mode in which their right of possession was constituted, by entering their names in their lord's rental book. Besides this ready militia, the more powerful chiefs maintained in their castle, and as immediate attendants upon their persons, the more active young gentlemen of their clan, selected from the younger brethren and gentlemen of estate, whose descent from the original stock, and immediate dependence upon the chief, rendered them equally zealous and determined adherents. These were recompensed by grants of land, in property or lease, which they stocked with cattle or sheep, as their chief did those which he retained in his own hands.

'But the castles which held these garrisons, whether constant or occasional, were not of strength, or at least of extent, at all commensurate with the military power of the chiefs who inhabited them. The ruins of Cessford, or of Branxholm, before the latter was modernized, might be considered as on the largest scale of Scottish border fortresses, and neither could brook comparison with the baronial castles of English families of far less power and influence.

THE ENGLISH BORDER.

The

The edifices on the opposite side of the border present a very different scene, including, even in these`remote provinces, the superior wealth and civilization of the English nation, with that attention to defend, which was the natural consequence of their having something of value to defend. The central marches, indeed, and the extreme verge of the frontier in every direction, excepting upon the east, were inhabited by wild clans, as lawless as their northern neighbors, resembling them in their manner and customs, inhabiting similar strong holds, and subsisting, like them, by rapine, towers of Thirlwall, upon the river Tippal, of Fenwick, Widdrington, and others, exhibit the same rude strength and scanty limits with those of the Scottish border chieftains. But these were not as in Scotland, the abode of the great nobles, but rather of leaders of inferior rank. Wherever the mountains receded, arose chains of castles of magnificent structure, great extent, and fortified with all the art of the age, belonging to those powerful barons whose names hold so high a rank in English history. The great house of Clifford of Cumberland alone possessed, exclusive of inferior strong holds, the great and extensive castles of Appleby, Brough, Brougham, Pendragon, and Skipton, each of which formed a lordly residence, as may yet be seen from their majestic ruins. The possessions of the great house of Percy was fortified with equal strength. Warkworth, Alnwick, Bamborough, and Cockermouth, all castles of great baronial splendor and strength, besides others in the interior of the country, show their wealth and power. Raby Castle, still inhabited, attests the magnificence of the great Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland; and the lowering strength of Naworth or Brougham castles are compared

with the magnificence of Warwick and Kenilworth,* their savage strength, their triple rows of dungeons, the few and small windows which open to the outside, the length and complication of secret and subterraneous passages, show that they are rather to be held as limitary fortresses for curbing the doubtful allegiance of the borders, and the incursions of the Scottish, than the abodes of feudal hospitality and baronial splendor.

MOSS-TROOPERS.

Returning to the other side of the Solway, the mosstroopers present us with an admirable picture of the local mode of warfare carried on by the borderers. The following sketch of these early and indefatigable yet predatory warriors will be found very interesting.†

Contrary to the custom of the rest of Scotland, the moss-troopers almost always acted as light horsemen, and made use of small active horses accustomed to traverse morasses, in which other cavalry would have stood a chance of being swallowed up. 'Their hardy mode of life made them indifferent to danger, and careless about the ordinary accommodations of life. The uncer tainty of reaping the fruits of their labor, deterred them from all the labors of cultivation; their mountains and glens afforded pasturage for the cattle and horses, and when these were driven off by the enemy,. they supplied the loss by reciprocal depredation. Living under chiefs by whom this predatory warfare was countenanced, and sometimes headed, they appear to have had little knowledge of the light in which their actions were regarded by the legislature, and the various statutes and regulations made against their incursions, remained in most cases a dead letter. It did indeed, frequently happen, that the

*See Kenilworth. Passim.

+ Vide Border Antiquities, Op. Citat.

kings or governors of Scotland, when the disorders upon the border reached to a certain height, marched against these districts with an overpowering force, seized on the persons of the chiefs, and sent them to distant prisons in the centre of the kingdom, and executed without mercy the inferior captains and leaders. Thus in the year 1529, a memorable era for this soil of expeditious justice, James V, having first committed to ward the Earl of Bothwell, the Lords Home and Maxwell, the Lairds of Buccleigh, Fairnihist, Johnstone, Polwarth, Dolphinton, and other chiefs of clans, marched through the borders with about eight thousand men, and seizing upon the chief leaders of the moss-troopers, who seem not to have been aware that they had any reason to expect harm at their sovereign's hands, executed them without mercy.

Besides the celebrated Johnnie Armstrong, of Gillnockie, to whom a considerable part of the English frontier paid black mail,* the names of Piers, Cockburn of Henderland, Adam Scott, of Tushielaw, called the king of the border, and other marauders of note, are recorded as having suffered on this occasion. And although this and other examples of severity, had the effect for the time, as he Scottish phrase is, of "dantoning the thieves of the borders, and making the rushbush keep the cow," yet this course not only deprived the kingdom of the assistance of many brave men, who were usually the first to endure or repel the brunt of invasion, but it also diminished the affections of those who remained, and a curious and middle state of relation appears to have taken place between the borderers on each side, who, as they were never at absolute peace with each other during the cessation of national hostilities, seem, in like manner, to have shunned engaging in violent and sanguinary conflicts, even during the time of war.

*A sort of tax paid to freebooters, to obtain exemption from their inroads.

The English borderers, who were in the same manner held aliens to the civilized part of the country, inasmuch that, by the regulation of the corporation of Newcastle, no burgess could take to his apprentice a youth from the dales of Reed of Tyne, made common cause with those of Scotland, the allegiance of both to their common country was much loosened; the dalesmen on either side seem to have considered themselves in many respects as a separate people, having interests of their own, distinct from, and often hostile to, that of the country to which they were nominal subjects. This gave rise to some singular features in their history.

These men, who might thus be said to bear but dubious allegiance to their country, were, of all others, the most true of faith to whatever they had pledged their individual word. If it happened that any of them broke his troth, he who sustained the wrong, displayed at the first public meeting upon the borders, a glove upon the point of a lance, and proclaimed him a perjured and man-sworn traitor. This was accounted an insult to the whole clan to which the culprit belonged. If his crime was manifest, there were instances of his being put to death by his kinsman; but if the accusation was unfounded, the stain upon the honor of the clan was accounted equal to the slaughter of one of its members, and, like that, could only be expiated by deadly feud. Under the terrors of this penalty, the degree of trust that might be reposed in the most desperate of the border outlaws, is described by Robert Constable, in his account of an interview with the banished Earl of Westmoreland and his unfortunate followers. They desired to get back into England, but were unwilling to trust their fortune without some guides. 'I promised,' said Constable," to get them two guides. that would not care to steale, and yet they would not bewray any man that trusts in them for all the gold in Scotland and France. They are my guides and out