The Anglo-Scottish Border Line.
In 1966 the Anglo-Scottish Border was described by a leading historian of Scotland as
“one of the major creations and institutions of medieval Britain” (Barrow 1966: 21).
Given this judgement, it is perhaps surprising that no detailed study has subsequently
been published of the actual Border Line itself.
Indeed, as the late Denys Hay pointed out in 1974 there has been “very little discussion of the frontier in ordinary surveys of Scottish or English history” (Hay 1974: 79).
According to Hay, the “standard narrative” remained George Ridpath‟s Border History of England & Scotland – a text first published in 1776 and revised in 1848 (Hay
1974: 79 fn.7). Although acknowledging the work of D.L.W. Tough, The Last Years
of a Frontier (1928) and T. I. Rae, The Administration of the Scottish Frontier (1966)
Hay gave further credit only to J.L. Mack‟s The Border Line (1924) “a careful account” of a frontier demarcation which nevertheless does “not seem to have attracted
much attention, since major conflicts between the two countries were affected only
marginally by the ambiguities of the Tweed-Solway line” (Hay 1974: 79). For Hay,
“the establishment of a fixed boundary has been somewhat taken for granted” and yet
“the Border was not merely a line, notionally following rivers and burns and leaping
to standing stones and ditches or dykes. It was a tract of territory separated in some
senses from the countries on either side of it. It was thus a frontier of a peculiar kind”
(Hay 1974: 80).
In the past 25 years or so since Barrow and Hay made these remarks, a number of important studies and collections have been published which examine in great detail the
nature of the Anglo-Scottish frontier. These include: S.J. Watts, From Border to Middle Shires 1586-1625 (1975); C. Neville, Violence Custom & Law: The AngloScottish Border Lands in the Later Middle Ages (1998); A. MacDonald, Border
Bloodshed: Scotland & England at War 1369 –1403 (2000); M. Meikle, A British
Frontier? Lairds & Gentlemen in the Eastern Borders 1540-1603 (2004); R. Bartlett
& A. Mackay, Medieval Frontier Societies (1989) and A. Tuck & A. Goodman, War
& Border Societies in the Middle Ages (1992). Illuminating as these works are on
many aspects of the frontier zone, none focuses specifically upon the exact positioning of the Line that has served to distinguish Scotland from England.
In the meantime, a new generation of historians has emerged eager to tackle the very
largest and most perplexing questions of Scottish national identity and consciousness.
Amongst these may be included: R. A. Houston (et al) Literacy and the Scottish
Identity (1985); D. Broun & B. Webster, Medieval Scotland, The Making of an Identity (1997) and N. Davidson, The Origins of Scottish Nationhood (2000). The best and
most recent general histories of Scotland - M. Lynch, A New History of Scotland
(1991) and R.A. Houston & W.W.J. Knox, The New Penguin History of Scotland
(2001) are likewise much exercised by this identity and consciousness theme.
Just exactly what ideas of „Scotland‟ might have meant to the various degrees of men
and women who happened to live in that part of the world – lairds, burgesses, husbandmen, cottars or whatever – and just exactly when these ideas meant what they did
to these very different groups of people, are profound and difficult questions. This
paper does not try to answer them – at least not directly. It simply asks: where exactly
is this „Scotland‟? When, exactly, was a line drawn between „Scotland‟ and „England‟? Why was the line drawn in this very particular place and what does this Border
Line actually mean?
These, of course, were always very practical and immediately compelling questions
for those living in close proximity to the Border Line. And while such marginal
people may have been of little significance to those whose purpose it has been to
forge (in both the blacksmith‟s and the counterfeiter‟s senses of the term) national
identity & consciousness in the capital and other major centres of population, the exact positioning of the Border Line was, as we shall see, an everyday and sometimes
even a life and death concern to them.
In the Anglo-Scottish frontier zone, which came first: did people living there first acquire a sense that they were distinctly „Scottish‟ and „English‟ so that a Line had then
to be drawn accordingly or did a Border Line have first to be drawn before the people
living immediately on either side of it could become convinced that a vitally important set of „international‟ distinctions now lay between them? When exactly did it first
occur to people living right next to the Anglo-Scottish Border Line that some kind of
fundamental & non-negotiable difference clearly lay between them?
In frontier zones like the Anglo-Scottish Border, do people develop a stronger sense
of national identity and consciousness than those living at a distance; do they develop
this sense of identity & consciousness earlier and do they do this because their day to
day experience of the national enemy is closer, more intimate and hence better informed? Alternatively, is the sense of national identity & consciousness altogether
weaker; is it just slower and much less likely to develop in frontier zones because
common economic interests, trading partnerships, intermarriage and so on must inevitably bring people together across the Border Lines which lie between them? Or
are we to suppose that the sense of national identity & consciousness develops uniformly and in a wholly undifferentiated fashion throughout the populations and territories of countries whose elites are getting round to the business of claiming nation
statehood?
Where is Scotland?
To answer this question we must examine the maps included in the Powerpoint presentation.
From this presentation we can see that, leaving aside the possibility that either Kingdom might at some point have swallowed the other whole, there are many possible
Border Lines between „Scotland‟ & „England‟ which make at least as much sense as
the one which was actually chosen.
We can also see, focusing in more narrowly upon the Line which was in fact chosen,
that much of the Border Line was more or less continuously in dispute – some sections of it being in dispute until 1799, long after the two Kingdoms & Parliaments
were united in 1603 & 1707.
When was Scotland thus delineated?
To answer this question we must examine the lists of dates included with this paper.
From these we can immediately see that the Border was not fixed, once and for all, at
one particular date in time. (And that, indeed, scholars have been in considerable disagreement as to the key dates in the fixing process.)
We can also see that the Border Line distinction between „Scotland‟ & „England‟ is
more deeply structured (in ways that we do not yet fully understand) by the histories
of the „lost Kingdoms‟ of Northumbria/Bernicia and Strathclyde/Cumbria. The settlement of the Border Line, that is to say, was not simply the outcome of a struggle
between Scotland & England. The eastern Scottish Borders and Lothians of today
were once „English‟ (at least in the sense of the term „English‟ that would have been
understood by Bede when he was writing his Ecclesiastical History of the English
People at Jarrow in c731) long before it occurred to anyone that these territories
might in some sense be „Scottish‟. And the western Scottish Borders were „British‟ (at
least in the sense of the term „British‟ that would have been understood by Ptolemy of
Alexandria when he was writing his Geographia in the first century AD) long before
the people known as Scotti left the shores of Ireland.
We can also see, moreover, that the precise location of the Border Line gave considerable aggravation to communities immediately on either side of it until the beginning of the nineteenth century – and that the tidying up of minor peculiarities & anomalies continues to this day.
Why was Scotland delineated thus?
The present Border Line does not make any geographical sense. That is to say, the
Line chosen does not have geographical features which, so to speak, are more outstanding or significant than those of any number of alternative lines. In no sense,
therefore, is it a natural frontier (whatever that might mean).
The present Border does not distinguish between people who belong to different racial or ethnic groups (whatever these terms might mean). It does not divide people
who speak different languages. It does not separate different religious groups. It is not
positioned in accordance with any major pre-existing cultural difference whatsoever.
The chosen Border Line does not make any military sense. It was and is completely
indefensible. The rivers Tweed and Esk are not the Rhine and Danube. The Cheviots
are not the Alps.
The present Border Line does not make any historical sense. It crudely bisects the ancient kingdoms of Northumbria/Bernicia and Strathclyde/Cumbria. It cuts straight
through and without acknowledgement the patrimony of the venerable St Cuthbert.
Today‟s Border does not follow the meanderings of some Dark Ages earthwork monument like Offa’s Dike. The major and nearby Dark Ages linear earthworks of the
Borders Region – Heriot’s Dyke, the Catrail, & the Wheel Causeway - are nowhere
employed to help define the present Border. The present Border has nothing whatsoever to do with whatever underlying realities and divisions of peoples the Romans
were recognising when they established their frontiers at the Antonine and Hadrianic
Walls.
It would seem therefore that the answer to our question (why has the Border been
placed in this particular position?) is this: it is there for no discernible reason whatsoever. It could just as easily have been put somewhere else. There is nothing in the
historical record to suggest otherwise.
What does Scotland thus delineated mean?
It means that there is a perfectly dreadful clutter of visually unappealing road signs at
Coldstream Bridge and other Border crossing points. These monster signifiers of national difference, all profitably provided by the French multinational corporation Dupont in a superlative gesture of post-modern irony, carry a bewildering range of
stoutly patriotic and other no doubt essential messages: „Scotland‟, „England‟,
„Coldstream: Scotland‟s First Toun‟, „The Border Country‟, „River Tweed‟, „Northumberland‟, „Cornhill‟, „Bide A Wee‟, „Haste Ye Back‟, „Slow‟, „30‟ and so on.
It means that those of us who were born and brought up in this frontier zone ought to
think for a while before joining people who like shouting „Scotland’ in preference to
„England’ or ’England’ in preference to ‘Scotland’. There is no very good reason why
today‟s Borderers should be enthusiastic about shouting either of these slogans. And
every good reason for them either to dissimulate or to keep their mouths shut. But for
the accidents of comparatively recent history, the Scottish Borderers of today might
just as easily have ended up feeling obliged to shout „England‟ and English Borderers
„Scotland‟. And times change. Whatever it is that Borderers might feel like shouting
today, they might not feel like shouting quite so loudly tomorrow. Such a conclusion
about the kinds of changing circumstances which might shape, alter or constrain the
patriotic and other enthusiasms of Borderers is at least consistent with their reputation
in the late Middle Ages: Scotsmen as they will, English at their pleasure; if Jesus
Christ were amongst them, they would deceive Him.
I would suggest also that the history of Scotland thus delineated conveys a harsh lesson: people who live in frontier zones need to be as prudent and as flexible in their
allegiances as they must be with everything else – if they want to survive and prosper.
The fact of the frontier means they must be ready always to bend with the prevailing
wind. They must be ready to make a friend in every adverse circumstance. Borderers
are first of all Borderers and only secondarily Scottish or English.
Again, as I suggested at the outset, here on the Anglo-Scottish Border we may also be
seeing a useful and positive lesson in how to defuse the kinds of problems that characteristically beset frontier zones. The Anglo-Scottish Border was once an appallingly
violent place in which to live – as bad as anywhere on the planet. It is entirely peaceful now.
_____________________________
Barrow G.W.S. (1966), „The Anglo-Scottish Border‟ in Northern History, I, 22-41.
Hay D. (1974), „England, Scotland and Europe: The Problem of the Frontier‟, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 25, 77-91.
David Welsh
Northumbria University.
[email protected]