o had been left at home were either unwilling or
unable to abandon their reiving habits. The disease had long been chronic,
and those responsible for the government of the country began to realise
that the cure was not to be effected in any instantaneous fashion. Time
and patience were alike necessary in order to the successful
accomplishment of the end desiderated. The task of restoring order, more
especially in the Liddesdale district, was committed to the able hands of
the "Bold Buccleuch." When he returned from abroad he was invested with
the most arbitrary powers to execute justice on the malefactors, and he
went about his work in the most resolute and business-like manner. Well
known thieves were apprehended and immediately put to death. There were no
prisons to lodge them in, and as it would have been, in most cases, a
sheer waste of time to subject them to any form of trial--most of them
being well known depredators who gloried in their crimes--they were
executed without ceremony. In this way large numbers of the worst
characters were disposed of, and a wholesome fear created in the minds of
those who were fortunate enough to escape the gallows. If Buccleuch, in
his rash and impetuous youth, was responsible for much of the mischief
done on the Borders, he amply atoned for his indiscretions by the splendid
services he now rendered to the State in suppressing lawlessness, and
inaugurating, in this distracted region, the reign of law and order. His
name will remain indissolubly associated with one of the most eventful and
stirring periods in Border history, and we feel certain that the fame of
his prowess will not suffer from a more minute acquaintance with the
varied incidents of his remarkable career.

But the main factors in the social and moral regeneration of the Borders
were--

(1) The Union of the Crowns.

(2) The Planting of Schools.

(3) The Restoration of the Church.

This order may not represent, and we do not think it does represent, the
relative value of the influences which produced the radical and
significant change which now took place in the habits and life of the
people on both sides of the Border. But it will best suit our purpose to
consider these agencies in the order stated.

For a period of wellnigh four hundred years it had been the ambition of
successive English monarchs to reduce Scotland to a state of vassalage.
From the time of Edward this object was never altogeth