ighbours, and to seize every possible opportunity
against them. The record of the raids does not lean more to one side
than another for aggressiveness, though generally the Scot has been
credited for this quality. But as a matter of fact both sides were
equally at fault and equally determined. And the onslaughts were
often of the most savage and persistent kind, and were almost entirely
unchecked by the legal restraints which were set in force. The division
of the district into East, West and Middle Marches, with a sort of
vice-regal Warden appointed over each, was not always conducive to peace
and good feeling. At certain times, a day of truce was held when the
Wardens of both sides met and settled any questions that might be in
dispute between their followers, but occasionally the decision was
anything but harmonious--as in the case of the Reidswire, for instance.
In the "Debateable or Threep Lands," which lay partly in England and
partly in Scotland, between the Esk and the Sark, no end of worry and
difficulty was experienced. "Its chief families were the Armstrongs and
Grahams, both clans being noted as desperate thieves and freebooters.
They had frequently to be dealt with by force of arms till in the 17th
century, the Grahams were transported to Ireland, and forbidden to
return upon pain of death. Other districts of the Borders from time to
time called forth hostile visitations from the Scottish kings or their
commissioners, when great numbers of the robbers were frequently seized
and hanged. So late as 1606, the Earl of Dunbar executed as many as 140
of them. The Union of the Crowns removed some obvious grounds of
contention between the English and Scottish people, and after the middle
of the 17th century the Borders gradually subsided into a more peaceful
condition."

It was doubtless due to the exigencies occasioned by those frequently
recurring wars and raids from the 13th to the 16th century that the
whole country on both sides of the frontier became so thickly studded
with castles and peel-towers, the numerous ruins of which still form a
distinctive feature in Border scenery, although from times much earlier
the castles and strongholds were characteristic elements in the old
Scottish landscape. Alexander Hume, of Polwarth, the poet-preacher of
Logie, near Stirling, in his fine description of a "Summer's Day," thus
refers to them:--

"The rayons of the sunne we see
Diminish in their strength;