Highways and Byways in the Border

Coldstream, where Leet joins Tweed, was of old chiefly known for its ford, the first of any consequence above Berwick. It was here that the invading army of Edward the First crossed the river into Scotland in 1296; here, indeed, it was that most armies, English or Scottish, plunged into country hostile to them once they had quitted their own bank of the river; it was here that all Scottish travellers, from royalty to peasant, must halt when southward bound, and await the falling of the waters should Tweed chance to be in flood. Consequently, at a very early date a settlement sprang up, and in it many an historical personage has temporarily sojourned. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder says that as late as his own day an old thatched two storied building in the village was pointed out as the house in which "many persons of distinction, including kings and queens of Scotland, are enumerated by tradition as having resided… occasionally several days at a time," waiting till the river was fordable. It was not till 1766, when Smeaton completed his fine bridge, that any other crossing of the stream than by the ford was possible. In pre-Reformation times, there was in Coldstream a rich Priory of Cistercian Nuns, not a stone of which, however, now remains. But in its little burial ground, between the river and what used to be the garden of the Priory, in 1834 there was dug up a great quantity of human bones, and a stone coffin. The bones were supposed to be probably those of various Scottish persons of rank who fell but a short five or six miles away on the fatal field of Flodden. Tradition tells that the Abbess of that day, anxious to give Christian burial to her slain countrymen, caused the bodies of many Scots of rank and birth to be borne from the field of battle to the Priory, and there laid them to rest in consecrated ground.

Till about 1865 there stood in the village another interesting old house, and on the building which now occupies its site may be read the following inscription: "Headquarters of the Coldstream Guards, 1659; rebuilt, 1865." Here it was that General Monk formed that famous regiment, than which there is but one in the British army whose history goes further back, none which in achievements can surpass it. In one of his works on England at the period of the Restoration of Charles the Second, M. Guizot, the French historian, records that Monk "spent about three weeks at Coldstream, which was a favourable spot for the purpose, as the Tweed was there fordable; but he seems to have found it a dismal place to quarter in. On his first arrival, he could get no provisions for his own dinner, and was obliged to content himself with a quid of tobacco. His chaplains, less easily satisfied, roamed about till they obtained a meal at the house of the Earl of Home, near by." This place, to which the fine instinct of those preachers guided them, was no doubt The Hirsel, which is at no great distance from Coldstream.

There is yet another thing for which this little town was famed in former days. In the time of our grandsires, and indeed, down to as late a date as 1856, when clandestine weddings were prohibited by Act of Parliament, it was a common sight to see a post-chaise come racing over Coldstream Bridge, or, in days before a bridge existed, splashing through the water from the English side, bearing in it some fond couple (like Mr. Alfred Jingle and the Spinster Aunt), flying on love's wings from stony-hearted parent or guardian. Coldstream was almost as famous a place for run-away marriages as was Gretna Green itself. At the former place, the ceremony was usually performed in the toll-house at the Scottish end of the bridge, where "priests" were always in readiness to tie up the run-away couples, and to issue to them thereafter a Certificate of Marriage, such as the following, which is a copy of one issued in 1836: "This is to certify that John Chambers, Husbandman, from the Broomhouse, in the Parish of Chatton, with Mary Walker from Kelso, in the Parish of Kelso, in Roxboroughshire, was married by me this Day. As witness to my hand, William Alexander, Coldstream, 15th Dec., 1836. Witnesses' names: Miss Dalgleish, Miss Archer."

But though for convenience' sake, and probably for speed of dispatch, the toll-house was chiefly patronised, those who had command of money and were not unduly pressed for time could arrange to have their nuptials celebrated in less public fashion than would probably be the case at the bridge-end. It is I believe an undoubted fact that in 1819 Lord Brougham was married in the chief inn of the village.

Those irregular marriages were in the eighteenth century a great source of trouble and annoyance to the Kirk Session of Kelso. A good many of them at one time were celebrated by a certain Mr. Blair, whom the Privy Council had ejected from the incumbency of Coldstream in 1689 because he had refused to pray for the King and Queen, (William and Mary), and would neither read the proclamation of the Estates nor observe the national thanksgiving. Mr. Blair, however, after the loss of his incumbency continued to live in the village, and, it was alleged, was, in the matter of these marriages sometimes over accommodating and good-natured regarding dates; in his certificates he did not always rigidly adhere to the true day of month or year in cases where it might be represented to him that a fictitious date would be less compromising to the contracting parties. Mr. Blair was "sharply rebukit" by the Session. The reverend gentleman was not in Coldstream later than 1728, and he died at Preston, in Northumberland, in 1736, at the age of eighty-five. The following is the epitaph composed on him:

"Here lies the Reverend Thomas Blair,A man of worth and merit,Who preached for fifty years and mair,According to the spirit.He preached off book to shun offence,And what was still more rare,He never spoke one word of sense —So preached Tammy Blair."

In examining Scottish Border records of those times, nothing strikes one more than the power of the Kirk Sessions; it is indeed hard to imagine a country more priest ridden than Scotland in the eighteenth century. The "Sabbath" was then as easy to break as a hedge-sparrow's egg, and there were a thousand – to modern eyes not very heinous – ways of breaking it. What in the way of punishment may have been meted out to the unfortunate who fell asleep under the infliction of a long, dull, prosy sermon in a stuffy, ill-ventilated church on a warm summer's day, one hardly cares to conjecture, so rigidly enforced was the duty of listening to sermons; whilst to be abroad "in time of sermon" was sin so heinous that Elders were, so to speak, specially retained to prowl around and nose out offenders. Walking on the Sabbath day – "vaguing," they called it, – was looked on with horror, and called for stern reprimand. In 1710, it was observed that sundry persons in Kelso were "guiltie of profaning the Sabbath by walking abroad in the fields after sermons," and the Session called on the parish minister to "give them a general reproof out of the pulpit the next Loird's Day, and to dehort them from so doing in time coming, with certification that the Session will take strict notice of any one guiltie of it." For less than "vaguing," however, a man might be brought before the Session. In 1710, Alexander Graemslaw of Maxwellheugh was "dilated for bringing in cabbage to his house the last Lord's Day between sermons," and was "cited to the next Session." ("Dilate" is probably less painful than it sounds). He was only "rebuked" about the cabbages: but then they fell on him and demanded an explanation of his not having been at church. Altogether they made things unpleasantly warm for Alexander. In 1708, Alexander Handiside and his son, and a woman named Jean Ker were had up for "walking to and fro on the Sabbath." At first they "compeared not" on being cited, but on a second citation Handiside "compeared," and vainly advanced the plea that his walking to and fro was occasioned by the fact that he had been attending a child who had broken a leg or an arm. He "was exhorted to be a better observer of the Sabbath." A Scot, apparently, might not upon the Scottish Sabbath draw from a pit his ox or his ass which had fallen in. This same year, "those who searched the town" discovered two small boys "playing on the Sabbath day in time of sermon." The Session dealt sternly with the hardened ruffians. Amongst other cases that one reads of there is that of Katherine Thomson. One's sympathies rather go with Katherine, who when reproved by a sleuth-hound Elder for "sitting idly at her door in time of sermon," abused her reprover. But the Session made it warm for a woman who thus not only, as they said, "profaned the Sabbath," but was guilty of "indescreet carriage to the Elder." One trembles to think how easy it was to slip into sin in those days.

But over and above this Juggernaut power of the Session, there was another weapon much used by eighteenth century ministers, whereby they kept a heavy hand on the bowed backs of their congregations. It was their habit, where the conduct, real or fancied, of any member of their flock offended them, to speak at the culprit during service on Sundays, and to speak at him in no uncertain voice. The practice is probably now dead, even in remote country parishes, but fifty years ago it was still a favourite weapon in the hands of old-fashioned ministers, and in the eighteenth century it seems to have been in almost universal use. The Reverend Mr. Ramsay, minister of Kelso from 1707 till his death in 1749, was a dexterous and unsparing wielder of this ecclesiastical flail. It chanced once that there "sat under" him – as we say in Scotland – a Highlander, a man who had deserted from the ranks of the rebel army in the '15, and had afterwards managed to get appointed to a post in the Excise at Kelso. This man's seat in church was in the front pew of the gallery, immediately facing Mr. Ramsay, and his every movement, therefore, was likely to catch the minister's eye. Now, the exciseman had a habit which greatly annoyed Mr. Ramsay. As soon as the sermon commenced, the Highlander produced a pencil, with which he proceeded to make marks on a slip of paper. He may, perhaps, have been making calculations not unconnected with his duties as exciseman, – a scandalous proceeding when he should have been all ears for the Word as expounded by the minister; or, again, on the other hand he may really have been devoutly attentive to the sermon, and engaged in making notes on it, – a thing perhaps not over and above likely in an ex-Highland rebel. In any case he annoyed Mr. Ramsay, and one day the irritation became acute. Pausing in his discourse in order to give emphasis to his words, and looking straight at the exciseman, he cried: "My brethren, I tell ye, except ye be born again, it is as impossible for you to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as it is for a Hielander no to be a thief! Man wi' the keel-o-vine," he thundered, "do ye hear that?" (For the benefit of non-Scottish readers it may be necessary to explain that a "keel-o-vine" is a pencil).

A few miles above Coldstream, after a course of about four and twenty miles, the beautiful little Eden Water joins Tweed. Its capabilities as a trout stream are spoken of elsewhere in this volume, and the little river is now mentioned only to record a tragedy of unusual nature which occurred in it in the earlier half of the nineteenth century. Two young ladies, sisters of the then proprietor of Newton Don, a beautiful estate on the right bank of Eden, had come from Edinburgh to pass the summer and autumn at their brother's house. With them was a friend, a Miss Ramsay. It chanced that one afternoon these three young ladies were walking along the banks of the river, on the side opposite to Newton Don. They had strolled farther than at starting had been their intention, and time had slipped past unnoticed, and while they still had some distance to go on their return way, they were surprised by the sound of the house bell ringing for dinner. Now, a little below the spot where they then were, it was possible to cross the river by stepping stones, an easy, and to every appearance a perfectly safe way by which anybody beyond the age of childhood might gain the other side, without much risk even of wetting a shoe. The three girls, accordingly, started to go over by these stones. The water was low and clear, the weather fine; there had been no thunderstorm that might have been capable of bringing down from the hills a sudden spate; the crossing could have been made a million times in such circumstances without peril greater than is to be met with in stepping across a moorland drain. Yet now the one thing happened that made it dangerous.

At some little distance up stream there stood a mill, the water power of which was so arranged, that if the sluice of the mill should for any reason be suddenly closed, that body of water which normally flowed down the mill dam after turning the wheel, was discharged into the river some way above the stepping stones. In the narrow channel of the Eden at this point, this sudden influx of water was quite sufficient to raise the stream's level to a height most dangerous to anyone who at the time might be in the act of crossing by these stones. Unhappily, at the exact moment when the three poor girls were stepping cautiously and with none too certain foot from stone to stone, and had reached to about mid-channel, the miller, ignorant of their situation and unable from where he stood to command a view to any distance down stream, closed his sluice. Down Eden's bed surged a wave crested like some inrushing sea that sweeps far up a shingly beach. In an instant the three girls, afraid to make a dash for the safety of the hank, were swept off the stones where they clung, and were carried shrieking down the swollen stream. One, Miss Ramsay, buoyed to a certain extent by the nature of her dress, floated until she was able to grasp the overhanging branch of a tree, and she succeeded in getting out. The other two, rolled over and over, buffeted by the sudden turmoil of waters, were swept away and drowned. No one was near to give help; none even heard their cries.

On the southern bank of Tweed, a mile or two up the river from Coldstream and Cornhill, stands all that is left of Wark Castle, a place once of formidable strength, and greatly famed in Border history. Except a few green mounds, and portions of massive wall, there remains now but little to speak of its former greatness, or to remind one of the mighty feats that were performed here during its countless sieges and bloody fights. But the old Northumbrian saying still tells its tale with grim simplicity:

"Auld Wark upon the TweedHas been mony a man's dead."

Regarding this couplet, the following comment is made in the Denham Tracts: "Mark's history, from the twelfth down to at least the sixteenth century, is perhaps without a parallel for surprises, assaults, sieges, blockades, surrenders, evacuations, burnings, restorations, slaughters. These quickly recurring events transformed the mount on which the castle stood into a Golgotha, and gave a too truthful origin to the couplet which still occurs on the Borders of the once rival kingdoms." The castle was erected during the reign of King Henry I., by Walter d'Espec, somewhere about the year 1130; and before it had been many years in existence, in 1135, David I. of Scotland captured it. From that time onwards, at least down to 1570, when Sussex spent a night within its walls on his way to harry Teviotdale, there is not one item of that formidable list of "surprises, assaults, sieges, blockades, surrenders, evacuations, burnings, restorations, slaughters," that has not been amply borne out by its history, many of them again and again. David took it in 1135, but restored it to England in the following year. Twice afterwards, the same monarch vainly attempted to take it by storm, but finally, after the fall of Norham, he reduced it by means of a long blockade. After this it remained in Scottish possession till 1157, when England again seized, and at great expense rebuilt, the castle. In 1216 it was destroyed by fire; in 1318, reduced by King Robert the Bruce; in 1385, taken by storm by the Scots. Then in 1419, William Halliburton of Fast Castle surprised the English and took the castle, putting all the garrison to the sword. But the same fate was dealt out to the Scots themselves a few months later; Sir Robert Ogle and his men gained access to the building by way of a sewer from the kitchen, which opened on the bank of Tweed. Creeping up this unsavoury passage, they in their turn surprised and slew the Scotsmen. Again in 1460, after the widow of James II. had dismantled Roxburgh and razed it almost to the foundations, the Scots forded Tweed and retook Wark. But they did not hold it long. More valuable now to the English than ever it had been before, owing to the loss of Roxburgh, it was partially repaired by them, only, however, to be again pulled down by the Scots before the battle of Flodden; after which Surrey for the last time restored and strengthened it. After the accession of James VI to the throne of England, Wark, like other Border strongholds, began to fall into decay; the need for them was gone. Buchanan, the historian, has left a description of Wark as it was in 1523, when he was with the Scottish army at Coldstream, which then besieged it. "In the innermost area," he says, "was a tower of great strength and height; this was encircled by two walls, the outer including the larger space, into which the inhabitants of the country used to fly with their cattle, corn, and flocks in time of war; the inner of much smaller extent, but fortified more strongly by ditches and towers. It had a strong garrison, good store of artillery and ammunition, and other things necessary for defence."

On this occasion the Scottish commander sent against the castle a picked force of Scottish and French troops, supported by heavy siege artillery, all under the command of Ker of Fernihurst. "The French," says Sir Walter Scott, "carried the outer enclosure at the first assault, but were dislodged by the garrison setting fire to the corn and straw laid up in it. The besiegers soon recovered their ground, and by their cannon effected a breach in the inner wall. The French with great intrepidity mounted the breach, sustaining great loss from the shot of that part of the garrison who possessed the keep; and being warmly received by the forces that defended the inner vallum, were obliged to retire after great slaughter. The attack was to have been renewed on the succeeding day, but a fall of rain in the night, which swelled the Tweed and threatened to cut off the retreat of the assailants to the main army, and the approach of the Earl of Surrey, who before lay at Alnwick with a large force, obliged the Duke [of Albany] to relinquish his design and return into Scotland."

Wark, it is said, once belonged to the Earl of Salisbury, and the tale is told how, in the time of King David Bruce, a gallant deed was done by Sir William Montague, Lord Salisbury's governor of the castle. King David, returning from a successful foray into England, passed close to Wark, making for the ford over Tweed at Coldstream, and his rear-guard, heavily laden with plunder, was seen from the castle walls by Montague's garrison. The rear was straggling. Such an opportunity was not to be wasted. The Governor, with forty mounted men, made a sudden dash, slew a great number of the Scots, cut off one hundred and sixty horses laden with booty, and brought them safely into the castle. David instantly assaulted the place, but without success; and he thereupon determined to take it by siege. There was but one way whereby the place might be saved; a message must be conveyed to King Edward III., who was then on his way north with a great army. The risk was great; failure meant death, and the castle was closely invested. Sir William himself took the risk. In a night dark and windy, with rain falling in torrents, the Governor dashed out on a swift horse and cut his way through the Scottish lines before almost the alarm had been raised; and so rapidly did Edward advance on hearing of the plight of the garrison, that the rear of the Scottish force was barely over the ford before the English van had reached the southern bank of Tweed. It is of this occasion that the more or less mythical tale of King Edward and the Countess of Salisbury's Garter is told. In the great Hall of Wark Castle the story finds a dubious resting place.

The countless war-like events that have taken place in and around Wark give to the place an interest which is perhaps hardly appreciated by the majority of us, and that interest is largely added to when one thinks of the many characters noted in history who from time to time sojourned within its walls. King Stephen lay here with a large army in 1137; Henry III remained in the castle for some time with his queen in 1255; in 1296 Edward I paid it a visit: Edward II mustered here his army in 1314 before his crushing defeat at Bannockburn, and, as already stated, Edward III, after he had driven off the Scottish marauding force, was entertained here for a time by the Countess of Salisbury.

Wark, one thinks, would be an ideal place in which to conduct excavations, – though, indeed, a little in that line has already been undertaken. In the volume for 1863-68 of the "Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club," it is recorded that a good many years ago Mr. Richard Hodgson had traced a wide sewer to the north of the castle, opening on to the river bank. This sewer is said to be so wide that it might easily have been used for the passage of men or material. Probably it was by this bidden way that Sir Robert Ogle in 1419 forced his way into the interior. But if the opening was so wide, how came it to be undefended? Was there a traitor inside who kept guard that night, a Northumbrian perhaps, masquerading as a Scot, whose burr did not betray him? In the course of his investigations Mr. Hodgson came also on a "long flight of stone steps leading from the keep to the outer court, with a portcullis about half way." Quantities of cannon balls have also been found, but there must surely be unlimited scope for the discovery of such like treasure trove in the fields surrounding the castle, and down by the ford where so many armies of both nations have crossed Tweed. They did not always make a leisurely and altogether unmolested passage.

CHAPTER III KELSO, ROXBURGH, TEVIOT, KALE, AND OXNAM

Coming now to Kelso, – with Melrose the most pleasing of the towns on Tweed, – we pass the meeting of the waters of Tweed and its largest affluent, Teviot. Kelso has a fine airy square, good streets, and an air of quiet gentility, neighboured as it is by Floors, the palatial seat of the Duke of Roxburghe, and by the trees of Springwood Park, the residence of Sir George Douglas.

We are now in the region of the clan of Ker of Cessford, from which the ducal family descends: while the Lothian branch descends from the Kers of Fernihurst. The name, Ker, is said to mean "left handed," and like the left handed men of the tribe of Benjamin, the Kers were a turbulent and grasping-clan, often at deadly feud with their neighbours and rivals, the Scotts of Buccleugh. These, with the Douglases, for long predominant, were the clans that held the Marches, and freely raided the English Borderers, while they fought like fiends among themselves.

It is in the early sixteenth century that the chiefs of the two branches of Ker, or Kerr, and of the Scotts, become more and more prominent in history, both as warriors and politicians. From these Houses the Wardens of the Border were often chosen, and were not to be trusted to keep order; being more disposed to use sword and axe. Within a century the chiefs throve to Earl's estate, and finally "warstled up the brae" to Dukedoms.

Meanwhile the Douglases, for long the most powerful House in Scotland, the rivals of the Crown, were crushed by James II, and of the Douglases, Sir George, of Springwood Park, is descended from the House of Cavers, (on Teviot, below Hawick), scions sprung from Archibald, natural son of the Earl of Douglas who fell at Otterburne (1388) and is immortal in the ballad. The whole land is full of scenes made famous by the adventures of these ancient clans; they may be tracked by blood from Hermitage Castle to the dowie dens of Yarrow and the Peel Tower on the Douglas burn.