THE NORTH OF ENGLAND 



283 



accounts for this state of affairs. The country to the west of that great road was 

 too rugged and too rich in natural obstacles to be adapted to the movement of 

 armies. The war-path consequently lay on the eastern slope, and the region 

 through which it passed was frequently laid waste. Extensive tracts of territory 

 remained altogether unoccupied : they were " marches," similar to those which in 

 another part of Europe separated Avares from Germans, and Slavs from Russians. 

 Extensive heaths still recall the time when the two kingdoms were almost 

 perpetually engaged in war, and the old buildings which we meet with in the 

 country districts are constructed so as to be able to sustain a siege. The nearer we 

 approach the Scotch border, the more numerous are these towers of defence. Not 

 only the castles of the great lords, but also the simple homesteads of the farmers, 

 churches, and monasteries, were fortified. Many of the castles could be entered 

 only by means of ladders, so great was the fear of their inhabitants of a surprise. 

 Buildings of this kind existed during the Middle Ages in nearly every country 

 frequently ravaged by war. The most southern of these towers of defence stood 



Fig. 140. — Hadrian's "Wall. 

 According to C. Bruce. Scale 1 : 900,000. 



W.of G 



10 Miles. 



on the northern frontier of Yorkshire, on the southern bank of the Tees, and it 

 was only at such a distance from the Scotch border that the inhabitants felt secure 

 from unexpected attacks.* 



The fortunes of war have caused the frontiers between the two kingdoms to 

 oscillate. The actual boundary has of course been drawn at the dictation of the 

 state which disposed of the most powerful armies. Commencing at the Solway 

 Firth, it climbs the crest of the Cheviot Hills, but instead of being drawn from 

 their eastern extremity to the nearest headland on the coast, it abruptly turns to 

 the north, and follows the course of the Lower Tees. The most natural boundary 

 is that which the Romans laid down when they constructed the wall which 

 extends from the Solway Firth to the mouth of the Tyne, to serve as a second 

 line of defence to the provinces they held. This wall, built by the Emperor 

 Hadrian, and accompanied throughout by a military road, was still in a fair 

 state of preservation towards the close of the sixteenth century, but in our own 



Yorkshire, Edinburgh Review, vol. cxxiii. 



