Mr Tate on Harbottle Castle. 433 



by famine and pestilence." As an example of such raids, take 

 one made in April, 1522. " The whole country was made a 

 smoking waste from Hume Castle to Dunse and all along the 

 East Border from Roxburgh to Kelso, between the Tweed 

 and the Teviot southward to Fernihurst." The Scots made 

 reprisals and the neighbourhood of Harbottle suffered. 

 Philip Dacre writing to Lord Dacre on July 23rd, 1522, says 

 '*the Scots made an inroad into Harbottle and carried off a 

 cart horse of yours, two nags of the Peals and half a score of 

 nolt. On August 7, twenty Scots preket at the horse at 

 Alwenton, and were attacked by fourteen Englishmen at 

 Singundside swire, two of the Douglases were slain and one 

 taken, but all the Englishmen were saved." 



The evils occasioned by internal lawlessness were even 

 worse. Sir AVilliam Eure writing from Harbottle on October 

 27th, 1527, says : — " Sir Wm. Lisle along with Armstrong, 

 Nixon, and Croziers commit burnings, murders, herthschippes 

 to the utter undoing of the middle marches, and have well 

 nigh utterly destroyed the head of Northumberland and the 

 water of the Tyne." Eure then lay at Harbottle "which 

 being the middle part and uttermost frontier of the middle 

 marches, and the greatest hurt to Scots and outlaws in times 

 past, the outlaws come down the water of the Tyne, which 

 being eleven miles distant from him, he could not defend both 

 places." Sir John Widdrington, who, as warden of the middle 

 marches, occupied Harbottle Castle in 1538, writing from it 

 on July 12th, charges the disorders of the district to the in- 

 habitants of Tindale who along with certain Northumbrians, 

 traitors, rebels, and fugitives in Scotland, and by confedera- 

 tion with Liddelsdale Scotsmen, committed in Northumber- 

 land depredations, daily and nightly, which were very feebly 

 resisted by the inhabitants ; part of the gentlemen had fled 

 from their houses, and Harbottle Castle being twelve miles 

 distant could help but little, yet it kept the neighbourhood 

 around in safety. A complicated system of watches had 

 during a long period been established all along the Borders ; 

 but so disorganised and insecure were Redesdale and Tindale 

 that special arrangements for more effectually watching, 

 directed rather against internal plunderers than foreign 

 aggressors, were made in 1542, the expense of which pressed 

 heavily on the district. " The uttermost townships and 

 villages lying endlong this waste towards Redesdale having 

 been much inquieted and troubled are now constrained to 

 keep watches nightly for the safe-guard of themselves and 



