Report of Meetings for 1880, by James Hardy. 283 



educated people, is as purely imaginary as Sir Walter Scott's 

 portraiture of his outward man. He never was Lord Warden. 

 Sucli an appointment, with Elizabeth's feelings towards the 

 Howards, could not have taken place whilst she occupied the 

 throne, and after the accession of James I,, George, the third 

 earl of Cumberland, was selected to succeed Thomas Lord Scrope, 

 and was the last who filled that high office. He died in 1605, 

 and the government of the Borders appears to have been subse- 

 quently vested in Commissioners, who were partly Scotch and 

 partly English, appointed by the Crown. The first Commission 

 in which Lord William Howard's name appears is in the year 

 1618. Previous to the issuing of this Commission Lord William 

 Howard possessed, apparently, no office which gave him any 

 peculiar authority." " There is no evidence whatever of a garri- 

 son being maintained at Naworth." 



" Equally improbable is the tradition which pourtrays Lord 

 William as promoting or maintaining order in the country by 

 means of the sharp and summary procedure of martial law. 

 There is not a trace of his having acted at any time in such a 

 manner. That he was active and energetic in bringing marauders 

 to justice there can be no question, but it was justice administered 

 by the law of the land. The very list, drawn up by his own 

 hand, of those offenders who expiated their offences by death, 

 during many years of his residence at Naworth, goes to prove 

 this. In many cases the place of their execution is noted ; some 

 suffered at Durham, some at Newcastle, not a few at Carlisle, 

 and others in Scotland, showing that they were brought to trial 

 at the assizes in the ordinary way." 



" These traditions belong really to an earlier time. They be- 

 long to a time when the banner of the Dacre, with its silver scal- 

 lops (upon a martiall red), still proudly waved over the towers 

 of Naworth. They were stories half -fact and half -legend, asso- 

 ciated in the first instance with the powerful chieftains who, for 

 two generations, had been entrusted with the powers of Lord 

 Warden of the Western Marches, and who unquestionably main- 

 tained a garrison of resolute and faithful retainers within the 

 walls of Naworth, always ready to raise the wild shout of ' A 

 Daker, a Daker ! a read bull, a read bull !' and to rush with as 

 much eagerness to a raid upon the Scottish Border as though it 

 were a scene of joyous pastime."* 



* Introduction, &c., pp. xxi.-xxx. 1 J 



