160 REPORTS OF MEETINGS FOR 1910 



Scottish army at Bannockburn, and Black Agnes who defended 

 the castle of Dunbar. Its first reported owners were the 

 Cumyns, who held the lands of Linton and a large portion 

 of Liddisdale, one of whom by erecting castles in Galloway 

 and at Hermitage narrowly escaped causing a war between 

 Alexander II. and Henry III. Thereafter forfeited for treason, 

 the barony was granted by Robert the Bruce, between 1306 

 and 1325, to the good Sir James Douglas; but in the 15th 

 century it passed into the hands of the Turnbulls, long noted 

 in the Borders for their predatory proclivities. This turbulent 

 race is said to be descended from a family of the name of 

 Boule or Rule ; and it is stated that William of Rule, who 

 witnessed a charter to the monks of Kelso, was the first to 

 bear this surname, having obtained it from the King in token 

 of gratitude for having saved him from the attack of a wild 

 bull in the forest of Callander. So firmly rooted in the district 

 and so unruly did they become, that in 1510 a force was 

 dispatched to intimidate them into subjection. From Edinburgh 

 King James IV. set out in person, and riding to Spital-on-Rule 

 issued a peremptory order for their instant surrender. To 

 this the leading men at once acceded, coming before him in 

 linen sheets in token of submission, whereupon orders were 

 given that every tenth man should be put to death, a measure 

 which for the time impressed a salutary lesson. Deadhaugh, 

 or Deadman's Haugh, traditionally marks the place where the 

 royal command was given effect to. Still, so powerful did 

 the Turnbulls prove in Rulewater, that the Wardens of the 

 Mai-ches and other Border barons gladly availed themselves 

 of their military services. "It is a pity," says Mr George 

 Tancred, " that so little is recorded of their good service, and 

 so much made of their misdeeds in Pitcairn's Trials, for with 

 all their faults they were the deadly enemies of the English, 

 and wherever a raid took place on the Middle Marches, there 

 the Turnbulls were always to the front." The barony of Bedrule 

 was not extensive ; and from the records in His Majesty's 

 Register House it is clear that the family soon encountered 

 monetary difficulties which necessitated their parting with their 

 patrimony, and their ceasing towards the middle of 17th 

 century to occupy any position of authority in the Borders. 



