A Border Warden Court. 



By J. C. Hodgson, M.A., F.S.A. 



A detailed examination of the history of the institution of 

 the office of Warden of the Marches would be out of place 

 in a prefatory note to the document printed below, but a 

 few words on the subject may be permitted. The origin of 

 the office may be sought in the tenure by which Gospatric 

 held the lordship of Beanley in Northumberland. The 

 original charter of King Henry I. is no longer extant, but its 

 terms are recited in a confirming charter granted, at York, 

 by King Stephen about the year 1135. The large possessions 

 comprised in the grant to Gospatric II., Earl of Lothian, 

 were burdened that the grantee and his successors should be 

 inhorg and hutborg between England and Scotland — that is, 

 that the owner of the fee should act as surety for the 

 peaceful and honest intention of persons passing to and fro 

 between the two countries.* Earl Patric V. withdrew from his 

 allegiance to Edward III. in the year 1334, whereupon the 

 King resumed Beanley and the other Northumbrian possessions 

 of the Earl, which, in the following year, were, in part, granted 

 to Henry Percy, second Lord Percy of Alnwick, who was 

 already filling the office and performing the duty of Warden 

 of the Marches. 



A very readable account of the subsequent history of 

 The Wardens of the Northern Marches may be found in the 

 Creighton Lecture given in the University of London, by 

 Dr. Thomas Hodgkin, on the 4th of October, 1907. 



The Wardens of the English Marches held frequent meetings 

 with the corresponding officers on the Scottish side to discuss 

 grievances and to minister justice according to a code, or body 

 of common law, which had grown up during the centuries. 



* C/. History of Northumberland, Vol. vn., pp. 30-31. 



