|Coming{378} into Liddesdale by the route followed by Prince Charlie,
over the hills by Note o' the Gate, one finds, a few miles past that
curiously-named spot and no great distance from the road, the scene of
a momentous battle of ancient times. It is claimed that it was here
on Dawstane Rig the mighty struggle took place in the year 603 between
Edelfrid, King of the Northumbrians, and Aidan, King of the Scots, the
result of which, says Bede, writing a century and a quarter later, was
that "from that time no king of the Scots durst come into Britain to
make war on the Angles to this day." As written by Bede, the name of the
place where the battle was fought is Uaegsastan,--a "famous place," he
calls it. Dalston, near Carlisle, also claims the honour of being the
true site of this great defeat of the Scots; But Dawstane Rig seems
the more probable spot, for, judging from the number of camps in the
immediate vicinity, it must assuredly in old days have answered the
description of a "famous place." There are numerous signs, also, that
a great fight did at some remote period take place here; traces
of escarpments are numerous on the hill side, arrowheads and other
suggestive implements have frequently been picked up, and over all the
hill are low cairns or mounds of stones, probably burial places of the
slain. So far as I am aware, no excavations have ever been made
here, the dead--{379}if these stones do indeed cover the dead--sleep
undisturbed where they fell. But if the work were judiciously done, it
would be interesting and instructive to make a systematic search over
the reputed battle ground.
Not far distant from this ancient field of battle, but a little closer
to the base of Peel Fell, runs a Roman road, the old Wheel Causeway,
and into, or almost into, this road comes the Catrail, here finally
disappearing. I have never heard any suggestion made of a reason why
this Picts' Work Dyke should stop abruptly in, or at least on the very
verge of, a Roman high-way. It is difficult to accept the theory that
the Catrail was a road, because, in places where it crosses streams, no
attempt is made to diverge towards a ford, or even to an easy
entrance to the river bed; it plunges in where the bank is often most
inconveniently precipitous, and emerges again where it is equally steep.
Yet if it was not a road, why should it run into and end in a recognised
road that must have been in existence when the Catrail was formed?
Up the Wheel Causeway, a little distance beyond the spot where the
Catrail disappears, and between the Wormscleuch and Peel burns, there
stood at one time an ancient ecclesiastical building, the Wheel Chapel,
of whose walls faint traces still remain. It was in this building that
Edward I of England passed the night of 24th May 1296, during his Bolder
Progress; in the record of his expedition the chapel is spoken of as
the "Wyel." When the Statistical Account of 1798 was written, probably a
considerable part of the ruin yet stood, for the writer of that account
speaks of it as being of "excellent workmanship," and "pretty large."
And he remarks on the great number of grave-stones in the churchyard,
from which he con eludes that the surrounding population must at one
rime have been very considerable. Over all this district, indeed, that
seems to have been the case. Chapels were numerous among these hills;
in this part of Liddesdale there were no fewer than five, and the Wheel
Chapel itself is not more than six miles or {380}so, as the crow flies,
from Southdean, where it is certain that about the date of the battle of
Otterburne the population was much more dense than it is at the present
day.
What changes little more than one hundred years have wrought in this
countryside. Six years before the Statistical Account of 1798 was
penned, there were neither roads nor bridges in Liddesdale; "through
these deep and broken bogs and mosses we must _crawl_, to the great
fatigue of ourselves but the much greater injury of our horses,"
pathetically says the reverend writer of the account. Every article of
merchandise had to be carried on horseback. Sir Walter Scott himself--in
August 1800--was the first who ever drove a wheeled vehicle among the
Liddesdale hills, and we know from "Guy Mannering," and from Lockhart's
"Life," pretty well what a wild country it then was. There was not
an inn or a public house in the whole valley, says Lockhart; "the
travellers passed from the shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and
again from the cheerful hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly
welcome of the homestead." Inns, to be sure, even now are not to be
found, and are not needed, by every roadside, but at least there are
excellent main roads down both Liddel and Hermitage, and a main line
of railway runs through the valley; the moors are well drained, and the
necessity no longer exists to "crawl" through broken bogs and mosses.
Yet still the hills in appearance are as they were in Scott's day, still
they retain features which render them distinct from any other of the
Border hills; they are "greener and more abrupt.... sinking their sides
at once upon the river."
"They had no pretensions to magnificence of height, or to romantic
shapes, nor did their smooth swelling slopes exhibit either rocks
or woods. Yet the view was wild, solitary, and pleasingly rural. No
enclosures, no roads, almost no tillage,--it seemed a land which a
patriarch would have chosen to feed his flocks and herds. The remains
of here and there a dismantled and ruined tower showed that it had once
harboured beings of a very different description {381}from its present
inhabitants,--those freebooters, namely, to whose exploits the wars
between England and Scotland bear witness." The description might almost
have been written today. The wild, hard riding, hard living freebooter
of Johnie Armstrong's day is gone, leaving but a name and a tradition,
or at most the mouldering walls of some old peel tower. But Dandie
Dinmont himself, I think may still be found here in the flesh, as true
a friend, as generous, as brave and steadfast as ever was his
prototype,--but no longer as hard drinking. The days of "run" brandy
from the Solway Firth are over, and the scene mentioned by Lockhart is
now impossible, where Scott's host, a Liddesdale farmer, on a slight
noise being heard outside, the evening of the traveller's arrival,
_banged_ up from his knees during family prayers, shouting "By----,
here's the keg at last!"
On hearing the previous day of Scott's proposed visit, he had sent off
two men to some smuggler's haunt to obtain a supply of liquor, that his
reputation for hospitality might not be shamed. And here it was, to the
great prejudice of that evening's family worship! I do not suppose that
the present day "Dandie" leisters fish any longer,--though one would not
take on oneself rashly to swear that such a thing is even now entirely
impossible, but certainly within recent years fox hunts have taken
place amongst these hills much after the fashion described in "Guy
Mannering." In such a country, indeed, what other means can there he of
dealing with the hill foxes?
There is another road into Liddesdale from the north, that which comes
from Hawick up the Slitrig, past Stohs camp, then through the gap in
the hills by Shankend and over the watershed by Limekilnedge, where
Whitterhope Burn--tributary of Hermitage Water--takes its rise. As you
drop down to heights less elevated, you pass on your left the Nine Stane
Rig, a Druidical Circle, but locally more famed as the spot where the
cruel and detestable Sorcerer, Lord Soulis, came to his grisly end.
"Oh, _BOIL_ him, if you like, but let me be plagued no more,"
cried (according to tradition) a Scottish {382}Monarch, wearied by
the importunities of those who endlessly brought before him their
grievances against the wicked lord. So--as Leyden wrote--
"On a circle of stones they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine;
They heated it red and fiery hot,
Till the burnished brass did glimmer and shine.
"They rolled him up in a sheet of lead--
A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him in the cauldron red,
And melted him, lead, and bones, and all.
"At the Skelf-hill, the cauldron still
The men of Liddesdale can show; .
And on the spot, where they boiled the pot,
The spreat and the deer-hair ne'er shall grow."
("Spreat" is a species of rush, and "deer-hair" a coarse kind of grass.)
Not the least painful part of the operation one would think must
have been the getting so large a body into so small a cauldron. Some
necromancy stronger than his own must have been employed to get him into
a pot of the dimensions of that long preserved at Skelf-hill and shown
to the curious as the identical cauldron. Of the stones that still
remain of the original nine, two used to be pointed out as those between
which the muckle pot was suspended on an iron bar, gipsy-kettle
fashion. In reality, I believe this last of the de Soulis family died in
Dumbarton Castle, a prisoner accused of conspiracy and treason.
A little way up Hermitage Water from the junction of Whitterhope
Burn, stands the massive and most striking ruin of Hermitage Castle.
Externally, the walls of this formidable stronghold are said to be
mostly of the fifteenth century, but in part, of course, the building
is very much older. The first castle built here is said to have been
erected by Nicholas de Soulis in the beginning of the thirteenth
century, and on a map of about the year 1300 Hermitage is shown as one
of the {383}great frontier fortresses. There were, however, earlier
proprietors of these lands than the de Soulis's, who may, presumably,
have lived here in some stronghold of their own, to which their
successors may have added. About the year 1180, Walter de Bolbeck
granted "to God and Saint Mary and Brother William of Mercheley" the
hermitage in his "waste" called Mercheley, beside Hermitage Water--then
called the Merching burn. But from a much earlier date than this,
possibly as early as the sixth century, the place had been famed as
the retreat of a succession of holy men, and probably something in the
nature of a chapel existed even then. The chapel whose remains still
stand, close by the bank of the tumbling stream, a few hundred yards
higher up than the castle, is, I understand, of thirteenth century
origin. It measures a little over fifty-one feet in length and
twenty-four in width, and the ruins are of much interest, if it were
only for the thought of those who in their day must have heard mass
within its walls, and perhaps there confessed their sins.
And surely, if sinners ever required absolution, some of those who must
have knelt here had need to ask it. On the shoulders of de Soulis and
Both well alone--among those who from time to lime held the castle of
Hermitage perhaps the chief of sinners,--there rested a load of iniquity
too heavy to be borne by ordinary mortal; and of the others, some
perhaps did not lag far behind in cruelty and wickedness. If the tale
be all true regarding the last days of Sir Alexander Ramsay in 1342, the
Knight of Liddesdale had a good deal to answer for during his tenancy
of the castle. The interior of the building is in so much more ruinous
a state than the outside, that it is not possible to follow with any
degree of accuracy incidents that took place within its walls. It is
said that before death ended his pangs, Sir Alexander Ramsay eked out a
miserable existence for seventeen days on grains of corn that dribbled
down from a granary overhead into the dungeon where he lay. But the
small dungeon where he is {384}said to have been confined has a vaulted
roof, and the room above was manifestly a guard room; so that--unless
there was some other dungeon--probably this story too, so far at
least as the grains of corn are concerned, must go the way of other
picturesque old tales.
[Illustration: 0404]
Some interesting relics were found among the rubbish on the floor when
the dungeon was opened early in the nineteenth century, but I do not
know that there was anything that could in any way be connected with Sir
Alexander's fate. Many an unhappy wretch no doubt had occupied the place
since his day. But what there was I believe was given to Sir Walter
Scott, who also, as readers may see in Lockhart's "Life," got from Dr.
Elliot of Cleuchhead "the large old Border war horn, which ye may
still see hanging in the armoury at Abbotsford.... One of the doctor's
servants had used it many a day as a grease-horn for his scythe,
{385}before they discovered its history. When cleaned out, it was never
a hair the worse--the original chain, hoop, and mouthpiece of steel,
were all entire, just as you now see them. Sir Walter carried it home
all the way from Liddesdale to Jedburgh, slung about his neck like
Johnny Gilpin's bottle, while I [Shortreed] was intrusted with an
ancient bridle-bit which we had likewise picked up." The horn I think
had been found in a marshy bit of land near the castle.
Since about 1594, Hermitage has been the property of the Scotts of
Buccleuch, into whose hands it came through their connection with
Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell. A sketch done in 1810 shows that
at that date one wall of the castle was rent from top to bottom by an
enormous fissure, seemingly almost beyond redemption. But about 1821,
careful repairs were undertaken by order of the then Duke of Buccleuch,
and, externally, the building now seems to be in excellent condition.
Many a warrior, no doubt, lies buried in the graveyard of Hermitage
chapel, but I do not think any tombstones of very-great age have ever
been found. Outside, however, between the wall of the burial ground
and the river, there is an interest ing mound, the reputed grave of
the famous Cout o' Keilder. Keilder is a district of Northumberland
adjoining Peel Fell, and in the day of the wizard Soulis, that
iniquitous lord's most noted adversary was the chief of Keilder, locally
called, from his great size and strength and activity, "the Cout." In
his last desperate fight with Soulis and his followers on the banks of
Hermitage Water, the Cout was hewing a bloody path through the press of
men, towards his chief enemy, when weight of numbers forced him, like a
wounded stag, to take to the water. Here, at bay in the rushing stream,
guarding himself from the foes who swarmed on either bank, the Cout
stumbled and fell, and, hampered by his armour, he could not regain
his feet; for each time that the drowning man got his head above water,
Soulis and his band thrust him back with their long spears. Finally, as
he became more exhausted, they held him down. And so the Cout perished.
Here on the grassy bank, hard by what is still called "The Cout o'
Keilder's pool," is his grave.
[Illustration: 0406]
But one is disappointed to learn that when an examination of it was made
some years ago, no gigantic bones were unearthed, nor indeed any bones
at all.
There is in some of the hills near Hermitage a peculiarity which cannot
fail to strike observers; and that is, the deep gashes--you cannot call
them glens--that have been cut here and there by the small burns. Scored
wide and deep into the smooth sides of the hills, they are yet not so
wide as to force themselves on the eye. It would be possible to drive
into them, and there effectually to conceal for a time, large mobs of
cattle, and I do not doubt that in old days these fissures were often so
used when a hostile English force was moving up the valley.
As one goes down Hermitage Water towards its junction with the Liddel,
the country, one finds, is plentifully sprinkled {387}with the ruins of
peel towers,--abandoned rookeries of the Elliot clan, I suppose, for the
Armstrong holdings were a little lower down. But in old days, when the
de Soulis's held all Liddesdale, there were other strong castles besides
Hermitage. Near Dinlabyre there stood the castle of Clintwood, and not
far from the meeting of the two streams, on the high bank of Liddel,
stood one of their strongholds--Liddel Castle. It was from this castle
that the old village of Castleton look its name: the village was at
first merely a settlement of de Soulis's followers.
The old Statistical Account of the Parish gives an extract from the
Session Records of Castleton church which is of interest. It is as
follows: "17 January 1649. The English army commanded by Colonels Bright
and Pride, and under the conduct of General Cromwell, on their return to
England, did lie at the Kirk of Castleton several nights, in which time
they brak down and burnt the Communion table and the seats of the Kirk;
and at their removing carried away the minister's books, to the value of
one thousand merks and above, and also the books of Session, with which
they lighted their tobacco pipes, the baptism, marriage, and examination
rolls from October 1612 to September 1648, all which were lost and
destroyed."
Castleton as a village does not now exist, and the old church has
disappeared, though the churchyard is still used. The other village, the
present Newcastleton, is of course entirely a township of yesterday---to
be precise, it dates only from 1793. But it is interesting from the fact
that the present railway station occupies the site where once stood the
tower of Park, the peel of that "Little Jock Elliot" who so nearly put
an end to the life of Bothwell. What a difference it might have made if
he had but stabbed in a more vital spot, or a little deeper.
Not far from Castleton was the home of the notorious Willie of
Westburnflat, last of the old reivers, and--it almost goes {388}without
saying--an Armstrong; the last of those of whom it was written:
"Of Liddisdail the common thiefis,
Sa peartlie stellis now and reifis,
That nane may keip
Horse, nolt, nor scheip,
Nor yett dar sleip
For their mischeifis."
But Willie lived in degenerate days; the times were out of joint, and
reiving as a profession had gone out of fashion. People now resented
having their eye "lifted," and meanly invoked the new-fangled aid of the
Law in redressing such grievances. Nevertheless, Willie did his best
to maintain old customs, and consequently he was feared and hated far
beyond the bounds of Liddesdale.
Modern prejudice however at length became too strong for him. It so fell
out that a dozen or so of cows, raided one night from Teviotdale, were
traced to Westburnflat. In the dead of night, when Willie was peacefully
asleep, tired perhaps, and soothed by the consciousness of a deed well
done, the men of Teviotdale arrived, and, bursting in, before Willie
could gather his scattered wits or realise what was happening he was
overpowered by numbers, and they had bound him fast, hand and foot.
His trial, along with that of nine friends and neighbours, was held
at Selkirk, and though the lost cattle had not been found in his
possession, and the evidence of this particular theft was in no way
conclusive, on the question of general character alone the jury thought
it safer to find all the prisoners guilty. Sentence of death was
pronounced. Thereupon Willie arose in wrath, seized the heavy oak chair
on which he had been seated, broke it in pieces by main strength, kept
a strong leg for himself, and passing the remainder to his condemned
comrades, called to them to stand by him and they would fight their way
out of Selkirk. There is little doubt, too, that he would have
succeeded had he been properly backed up. But his friends--{389}poor
"fushiunless," spiritless creatures, degenerate Armstrongs surely, if
they were Armstrongs--seized his hands and cried to him to "_let them
die like Christians_."
[Illustration: 0409]
Perhaps it was a kind of equivalent to turning King's Evidence; they may
have hoped to curry favour and to be treated leniently because of their
services in helping to secure the chief villain. But they might better
have died fighting; pusillanimity availed them nothing. They were all
duly hanged.
A few miles down the Liddel from Westburnfiat is the site {390}of
Mangerton Castle, home of the chief of the Armstrong clan, Johnie of
Gilnockie's brother.
[Illustration: 0410]
Nothing now is left of the building, but Sir Walter mentions that an old
carved stone from its walls is built into a neighbouring mill. Near to
Mangerton, in a field between Newcastleton and Ettletown Churchyard,
is the interesting Milnholm Cross, said to have been erected somewhere
about six hundred years ago to mark the spot where a dead chief of the
Armstrongs lay, prior to being buried at Ettletown. The tradition as
given in the Statistical Account of 1798, is as follows: "One of
the governors of Hermitage Castle, some say Lord Soulis, others Lord
Douglas, having entertained a passion for a young woman in the lower
part of the parish, went to her house, and was met by her father, who,
wishing to conceal his daughter, was instantly killed by the Governor.
He was soon pursued by the people, and, in extreme danger, took refuge
with Armstrong of Mangerton, who had influence enough to prevail on
the {391}people to desist from the pursuit, and by this means saved
his life. Seemingly with a view to make a return for this favour, but
secretly jealous of the power and influence of Armstrong, he invited him
to Hermitage, where he was basely murdered. He himself, in his turn, was
killed by Jock of the Side, of famous memory, and brother to Armstrong.
The cross was erected in memory of the transaction." Here, too, I fear
tradition is untrustworthy. Jock of the Syde--"a greater thief did never
ride"--lived long after the day of the de Soulis's or of Douglas; he
was, indeed, contemporary with the equally notorious "Johne of the
Parke,"--Little Jock Elliot. This Milnholm Cross is a little over eight
feet in height. The carving is worn, and not very distinct, but on a
shield there is the heraldic device of the Armstrongs, a bent arm; some
lettering, i.h.s.; below, the initials m.a., and what appears to be
a.a.; and on the shaft is cut a two-handed sword, about four feet in
length. In his "History of Liddesdale," (1883). Bruce Armstrong says the
shield was added "recently."