The Steel Bonnets Trivia Quiz

Answer: All of these

They were also chief intelligence officers, heads of the local civil service and diplomats.

Pay was poor (particularly on the Scottish side) and they had to meet most of their expenses from their pay. However they were entitled to shares of fines and the value of goods they recovered.

Answer: They all were

A land-sergeant was the principal law officer of a given district. The precise role was probably never formally defined.

A settler was a man who checked that the sentries posted to watch common raiding routes were alert.

A keeper was a sort of assistant warden responsible for a particularly troublesome area, such as Liddesdale.

Answer: Six

Both countries had an East, Middle and West March. (In this context, "march" means "border district").

The Scots held that Liddesdale was almost a march on its own under its keeper. Liddesdale area was so wild that the author Sir Walter Scott (a good "Borders" name incidentally - there were three Walter Scotts involved in the freeing of Kinmont Willie) was supposed to have been the first person to take a wheeled vehicle into the valley.

Answer: Zero

The tartan was worn by the supposedly wild and savage Highlanders who were considered little better than the Irish by their contemporaries. The view of outsiders about Highlanders seems to be like that of the settlers in a 1950s western B movie for the Apaches.

Also family tartans are a 19th century invention - a rich laird might dress his servants in a uniform but not his clansmen.

A plaid (which Americans often confuse with tartan) is a piece of cloth, which is usually tartan patterned but not the pattern itself.

Answer: Blackmail = armour or weapons darkened so as not to glint and betray an ambush

"Blackmail" is one of the words the borderer reivers have given us along with "bereaved". It meant "black rent", and we would now call it a protection racket. The victim got protection from the blackmailer and sometimes from other reivers as well. From 1587 in Scotland and 1601 in England extorting and paying blackmail was forbidden by law.

On occasion "insight" even included doorframes and burial shrouds. Once a chief called Robert Kerr's house was raided and among the loot taken were his wife's gowns, described as "creations". A man could be adopted into a name and so cease to be a "broken" man.

Answer: The English inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Scots

Between 10,000 and 20,000 Scots (horse, foot and artillery) crossed into England under the command of Lord Maxwell. Maxwell then learnt he was to be replaced by King James V's favourite Oliver Sinclair. The English had been taken by surprise but managed to muster a force of about a sixth to a third of that of the Scots. All the English border horse (light cavalry) was under the west march warden Sir Thomas Wharton.

He sent his deputy, Musgrave, with 500 men to harrass the Scots. The problems with leadership caused the Scots to waver - Wharton said 'our prickers gatt them all in a shake all the waye'.

When Wharton advanced his main body he routed the Scots. Few Scots (possibly 20 against seven English) were killed in battle but several hundred drowned in the River Esk.

Their own countrymen robbed most of the survivors who escaped. The English took at least seven lords and 1200 men prisoner, but the Scots did manage to take one English prisoner.

Answer: 700 Maxwells dead, heavy losses to the Johnstones

Lord Maxwell, Earl of Morton (who was the warden and supposed to be enforcing the law) was among the dead. The fight finished up in the town of Lockerbie apparently giving rise to the phrase 'Lockerbie lick' - a blow by a horseman to a man on foot.

The feud carried on and in 1608 during a meeting to arrange peace the then Lord Maxwell shot the chief of the Johnstones twice in the back. Maxwell fled to France and four years later was betrayed by his relatives and executed.

I have used the figures George MacDonald Fraser gives (p. 148 in the Pan paperback edition). Other sources give similar figures.

Answer: Whoever had good loot

In 1518 Bishop of Carlisle wrote to Cardinal Wolsey - 'There is more thefte and extorycyon by English theffes than there is by all the Scottes of Scotland'

In May 1546 English and Scottish wardens held assizes 'to put down the English thieves ... who steal cattle and put them into Scotland to make it appear as if done by the Scots; whereas the doers were really English or Scots of Liddesdale pretending to be English'.

Answer: The Kerrs were feuding with four other families.

The Kerrs were feuding with six families plus the town of Jedburgh (or rather one branch was, the other branch helped Jedburgh). The creations mentioned in question four were captured by the men of Jedburgh in a reprisal raid. There were several cases where the saying 'my enemies enemy is my friend' did *not* apply, for example, the Bells were feuding with the Grahams who were feuding with the Irvines were feuding with the Bells.

In 1596, twenty-five English and ten Scottish families were recorded as feuding with someone.

The information is based on a table George MacDonald Fraser gives in his book (p. 149 in the Pan paperback edition).

Answer: False

For example on three occasions under the same sheriff there were escapes because the guards left the door open when bringing in the prisoners' supper. It is suspected that the degree of intermarriage among the border families might have had something to do with this. Most other places that served as prisons seem to have been as bad.