In this
wonderful look at a dark and fascinating
period in Anglo-Scottish history, Fraser
brings the same quirky attitude and deep
appreciation of man's inherent rascality that
make the "Flashman" books and his novel Mr American
(q.v.) so imminently readable to the
explication of the complex and violent history
of the Border reivers.
Beginning with a Foreword that, among other
things, describes the jolt he got watching
Richard Nixon's Inauguration on television,
when he saw Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and
Billy Graham standing together on the
platform, he explains, in typical fashion,
that Johnson, Nixon and Graham are all names
that figured strongly in the reiving years,
and that each, as well, wore faces that might
well still be seen in the Border country
today.
He delves into the history of Hadrian's Wall
("Any Englishman can tell you why it was built
-- 'To keep the Scots out!'"), and speculates
how Anglo-Scottish history might have been
changed were the Wall a few miles north or
south.
And then he dives off into the history of the
Border and the Reivers.
This is not
a standard, dry history text, laying
everything out in a straight line,with dates
and battles to memorise and all the juice
sucked out of it.
No, Fraser skips around; first giving us an
outline of the whole period, he then, in
subsequent chapters, covers different aspects
of the history in depth, and not necessarily
chronologically.
He gives us fascinating details, such as why
the spiral stairs in the watch towers built by
the Kerr family tended to spiral
anti-clockwise instead of the usual clockwise,
in the process defining and explaining the
origin of the term "correy fisted".
He writes of the great feuds among the reiving
families, many of whom were to be found on
both sides of the Border, of the practise of
blackmail (somewhat different than the meaning
the term has today) and in what manner one
might legally pursue raiders back across the
Border to attempt to retrieve one's property.
Explaining the administrative setup of the
Border, he describes the careers and
personalities of several of the more prominent
Border Wardens, lawmen assigned by both
England and Scotland to keep the peace, but
never given the budgets or forces they needed,
some of whom were among the bigger rascals of
their day, as well.
(He mentions how a Warden and a notorious
reiver from the other side of the Border
arranged for one to see a horse that the other
was selling at a race meeting, and to buy the
horse.)
He introduces us to several of the prominent
reivers, including some of Sir Walter Scott's
ancestors, and recounts their deeds.
He analyses the economy of the Border and the
reiving system, as well as anyone can, at this
remove and from extant records, and shows how
this all affected the overall history of
Anglo-Scottish relations.
And, for good measure, he includes the truly
marvelous "Monition of Cursing" issued by the
Archbishop of Glasgow against the reivers, a
masterful piece of vituperation that runs four
or more full pages depending on the edition.
Not a history text in the classic sense, not a
novel, because it's all true, Fraser has
presented the reader with a corking good
reading experience that opens the window on
another time and place whose influences still
reverberate in the world today.
((About the spelling of Eliot... or Ellet ...
or Eliott...: The family seemed to not mind
how their name was spelt -- Fraser lists a
large number of variant spellings with various
permutations of "L"s and "T"s. (And vowels,
for that matter.) He then points out that
almost any were acceptable -- *except*, for
some reason, the double "L" and double "T", a
spelling the family affected, for some reason,
to despise...)) |
