History Of Scotland - Stuarts - The Church Threatens The Border Reivers With Hell and Damnation

Lawlessness was part and parcel of the way of life in the Border Lands in the Reiving times. The Church threatened hell and damnation unless the Reiving clans were tomend their ways. Between the 13th and 17th centuries the Border Reivers dominated the English Scottish Border. Time and circumstance had bred a people who had only one allegiance: to that of the clan or surname (family).

The Border Laws, initially formulated in 1249, had been amended and added to many times up to 1603 yet had achieved little in curtailing the robbery, murder and deadly feud which by the 16th century was completely out of control. The Border Reivers were a battle-hardened and detached fraternity sprung to life in the seemingly interminable wars which embroiled the countries of England and Scotland. Caught in the path of marauding armies from each side of the Border who thought nothing of laying waste the country and exterminating its inhabitants in their surge for domination of the other country, the Border folk soon learned that to hold on to life and livelihood they could trust no-one but those who inhabited their home-lands; those who remained faithful to the clan or family. It became the norm to be at feud with neighbours,erstwhile friends who now competed for the dwindling resources of a desert, a truly impoverished land.

Laws were put in place to control them but laws were made by men who did not live in the ever-increasing animosity; men who did not wake in the night to the screams of loved ones harassed and cut down by other clans or families bent on revenge or dealing out a timely lesson in 'might is right'. There seemed no end to the hatred and hostility.

It was at this point that the Church became involved. By the end of the 15th, beginning of the 16th century, the men of God endeavoured to intervene; not with the all forgiving hand that might appeal to better nature to curtail the ever-growing catalogue of crime, but with the fist of retribution and promise of hell-fire.

Gavin Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, issued a dire warning in 1525 to the Reivers of the Scottish Marches in the form of what is known now as the 'Monition of Cursing'. This Cursing damned the Border Reivers to excommunication and damnation unless they returned to Holy Mother Church, put away their unholy lives and conformed to the laws of the Church and the Land. It is a tirade which runs to 1500 words and was to be read out in all the churches in the Scottish Borders, at least those that still existed! Not that the Reivers who spurned the interference of a church that had provided little succour in the dire extremities in which they scraped a living would be present to hear the condemnations levelled against them!

The Archbishop wrote: 'I curse thair heid (head) and all the haris (hairs) of thair heid; I curse thair face, thair ene (eyes), thair mouth, thair nose, thair tongue, thair teith, thair crag (chin), thair schuderis (shoulders), thair breast, thair hert, thair stomok, thair bak, thair armes, thair leggis, thair handis, thair feit, and everilk (every) part of thair body, frae the top of thair heid to the soill of thair feit, befoir and behind, within and without.' '… I curse thaim etand (eating), I curse thaim drinkand (drinking), I curse thaim walkand (walking), I curse thaim sleepand( sleeping)… I curse thair wiffis (wives), thair barnis ( bairns i.e. children) … thair cornys, thair catales, thair woll (wool), thair scheip (sheep), thair horse… thair barnys (barns)… thair plewis (ploughs)…that is necessair for thair sustentatioun(sustenance) and weilfair (welfare). ...And finally, I condemn thaim perpetualie to the deip pit of hell, to remain with Lucifer and all his fallowis (followers), and thair bodeis to the gallowis of the Burrow Mure, first to be hangit, syne revin and ruggit with doggis, swyne and utheris wyld beists... (Ripped apart by beasts on the Boroughmuir, Edinburgh and other places of execution).

Nothing changed in life on the Scottish Borders. If anything between the year of the Monition, 1525, and the close of the 16th century the feud and animosity ran rampant. A threat of eternal damnation meant little to the Border Reivers at a time when other men lived with respect for the Church and its promise of eternal happiness if its dictates and lessons were followed. They ignored the Monition of Cursing and followed the old way. To most it was the only life they knew. Future paradise or future damnation? What was the difference? Neither filled a stomach and the present was hell on earth anyway.

It was not the first time that a Curse had been put upon the Reivers. In 1498 Richard Fox, Bishop of Durham denounced the Reivers of Tynedale in Northumberland, England and forbade any priest to minister to them. In 1524 the Tynedale Border Reivers were cursed yet again; this time by no less than Cardinal Wolsey. At Easter in that year Hector Charlton of the Bower raided Bellingham church, broke into the tabernacle and made away with the Communion hosts. He also laid his hands on a firkin of wine. At Tarset Hall Charlton served the Border Reiver congregation with wine and received the offerings due to the absent minister.

In the year 2000 a stone commemorating the Monition of Cursing was erected in Carlisle, Cumbria near to the great Border fortress that is Carlisle castle. The Great Border city is justly proud of its association with the Border Reivers. It seemed a fitting addition to a region which is rightly proud of its heritage from the Roman Occupation to the present day. In 2005 Carlisle was under siege from a combination of heavy rain and swollen rivers. Houses were swamped to their upper floors as the river Eden burst its banks and engulfed everything in its path. Vast swathes of the city were underwater for days; houses on the flood plain of the river seriously damaged. Many had to leave their homes and find shelter elsewhere for up to and over a year before they could return. It was an extremely harrowing episode in the history of this proud northern place just south of the Border with Scotland. The tragedy achieved national significance and there were many people, both locally and nationally, who blamed the Cursing Stone for this momentous misfortune

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