Debatable Lands

{{short description|Region in Great Britain}} {{About|the lands contested between England and Scotland in the 13th–17th centuries|the novel by Candia McWilliam|Debatable Land|the 2000 album|Kathryn Tickell}}  thumb|Anglo-Scottish Borderland: (De)batable Land and threiplands The '''Debatable Lands''', also known as '''debatable ground''', '''batable ground''' or '''threip lands''',<ref name="Maxwell, Sir Herbert 1897 p. 161">{{harvnb|Maxwell|1897|p=161}}.</ref> lay between Scotland and England.<ref name = "Histories">{{cite book | title = The County Histories of Scotland, Volume 5 | publisher = W. Blackwood and Sons | location= Scotland |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CnY_AQAAMAAJ&q=%22The+Debatable+Lands%22&pg=PA161| date = 1896 | pages = 160–162 | access-date = 8 May 2018 }}</ref> It was formerly in question whether the lands belonged to either the Kingdom of Scotland or the Kingdom of England, when they were still distinct kingdoms.<ref name="bbc">{{cite news |last1=Henton |first1=Kirsten |title=The tiny 'country' between England and Scotland |url=http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200504-the-tiny-country-between-england-and-scotland |access-date=6 May 2020 |publisher=BBC Travel |date=5 May 2020}}</ref> For most of its existence, the area was a lawless zone controlled by clans of "border reivers" which terrorised the surrounding areas. It became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under state control, when King James V of Scotland partially subdued the lands in the mid-sixteenth century. The territory was eventually divided between Scotland and England.

==Geography and etymology== The Debatable Lands extended from the Solway Firth near Carlisle to Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway, the largest population centre being Canonbie.<ref name = "O'Sullivan">{{cite book | title = The Reluctant Ambassador: The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Chaloner, Tudor Diplomat | author= Dan O'Sullivan | publisher = Amberley Publishing Limited |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=oMV5DAAAQBAJ&q=%22The+Debatable+Lands%22&pg=PP52 | date = 2016 | isbn = 9781445651651 | access-date = 8 May 2018 }}</ref> The lands included the baronies of Kirkandrews, Bryntallone and Morton.<ref name="Maxwell, Sir Herbert 1897 p. 161" /> They were around {{convert|10|mi|km|spell=in}} long from north to south and {{convert|4|mi|km|spell=in}} wide.<ref name="bbc"/> The boundaries were marked by the rivers Liddel and Esk in the east and the River Sark in the west.

The name either signifies litigious or disputable ground,{{sfn|Chambers|1728|p=91}} or it comes from the Old English word "battable" (land suitable for fattening livestock).<ref name="Robb">{{cite book |author=Graham Robb |title=Debatable Land |date=2018 |publisher=Picador |isbn=9781509804689}}</ref>

== "Border reiver" clans == The origins of the peculiar status of this territory have been the subject of various interpretations. One of the more convincing proposals is that it arose from a landholding created on both sides of the Esk in the twelfth century.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Todd |first=John M. |date=2006-03-01 |title=The West March on the Anglo-Scottish Border in the Twelfth Century, and the Origins of the Western Debatable Land |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/174587006X86783 |journal=Northern History |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=11–19 |doi=10.1179/174587006X86783 |issn=0078-172X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> For over three hundred years the area was effectively controlled by local "riding surnames" or clans of border reivers, Scots for plunderers or raiders. They successfully resisted any attempt by the Scottish or English governments to impose their authority.<ref name="bbc" />

In his history of these clans (''The Steel Bonnets'', 1971), George MacDonald Fraser writes that the Armstrongs alone could put 3,000 men in the field. Other clans in the area were the Elwands, Ellwoods, or Eliotts who extended into Teviotdale; the Nixons who were more numerous in Cumberland; the Crossars in Upper Liddesdale;<ref>''The History of Liddesdale, Eskdale, Ewesdale, Wauchopedale and the ...'', Volume 1 By Robert Bruce Armstrong pg 181-2</ref> and the Grahams, who owned five towers in the Debatable Land. The Irvines, Carruthers, Olivers, Bells, Dicksons, and Littles were also present in varying numbers.<ref name="Maxwell, Sir Herbert 1897 p. 161" />

In the 15th century, both England and Scotland considered the Debatable Lands to be too poor and lawless to fight over or to attempt to govern. The prevailing anarchy in the area, however, spilled over into both countries as the reivers launched frequent raids on farms and settlements outside the Debatable Lands, and used the profits to become major landowners. This led to the parliaments of both kingdoms outlawing everyone in the Debatable Lands in 1537 and 1551 respectively, providing that "all Englishmen and Scottishmen are and shall be free to rob, burn, spoil, slay, murder and destroy, all and every such person and persons, their bodies, property, goods and livestock".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Robb |first=Graham |title=What is the Debatable Land? |url=https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/debatable-land-graham-robb-book-scotland-england |access-date=2024-10-23 |website=Pan Macmillan |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Henton |first=Kirsten |title=The tiny ‘country’ between England and Scotland |url=https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200504-the-tiny-country-between-england-and-scotland |access-date=2024-10-23 |website=BBC |language=en-GB}}</ref>

Eventually, however, the Debatable Lands became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of a state<ref name=":0" /> beginning in 1530, when King James V of Scotland took action against the lawless clans of the Debatable Lands and imprisoned the lords Bothwell, Maxwell and Home, Walter Scott of Buccleuch, and other border lairds for their lack of action. James took various other steps, but significantly he broke the strength of the Armstrongs by hanging Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie and thirty-one others at Caerlanrig Chapel, under questionable circumstances.{{sfn|Maxwell|1897|pp=161–167}}<ref name="bbc" />

== Division between England and Scotland == In 1552, commissioners from Scotland and England met and divided the Debatable Lands between England and Scotland, with a line, known as the Scots' Dike, drawn from Esk to Sark,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/thelakes/html/burghley/debatble.htm|title=Debatable Land|website=www.geog.port.ac.uk|access-date=2019-08-31}}</ref> abolishing the Debatable Lands' de facto independence from either crown.<ref name="bbc" /> Regent Arran gave John Maxwell of Terregles £200 Scots in 1553 towards the building of "a dyke upun the Marches of this realm of the ground once called Debatable".<ref>James Balfour Paul, ''Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland'', 10 (Edinburgh, 1913), p. 212.</ref>

Since then, the Anglo-Scottish border has remained essentially unchanged. The 1552 division of the Debatable Lands, the Scots' Dike and the several changes to the status of Berwick-upon-Tweed between the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries until it finally became English in 1482, remains the only significant alterations to the border agreed in the 1237 Treaty of York.<ref name="bbc"/>

The French diplomat Henri Cleutin described visits by the Regent Mary of Guise to the area in the 1550s. Cleutin wrote to Antoine de Noailles, the French ambassador in London, about the Graham Family who were at the centre of troubles. Richard Graham and his son William Graham, two English members of the family occupied Priory lands at Canonbie, and had expelled John Graham, the Scottish owner or tenant. Cleutin commanded a unit of cavalry during the Regent's progresses.<ref>Pamela E. Ritchie, ''Mary of Guise'' (Tuckwell: East Linton, 2002), p. 154: Vertot, ''Ambassades de Noailles'', 5 (Leiden, 1763), pp. 90–97.</ref>

In 1590 James VI of Scotland declared that the Debatable Lands and the lands of Canonbie were annexed to the crown, and he set new leases to various landowners.<ref>David Masson, ''Register of the Privy Council of Scotland: 1585-1592'', vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1881), pp. 799-800.</ref>

==Notes== {{Reflist|30em}}

==References== *{{cite book|last=Maxwell |first=Sir Herbert |year=1897 |title=A History of Dumfries and Galloway |location=Edinburgh |publisher=William Blackwood and Sons|pages=161–167}} *John M. Todd (2006), 'The West March on the Anglo-Scottish Border in the Twelfth Century, and the Origins of the Western Debatable Land', Northern History, 43:1, 11–19, DOI: 10.1179/174587006X86783 [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/174587006X86783] ;Attribution *{{Cyclopaedia 1728|title=Batable ground |volume=1 |page=91 |url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-idx?type=turn&entity=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01.p0241&id=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01&isize=M}}

==Further reading== *{{cite book|last=Robb|first=Graham |year=2018|title=The Debatable Land|publisher=Picador|isbn=978-1-5098-0468-9 }} *{{cite book|title=The Border Line|first=Eric |last=Robson |publisher=Frances Lincoln Ltd |year=2006}} *{{cite book|last=Mack |first=James Logan |year=1926 |title=The Border Line. |publisher=Oliver & Boyd}} *{{cite journal |url=http://www.ncl.ac.uk/bars2005/debatable_lands/index.htm |title=Romanticism's Debatable Lands |journal=The British Association for Romantic Studies, Biennial Conference |date=28–31 July 2005 |publisher=University of Newcastle upon Tyne |access-date=9 April 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070220220356/http://www.ncl.ac.uk/bars2005/debatable_lands/index.htm |archive-date=20 February 2007 |url-status=dead }} *{{cite web|url=http://www.borderreivers.co.uk/Border%20Features/Debateable%20Land.htm |title=Debatable Lands |publisher=Border Reivers Website}} *{{cite web|author=BBC staff |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/content/articles/2006/09/13/bewcastle_cross_church_castle_feature.shtml |title=A village on debatable land... The small village of Bewcastle |publisher=BBC}} *{{cite web|url=http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A_Researcher's_Guide_to_Local_History_Terminology |title=A Researcher's Guide to Local History terminology}}

== External links == *[http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=005-000-000-570-C SCRAN: Johnnie Armstrong - A Reiver's Story] *[http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=001-000-100-130-L SCRAN: Family Names: Armstrong] *[http://www.borderreivers.co.uk/Border%20Features/Debateable%20Land.htm The Debatable Land] *[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrYdEOztUF0 Video on the 'Monition of Cursing' stone, Carlisle.] {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2018}}

Category:History of the Scottish Borders Category:Military history of the United Kingdom Category:History of Dumfriesshire Category:Anglo-Scottish border Category:Disputed territories in Europe Category:Former disputed land areas