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English and Scots armies bent on proving that ‘might was right’ did not wait until confronted by their armed aggressor. Both unsheathed the sword as soon as they crossed the Border and subjected the innocent inhabitants to fire, sword and theft.

An army on the move required food and shelter. They lived off the land and cared not one whit for the poor folk they encountered and plundered.

They left the Border folk destitute, deprived of the basic means of keeping body and soul together.

The Border people on both sides of the Border Line, though, were hard and obdurate and did not lie down in such adversity.

They did what they had to do to survive.

And so the Border peasant, through adversity and necessity, stole where he could and became one of the Border Reivers; became master of the art of theft. What started as a dire consequence of being left without even the basic means of livelihood, would culminate in mass thievery as the Border Reivers, turn by turn, stole from each other both along the Line in their own country, and south and north of it, in the lands of the opposite country. The necessity became a calling, a vocation. It spawned many feuds as a result even among clans of the same race as it gathered momentum. It reached a point where it seemed that nothing could be done to stop it. It seemed there was no power in either Scotland or England which would free the people from its scourge. The Borderer became the Border Reiver.

Read my book Deadlock & Deliverance to awaken the Border Reiver in you.