The story of Hobbie Noble of the Crew, one of the English Border Reivers of somewhat dubious reknown, is one such example of Scots and English coming together. He would aid the Armstrongs of Liddesdale, a Scottish Border clan, in their hour of need, yet eventually be betrayed by one of their own.

The Pathetic Remains of Crew Castle. Now nothing more than a Sheep Pen.

Hobbie Flees to the Scottish Borders.

Hobbie was from Bewcastle in what was known in his time as the Waste of north Cumberland; his home was Crew Castle. Little of what would once have been a formidable tower remains today; the earthworks, however, easily recognised, bear testimony to a place of formidable strength: the home of a family of prominence and importance in the region. The Waste is still there to this day. It is a harsh and unforgiving country yet delights in little pockets of sylvan beauty which are a delight to the eyes.

Hobbie spent many years raiding in Tynedale (Northumberland) and even parts of his homeland, to the south of his Cumberland fortress. It would seem that allegiance to his countrymen was of little concern to a man bent on raiding wherever the opportunity presented itself. The product of theft, the ‘reive’, meant more to Hobbie than allegiance to his own countrymen, his own people.

Eventually they disowned him as they tired of the retribution exacted on them by the surnames (families) he had raided within his own country and the clans to the north of the Border. Their lives were dominated by the relentless raids from Tynedale, other parts of Cumberland, and southern Scotland which, with regular monotony, raided the homesteads of the folk of Bewcastledale.

He was much prized by the English West March Warden, the law in Cumberland. Doubtless there were many crimes laid at his door in which he had taken no part.

Hobbie fled to Liddesdale in the Scottish Borders were he was well received by the Laird of Mangerton, head of the Armstrongs. Anyone on run from the law, irrespective of nationality, was welcomed by the Armstrongs of Liddesdale.

Hobbie is True to his Scottish Hosts.

When Jock Armstrong of the ‘Side’, a stalwart and leading member of the Scottish clan was captured and thrown into gaol in Newcastle to await a fate which would inevitably see him dangle at the end of a rope, Hobbie was a major force in planning and achieving his rescue. He was lauded by the Armstrongs of Mangerton for the sterling part he played in the rescue of Jock but there were other Armstrongs, within Scottish Liddesdale, who resented the popularity of the Englishman.

Mangerton Tower. Once home to the Chief of the Armstrongs of Liddesdale.

The remains of Mangerton Tower, Liddesdale

Hobbie is asked to lead a raid into England by the Armstrongs of the Mains

Sim Armstrong was Laird of the Mains, today a peaceful farm in Liddesdale, but in the days of the Border Reivers, the most dangerous valley in the whole of Europe. Sim had grown to hate the great English Reiver whilst the English Warden was bent on wresting Hobbie from the Scottish Border lands and bringing him to account for his crimes in England. Sim and the Warden made a deal whereby, in return for English gold, Sim would betray Hobbie into the Warden’s hands. Accordingly, on the pretext that Hobbie knew the English ground better than he did, Sim persuaded Hobbie to lead a raid south of the Border into England. The cattle and sheep were fat and ripe for the picking.

Hobbie is betrayed by Sim of the Mains

Hobbie led the Armstrongs of the Mains into England but at the same time Sim Armstrong sent word to the English Keeper of Askerton that Hobbie was back on English ground. Hobbie and the Armstrongs had rested overnight before their final assault on their target. At the first light of the following day Hobbie woke to see the English confronting him. He was not unduly concerned because he knew the ground right well. His fertile mind instantly recognised the path in which he and the Armstrongs could evade any confrontation. But it was not to be. The Armstrongs at his back suddenly voiced their allegiance to the English and Hobbie was betrayed for gold.

Askerton Castle.

Defence against the Border Reivers of Liddesdale

Hobbie is bound and taken to Carlisle

Hobbie was bound with his own bow-string and led ignominiously to Carlisle and thrown in the dark damp cells of Carlisle castle. He was told he would hang next day unless he would confess to stealing Peter of Winfield’s horse, a crime that had hung over his head for some time. There is some doubt that Hobbie was involved, that the charge was trumped up by the English to see an end to the great English Border Reiver. He denied the allegation and prepared himself for death. Next morning he was hanged. There was a lot of sympathy in the watching crowd for the man who had risked life and limb to rescue Jock of the ‘Side’ from the Black Tower of Newcastle.

Sir Walter Scott, avid lover of Scottish English Border history and eminent writer of the early nineteenth century gathered the story of Hobbie Noble and committed it to verse in his ‘Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border’.

Here are two particularly poignant verses from the ballad:

‘And fare thee weel , sweet Liddesdale, (weel = well)

Baith the hie land and the law;

Keep ye weel frae the traitor Mains,

For gould and gear he’ll sell ye a’ (goud = gold, a’ = all)

‘Yet wad I rather be ca’d Hobbie Noble, ( wad = would, ca’d = called)

In Carlisle , where he suffers for his fau’t, (fau’t = fault)

Than I’d be ca’d the traitor Mains,

That eats and drinks of the meal and maut’. ( maut = malt)

English Gold was no benefit to Sim of the Mains

When the Laird of Mangerton, head of the Armstrongs, heard of Hobbie’s fate and Sim’s involvement, he was furious. Normally, as Hobbie was executed by the English, his retribution would have been aimed against the English families who dared to steal in his domain, Liddesdale or its surrounds. For once he directed his wrath against his own. He planned a great reprisal against the Armstrongs of Mains even though they were a sect of the clan. Sim fled to England but within two months, thanks to intelligence furnished to the English by Mangerton, Sim of the Mains also dangled at the end of a rope on Harrabee Hill, the killing ground of Carlisle. No tears were wept by a crowd who were pleased that he had got his come-uppance for the betrayal of Hobbie Noble of the Crew.

Noblestown today. Home of the Nobles following the Union of the Crown and the Pacification of the Borders.

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Murder, theft, arson, blackmail and feud were the canker of the Border Marches. Whatever resources, initiatives or amendments to the Border Laws were put in place to counter the disreputable practices of the Reivers, the strife and confrontation rolled on apace, even quickened.

One of the more formidable of the Elliot clan at this time was Jock of the Park. Hailing from Copshawholme (modern day Newcastleton), he was renowned for his relentless strikes against the English and, indeed, any of the Scottish clans with whom the Elliots were at feud.

By 1566 Liddesdale, which because of its notoriety had its own Warden, known as Keeper, had such a burgeoning reputation for lawlessness that a Lord Warden of the Marches was appointed. He had just one objective – subdue the unholy Reivers of Liddesdale!

Accordingly, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, Lord High Admiral of Scotland and Duke of Orkney moved south from Edinburgh. He was a man reputed for his fierceness, was fearless in any confrontation, a skilled military man. He was also a particular confidante of the young Mary, Queen of Scots. Rumours of a liaison between the pair were rife.

Bothwell was certain that he would rid the Borders of its worst offenders.

He was, however, to soon find out that position and reputation counted for nothing against the hard, obdurate and wily Border Reivers. At first his success rate was good. He managed to capture the Lairds of Mangerton and Whithaugh and other Armstrongs. Soon these men were festering in the dank hole of the Hermitage castle awaiting summary justice from the illustrious Lord Bothwell.

HERMITAGE CASTLE

When Bothwell heard that Jock of the Park had been seen in the vicinity of Hermitage he pursued him with alacrity. Jock was a prize not to be missed.

Somewhere near the Billhope burn Bothwell encountered Jock, and without any ceremony, shot him from the saddle of his horse. Jock lay motionless on the ground and Bothwell approached, sure he had severely wounded or killed the prostrate Reiver. As he leaned over to take a closer look, Jock sprang to his feet and knifed the astonished Lord. He even managed to cut to the bone the forehead of his foolish adversary before hobbling to his horse and making away.

BILLHOPE COTTAGE. NEAR HERE JOCK KNIFED BOTHWELL

Bothwell’s guard who had witnessed these events from a distance, conveyed the stricken Lord back to Hermitage intent on providing the shelter and succour that he needed for recovery. On the short journey back to the castle Bothwell appeared to be failing fast from loss of blood.

To the surprise of all, once there, they were refused entry. In the short time that they had been away, the Armstrongs had broken free of the hell-hole of a dungeon, and in true Reiver fashion, overpowered the garrison. Even though Bothwell appeared at death’s door they would not let him enter without assurance that their crimes would be forgiven and that a general amnesty should ensue.

Bothwell had no alternative but to agree; the Armstrongs and others walked free and he was to receive the aid he most certainly needed.

Thus Jock of the Park lived to fight another day and the Armstrongs returned to their loved ones.

Twenty-five miles north of the Hermitage, Mary, Queen of Scots was holding a justice court at Jedburgh. When she was told of the plight of Bothwell, she set off on a grey October day to travel the vast expanses of moor, bog and bent to comfort, console and help mend her favourite.

After but a few hours at Hermitage she made the return journey to Jedburgh. Thus she completed a round trip of fifty miles within a day in most inclement weather. Above the Hermitage her horse stumbled at a place still called the Queensmire to this day and she lost a watch which was found over two hundred years later by a farm worker draining the bog.

By the time she arrived back in Jedburgh Mary was so ill with fatigue and cold that it was thought, her being in a high fever and delirious state for day after day, that she would die. She was given the last rites of the Catholic Church.

She survived though as did Bothwell and the next year they were married not long after the murder of her second husband, Henry Lord Darnley, in which Bothwell was implicated.

The pair was to incur the wrath of the protestant Lords, including Mary’s half-brother, Moray, and two battles ensued for control of the country of Scotland.

After the Battle of Carberry Hill, at which not a sword was raised in anger, Bothwell fled north to Orkney purportedly to raise troops for Mary’s cause whilst she was warded in Lochleven castle. They were never to see each other again.

Bothwell was pursued and took ship for Norway to evade his would-be captors.

The ship floundered in a storm and when it eventually reached safe harbour it was soon recognised that one of its crew was special. It took little searching of the cabins to prove that it was Bothwell who sought sanctuary in a foreign land. The king of Norway and Denmark offered him to the Scots in exchange for the Orkney Isles which had been given to Scotland as part of a marriage dowry some one hundred years before. When the Scots refused the bargain Bothwell was incarcerated in Dragsholm castle in Denmark, tied to a post in the dungeons for ten years, it is said. He died of insanity in one version of his pathetic end.

His embalmed body could be seen for centuries in an open top coffin in the village church of Farjeville a few miles from the castle of Dragsholm. In the late 1970′s the lid to the coffin was secured on the order of the Danish monarchy.

Mary escaped from Lochleven and confronted the Protestant Lords yet again at the Battle of Langside where her forces were convincingly beaten.

She fled to England, determined to seek the aid of her cousin, Elizabeth l, in an effort to regain her throne. It was not to be and, after spending nineteen years in ward in various English castles and secure country houses, she was beheaded after conspiring to break free and overthrow the English monarchy.

She was to often remark during her time in captivity that she wished she had died at Jedburgh.

Given the obscene ordeal that was to end Bothwell’s life it is probably true that he reflected on his confrontation with Jock of the Park and wished that he had died listening to the burble of the Billhope burn.

Little Jock Elliot of the Park had a lot to answer for.

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