Stories of the Scottish Border — Chapter 32 Queen Mary and the Borders

*Queen Mary and the Borders* The brief reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, was so crowded with incident that she was left with little time to visit the disturbed borderland of her kingdom.

None-the-less her few visits to this district were fraught with important consequences.

In 1565, when she married her cousin Lord Darnley, the head of the Douglas faction and a Roman Catholic, the Protestant nobles took up arms.

In her very honeymoon she headed her soldiers, pursued the rebels to Dumfries, entered the town with a pistol in each hand, and laughed heartily at the fun of making her enemies "skip like rabbits" over the Border.

She was only twenty-two years old--a fearless, dashing, attractive woman, with a clever head, a strong will, and a wild and lawless disposition.

In the next year she again visited the Border, but on a very different errand.

Mary had developed an extreme fancy for that bold Border Lord, the Earl of Bothwell, whose Castle of Hermitage commanded the picturesque and important valley of the Liddel.

The Queen had given him authority to control the fierce Borderers; and when the earl was riding out he met the most lawless of them, Jock Elliot, of whom the couplet-- "My name is little Jock Elliot And who dare meddle wi' me?"

Bothwell fired straight at Elliot with his pistol, wounding him in the leg.

Elliot aimed a mighty blow at Bothwell with his two-handed sword, giving the earl so sore a wound that he was glad enough to gallop home while there was yet time to save his life.

Mary was holding solemn court at Jedburgh when she heard of her favourite's danger.

She straightway took horse and rode to Hermitage, a hard cross-country ride of twenty miles, through a district infested with reckless men.

When she galloped back to Jedburgh, she was in high fever and nearly died.

Later on, in the misery of her long imprisonment, she often said, "Would I had died at Jedburgh!"

Years later, a broken piece of a silver spur was found at Queensmire, on this difficult and dangerous road, just where Queen Mary's horse was said to have come to grief.

Yet another time Queen Mary came to the Border, this time to cross it--after her imprisonment at Lochleven, her escape, and the disastrous rout of her followers at Langside.

Daring and resourceful as ever, she fled across the Solway in an open boat; Scotland had failed her, she sought the protection of England.

She landed at Cockermouth, and was led to Carlisle by Sir R. Lowther, and kept there, in reality a prisoner, while Elizabeth was musing of the dangers of the position.

The Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland took up Mary's cause and attempted to rescue her, but the Warden of Carlisle, Lord Scroope, defended the town successfully against the two earls, and they were soon in flight, eastward for their very lives.

After this attempt at rescue Mary was, for greater safety, sent down to Bolton Castle in Yorkshire.

[Illustration: Queen Mary crossing the Solway] Leonard Dacre, a member of the powerful Cumberland family of the Dacres, seems to have played a treacherous part, first promising the earls his help, and then betraying them to Elizabeth.

He seized Nawarth Castle, which properly belonged to his young niece, and collected together three thousand men to the old Border war-cry, "A Red Bull, a Red Bull!"

(probably the nickname of some fierce red-haired Celtic champion).

The defeated earls came to Nawarth for shelter, and Dacre refused to harbour them.

But by this time Elizabeth was convinced of Dacre's treason, and ordered Lord Hudson, the Governor of Berwick, to arrest him.

Hudson appears to have marched by rather a round-about way, for Dacre met him at Geltbridge, on the west of Nawarth.

A bridge is always a good point of vantage for meeting an enemy, especially when the river runs, as the Gelt does, through a deep and wooded gorge.

The enemy has only a narrow way by which to approach, and no doubt Dacre posted his archers behind the trees and among the great rocks.

The fight was a desperate one, but Hudson's men prevailed and pursued their foes far up the hill of Gelt, scuffling fiercely among the forest trees and dyeing a deeper hue the red sandstone cliffs and quarries.

All the rebels who could escape fled across the Border to Scotland, where the Borderers, who were till then their enemies, received them with that open and fair hospitality which was one of their many great qualities.

Elizabeth demanded that the leading noblemen should be given up to her; but although the Scottish Regent, Murray, made a pretence of trying to secure the Earl of Westmoreland, the Scots had too much sense of honour to allow him to proceed.

The Earl of Northumberland, was however betrayed to the Scottish Regent by Hector Armstrong of Harelaw; but this the gallant Borderers held to be shameful, and Armstrong was a ruined man from that day forth.

Two years later, this Earl was actually sold to Elizabeth and beheaded at York.

Thus ended this small rebellion, called in history the Rising of the North, but which is known locally in Cumberland as Dacre's Raid.

There is a little stream which rushes down a deep and beautiful glade to join the river Gelt above Geltbridge; this stream is known as "Hellbeck," and villagers tell us that the reason for this name is that it was stained with blood for two whole days after some battle that took place there.

This battle is probably the one spoken of here.

A wicket gate by Geltbridge leads us to the path through Gelt woods.

The noble gorge is deeply cleft through the grand red sandstone rocks.

Below roars and dashes the impetuous river; the path winds, sometimes high, sometimes low, through wonderful weeds, carpeted with beautiful mosses, gemmed with delightful flowers.

On one of the rocks is an inscription carved by a Roman soldier, over fifteen hundred years ago.

Follow the river, up, up, till the little Hellbeck is seen trickling down from the east; cross the little bridge and follow the streamlet on its opposite bank, along a path so little trod as to be scarcely visible; wander among ferns along one of the loneliest glens in the whole of Britain, passing the great railway bridge (_under_ if the stream be low or _over_ if it be high) till you join the main road again.

There is no spot more beautiful or more peaceful.

Yet this is the Hellbeck where men fought and hacked, and slashed and slew, among these woods, up and down these steep hillsides.

These old trees, when young, have felt warm blood at their roots; and all because of a young, wild wilful queen, who fascinated men's hearts then, and the memory of whom fascinates them still.

*Chapter XXXIII*