The Reivers

The Story of the Border Reivers

De: Alistair Moffat

Narrado por: Peter Noble

An "exciting and dramatic" history of the raiders who ruled the lawless Anglo-Scottish borderlands for over a century (Cumberland News).

Nowhere else in Britain in the modern era, or indeed in Europe, did civil order break down over such a wide area, or for such a long time, as on the border country between Scotland and England. For more than a century, the hoofbeats of countless raiding parties drummed over the border. From Dumfriesshire to the high wastes of East Cumbria, from Roxburghshire to Redesdale, from the lonely valley of Liddesdale to the fortress city of Carlisle, swords and spears spoke while the law remained silent. Fierce family loyalty counted for everything, while the rules of nationality counted for nothing. The whole range of the Cheviot Hills, its watershed ridges and the river valleys that flowed out of them, became the landscape of larceny while Maxwells, Grahams, Fenwicks, Carletons, Armstrongs, and Elliots rode hard and often for plunder.

These were the Riding Times and in modern European history, they have no parallel. This book tells the remarkable story of the Reivers and how they made the Borders.

©2007 Alistair Moffat (P)2023 Tantor

Great Listen!

Though a bit back and forth chronologically, this book competently tells the story of, and captures the rough-riding spirit of, the rough riding Reivers!

Almost fiction like, but the stories real

Being a descendent of a border clan, the Turnbulls, the colorful information embedded within stories and excellent descriptions of life as it were during the time of the Border Reivers was entrancing to consume. King James exiled many border families including mine to the Ulster colony in the early 17th century and many did not stay more than a couple generations before either voluntarily or involuntarily being sent to the American colonies. Five Turnbull brothers arrived in the Philadelphia area in the 1740s and 4 of the 5 migrated even further south to the Augusta County Virginia area. These brothers with the renamed Trimble and their progeny are scattered throughout US history, holding US Supreme Court, state Governor, military leadership positions and playing key roles in establishing the states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Maryland. George Washington once commented that he would rather have one Scots-Irish fighter than 10 of any other heritage. The Border society was criminal and brutal but it produced arguably the most efficient fighting man the world has ever known. Why is America great? It is this fighting spirit that we owe to the Scots-Irish pre-Revolutionary immigrants.

Fascinating History!

I have Border Reiver ancestry and found this to be a great history of The Borders during those turbulent times.

Fascinating, enthralling history

Brilliantly written and absolutely delicious narrative, Moffat's hitherto unfamiliar history of the Border Reivers was a compelling storytime for grown-ups.