A well crafted historical novel about John Maxwell, warden of the west march in the middle and latter half of the sixteenth century. The story of a man’s life in pros form.
The Debatable Land by Graham Robb
The Debatable Land, that “lost world between Scotland and England”, is part travelogue, and part history of “the bloodiest region in Great Britain, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James V”. Fighting is as much part of the land, as it is the people who called it home.
The Border Reiver by Nick Christofides
Feels like a Tory take on class conflict.
There’s a class conflict at the heart of the plot that reminds me a little of Terry Nation’s seventies virus thriller “Survivors”. Nation’s bad guys are all working class union leaders, imposing their collectivist ideas on the middle class survivors of the apocalypse.
Christofides takes a similar tack, as we follow his salt of the earth landowner, battling to protect his family against the ruthless socialists imposing their land reforms, and trying to steel his ancestral home.
I’m not entirely sure how any of this links to the Border Reivers, other than the location of the story. For me the reivers analogy stretches thin under the weight of contemporary political reality. When the riding families were active, raiding across the border lands of Northumberland and Cumbria, they fought and feuded, murdered and robbed, to survive harsh conditions. They were organised and ruthless, the mafia before the mafia was a thing, demanding protection from raiding, taking hostages and extorting ransoms. As likely to take up arms and fight for the King as against him. From the things I’ve read on the subject the reivers were less the lone wolf and more of a pack animal.
All of that aside, it’s a well written thriller that keeps you reading, and I liked it.
Shake Loose the Border by Robert Low
Third instalment chronicling the misadventures of the one-armed Batty Coalhouse, seasoned mercenary, sometime bounty hunter, explosives specialist, and all-round maker of trouble. The last in an engaging trilogy of books that brings a wider historical context to the mythology of the Border Reivers.
Burning the Water by Robert Low
The second thrilling instalment of the trilogy is n interesting take on reiver legends, managing to place their history and battles in a wider historical context, from Michelangelo to the Mary Rose. In this instalment Batty Coalhouse is offered the chance to take revenge on the man who took his arm, the mercenary Maramaldo.
A Dish of Spurs by Robert Low
One of the more interesting fictions I’ve read about the border reivers, a place and time where vendetta and revenge are a way of life. The one-armed Batty Coalhouse is hired by fifteen-year-old Mintie Henderson, to avenge the murder of her father.
The Candlemass Road by George MacDonald Fraser
Lady Margaret Dacre’s inheritance, on the English border with Scotland, is under threat from the “outlaw riders and feuding tribes of England’s last frontier” the border reivers. George MacDonald Fraser, the great historian of the reivers, brings a certain authenticity to a story of life among the lawless territory.
The Reivers: The Story of the Border Reivers by Alistair Moffat.
If George MacDonald Fraser’s book The Steel Bonnets is a history of reiving on the English side of the border, Alistair Moffat gives us an equally interesting account of the Scottish borderers.
Reiver: The Sword’s Edge by David Pilling
The second outing for Richie o’the Bow, this time on the run in Scotland, escaping the Armstrongs of Liddesdale for killing their chief Nebless Will. Captured by the English he is forced to work as a double-agent, carrying messages to and from the treacherous Earl of Westmoreland. Treads similar moss to the first book, breathing life into brutal time of blood-feuds and betrayal, political intrigue and rebellion. The whole thing has a filmic energy about it.
Reiver by David Pilling
England in 1569 and there’s rebellion in the air. The Catholic earls of the north are plotting to depose the Protestant Queen Elizabeth. Against this backdrop, Richie o’the Bow is caught in a blood-feud with one of the most dangerous riding families on the border, the notorious Armstrongs. Outlawed for killing two of their number, during their raid on his village, Richie and his Bairns do what they must to survive, including killing as many Armstrongs as possible. Tight prose churn through events on the turbulent border of sixteenth-century England and Scotland. A place where theft, murder, revenge, and vendetta are a brutal way of life.
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