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V. Having said what may be thought perhaps more than enough
on dialects, I proceed to make some observations on the
incursive wars that so particularly prevailed on the
Borders: but as what has been already said has anticipated a
good deal of what belongs literally to this head, and as a
regular account of those bickerings belongs not to my
purpose, I shall be contented with a few quotations from
different authorities, which will serve at least to shew,
that the observations which I have laid down in my fifth
paragraph are not without foundation.
When I mentioned Expedition and Plunder as the requisite and
object of these incursions, I meant not only a reference to
almost every part of the history and character of the
people, but an allusion to the monuments, which are still to
be seen, of the velocity and transient nature of their
attacks, In the first place, to the circles of very old
thorns, or of other inclosures in which the people of each
village or hamlet used to collect and watch their cattle by
night for fear of a surprise; these are now called Lodges.
The great distance of many of them from the Border proves
that the speed and secrecy of the assailants must have been
great indeed; especially if we consider a second
circumstance, viz. the beacons, erected for more
speedily conveying information of an enemy's approach: add
to these Sluth-hounds, with which they were obliged to trace
the march of their invisible enemy when retreating; and we
shall have no occasion of recurring to particular accounts
for being satisfied with respect to the encouragement which
night or by-ways would furnish to such adventurers.
When again we consider that these counties are not mentioned
in Doomsday-book, that the boundary of the two kingdoms was
at one time upon Stane-moor, and another time at the foot of
Sark; that Stephen surrendered Cumberland and Westmoreland
to the Scots King, and that they were recovered by his
successor, we need not wonder that the inhabitants could not
very well know to which kingdom they ought to belong, and
therefore could hardly, by means of a reciprocity of
interests, form any particular attachment to either. The
consequence of this, added to the opportunity and habit of
rapine, must not a little add to their broils and
instability: thus in the times of Edward I. when those
countries had long been considered as a part of England, we
find, that several of the Cumberland gentlemen, amongst
whose names I remember that of Seaton Lord of Gamelsby, and
Glassonby, forfeited their estates for taking the part of
Robert Bruce and the Scots against him. Indeed there long
subsisted an intimacy, by means of very close
family-connections, between the principal families of
Cumberland and those of the opposite side of the Firth,
particularly of Annandale: before that period, the
disturbances had a more irregular, though perhaps a less
pernicious direction; and he, by inflaming former
animosities, and by putting an end to all such connections,
(at least as far as the severity of his government could do
it,) made the distinction between as Englishman and Scotsman
observed with a more rancourous nicety than before. It is
true, we are informed, that when the Romans first quitted
their rampire and forsook Britain, the fury of the
Barbarians was such as to destroy even every thing that
might be a vestige of itself; but the retreat of many of the
Saxons northward, on the Norman invasion, and several
circumstances prior to that event, had produced
considerable, though only temporary changes; for though one
remembers the horrid fury of the Gallovegians in their
invasions, yet one also calls to mind certain intervals of
tranquillity, wherein the temper of individuals produced no
such continual effects as took place afterwards. We find,
moreover, the Cumbri mentioned as composing a part of the
army which the Scots King David led against Stephen, before
that country was regularly ceded to the Scots; and as in the
next reign they composed a part of the English forces, one
may infer that their attachment to neither could be very
strong. Likewise, when we are told that Cumberland, long
before the period of which we are speaking, was ceded to the
Scots on the condition of paying homage for it "for fear it
should revolt," we may be pretty well satisfied in what
light the attachment of its inhabitants to their Southern
neighbours was viewed: nor is it wonderful, that such
attachment was considered as suspicious when one reflects
that these Cumbri were a part of the Britons whom the
intrusion of their Saxon conquerors had forced to
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