The Reivers by Alistair Moffat

Author:Alistair Moffat [Alistair Moffat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn

By the spring of 1523 Dacre was at Kelso, his men torching the wooden and thatched houses. What made this more than a raid was the time and trouble taken to inflict lasting damage: ‘In the morning of the day which was yesterday, we set forward and we went to Kelso where we not only burned and destroyed the whole town that would burn by any labour but also cast down the Gatehouse of the Abbey.’

Dacre’s men became even busier. They fired the abbot’s house and then demolished the blackened ruin. In the great church itself the beautifully worked wooden stalls from one of the many side-chapels, the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, were ripped out and burned, while the lead covering the roof was stripped, probably for use as artillery shot. By itself, that last action probably caused most damage. And so that the monks might endure as much discomfort as the townspeople, their dormitory was wrecked and burned to the ground.

What might have converted a sacred place like Kelso Abbey into a legitimate target was the Kerr takeover after Flodden. The Earl of Surrey noted that Dand Kerr was Dacre’s ‘mortal enemy’ and the ancient abbey was no more than another of his possessions. But piety, or the lack of it, likely made little difference. It was no defence ten years later when Henry VIII’s commissioners dissolved and destroyed England’s monasteries and nunneries.

Jedburgh fared little better. When the Earl of Surrey’s forces reached the town, they saw a place they reckoned was twice the size of Berwick. In addition to its venerable and beautifully sited abbey, Jedburgh boasted six defensive towers. Perhaps they were the possessions of different families (possibly rivals, as in many of the northern Italian cities and towns of the same period), or perhaps they formed part of a fortified perimeter. In any case, the town was ‘cleanly destroyed, burned and thrown down’, though but only after bitter street-fighting.

While Jedburgh burned, Dacre led his small army south to nearby Ferniehurst, the stronghold of Dand Kerr. As now, the approach to the tower is thickly wooded, and in the early sixteenth century it was very vulnerable to artillery. When the English force trundled their guns within range, the Kerrs attacked them in the woods, desperate to prevent their deployment. The trees also prevented the much superior English numbers from being automatically decisive. Dacre’s men joined what was said to have been a vicious fight. Ferniehurst eventually fell and Dand Kerr was captured.

As darkness came down the English picketed their horses, around 1500 of them, in the woods around the tower, but they failed to set a proper watch. No sentry heard the approach of a small force of Borderers and at dead of night, they cut loose the tethered horses and whacked and hallooed them into a stampede. Hurtling through the dark woods, they bolted, some racing through the burning streets of Jedburgh, others galloping over the river-cliffs by the Jed Water. The English lost half their mounts, and Dacre ascribed the attack to an appearance of the Devil.

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