Surnames And Faces Of Famous Match Those Of Plunderers, Thieves

CARLISLE, England - Have you ever suspected your ancestors were robbers who terrorized the border between England and Scotland?

All the family names of the Border Reivers, who rode, feuded, fought and plundered over the border country for 350 years, are on a list kept in Carlisle, on the English side of the border.

From the 14th to the 17th centuries the border was a turbulent place. Raiders stole cattle and women, burned homes and farms and killed rivals without mercy.

From surviving documents such as court and property records and tenure agreements, researchers have identified 74 family names from that region in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some names have changed over the years: Johnstone becoming Johnson, for example.

Reive, meaning to plunder or rob, comes from the Scots dialect of the Scottish Lowlands and borders.

"The folk memory of the Reivers has passed away, but their stories survive in the border ballads," says David Clarke, senior curator of Tullie House Museum. "We have music about them, and (the novelist Sir Walter) Scott collected a lot about them and put them into his novels."

The museum's audio-visual show about the Reivers is the centerpiece of a $7.5 million restoration.

Images of galloping horsemen, lookouts, panic-stricken settlers and the fires of torched homes and forts are projected on a 30-foot curved screen.

Voices intone the fear of women waiting for raids: "The Reivers are riding to take what we stole from them that had been ours before."

The border with Scotland is nine miles north of Carlisle, but in Reiver times nothing was so definite.

"North of Carlisle were the debatable lands, territory which was declared to belong to neither Scotland nor England," Clarke says. "The Reivers operated on both sides of the border."

Clarke says the Reiver story is still little known despite George MacDonald Fraser's novel, "The Steel Bonnets."

Fraser was astonished by the Reiver connections he saw in a photograph of U.S. presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon and evangelist Billy Graham together at Nixon's inauguration.

LBJ's visage and figure were straight from Dumfriesshire where everyone was familiar with such lined and leathery faces, large heads and rangy, rather loose-jointed frames, Fraser says.

The Graham features were less common but still familiar, while Nixon was the perfect example of the Anglo-Scottish frontier: blunt, heavy features, dark complexion, burly body and an air of dour hardness.

Fraser says all three heads would fit perfectly under a Reiver steel bonnet.

"The Reivers were thieves, but warriors as well, and without allegiance to anyone outside their clan. Any English or Scottish king going to war here needed the Reivers on his side," says Chris Dobson, a Carlisle city official.

He says the Reivers eventually were repressed, deported, killed or compelled to emigrate under threat of imprisonment and that many ended up in Ireland.

Haydn Charlsworth specializes in researching family histories around Carlisle and has traced Reiver connections for U.S. clients.

Visitors can get a "Reivers Car Trail" leaflet in Carlisle to guide them through 80 miles of Reiver country. It describes one of the most unspoiled and splendid parts of Britain as it was in 1590, just after the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

------------------ THE BORDER REIVERS ------------------

The 74 family names in surviving documents about the Border Reivers: -- Archbold, Armstrong. -- Beattie, Bell, Burns. -- Carleton, Carlisle, Carnaby, Carrs, Carruthers, Chamberlain, Charlton, Charleton, Collingwood, Crisp, Croser, Crozier, Cuthbert. -- Dacre, Davison, Dixon, Dodd, Douglas, Dunne. -- Elliot. -- Fenwick, Forster. -- Graham, Gray. -- Hall, Hedley, Henderson, Heron, Hetherington, Hume. -- Irvine, Irving. -- Johnstone. -- Kerr. -- Laidlaw, Little, Lowther. -- Maxwell, Milburn, Musgrove. -- Nixon, Noble. -- Ogle, Oliver. -- Potts, Pringle. -- Radcliffe, Reade, Ridley, Robson, Routledge, Rutherford. -- Salkeld, Scott, Selby, Shaftoe, Simpson, Storey. -- Tailor, Tait, Taylor, Trotter, Turnbull. -- Wake, Watson, Wilson, Woodrington. -- Yarrow, Young.