The West March on the Anglo-Scottish Border in the Twelfth Century,and the Origins of the Western Debatable Land

Abstract

'The West March on the Anglo-Scottish Border in the twelfth century and the origins of the Western Debatable Land'. Although there was a frontier zone between medieval England and Scotland where March Law applied, within that zone there was, at any rate in time of peace between the Crowns, an ascertainable frontier line. Two conflicting views on the location of this line west of the Cheviot are reviewed and a third proposal advanced. From William II's conquest of Cumberland in 1092 up to 1552, the line lay along the River Esk and Liddel Water, except when the Scots possessed Cumberland and Westmorland in 1136–1157 and 1216–1217. After 1136, David I granted to the lords of the English barony of Liddel additional land comprising the parishes of Kirkandrews-on-Esk and Canonbie, north of the Esk. From 1157, the barony remained a cross-Border holding until the Scots dispossessed the English lords of Kirkandrews and Canonbie between 1300 and 1318. The English lords continued to claim that land, however, and their claim was assigned to the English Crown after 1349. At that point, what had been a claim to private rights started to become confused with national sovereignty. In 1552, arbitrators partitioned what had become known as the Western Debatable Land, a no-man's-land, and the Border then assumed its present line.