Border Raids and Reivers: Enriched edition. Raiders, Reivers, and Border Conflicts: Unveiling the Dark History of Medieval Scotland

by Robert Borland

This book is an in-depth exploration about the history behind Border reivers, who were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. They included both Scottish and English people, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims' nationality. Their heyday was in the last hundred years of their existence, during the time of the House of Stuart in the Kingdom of Scotland and the House of Tudor in the Kingdom of England.

201 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 4, 2019

Reviews

[Joseph Sellors · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given that this book was published in 1910, it stands the test of time fairly well. A fairly short, concise history of a very interesting, complex period. Borland tries to portray the amusing side of the Border Reivers, but whilst he succeeds in providing numerous anecdotes and quirky stories which amuse, I feel the book lacks depth and he never really more than scrapes the surface of the topic at hand. He also portrays an unfortunate bias to the Scottish Reivers throughout the book, portraying them as deeply patriotic, which simply wasn't the case. National loyalties barely figured in the mindset of the Border Reiving families, who were far more concerned with putting their own interests first.