The Scottish Middle March, 1573-1625: Power, Kinship, Allegiance

The Borders experienced dramatic change on James VI's succession to the throne of England: where characteristically hostile Anglo-Scottish relations had encouraged cross-border raiding, James was to prosecute a newly consistent pacification of crime in the region. This volume explores how James did so in the Middle March, by examining governmental processes and structures of power there both before and after union. It suggests that James utilised existing networks of authority, with the help of a largely co-operative Borders elite that remained in place after 1603; kinship and alliance helped form these networks, and government is shown to have used their associated obligations. The book thus overturns the traditional view of a semi-anarchic region beyond the control of government in Edinburgh. Anglo-Scottish relations, however, were not the only factor dictating events in the Borders. The Middle March was subject to and involved in similar processes underway elsewhere in Scotland by the 1590s; in particular the intensification of James's government represented by the suppression of feuding.This volume places the experience of the Middle March against a shifting background of internal politics and Anglo-Scottish relations, demonstrating how closely the situation there was linked into that throughout Scotland. Anna Groundwater is an Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow in Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh.