THE DIVIDING WALL.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 621, 5 April 1921, Page 5

THE DIVIDING WALL.

BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. The actual boundary line which separates England and Scotland cannot always be seen by the traveller. In some lonely parts of the Cheviot Hills it is impossible to trace it, while to others it is clearly defined, and may be accurately followed. For more than a third of its entire length of 103 miles or thereby the line is,in the centre of the rivers Sark, Esk, Liddell, Kershepe and Tweed. There is no more interesting part than that section which connects the rivers Sark and Esk, as it was here that the Scots Dike was constructed hi the

year 1552 by tire Commissioners appointed by Edward VI. on the one side and Mary Queen, of Scots on the other. This is probably the only remaining part of the boundaiy be tween the two countries which has of set purpose been formed by the hand of man.

In the first half of the sixteenth century and for some hundreds of less part of Great Britain was undoubtedly that tract of country known as the Debateable Land. For years the authorities on both sides of the Border strove together to put an end to the bloodshed and constant warfare carried on s by those \vho inhabited it, not only for the

purpose of endeavouring to cause them to live at peace one with the other, but doubtless to instil into their minds a more civilised method tof gaining a livelihood than by stealing their neighbours’ cattle and engaging in marauding expeditions into England and Scotland. After manv attempts to attain this er.d, which were more or less fruitless', a scheme was devised wherby the land in dispute was to be apportioned between . the countries, making approximately half of it really part of Scotland and the other half part of England, which, strictly sneaking, they had never been,, and the practical method adopted to carry this determination into effect shape in the erection-of an eai’thenware rampsi't, which ultimately got the name of the Scots Dike.

Ridpath, in his “Border History” (new edition, 1848, p. 394) tells us that the English commissioner appointed for the purpose were Lord Wharton and Sir Thomas Chaloner, the Scottish being Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig and Richard Maitland cf Lethington, who set about their task, and, “after some scruples and delays,” they met on the spot “and agreed on a line to be mai’ked by a ditch and march stones, the ground on one side whereof was thenceforth to belong to England an,-; that on the other to belong to Ccotlar.d.”

Their award was issued on 24th September, 1552, to the following effect (quoting again from Ridpath : “That whereas the inhabitants of the western part inclined more to be subjects cf England, and the inhabitants of the eastern part inclined more to be subjects of Scotland, they therefo. e award the western part of the said Debateable Land to the King of England the eastern part thereof to by ft lire drawn across from Esk, to the Queerr of Scotland, to be divided Sark, and a square stone set up at each and with the arms of England cn the west thereof, and the arms pf Scotland On the -east side.” This award was ratified at' Jedburgh on kth November, 1552.

With regard to this division, it will bo patent to all familiar with the district that the commissioners were out cf their bearings when describing the parts given respectively to England and Scotland as western and eastern, seeing that the dividing line, {he Scots Dike, runs almost due east and west. The Scots really got the northern portion, and the English the southern.