The Border Laws of England and Scotland were unique in British History. Indeed there is a sound argument in stating that at no other time or place in history has such an innovative attempt ever been made to curb and control the people of two nations by subjecting them to the same laws.
 
From the formation of the Border between England and Scotland, initially in the 11th century, until the Union of the Crowns of the two countries in 1603, the people who inhabited each side of its Line were at odds. For many, many generations, over three centuries, they eked out their lives from the proceeds of that perpetual confrontation. It became the hallmark of these people known as the Border Reivers, the ‘canker’ of the Border country.

The Border Laws were set in place to counter the wave of crime which was endemic. Crime rolled across the Border country from end to end and gathered pace with each succeeding generation. By the 16th century it seemed there would be no end to the thieving and slaughter which were an everyday occurrence.

From the 11th to the 17th centuries Border Reiving was the curse of the lands which lie on each side of the English Scottish Border Line.

The modern day counties of Dumfries, Selkirk, Roxburgh, Peebles and Berwick on the Scottish side and the counties of Northumberland and Cumbria on the English were the haunt of the Border Reiver.

Unfortunately there are few accounts of the lives and times of the Reivers between the 11th and 14th centuries but from what is known it is clear that the confrontations and incursions both north and south of the present day Border by the Angles of Northumbria into Scottish ground and west into Cumberland in the 11th centuries and even much earlier were contested by the Scots who retaliated by raiding the two English counties. Constant devastation of the country left the Border folk on both sides destitute and homeless. They were the first people encountered by an invading army. They suffered intolerably for the fact.

We’ve all heard the old saying that ‘old soldiers never die, they just fade away’. The line itself, famously used by General Douglas McArthur in his farewell speech to the American Congress in 1951, seems to date from ballads sung by British soldiers in the trenches of World War I.

The red poppy is worn in Britain each November to commemorate the men who died in those trenches. Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Sri Lanka have also adopted the poppy as a symbol of remembrance. Poppies in the United States are associated with Memorial Day in May. The origin of the poppy as a symbol recalling the dead of World War I is generally attributed to the poem In Flanders Fields. Written by Canadian military surgeon Major John McCrae in May 1915 to mark the death of a friend during the second battle of Ypres, the poem soon gained iconic status and was published by Punch magazine on the 8 December 1915. American YMCA volunteer Moina Michael and Frenchwoman Anna E. Guérin popularised the use of artificial poppies as a symbol of remembrance in Europe and North America shortly afterwards.