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THE EURES. 145
To avenge this, a second expedition of 1 2,000 men was led across the
Border by Archibald, Earl of Douglas, and met and defeated by Hotspur
at the heights of Homildon, near Wooler. Douglas and the Earl of Fife
were taken prisoners
; and of the thousands that had crossed the Border
but a few hundreds are said to
have regained their native soil.
It was evidently to the interest of both countries to restrain, if possible,
with Robert Bruce
this wanton and useless strife ;
and Edward I. stipulated
that there should be Wardens of the Marches on both sides. On the
Scottish side Bruce appointed Lord James of Douglas, who fulfilled his
trust with great fidelity. On the English side Edward divided the frontier
among three Wardens, of the west, the middle, the east Marches, and
installed Robert de Clifford as the first Lord Warden, 1296.
The authority of the Warden was of a mixed nature, military and
civil. He was generalissimo of the forces, to give command, to place and
appoint watchmen, to fire beacons, and give alarm on the approach of the
enemy. He had power to muster " all defensible men between sixteen and
" sixty," marshal them in thousands, hundreds, and twenties, armed as
billmen and archers, and to commence hostilities
or conclude conditions of
peace. He took cognizance of all breaches of the Border laws, imprisonments,
robberies and spoils, cutting timber, sowing corn, depasturing cattle,
and hunting out of proper boundaries. He had a council, composed of
discreet borderers, to assist him in holding courts and sessions for the
redress of grievances, could pursue a thief within six days, in " hot trod,"
with hue and cry, and had power of life and death.
On one occasion the Earl of Northumberland (1528) held a courtwarden
at Alnwick, and beheaded nine and hanged five men for marchtreason
and felony
;
and soon after overtook and slew William Charleton
of Sholyngton, " the hyed rebell off all the Howthlawes," and hanged four
of his accomplices in chains at different places.*
Not the least of his onerous duties was the reconciling of differences
and patching up quarrels amongst the nobles and gentlemen themselves,
even as it was across the Border, for Scott tells us
"While Cessford owns the rule of Carr,
And Ettrick boasts the line of Scott,
The slaughtered chiefs, the mortal jar,
The havoc of the feudal war,
Shall
never, never be forgot."
Lay of the Last Minstrel,
His dignity was so great that in 1382 Sir Matthew Redmayne, deputygovernor
of Berwick, refused admission to " time-honoured Lancaster "
himself into the town ;
and the earl afterwards justified the act in the King's
* House of Ptrcy, vol. i. p. 388.