Jack Elliott, Wynkyng Wyll, Wry-crag, Ill Wild Will, Evil Willie, David the Leddy, Hob the King, or some event in a man's history provided a " to-name." Ill Drooned Geordy, you fancy, had barely escaped a righteous doom; and Archie Fire-the-Braes was sure a swashbuckler of the first magni tude. Others derived from their fathers' names. The Lairdis Jok All with him taiks, thus Sir Thomas Maitland, who has pre served some of these appellations in his "Complaint Against the Thieves of Liddisdale," apparently the only weapon he — though a Scots Chancellor — could use against them. Other names, the chroniclers affirm, are more expressive still; but modern prudery forbids their recovery. They were good enough headmark, whatever their quality; and a harried household had but to hear one shouted in or after the harrying to know who the harriers were. Or the slogan, or war-cry, of the clan would rap out in the excitement, and there again he knew his men. Then, the Cross of St. Andrews showed them to be Scots, the Cross of St. George affirmed them English. A letter sewn in the cap, a kerchief round the arm, were patent identification. And the chieftain's banner was borne now and again, even in a daylight foray; a mode affected by the more daring spirits. In any case, the aggrieved and plundered sought legal redress. Now the Laws of the Marches, agreed on by royal commissioners from the two kingdoms, regulated inter course from early times. As early as 1249, eleven knights of Northumberland, and as many from the Scots Border, drew up a rough code, for the recovery of debts, the surrender of fugitive bondsmen, and the trial by combat of weightier matters in dis pute. All Scotsmen, save the king and the bishops of St. Andrews and Dunkeld, accused of having committed a crime in
England, must fight their accuser at certain fixed places on the Marches; and there were corresponding provisions when the accused was an Englishman. What seems a form of judicium Dei appears in another provision. An animal said to be stolen, being brought to the Tweed, or the Esk, where either formed the boundary, was driven into the water. If the beast sank, the defendant paid. If it swam to the further shore, the claimant had it as his own. If it scrambled back to the bank whence it started, the accused might (perchance) re tain it with a clear conscience. But as to this event, the record is silent; and, indeed, the whole business lacks intelligibility. The combats, however, were many, and were much denounced by the clergy, which had to provide a champion and were heavily mulcted, if he lost. The priest suffered no more than the people; but he could better voice his wrongs. All such things were ob viously adaptations of the Trial by Ordeal, or by Combat, and the Treason Duel of chivalry, to the rough life of the Border, Again the matter was settled, even in late times, by the Oath of the Accused. The prisoner was sworn : " By Heaven above you, hell beneath you, by your part of paradise, by all that God made in six days and seven nights, and by God himself," — that he was innocent. In a superstitious age this might have some effect; and there was ever the fear of being branded for per jury. But it can have been used only when there was no proof, or when the doubt was very grave; when the issue, that is, seemed as the cutting of a knot, the loosing whereof passes man's wit. In the century preceding the union of crowns, the international code was very highly developed, and the procedure was strictly fixed and defined. As England was the larger nation, and as its law was in a more highly developed and more firm and settled state, its methods were followed on the whole. The injured party sent a bill of
