Coming Soon

Audio information

Narrator - Alastair Cunningham
Historic Guide - Flower of Yarrow
Sung Ballads – Kathy Hobkirk & Dougie Telfer

Character Profiles

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  Sir William Scott

  1596 – 1655
  
  William Scott, the eldest son of Marion Scott and 'Auld Wat Scott o' Harden', had reiving in his blood, and was more impetuous than his famous father. When he spotted a fine herd of cattle at Elibank by the Tweed, he decided they really belonged in the Scott byre in Ettrick. Perhaps he knew that the cattle belonged to Sir Gideon Murray, Lord of Session, Deputy Treasurer of Scotland and Commissioner for establishing peace and order in the Borders. If he did, he didn't care. But it all went badly wrong. William found himself held in the damp dark dungeon of Elibank castle and Sir Gideon planned to hang him - an example to others with similar ideas. But his wife Margaret thought otherwise "Hout, na, Sir Gideon," she is reputed to have said, "would you hang the winsome young laird of Harden when you have three ill-favoured daughters to marry?". So Will was offered the choice of their daughter Agnes, (aka. Muckle-mouther Meg) in marriage, or else the hanging tree. At first he chose the latter but on the day of the execution he changed his mind.  Happily it seems that this was a loving union. Sir Walter Scott was their great great grandson.
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  John Kerr, 1st Duke of Roxburghe

  1680 – 1741
  
  
  The Kerrs of Cessford were established reivers and also Wardens of the Middle March. When James VI became James I of England, he clamped down hard on the long established lawlessness in the Borders and many reivers were hung. However Sir Robert Kerr of Cessford saw how the wind blew and accompanied James to England, later becoming Lord Kerr of Cessford. His great great grandson John went further, becoming the first Duke. In 1704, he became Secretary of Scotland, and helped to bring about the union with England. George I made him a privy councillor and Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland. He served as Secretary of State for Scotland in the British Parliament from 1716 to 1725. It was the first Duke who instructed William Adam to extend an old tower house overlooking the Tweed outside Kelso to create a Georgian country house, the start of what is now magnificent Floors Castle, the largest inhabited castle in Scotland
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  Sir Walter Scott

  1771 – 1832
  
  Walter Scott was one of the prominent European men of letters of the Romantic era. His early works were  epic poems - 'Marmion' and 'The Lady of the Lake'; his novels were at first published anonymously but it is for his 'Waverley Novels' that he is now best remembered. He bought 'Clarty Hole' near Melrose in 1811 and built an exuberant baronial home renamed Abbotsford, now open to the public. He was heavily involved in managing George IV's visit to Scotland in 1820, but in 1825 his publishers, in whom he had a stake, faced financial difficulties and, to the detriment of his health, he wrote relentlessly to avoid bankruptcy and save the house. He died in 1832.
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  John Stuart, 1st Earl of Traquair

  1600 – 1659
  
  John was granted an earldom by Charles I when he visited Scotland in 1623. The 1st Earl became Lord High Treasurer of Scotland and was a wealthy man, adding Traquair's top storey and diverting the Tweed away from the house. A passionate Royalist, he sent his son to fight for the king in the Civil War  but when the Earl of Montrose hammered on the door seeking refuge after the defeat at Philiphaugh, John pretended not to be at home. He thus saved his family and house from the wrath of the victorious Covenanting General Leslie, but he was later imprisoned and died in poverty.