Border Reiving and Religious Discord
The severe problems of lawlessness and insecurity which affected border districts like Redesdale in the 16th and 17th centuries are well-known. The problem fluctuated in intensity, but was especially acute in the last decades of the 16th century and persisted into the following century, despite the energetic efforts of the new Stuart regime of James VI and I to break the reiving clans, establish order and transform the English and Scottish border counties into ‘the Middle Shires’ of the new combined realm.
Elsdon and its environs suffered a particularly savage raid in September 1584 at the hands of Martin Elliot and 500 other Liddesdalers. When subsequently seeking redress before border commissioners at Berwick in the summer of 1586, the inhabitants estimated that Elliot and his men had burnt down their habitations, murdered 14 men, taken and held for ransom 400 prisoners, driven away 400 kine (cows) and oxen and 400 horses and household goods to the value of £500 (Watts 1975, 28-29).
So weakened were the Redesdale and Tynedale surnames by the last decades of Elizabeth’s reign that their Scottish counterparts could strike with virtual impunity. However, even as late as 1615, the rector of Elsdon, John Smaithwaite, declared ‘we have at least 20 cries at the church doors every Sabbath for things stolen’ (Taylor n.d. (b), 16). The longstanding nature of the insecurity is underlined by mandate issued by the Bishop of Durham to the clergy of Redesdale over a century earlier, in 1498, instructing them to visit the terror of excommunication on all inhabitants who ventured forth from home in a steel jacket or other defensive armour (other than against the Scots) and that no-one should wear any weapon more than 18 inches long in the churchyard (Taylor n.d., 16-17). Presumably the bishop considered a blade of less than 18 inches to be perfectly acceptable!
Less emphasis has been placed on the fault lines within Northumbrian border society, yet in many respects these were no less serious. In the early 17th century, despite nearly a hundred years of Tudor royal promotion of the Protestant faith and repression of Catholicism, much of the Northumbrian gentry still adhered to the old faith. The sort of disruptive conflict of authority which might result at a local level from such a situation is revealed by events at Elsdon in 1615-16, when the principal figures of spiritual and temporal authority in the valley were pitted against one another (Taylor n.d. (b), 16-17).
This evidence emerges from a series of complaints made by the rector, John Smaithwaite, against Roger Widdrington. Roger, a Catholic, was the steward of Lord Howard of Walden, lord of Redesdale (see below, Redesdale under the lordship of the Howards), and thus one of the principal agents of temporal authority permanently resident in the area, along with his brother Sir Henry Widdrington, the keeper of Redesdale, who was esconced at Harbottle Castle. Smaithwaite protested in 1616 that many people were being withdrawn from Church on Sundays by Widdrington’s bailiffs and officers, under the pretence of being required for service of Lord Howard or the King, and were kept walking and attending their officers in the town street or the churchyard throughout the period of the service.
On Sunday 20th May, Widdrington called all the tenants and freeholders to meet him two miles from Elsdon at a time coinciding with the church service and on two other Sundays called the entire congregation out of the church to speak with him whilst the services were underway. Widdrington was assisted by a clique of clients and supporters whom Smaithwaite alleged were involved in robbery, breaking and entering, and receiving stolen goods. These ‘popish bad fellows’ included William Wanless, ‘a great resetting thief’ (i.e. harbourer of thieves) whom Widdrington made overseer of his sheep and cattle, and Allan Wanless, bailiff of Redesdale. All were Catholic sympathisers or had allegedly been converted to Catholicism through the efforts of Widdrington.
Roger Widdrington seems to have been intent on making life difficult for the rector, presumably confident that the protection afforded by his lord and brother would enable him to escape any official retribution. However Smaithwaite was evidently made of stout stuff and refused to be intimated by this display of power. He threatened to go to London to lay the case before the Church Council. Thereupon, Roger perhaps realising he had overplayed his hand seems to have caved in and offered Smaithwaite the lease of any lands he held. Nevertheless Smaithwaite did indeed carry out his threat with the result that Widdrington was hauled before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Council at Lambeth palace to answer for his conduct. The Archbishop recommended that he not be allowed to return north, but instead should be confined to some town in the south.
This affair was perhaps atypical. Despite the recusancy laws penalising Catholics who failed to attend Anglican church services, most members of Northumbrian border society appear to have been quite willing to turn a blind eye to the persistence of Catholicism amongst the gentry. It was Roger Widdrington’s aggressive conduct and apparent attempt to promote his own faith which seems to have prompted this particular outbreak of discord.
Ultimately it was non-conformity rather than Roman Catholicism which posed the greater threat to the Anglican Church in Redesdale. A Quaker, John Shield, is mentioned as disturbing the rector of Elsdon at his pulpit as early as 1660 and Otterburn seems to have been a Quaker stronghold by the 1680s (Taylor n.d. (b), 17-18). However in the long term Scottish Presbyterianism which was to prove the most important non-conformist movement in the valley.
The rise of Presbyterianism began when Scottish ministers fled across the border to escape persecution by Charles II’ government in the 1660s and used the valleys of Redesdale and north Tynedale as a refuge and rallying point. From 1688 it was officially tolerated and grew to the point where it had more followers than the established church. Nevertheless the Rev. Charles Dodgson, writing in 1762 at the beginning of his short term as rector, was relatively relaxed about the prevalence of non-conformity reflecting the general spirit of tolerance within the valley (reproduced in Tomlinson 1888, 307; see Selected Sources and Surveys):
The greater part of the richest farmers are Scotch dissenters, and go to a meeting-house at Birdhope Craig, about ten miles from Elsdon; however, they don’t interfere in ecclesiastical matters, or study polemical divinity. Their religion descends from father to son and is rather a part of the personal estate than the result of reasoning, or the effect of enthusiasm. Those who live near Elsdon come to the church, those at a greater distance towards the west go to the meeting-house at Birdhope Craig; others, both Churchmen and Presbyterians, at a very great distance, go to the nearest church or conventicle in the neighbouring parish. There is a very good understanding between the parties; for they not only intermarry with each other, but frequently do penance together in a white sheet with a white wand, barefoot, in one of the coldest churches in England, and at the coldest seasons of the year.
Whether the choice of faith at this time was quite as unconscious as Dodgson portrays is open to question, but there is no doubt that the parish of Elsdon, on account of its great size and the absence of any chapels of ease or Anglican meeting places other than the parish church, was particularly vulnerable to non-conformist proselytisation. The simple fact that the Presbyterians were preaching throughout the district at locations the wider rural population could more conveniently reach would have been a powerful argument in their favour. This problem had been appreciated as early as 1650 when a Survey of Church Livings held at Morpeth in 1650 recommended.
That some part of the said Parish (of Elsdon) being twelve myles distant from the said Church, it is ffitt a Church or Chappell be erected at Rotchester.
The proposal was never implemented and it was 1796 before the Anglicans responded to the challenge of Presbyterianism by creating more places of worship in the vast parish, with the construction of a chapel of ease at Byrness. Further examples were erected in the next century at Horsley and Otterburn.
