The Historical Families of Dumfriesshire and the Border Wars

C. L. Johnstone offers here a history of Scotland’s noble families through the centuries, noting how they shaped the history and politics of the nation. This edition includes all the illustrations of the ruins that were once their seats of power, and the family trees.

A detailed and intensive examination of the family ties which bound Scottish communities together and strengthened the country’s resolve against England during periods of enmity or war, this book discusses the various noble houses in detail. Their evolution through the centuries – the rise of some to prominence, the fall of others to obscurity – is in many ways the story of Scotland as a nation state with its own identity and culture.

The Medieval era of the Scottish nobility is dominated by the Bruces, a family of which Robert the Bruce is the most famous. As the Middle Ages concludes, other houses such as the Stuarts and the Grahames rose to the fore, and with James VI of Scotland becoming James I of England, it seemed for a time that the two countries would enjoy a lasting, close bond. Such optimism was to be short-lived: following the English Civil War and the deposing of Charles II, Scotland felt neglected and angry at the English, who had enacted laws regarding the borders.

The border wars between Scotland and England are the later focus of this book; taking place in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Jacobite rebellion embroiled several of Scotland’s longstanding noble houses in conflict. To date, this uprising is the latest war to have been fought upon the British Isles; for a time, the Jacobeans looked as they might not only repel the English entirely from the northerly reaches with their mastery of an early form of guerrilla warfare, but also conquer portions of England.