‘Guardhouse of the bloodiest valley in Britain’, mighty Hermitage, ‘the Strength of Liddesdale’, was a formidable fortress, right in the heart of reiver country. If walls could talk, what tales this place would tell... In the 13th century, the wicked Lord de Soules held sway here. Tradition says he was eventually encased in lead and boiled alive by a local magician.
Wha daur meddle wi me? Wha daur meddle wi me?
Oh my name is wee Jock Elliot, And wha daur meddle wi me?
Hermitage then became a stronghold of the English Dacre family of Cumberland, and next of the powerful Earls of Douglas. In 1566, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was badly wounded in a skirmish by Wee Jock Elliot of the Park, a noted reiver. The Earl’s bodyguards carried him back to Hermitage, only to find more Elliots had taken the castle and he had to bargain to get into his own home.
Bothwell’s lover, Mary Queen of Scots, was in Jedburgh on a royal visit and she set off to make the hazardous 30 mile journey across bleak moorland to be with him. The tryst lasted two hours, but on her way back, Mary’s horse stumbled into a bog and she came down with a severe fever. Mary and Bothwell married seven months later.
Did you know?
Hermitage is a place associated with the Elliot clan. They became traditional Keepers of the castle - and now the Elliot Chief brings her followers here to celebrate their ancestry. Hermitage stands roofless and windswept but it is still an awesome sight. Indeed, it is said that none but the descendant of a border reiver dares spend a night here.
‘I curse thair heid and all the haris of thair heid…
I curse thaim gangand and I curse thaim rydand…
I curse thair wiffis, their barnis, their catales, their scheip…
May the erd mot oppin, riffle and swelly them quyk to hell!’
In the 16th century a Great Curse was put on the reivers by the Archbishop of Glasgow. The verbal abuse ran to more than 1500 words and it was read from every pulpit in the Scottish borderlands. It was hoped the raiders would be ‘swallowed down to hell’.
Border Strongholds
Hermitage is just one of hundreds of castles and towers in southern Scotland. Others include Branxholme, near Hawick, a Scott stronghold, and Hume Castle near Kelso. Ferniehirst Castle at Jedburgh is home to the Kerrs and Caerlaverock, near Annan, was a Maxwell base. Drumlanrig’s Tower at Hawick was the town house of the Scotts of Buccleuch, and Smailholm Tower near Kelso was built by the Pringles. Lochwood Castle near Moffat was held by the Johnstones.
Many are now ruins, but some like Hermitage remain, battered but proud, in this dramatic landscape.
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