Highway Robbery - Part Deux

*Additional correspondence with James gave rise to other potential legal issues, discussed below.

Dauid -
While your information is, well, informative for some circumstances, my situation, living on the Border of Scotland and England, might expose me to other laws. What other issues should I be concerned with?
James the Curious

Curious James-

You are quite correct, and I apologize for my incomplete and slightly off-topic answer to your inquiry. As you know, the border of Scotland and England was governed by a special set of laws,called Border Laws.1 These laws were specifically created to deal with the circumstances when a subject of one country would cross the border into the other, commit a crime, then pass back into their own country. These lawless men, called reivers, often travelled in groups to conduct raids across the border.2 The word "reive" comes from the English, meaning "to rob or plunder." 3After they returned to their own country, they would not be held responsible for their actions in the other country. This led to virtual lawlessness along the Scotland/England border.

To combat this rampant lawlessness, Border Laws were created, in which offenders who committed crimes and went back across the border would be brought back to a nearby town adjacent to the border to face trial. Guilt or innocence was determined by trial by combat.3 These trials would be conducted on the Day of Truce, where wardens from each side of the border would meet to conduct trials concerning cross-border incidents.4 The wardens were very distrustful of their cross-border counterpart, but by the use of formalities, including swearing of "Assurances" that both sides would have safe conduct during the Day of Truce.5

As you correctly pointed out in our correspondence, many times the fugitives sought by the wardens could not be located, or was protected and hidden by his clan to prevent capture. At the appointed time and place, the accused and the accuser would gather to do battle to settle the matter.6 If the accuser failed to show up, the matter would be closed. If a witness who accused a person later recanted, the accused could then seek justice against the witness, via combat, of course.

Taking these factors into consideration, my previous hypothetical advice of potentially looking for fairer climes stands.

I hope this additional information proves useful.

Yours in Service,

Lord Dauid Eadwines sune

Footnotes:

1: http://ukirishhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/border_laws_of_medieval_britain
2: http://www.nwlink.com/~scotlass/border.htm#THE BORDER REIVER
3: merriam-webster.com
4: http://modern-british-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/law_on_the_englishscottish_border
5:http://modern-british-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/law_on_the_englishscottish_border
6: Trial by Combat, George Neilson 1891 pp. 127-128(available online at http://books.google.com/books?id=4VEYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA126&dq=leges+marchiarum&as_brr=1&ei=9Pr6StT9BY7CkASFro2lDw#v=onepage&q=leges%20marchiarum&f=false)