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The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers
by
"If Jesus Christ were amongst them, they would deceive him," it was said of the plunders, raiders, and outlaws who terrorized the Anglo-Scottish Border for over 300 years. Theirs is an almost forgotten chapter of British history, preserved largely in folktales and ballads. It is the story of the notorious raiding families - Armstrongs, Elliots, Grahams, Johnstones, Maxwell
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Paperback, 416 pages
Published
March 1st 1998
by HarperCollins Publishers
(first published January 28th 1972)
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Had it not been for fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, I’d never have discovered Fraser. During the dreary winter of 1981, I found myself imprisoned in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters in Patrick Henry Village (Oftersheim, Federal Republic of Germany), with no friends and f**k-all to do. Fortunately, there was a Stars and Stripes bookstore ten minutes’ walk from the glorified tenement we called "home."
I suppose my parents felt sorry for me (and reckoned that if I had spending money, I’d go somewhere ...more
I suppose my parents felt sorry for me (and reckoned that if I had spending money, I’d go somewhere ...more
I have a lot of books. I can't remember where most of them came from or what drove me to bring them home. They sit around for years and then, every so often, my eye drawn to one in particular that I've always meant to "get around to", I'll snag it up and read the damn thing.
I don't remember why I picked up "The Steel Bonnets". Maybe it was the awesome phrase "border reivers" right there on the cover. Maybe it was its lawless color scheme? Whatever the case, it's a damn fine read. It is exactly w ...more
I don't remember why I picked up "The Steel Bonnets". Maybe it was the awesome phrase "border reivers" right there on the cover. Maybe it was its lawless color scheme? Whatever the case, it's a damn fine read. It is exactly w ...more
This nearly fifty year old account of the Anglo-Scottish borderlands in the sixteenth century is still frequently reprinted for good reason and deserves re-reading today by anyone with an interest in organised crime and what we now call 'homeland security'.
The author, a journalist, creator of the 'Flashman' series of popular novels, film script writer, former soldier and part-Anglo-Scot borderer himself, writes well and has an eye for a story so the book is generally a good read - although Frase ...more
An excellent account of an almost completely unknown and extraordinary phenomenon (there’s no other word for it) that occurred on the England-Scotland border over some 300 years, from around 1300.
Be prepared for tales of a wild and unexpected race of people who burned and plundered, blackmailed and killed, without compunction, for generation after generation, on either side of the border. This isn’t the occasional, romanticised violence of Braveheart, it’s an ethics-free culture that really exi ...more
Be prepared for tales of a wild and unexpected race of people who burned and plundered, blackmailed and killed, without compunction, for generation after generation, on either side of the border. This isn’t the occasional, romanticised violence of Braveheart, it’s an ethics-free culture that really exi ...more
I have always had an interest in the Border Reivers as my family, the Trotters, were a reiving clan in the Eastern March. The Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Fraser is now in my top five history books of all time. A fascinating read which really dissects the subject at hand. Fraser was a Scottish Borderer who lived in Carlisle and it really comes across he has a real sense of the people, place and culture on both sides of the Border. I am from Dumfries and was totally engrossed in the Maxwell-
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Feb 15, 2016
Mysti Berry
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
favorite-writers
Fraser's writing is a treat. He helps even a daft American like me feel like I understand the Border Wars and the terrible events that created modern-day Scotland.
When reading a novel titled "A Famine of Horses" this book was recommended background reading. The sixteenth century on the English - Scottish border was characterized by unending violence, with raids and counter raids, stealing and murder. The Border Reiver is defined as robber, raider, marauder, plunderer. The term is obsolete but lives on in words like bereave. Clans were organized to protect themselves and to take revenge as appropriate. As history, the book does a great job of highlighting
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Game of Thrones makes a lot more sense after readings this, as silly as that sounds. A lot of interesting stories that I've never read elsewhere, to the extent that the scottish-english border seems very much like the old west.
I did feel that parts of the story were told out of order which left me having to flip between sections a few times.
I did feel that parts of the story were told out of order which left me having to flip between sections a few times.
This is just a rollicking good time of a book! An in-depth, funny, history and study of a little corner of the world.
An interesting look at political conditions and people of this region in what is now Great Britain in (mostly) the 16th century.
Jul 29, 2009
David
rated it
really liked it
Recommended to David by:
"A Common Reader" catalog 2002
Shelves:
read-history
To: kindle-feedback@amazon.com
Subject: digitization of The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers by George MacDonald Fraser
I'd like to suggest some improvements to the Kindle edition of this excellent but obscure book, which I was pleasantly surprised to see available in this format.
I believe that this is this book was digitized from a paper version. Converting a book in this manner is probably a time-consuming labor of love, and those converting can be excused if they m ...more
Subject: digitization of The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers by George MacDonald Fraser
I'd like to suggest some improvements to the Kindle edition of this excellent but obscure book, which I was pleasantly surprised to see available in this format.
I believe that this is this book was digitized from a paper version. Converting a book in this manner is probably a time-consuming labor of love, and those converting can be excused if they m ...more
Well-written and well researched as well as entertaining. In spite of my background in British history this was not a time or place I knew much about. For at least 200 years there was constant raiding back and forth across the English-Scottish border, involving widescale burning of towns, homes and fields, theft of livestock,grain and goods, murder, hostage-taking and blackmail,and blood feuds that went on for decades. It was rarely nationalistic, as families on both sides of the border allied w
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I am mainly familiar with Fraser's Flashman series, so I wasn't really sure what to expect out of this.
If you're like me, and you enjoy the footnotes in the Flash Papers as much as I do, you will probably also enjoy this book.
Spanning basically a century of history in the very specific area of the England/Scotland border, it covers a unique time in which robbing, blackmail and murder became a way of life for many of the families living in the area, and in which the authorities on both sides of ...more
If you're like me, and you enjoy the footnotes in the Flash Papers as much as I do, you will probably also enjoy this book.
Spanning basically a century of history in the very specific area of the England/Scotland border, it covers a unique time in which robbing, blackmail and murder became a way of life for many of the families living in the area, and in which the authorities on both sides of ...more
The borderlands were chaotic and Fraser's attempts to organize his information are only partially successful. In the first part of the book he attempts to give his readers an overview of what the lives and times of the borderers were like. He taps many anecdotes to make his points, but the reader has a difficult time following the chronology. Later in the book, when Fraser attempts to tell a more chronological story, he refers frequently to his earlier tales. This is unfortunate. It takes a devo
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It's rare that I find an historical book that combines great scholarship with genuine, entertaining readability. This classic from the author of the "Flashman" series is that rare bird, great history and great fun in one package. While he presents an unapologetic and sometimes harsh portrait of the free-wheeling, law unto themselves "riding families" of the Anglo-Scottish border, Fraser manages to be honest without getting shrilly judgmental. While hardly "loveable rogues", one can't help but ge
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With a name like mine I had to read this book about the Scottish English Border. Finding out about the utter cynicism of the English kings and their attitude toward Scotland, I am not surprised that so many Scots choose to vote for independence. We attacked them without cause or justification and pillaged, slaughtered and destroyed as much of their country as we could. It is not surprising that the result was an area where riding families tended to look after their own in defiance of any central
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Reread: On this read, it struck me how many times Fraser sees fit to remind the reader that the Borderers were not romantic at all--that in fact they caused more mayhem than the mafia or like groups. I wonder if the impetus behind this book was the proliferation of romantic border stories inspired by Dorothy Dunnett.
Whatever the impetus, it's a fascinating study of a small group of people whose descendants have had a proportionally enormous impact on the English-speaking world. Not English, not ...more
Whatever the impetus, it's a fascinating study of a small group of people whose descendants have had a proportionally enormous impact on the English-speaking world. Not English, not ...more
Oct 11, 2015
Carole-Ann
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-fiction,
history-fact
This is not in my database (where I list all my books) so therefore I've read/bought this BEFORE computerisation :)
Actually, it would have been in the mid 80's; and I would have been led there by my increasing (and now, never ending) love of Dorothy Dunnett and her Lymond Chronicles.
So this book filled in ALL those historical gaps regarding the Borders; the Reivers; and the history thereof :) It is a quintissentially erudite book, so you need to absorb all the details and information George Mac ...more
Actually, it would have been in the mid 80's; and I would have been led there by my increasing (and now, never ending) love of Dorothy Dunnett and her Lymond Chronicles.
So this book filled in ALL those historical gaps regarding the Borders; the Reivers; and the history thereof :) It is a quintissentially erudite book, so you need to absorb all the details and information George Mac ...more
Did you know that the border between England and Scotland in the 16th century was so lawless that at least one Elizabethan official seriously proposed rebuilding Hadrian's Wall?
Frasier is a very engaging writer, and does a great job with this history. Much of the wit and humor of the Flashman series is evident here, as well as his good-natured despair about human nature and the prevalence of injustice. (The border reivers are exposed as base predators, and their treatment by the authorities was ...more
Frasier is a very engaging writer, and does a great job with this history. Much of the wit and humor of the Flashman series is evident here, as well as his good-natured despair about human nature and the prevalence of injustice. (The border reivers are exposed as base predators, and their treatment by the authorities was ...more
TSB is a history of the borderlands between England and Scotland, told by George McDonald Fraser, who authored the Flashman series of some eyars ago. It is a fascinating read to be, as that is the original home land of the Musgroves and because it is a fascinating story of a people's response to almost unrelenting hardship and warfare. The borderlande was contiually overrun by either the English or the Scottish armies for serveral hundred years. What evolved was a culture of feud, violence aned
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I devoured Fraser's Flashman series a few years ago, and found them to be amongst the great reading adventures I've ever had. Since then, I decided to conquer the rest of his canon. The Steel Bonnets is a history of the border troubles between England and Scotland in the late 1500's. At times too in depth for the casual reader, it was still worth the trouble, if only to understand better understand not only the history between these peoples.
Fraser was a novelist (Flashman series), a Hollywood screenwriter (Three and Four Musketeers and others), and a respected semi-pro historian. This book is an eccentric and readable report of extensive research he did on the semi-outlaw culture along the English-Scottish border in the 13th-15th centuries. The "Marches."I'd say it would help to have a serious interest in this subject... Great Britain's wild west.
This is a very well written book about a particular part of Scottish history. If you have Scottish border-clan ancestry, or are particularly interested in that region, I would highly reccommend this book. Fraser does a great job of making the factual stuff interesting and telling the story of the people involved. Having said that, it is a book of non-fiction and I would not recommend it to people who are looking for a light read.
Anyone who believes that the Scots are basically Englishmen in kilts should read this book, thereby growing in wisdom. George MacDonald Fraser is the author of the sort-of historical Flashman novels. The wit and humor of Flashy is evident in this story of the almost perpetual conflict along the border between these two proud and touchy nations fated to occupy the same small island.
I enjoyed the Flashman series immensely, but at times I found this book dry and quite difficult. It was an eye opener discovering how violent and treacherous my ancestors had once been. I will now be more tolerant of some of the behaviour I see in the streets of Edinburgh! The tactics of hot troding and the of setting fire to your own property made for interesting talk when I went to the pub.
A very good reference book for something studying the Border Reviers or trying to find out more about their family history. A but tedious. My book mark is still at page 1999. Not a book to curl up with! Well documented.
I owned this for awhile and then lost my copy. Luckily, while in England I found a copy and snached it up(even though the Pound was worth at least $2. A great readable history of this region of England and Scotland by a great wtiter!
Written by the author of the Flashman series, The Steel Bonnets is actual a straight history book - although he later wrote at least one fiction book in the same period and geographical area. Well written and very interesting.
A very good history of the Scottish border region and the Border Reivers who lived there. It's well narrated and very thorough in detailing the reality of the feudal, violent, bloody, retributional culture with no hint of romance to confuse the issues at stake to the people involved.
Jul 28, 2011
Sally
added it
A very good history of the Scottish border region and the Border Reivers who lived there. It's well narrated and very thorough in detailing the reality of the feudal, violent, bloody, retributional culture with no hint of romance to confuse the issues at stake to the people involved.
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He is best known for his Flashman series of historical novels, purportedly written by Harry Flashman, a fictional coward and bully originally created by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's School Days. The novels are presented as "packets" of memoirs written by the nonagenarian Flashman, who looks back on his days as a hero of the British Army during the 19th century. The series begins with Flashman, and
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“On occasion they were cut down in cold blood or hanged on the spot; in the saying of the Border, which has passed into the language, they had been taken “red-hand”, which was “in the deede doinge”, and the law was not likely to call a trod-follower to account if his rage got the better of him and he despatched a reiver out of”
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“And both were more fortunate than Hecky Noble who, within a few nights of Mrs Hetherington’s widowhood, was a victim of that gay desperado, Dickie Armstrong of Dryhope,49 and his 100 jolly followers. Apart from reiving a herd of 200 head, and destroying nine houses, the raiders also burned alive Hecky’s son John, and his daughter-in-law, who was pregnant.”
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