, to account for the desolation of Kidland, which lay open on the
northward to attacks from the Scots, and had no defence on the south
from the rievers of Redesdale. The inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to
have been a right valiant and hardy fraternity, honest and fearless,
well able to give good blows in defence of their possessions, for it is
left on record that "the people of the said Cock-dayle be best p'pared
for defence and most defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest
and best sorte of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or
border of the said mydle m'ches of England." The traces of these days of
raid and foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as
indeed all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified
dwelling and bastle house.

Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only speak, of
siege and assault from the day when, "with the aid of the whole county
of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham," it was built by Henry
II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared the fate of many of
the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual decay, or was used as a
quarry from which to draw building material for new and modern
mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed the dwelling of the
Vicars of that town from the time that any mention of Whitton Tower is
to be found, it being first noticed as "Turris de Whitton, iuxta
Rothebery." Rothbury itself occupies quite the finest situation of any
of the Northumbrian towns. Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a
pretty river; others, too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but
none other has the combination of these attractive features with the
finer surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely
beautiful as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin,
"the Apostle of the North," often preached; and even the fierce rival
factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet
fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual pleasure of
"drawing" whenever they met one of a rival family, at least so long as
Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain from showing their
hostility in church.

There are in Coquetdale, as elsewhere, memorials of the ancient British
days in the many camps to be found on the summits of the hills near the
town, on Tosson Hill and the Simonside Hills; and not camps only, but
barrows, cist-vaens, and flint weapons in cons