Overview

The 2014 Scottish independence debate and the re-ignition of the SNP's call for a second vote in the wake of Brexit - and indeed Brexit itself - begs a reappraisal of what nationality and borderer identity actually mean in the twenty-first century and how the past affects this. As a borderer and historian John Sadler is uniquely qualified to examine the border from Roman times to today. He's been in these Marches all his life, studied and read about their wild inhabitants, traversed every inch and studied every castle, bastle, tower and battlefield. In July 2010 in Rothbury, a latter-day outlaw, Raoul Thomas Moat, a vicious petty criminal and murderer, holed up in Coquetdale as hundreds of police tried to flush him out. Nasty as he was, he became a kind of instant folk hero to some. Four centuries ago, Moat would barely have been noticed on the border - just another Reiver. From the Hammer of the Scots, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and Mary, Queen of Scots, right through to today's new nationalism, the story of the borderlands is tempestuous, bloody and fascinating. And a 'Hot Trod'? If your cattle were stolen there was a legal requirement to pursue the rustlers within six days, otherwise you're on a less enforceable Cold Trod.

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9781398119628

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"""With both a good eye for detail and an excellent grasp of the bigger picture, John Sadler does full justice to the tangled and bloody history of the Anglo-Scottish Border. . . . Sadler, one should say, is a master of the difficult art of enabling you to see a building or a landscape in the mind's eye. In short, the book is wonderfully rich. "" --Scotsman"

""With both a good eye for detail and an excellent grasp of the bigger picture, John Sadler does full justice to the tangled and bloody history of the Anglo-Scottish Border. . . . Sadler, one should say, is a master of the difficult art of enabling you to see a building or a landscape in the mind's eye. In short, the book is wonderfully rich. "" --Scotsman

Author Information

John Sadler has had a lifelong interest in military history. He now combines writing with lecturing in History at Newcastle University and working as a battlefield tour guide, living history interpreter, and heritage consultant. He has travelled extensively in Scandinavia and is thus familiar with all of the principal sites and saga/literary sources and is an acknowledged expert on the Viking art of war . He is the author of more than 40 books. He lives in mid-Northumberland.

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