The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers

"A remarkably successful book on a fascinating subject, well organized and well written." Time's Literary Supplement

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, outlaws reigned supreme on the contentious frontier between England and Scotland. Feud and terror, raid and reprisal were the ordinary stuff of lifeand a way of survival. Power was held by the notorious border reivers (the steel bonnets,” named for their flashy helmets), clan-loyal raiders, freebooters, plunderers, and rustlers who robbed and murdered in the name of family: the famous clanslike Elliot, Armstrong, Charlton, and Robsonromanticized by Sir Walter Scott. They were the last opponents to the Acts of Union of 1707, and fought fiercely and fancifully to the end.

In The Steel Bonnets, George MacDonald Fraser, author of the bestselling Flashman novels and himself a borderer, takes us back through three centuries of conflict, telling the fascinating and bloody story of the reivers. He relates their rise to power as ferocious soldiers on horseback, their important roles in the battles at Flodden and Solway Moss, and their surprisingly sudden fall from grace. The Steel Bonnets is a superb work of serious history and scholarship that is as irresistibly compelling as any novel.

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