The networks of power in the Middle March and their direct linkage to central government could provide the crown with a system with which to fulfill its objectives in the region, including the suppression of crime, if it had the will to do so. There can be little argument that widespread crime did take place: there was report enough of theft, reset, feud, violence and cross-border raiding from both English and Scottish sources. Many of these crimes, particularly feuding, were common to the rest of Scotland. The march's proximity to England, however, occasioned specific types of crime and there were areas close to the border that appeared to be beyond the limits of government control. To the government then, and to subsequent historians, the border-specific nature of crime was what caused extra concern over the region and is the subject of much of this chapter: but this concern should be placed within the context of the crown's increasing intolerance of violent crime and the evolution of judicial systems throughout the kingdom. So whilst border-specific offences need to be addressed, this chapter will also assess how crime in the Middle March compared to that elsewhere, and how the region was affected by a shift in the crown's attitude to crime and justice in general.

The latter part of the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth saw the criminalisation of many activities previously tolerated, such as firearm-bearing, witchcraft and, peculiar to the Borders, hunting in the Cheviots. But perhaps of most significance was the crown's changing attitude to feud, which was criminalised in 1598. This chapter examines the structure of feuding in the Middle March, necessarily drawing on the impact of kinship and alliance on the origins, escalation and any resolution of dispute – and how James vi's government increasingly intervened. Such intervention formed part of processes underway throughout Scotland, and the suppression of feud was itself part of broader developments in the way government was effected. By the 1590s the private settlement of dispute was deemed no longer acceptable as the crown began to draw judicial processes within its remit.