In 1599, at the tower of Branxholme near Hawick, two members of the notoriously rumbustious Elliot kindred subscribed a bond agreeing to uphold an arbitration made by Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch in a dispute between them. Robert Elliot of Redheugh for himself and on behalf of his kin, friends and dependants, and Martin Elliot, son of the late Sym Elliot, for himself, his uncles and the rest of his surname and servants, promised that,

they ‘bund and obleiss us never more to querrell’. Elliot of Redheugh was a tenant of Buccleuch's in his lordship of Liddesdale, an unruly region abutting the Anglo-Scottish frontier. In the same year, several other tenants also subscribed bonds to Buccleuch swearing to be answerable to him for ‘any complaint from england or upoun the kingis maiestie his hienes counsall or his justices preissing or chalenge upoun any complaint from the subiectis of Scotland’, because Buccleuch ‘be vertew of the generale band hes fund cautioun and bund and oblist him’ for the actions of ‘the haill inhabitantis of the boundis of liddisdaill’. The increasing likelihood of James VI's succession to the English crown had increased the pressure the king was putting on his officials to crack down on internal and cross-border crime in the Borders.

The making of bonds was one of the principal means by which he achieved this.

This was not just the case in the Borders. The king was keen to suppress crime, particularly violent crime, throughout his kingdom, and bonding was to play a central part in his efforts. Whilst James’ reign was notable for the welter of legislation attempting to regulate every aspect of life, most notable of all perhaps were his concerted attempts to suppress the ancient activity of the bloodfeud. Legislation in 1598 and 1600 outlawed the pursuit of violent private justice, calling participants to bring their disputes to public arbitration, increasingly in the central courts in Edinburgh.