This chapter looks at how contemporaries regarded the north-eastern corner of England, which, from at least the fourteenth century, and into the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, was consistently portrayed in negative terms. In particular, it was maintained that the far north of Northumberland, together with the western parts of Durham, was unusually subject to external threats, whilst also being virtually ungovernable. But how did central government respond to these characterisations, especially in the troubled 1590s, when the country was simultaneously facing economic distress and involved in expensive foreign wars? Then, in March 1603, the northeastern parts were fundamentally affected by the accession of the king of Scotland to the throne of England, for, at a stroke, the border between the two sovereign states of England and Scotland was set to vanish. King James made plain his perception of the changed status of the borders in one of his final charges to his Scottish privy council before he left for England on 5 April. He declared that ‘the pairt of baith the cuntreyis quhilk of lait wes callit the “Mairches” and “Bordouris” and now be the happie unioun is the verie hart of the cuntrey’. For those required to govern the north-eastern counties it was envisaged that their role would be transformed from one of policing a troublesome international frontier to that of administering a peaceful heartland.

Policing the frontier

The North, especially the far North, had long been conceived in terms of its proximity to Scotland: indeed, this was probably its single most defining feature. But, despite the Tudors’ efforts at state formation and reform, Queen Elizabeth was faced with a decline in standards of border defence at the end of the sixteenth century. Although this was largely a consequence of economic and tenurial change, it was cause for concern and was often linked by the central authorities to the particular nature of the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. On 3 September 1585, Queen Elizabeth herself drew attention to its diabolical character, when she issued a warrant to inquire into the events at a day of truce, held at Cocklaw, in the middle march, on 27 June. There, Francis, Baron Russell, son of the earl of Bedford, ‘by devilishe and sinister practises and devises [was] then and there most horribly murdered’.