Liddesdale — the most notorious reiver valley in all Scotland — was subjected to a systematic clearing operation in 1602 as James VI intensified border pacification ahead of his English succession. The Scottish warden and his forces moved through the valley, executing Elliots and Armstrongs who refused to surrender or flee. Hermitage Castle served as the base for operations. Towers were burned, cattle seized, and the landscape deliberately impoverished to make the valley less capable of sustaining large reiver bands. The 1602 clearing was the most thorough government operation in Liddesdale since the hanging of Johnnie Armstrong in 1530.
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