In 1553 English and Scottish commissioners met at Berwick for one of the periodic joint border commissions that attempted to settle the accumulated bills of cross-border reiver violence. These days of redress were formally specified in the border treaties and theoretically provided a legal mechanism for resolving disputes without war. In practice the 1553 session, like its predecessors, produced few actual resolutions — Scottish defendants failed to appear, English evidence was disputed, and both wardens had political reasons to defer difficult cases. The commission nonetheless maintained a framework of international dialogue about border crime.
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