In the weeks immediately before and after James VI's departure for London in April 1603, royal forces conducted a rapid and violent pacification of Teviotdale, hanging scores of reivers who could not escape quickly enough. James VI was determined to leave Scotland in order, and Teviotdale — which had been raiding freely during the political uncertainty of the Spanish Armada years and the Catholic earls crisis — received the full force of this determination. The Privy Council in Edinburgh was instructed to continue the hanging operation even after James left, creating the systematic brutality that broke the reiver culture in the valley.
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