Cessford Warden Enforcement — Middle March 1598
Who Fought
History & Significance
Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth (ca. 1560 – 12 April 1639) (or "Cary") was an English nobleman and courtier. He was the youngest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, chamberlain and first cousin of Queen Elizabeth I, and Anne Morgan, daughter of Sir Thomas Morgan and Anne Whitney.
As a young man he accompanied several diplomatic missions abroad and took part in military expeditions. He was sent to Scotland in February 1587 with certain news of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. He was met at Berwick-upon-Tweed by the Scottish diplomat George Young. According to David Moysie, Young withheld his passport and carried his news to James VI of Scotland.
In 1587, Carey joined in the attempt to relieve Sluys. In 1588 he served as a volunteer against the Spanish Armada; so disappointed was he to be left behind by Drake and Norris the following year that he walked from London to Berwick in twelve days, winning a wager worth two thousand pounds. Carey commanded a regiment in the Earl of Essex's expedition to Normandy in support of the Protestant Henry IV of France in 1591, taking part in the siege of Rouen. He was knighted by Essex the same year for having by his intercession with the Queen procured his recall.
In October 1593 he brought the Scottish rebel Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, as a guest to Carlisle Castle. This alarmed his brother-in-law, Thomas Scrope, who was Warden of the West March, because Elizabeth I had declared her nobles would not receive the earl.
In the parliaments of 1586 and 1588 he represented Morpeth; in that of 1593, Callington; and in those of 1596 and 1601, Northumberland. From 1592 till the end of Elizabeth's reign he occupied various posts in the government of the Scottish borders. In 1596, he was appointed Warden of the Middle March, which he held till February 1598. He was also Captain of Norham Castle.
This was some of the most important work of his life, and he was largely responsible for easing the troubles and the depredations of the Border Reivers. His conflict with the Scottish fyrebrande Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe was only settled after great skill and tact on Carey's part.
In March 1603 he visited the court, and witnessed Queen Elizabeth I's last illness, which he described in his memoirs. Anxious to recommend himself to her successor James I, and disobeying the orders of the council, he started on horseback immediately after the Queen's death on the morning of 24 March 1603, in order to be the first to communicate the tidings to James. He arrived at Holyrood late on 26 March. The next day, King James confirmed in a letter to Robert Cecil that Carey had been first with the news. Carey was appointed a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, but his conduct met with general disapproval and merited censure as "contrary to all decency, good manners and respect," and on James's arrival in England he was dismissed from his new post.
The ground they fought on
The site of Cessford Warden Enforcement — Middle March 1598 lies on Stratheden Group, bedrock that formed in the Late Devonian. The rock here is sandstone and conglomerate, interbedded.
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- The Middle March of Scotland · reivers.info
- Wardens of The Marches · reivers.info
- Timeline. Fire and blood: key events in Border history · reivers.info
- Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth · Wikipedia