The Steel Bonnets

The Steel Bonnets examines the raiding families who dominated the Anglo-Scottish frontier, especially during the sixteenth century. Fraser describes the geography of the Marches, fortified houses, surnames, riding equipment, feud, blackmail, cattle theft and the special legal institutions intended to regulate a region where allegiance to kin often outweighed obedience to either crown.

The book follows the Border through war, truce, the Rough Wooing, the reigns of Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I, and the Union of the Crowns in 1603. It rejects romantic portrayals that treat reiving as harmless adventure, emphasising murder, reprisal, political manipulation and the destruction of communities. Narrative episodes and documentary research make it both a regional history and a study of how states attempted to suppress organised frontier violence.