Clan societies in UK

[Troglodyte]

One thing that puzzles me is the idea that clans only existed in the Highlands. I have read in many different sources that the Border Reivers were also called clans and were recognized as such as early as the 12th century.

The Border 'clans' were not clans in the recognised way, and were excluded from the legislation that formally etablished the location and extent of the Highland clans in the 1500s.

The Borders became a perpetual battleground for 300 years - effectively from when Robert the Bruce became king of Scotland to until James VI became king of England. It was policy on both sides of the border for successive monarchs to encourage the destabilisation of the region, and raiding of each other's territory.

Unlike the Gaelic Highland clans, the Border families were essentially Anglo-Saxon, and the same race and origin, culture and language as the English from the Lothians southwards. Part of the trouble was that a huge swathe of Northumbria and Cumbria (what ought to be England) had been seized be force by the Scots nation, around the time of the Norman conquest, and the English wanted it back.

The character of the Borderer grew out of a need to be warlike and independent, and generally showed two fingers to the authorities in Edinburgh and London, and families became cohesive for defense and protection. Armstrong, Eliot, Johnstone, Douglas, Young, Scott, etc, are now given the same recognition as Highland clans, with tartans, clan crests, and societies that play on the Highland clan style when they ought to be doing somethig quite different.

The Border 'clan' structure, with its complex and extensive rivalries and alliances, extended well into England, but only the Scottish names have taken up the fashionable 'clan' thing - all clans are Scots, so all Scots are clans, so to speak.

The fascinating thing about both the Highland clans and the Border families, is that they held allegiance to those of their own choosing and not necessarily their own nation or government. Consequently, Highland clans were quite happy to enter into deals with the English, and fight for them in the Irish wars, or create trouble at home for the Scottish king.

When England and Scotland went to war (as they frequently did) many of the Scottish Borderers were sympathetic to the English, and would arrange to meet on the battlefield opposite their English allies. When the fighting started, there would be a noisy charge, but the end of the fighting revealed no casualties.

Author, historian and journalist George Macdonald Fraser (who, despite his Highland name, described himself as an English Borderer, and he of 'Flashman' fame) wrote extensively of the Border conflicts, and says when he saw Richard Nixon on the hustings flanked by Lyndon Johnstone and Billy Graham, three men of Border ancestry, he recognised the names and physical type immediately.

At one time the Graham name had been proscribed, and those with it had been banished from the realm. Johnstones and Nixons have what the police call 'form', so GMF said that when three likely lads of this breed get together, trouble is sure to follow. Was he wrong..?