The Steel Bonnets ─ The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, outlaws reigned supremeon the contentious frontier between England and Scotland. Feud andterror, raid and reprisal, were the ordinary stuff of life—and a way ofsurvival. Power was held by the notorious border reivers (the "steelbonnets," named for their flashy helmets), who robbed and murdered inthe name of family: the famous clans (or "grains")—like Elliot,Armstrong, Charlton, and Robson—romanticized by Sir Walter Scott. In TheSteel Bonnets, George MacDonald Fraser, author of the bestselling Flashmannovels, and himself a borderer, tells the fascinating and bloody storyof the reivers, their rise to power as ferocious soldiers of horse, andtheir surprisingly sudden fall from grace.