{"id":1056,"date":"2013-09-10T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/?p=1056"},"modified":"2013-09-07T09:36:19","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T09:36:19","slug":"a-border-crossing-performed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/a-border-crossing-performed\/","title":{"rendered":"This is Ben Jonson Crossing the Border…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bicycle<\/a>After another fine dinner in Berwick-on-Tweed, Jonson was escorted two miles northwards by the gentlemen of the town. At this point, yet more wine was drunk and a volley of shots fired. Jonson took one step further, and crossed England\u2019s frontier<\/a> into Scotland.<\/p>\n

In days past, that gunfire would not have been so friendly, for only fifteen years before the Anglo-Scottish border had been an international division between two previously hostile countries. When English and Scottish armies were not etching trails of devastation from Newcastle to Edinburgh, the borderers themselves were raiding each other\u2019s livestock, and burning their enemies\u2019 tower houses. As Jonson\u2019s contemporary, and simultaneous traveller, John Taylor, was to describe,<\/p>\n

Such shaking, shifting, cutting throats, and thieving,
\nEach taking pleasure, in the other\u2019s grieving.
\nTo many years this pell-mell fury lasted,
\nThat all these borders were quite spoil\u2019d and wasted,
\nConfusion, hurly-burly reign\u2019d and revell\u2019d,
\nThe Churches with the lowly ground were levell\u2019d…
\nThat who so then did in the borders dwell,
\nLiv\u2019d little happier than those in hell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Taylor made much of his border-crossing though he was to be surprised at the similarities that he found either side:<\/p>\n

Eight miles from Carlisle runs a little River,
\nWhich England\u2019s bounds, from Scotland\u2019s grounds doth sever…
\nI being come to this long look\u2019d for land,
\nDid marke, remarke, note, renote, view\u2019d and scann\u2019d:
\nAnd I saw nothing that could change my will
\nBut that I thought my self in England still.
\nThe Kingdoms are so nearly join\u2019d and fix\u2019d,
\nThere scarcely went a pair of Shears betwixt;
\nThere I saw sky above, and earth below,
\nAnd as in England, there the Sun did show…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The sheep in Annandale grazed in the same way as those in Cumberland, and good Scottish ale was available in many a cottage.<\/p>\n

Jonson\u2019s companion does not comment on what this ceremony of wine and gunshot signified; no mention is made of the border at all in our journal, or indeed of the names England or Scotland. For Jonson perhaps, the border was not of note; he was returning to the land of his fathers, allegedly from Annandale, in the same way that his royal master King James had progressed \u2018salmon-like<\/q>\u2019 to Edinburgh the year before.<\/p>\n

\"James<\/a>King James<\/a>\u00a0VI and I\u2019s return had been of great significance. His travelling across the border was in itself a performance of the union that his own person embodied; this union of the crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland on the head of one man, and an important precursor to the full political union of 1707. In these days of debate over the continuation of that union, the Anglo-Scottish border may reemerge as a site of contention.<\/p>\n

James would have been saddened by this. On his first crossing of the border in 1603, he had stopped at Berwick to declare the name of the \u2018Borders\u2019 dead, rechristening the region the \u2018Middle Shires\u2019, where they would be \u2018but the midst of the Isle<\/q>\u2019 of a Great Britain. He would however have much liked Taylor\u2019s words in 1618:<\/p>\n

But since the all-disposing God of heaven,
\nHath these two Kingdoms to one Monarch given,
\nBlessed peace, and plenty on them both hath shower\u2019d
\nExile, and hanging hath the thieves devour\u2019d…
\nFor now those Crowns are both in one combin\u2019d
\nThose former borders, that each one confin\u2019d
\nAppears to me (as I do understand)
\nTo be almost the Centre of the land.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After another fine dinner in Berwick-on-Tweed, Jonson was escorted two miles northwards by the gentlemen of the town. At this point, yet more wine was drunk and a volley of shots fired. Jonson took one step further, and crossed England\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11,14,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activities","category-places","category-roadstransport","category-walking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions\/1062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/ben-jonsons-walk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}