England's Northern Frontier

This book has two main aims. Its subject is the far north in the fifteenth century, in a time period significant for the region in being much less well understood than either the preceding century (dominated by Anglo-Scottish warfare) or the following one (in which the so-called 'border reivers' were so well documented by Tudor administrators and their Scottish counterparts). The first aim is to investigate the far north in light of its prevailing reputation as different from the rest of England: an alien, turbulent and exceptional 'periphery' distant from the realm's heartland. The question to be pursued is how local society governed itself, in particular how it sought to manage conflict, in the northern marches. The second aim is the more ambitious. While drawing local, national and international comparisons where relevant and helpful, it is to raise questions from this example about the geography of power and the nature of conflict in the English kingdom as a whole--