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Topic: Border Population Stats (Read 263 times)
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castlebob
RootsChat Senior
Posts: 466
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Hello All,
I've read that DLW Tough estimated the Scottish Border population as being 50,000 in c1569. He also estimated the English Border counties at 120,000. My Armstrong surname is first mentioned in the early 13th C in Cumbria, then later in Roxburghshire & Dumfriesshire.
It was said that the Armstrongs could field 3,000 men in the early16th C, although I feel that this figure may have included 'sympathetic' clans in the neighbourhood.
Assuming the 3,000 figure to be the asbsolute maximum, plus guessing at say, 8 people per family, we're looking at 375 Armstrong families in the 16th C. Does anyone know of a known statistical formula to 'back-project' this population estimate through to the early 12th C?
Cheers
Bob
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Armstrongs of Bedfordshire, England & Canonbie ,Scotland
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mosstrooper
RootsChat Member
Posts: 246
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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In 1513 England was at war with France and it was the Queen of that country who persuaded King James IV of Scotland to renew the `auld alliance' and assist the French, by invading northern England.
On the 22nd August King James of Scotland crossed the River Tweed at Coldstream entering England with an army of between 60,000 to 100,000 men who burned the fortress of Norham on Tweed and the Tillside castles of Ford and Etal. The reason King James gave for the invasion, was revenge for the murder of Robert Kerr, a Warden of the Scottish East March who had been killed in a fray by a Northumbrian called John `the Bastard' Heron in 1508.
This was just a skirmish before the Battle of Flodden on the 9th September. In the Battle of Flodden itself it is said there were 30,000 men on each side of the border armies.
You mention "Clans" there were no Clans on the Border, only Families, Clans belonged in the Highlands. The people who lived and worked on the lands belonging to these families, The Armstrongs, The Grahams, The Kerrs owed allegiance to the Family and in many cases took the name of that family,
In the 1500s and prior to that, the common people did not have 2 names, a Christian name and a second name, so were better known by descriptions such as "Jock O' the Side" or "Heron the Bastard" or "Rab the Rhymer" So if they took the protection of a powerful family, they would also take the family name.
James Kerr.
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