Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers

The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers
by George MacDonald Fraser
Barrie and Jenkins, 1971, 384 pages

In his history of the outlaws and border lords of the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, the author of the Flashman books notes that Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson were both descendants of three notable Scottish Border clans:

"Lyndon Johnson's is a face and figure that everyone in Dumfriesshire knows; the lined, leathery Northern head and rangy, rather loose-limbed frame belong to one of the commonest Border types.... Richard Nixon is the perfect example. The blunt, heavy features, the dark complexion, the burly body, and the whole air of dour hardness are as typical of the Anglo-Scottish frontier as the Roman Wall. Take thirty years off his age and you could put him straight into the front row of the Hawick scrum and hope to keep out of his way. It is difficult to think of any face that would fit better under a steel bonnet."

Reivers also have a role to play in George Garret's historical novel The Succession (Doubleday and Company, 1983, 538 pages).