Customer Reviews

Steel Bonnets

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I was born in Carlisle, England. The second big town of the border area other than Berwick. My father is from Longtown, Cumbria which is right next to the debateable land and I have the last name of Crozier. This book was like reading about my own history and explained a whole lot of things about my home town and the people I grew up with. Just in my neighborhood, there were Armstrongs, Taylors, Littles, Nixons, Grahams and many other Reiver names.
This is a very scholarly book and exceptionally well written. The author must have done an incredible amount of research to put this together. I read it twice, the second time noting how many references to Croziers(Crosers) there were. My father's family name is in there 26 times. Along with the Armstrongs, Nixons and Eliots, we were considered the worst of the worst of the reivers. Maybe not something to be proud of, but interesting. According to my mother(God rest her soul)her paternal grandfather was the illegitmate son of the Duke of Buccleugh(you'll hear a lot about the Scotts of Buccleugh, many of whom had the same name of Walter, including the famous one), so I have Reiver blood from there too. Fascinating book especially if you have a surname that might go back to that part of the world and those times.
What I have written here is just a taste of the whole book. A little heavy going at times, but so good that I have read it twice already and now use it as a research tool.