Lady Lilliard

​ This story is all according to Borders legend and there is some question as to whether this is a real description of the battle or as has often happened throughout ancient history the story is an existing epigram adapted for a heroine. The existence of the place name 'Lilliard's Edge' prior to the battle is seen by sceptics as evidence to deny the whole story. It is historically known though that heroes and heroines have assumed the identity of a place associated with their deeds. Joan of Arc is a shining example as she is often referred to as the Maid of Orleans. The legend of which we discuss here has survived many generations, and there is no reason to suppose that such a story of female heroism would be invented.

Maid Lilliard was from Maxton, a village that in 1544 was viciously attacked and many of the residents (including her family) were killed by the English Army. The War was "The Rough Wooing." The foe was Henry VIII's Army, which had laid waste to much of Southern Scotland after the Scots refused to betroth the infant Mary Queen of Scots to Henry's son Edward. There are differing tales now as to whether her lover was also killed at Maxton and her involvement at Lilliard’s Edge, in the Battle of Ancrum Moor, was premeditated as an act of revenge for the extinction of her family during an earlier battle, or impulsive, being the result of seeing her lover cut down by Evers in the current affray.

According to some accounts, it was Maid Lilliard who killed the brutal English leaders Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Laiton. In other accounts, she rallied the far-outnumbered Scottish forces and inspired the ensuing victory over Henry VIII's Army. In the aftermath of the battle, those charged with the disposal of its fallen came across the bodies of the English leaders Evers and Laiton. Beside these lay the supposed slaughterer of Laiton identifiable by a conspicuous white plume and hanks of golden hair. Initially unrecognisable due to horrific injuries the searchers were surprised to see that it was a fair and handsome woman, the Maiden Lilliard. Whether she did kill them or not we will never know but she received an individual burial, a memorial being subsequently erected over her body giving details of her bravery. The first official report of her grave appeared in 1743. This noted that the memorial was broken and the inscription illegible. The author, the Rev Adam Milne, managed however to obtain a copy of the wording from aged locals who professed to remember it accurately from their youth.