mosstrooper

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mosstrooper

(ˈmɒsˌtruːpə)
n
(Historical Terms) a raider in the border country of England and Scotland in the mid-17th century
[C17 moss, in northern English dialect sense: bog]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

moss•troop•er

(ˈmɔsˌtru pər, ˈmɒs-)

n.
1. a marauder who operated in the mosses, or bogs, of the border between England and Scotland in the 17th century.
2. any marauder.
[1645–55]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
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This level of crime and illegal trade caused the borders to be portrayed as a land of 'mosstroopers, theves, robbers and other wicked and lawlesse persons who convocat themselves together in hostile furitour'.
Cattle to Claret: Scottish economic influence in North-East England, 1660-1750: Matthew Greenhall looks at the place of Scots in the economic and social life of Newcastle and the sorrounding areas in the late Stuart and early Hanoverian years
It is not improbable that, at the time when Cicero lamented the irreparable loss of the [oral] poems mentioned by Cato, a search among the nooks of the Apennines, as active as the search which Sir Walter Scott made among the descendants of the mosstroopers of Liddesdale, might have brought to light many fine remains of ancient minstrelsy.
Gladiator and the myths of Rome: T.P. Wiseman looks at the development of the myth of ancient Rome, derived from the way its history has been seen

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