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| The Nobles
are from an area in the extreme north of Cumberland just south of the
Border.
If you go to www.multimap.com First locate Bewcastle and then in on the region to the left (west). There you will find the hamlet of Nobletown. Nearby are Scottown and Nixontown. This was wild country, and still is. Being on one of the principal reiver routes to and from Scotland, its inhabitants were inevitably caught up in reiver activities. They were not a numerous family and, when reiver activity was brought to an end when Scotland and England joined, the Nobles and many others, no longer having any means to support their families, made their way south, along the reiver routes into the valley of the River Tyne. Some moved west, and on eventually to America, others went east down river, to where Newcastle is now. Little is known of the Nobles except for one character Halbert Noble, known as Hobbie Noble. Hobbie was friendly with the Armstrong Clan, probably the principal reiving family who lived in Liddesdale, just north the Border in Scotland. He played a leading role in freeing an Armstrong from Newcastle jail. This act and other misdemeanors alienated him from the authorities in England where he became a wanted man. He was, however, treacherously lured back into England where he was captured and executed in Carlisle.
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