Blackmail
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Blackmail is a criminal act of coercion using a threat. As a criminal offense, blackmail is defined in various ways in common law jurisdictions. In the United States, blackmail is generally defined as
Blackmail note intended for the Jewish Capon-Minerbo family in hiding during the Axis occupation of Greece
Border reivers
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Border reivers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border. They included both English and Scottish people, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their victims' nationality. The
Blackmail
…The word blackmail is variously derived from the word for mailing (in modern terms, protection racket) paid by English and Scottish border dwellers to Border Reivers in return for immunity from raids and other harassment. The "mail" part of blackmail derives from Middle English male, "rent, tribute," from Old Norse…
Reivers at Gilnockie Tower in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, from a 19th-century print
Notorious raider Walter Scott of Harden's horn, noted in a poem called "The Reiver's Wedding" by Sir Walter Scott. It reads in part: "He took a bugle frae his side,/With names carved o'er and o'er,/Full many a chief of meikle pride,/That Border bugle bore."
Dryhope Tower near Selkirk in Scotland, built in the 1500s for protection against the reivers
Auld Wat of Harden by Tom Scott. A romanticised image of a notorious raider, Walter Scott of Harden.