In 1174 Hugh de Puiset supported the rebels in a revolt against Henry II, during which the Scottish king, William the Lion, invaded Northumberland.

The rebels were defeated and as a result Bishop Hugh was forced to relinquish Norham Castle to the crown.

Between 1208 and 1211 King John maintained the castle defences in good order and provided a strong garrison.

The strong defences were needed in 1215, when Alexander II of Scotland, son of William the Lion, besieged the castle for forty days without success.

In 1327 a Scottish army captured Norham but the castle was soon restored to Lewis de Beaumont, Bishop of Durham, when peace was declared.

Although the first half of the fifteenth century proved to be quieter than the previous one, the castle's defences were kept in good repair.

One of the guns used in the siege was a 20-inch (51 cm) calibre cannon called Mons Meg, which is now at Edinburgh Castle.

Weeks later James was defeated and slain at the Battle of Flodden, near Branxton in Northumberland, and Norham fell into English hands again.

At this time Scotland's Regent Albany was planning to bring an army against the Hume family on the Scottish borders.

[3] During another invasion scare from Albany, in September 1523 the Earl of Surrey, Frankelyn and Sir William Bulmer, Sheriff of Durham, viewed the defences.

Surrey gave orders for new earthwork defences of platforms and rampires and the "mending of broken places with turvis and yerthe."

Angus was threatened by his step-son James V of Scotland and he asked Lascelles for chambers in the castle to be provided for his daughter Margaret Douglas, her governess Isobel Hoppar and the young Earl of Huntly.

The Earl of Northumberland assured Cardinal Wolsey that members of the refugee Douglas family would not be allowed in the inner wards of the castle.

[5] The castle was maintained in a state of good repair, with a strong garrison during the remaining conflicts with Scotland in that century.

[6] Layton invaded Scotland during the war of the Rough Wooing and was killed in February 1545 at the battle of Ancrum Moor.

In 1596 Queen Elizabeth gave the Captain, Sir Robert Carey, her “resolute answer” that she would spend nothing on Norham.

A meeting at the west ford of Norham in October 1597 ended in a gun fight over the River Tweed at dusk.