The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

In the following rude strains, our forefathers commemorated one of the last, and most gallant atchievements, performed upon the border.  The reader will find, in the subjoined extract from Spottiswoode, a minute historical account of the exploit; which is less different from that contained in the ballad than might perhaps have been expected.

Anno, 1596.—­“The next year began with a trouble in the borders, which was like to have destroyed the peace betwixt the two realms, and arose upon this occasion.  The Lord Scroop being the warden of the west marches of England, and the laird of Bacleuch having the charge of Liddesdale, they sent their deputies to keep a day of truce, for redress of some ordinary matters.—­The place of meeting was at the Dayholme of Kershop, where a small brook divideth England from Scotland, and Liddesdale from Bawcastle.  There met, as deputy for the laird of Bacleuch, Robert Scott of Hayninge; and for the Lord Scroop, a gentleman within the west wardenry, called Mr. Salkeld.  These two, after truce taken and proclaimed, as the custom was, by sound of trumpet, met friendly, and, upon mutual redress of such wrongs as were then complained of, parted in good terms, each of them taking his way homewards.  Meanwhile it happened, one William Armstrong, commonly called Will of Kinmonth, to be in company with the Scottish deputy, against whom the English had a quarrel, for many wrongs he had committed, as he was indeed a notorious thief.  This man, having taken his leave of the Scots deputy, and riding down the river of Liddel on the Scottish side, towards his own house, was pursued by the English, who espied him from the other side of the river, and, after a chase of three or four miles, taken prisoner, and brought back to the English deputy, who carried him away to the castle of Carlisle.

“The laird of Bacleuch complaining of the breach of truce (which was always taken from the time of meeting, unto the next day at sun-rising), wrote to Mr. Salkeld, and craved redress.  He excused himself by the absence of the Lord Scroop.  Whereupon Bacleuch sent to the Lord Scroop, and desired the prisoner might be set at liberty, without any bond or condition, seeing he was unlawfully taken.  Scroop answered, that he could do nothing in the matter, it having so happened, without a direction from the queen and council of England, considering the man was such a malefactor.—­Bacleuch, loth to inform the king of what was done, lest it might have bred some misliking betwixt the princes, dealt with Mr. Bowes, the resident ambassador of England, for the prisoner’s liberty; who wrote very seriously to the Lord Scroop in that business, advising him to set the man free, and not to bring the matter to a farther hearing.  But no answer was returned:  the matter thereupon was imparted to the king, and the queen of England solicited by letters to give direction for his liberty; yet nothing was obtained; which Bacleuch perceiving, and apprehending both the king, and himself as the king’s officer, to be touched in honour, he resolved to work the prisoner’s relief, by the best means he could.

“And, upon intelligence that the castle of Carlisle, wherein the prisoner was kept, was surprisable, he employed some trusty persons to take a view of the postern gate, and measure the height of the wall, which he meant to scale by ladders, and, if those failed, to break through the wall with some iron instruments, and force the gates.  This done, so closely as he could, he drew together some two hundred horse, assigning the place of meeting at the tower of Morton, some ten miles from Carlisle, an hour before sun-set.  With this company, passing the water of Esk, about the falling, two hours before day, he crossed Eden beneath Carlisle bridge (the water, through the rain that had fallen, being thick), and came to the Sacery, a plain under the castle.  There making a little halt, at the side of a small bourn, which they call Cadage, he caused eighty of the company to light from their horses, and take the ladders, and other instruments which he had prepared, with them.  He himself, accompanying them to the foot of the wall, caused the ladders to be set to it, which proving too short, he gave order to use the other instruments for opening the wall nigh the postern; and, finding the business likely to succeed, retired to the rest whom he had left on horseback, for assuring those that entered upon the castle against any eruption from the town.  With some little labor a breach was made for single men to enter, and they who first went in, broke open the postern for the rest.  The watchmen, and some few the noise awaked, made a little restraint, but they were quickly repressed, and taken captive.  After which, they passed to the chamber wherein the prisoner was kept; and, having brought him forth, sounded a trumpet, which was a signal to them without that the enterprize was performed.  My Lord Scroope and Mr. Salkeld were both within the house, and to them the prisoner cried “a good night!” The captives taken in the first encounter were brought to Bacleuch, who presently returned them to their master, and would not suffer any spoil, or booty, as they term it, to be carried away; he had straitly forbidden to break open any door, but that where the prisoner was kept, though he might have made prey of all the goods within the castle, and taken the warden himself captive; for he would have it seen, that he did intend nothing but the reparation of his majesty’s honor.  By this time, the prisoner was brought forth, the town had taken the alarm, the drums were beating, the bells ringing, and a beacon put on the top of the castle, to give warning to the country.  Whereupon Bacleuch commanded those that entered the castle, and the prisoner, to horse; and marching again by the Sacery, made to the river at the Stony-bank, on the other side, whereof certain were assembled to stop his passage; but he, causing to sound the trumpet, took the river, day being then broken, and they choosing to give him way, he retired in order through the Grahams of Esk (men at that time of great power, and his un-friends), and came back into Scottish ground two hours after sun-rising, and so homewards.

“This fell out the 13th of April, 1596.  The queen of England, having notice sent her of what was done, stormed not a little.  One of her chief castles surprised, a prisoner taken forth of the hands of the warden, and carried away, so far within England, she esteemed a great affront.  The lieger, Mr. Bowes, in a frequent convention kept at Edinburgh, the 22d of May, did, as he was charged, in a long oration, aggravate the heinousness of the fact, concluding that peace could not longer continue betwixt the two realms, unless Bacleuch were delivered in England, to be punished at the queen’s pleasure.  Bacleuch compearing, and charged with the fact, made answer—­’That he went not into England with intention to assault any of the queen’s houses, or to do wrong to any of her subjects, but only to relieve a subject of Scotland unlawfully taken, and more unlawfully detained; that, in the time of a general assurance, in a day of truce, he was taken prisoner against all order, neither did he attempt his relief till redress was refused; and that he had carried the business in such a moderate manner, as no hostility was committed, nor the least wrong offered to any within the castle; yet was he content, according to the ancient treaties observed betwixt the two realms, when as mutual injuries were alleged, to be tried by the commissioners that it should please their majesties to appoint, and submit himself to that which they should decern.’—­The convention, esteeming the answer reasonable, did acquaint the ambassador therewith, and offered to send commissioners to the borders, with all diligence, to treat with such as the queen should be pleased to appoint for her part.

“But she, not satisfied with the answer, refused to appoint any commissioners; whereupon the council of England did renew the complaint in July thereafter; and the business being of new agitated, it was resolved of as before, and that the same should be remitted to the trial of commissioners:  the king protesting, ’that he might, with great reason, crave the delivery of Lord Scroope, for the injury committed by his deputy, it being less favourable to take a prisoner, than relieve him that is unlawfully taken; yet, for the continuing of peace, he would forbear to do it, and omit nothing, on his part, that could be desired, either in equity, or by the laws of friendship.’—­The borders, in the mean time, making daily incursions one upon another, filled all their parts with trouble, the English being continually put to the worse; neither were they made quiet, till, for satisfying the queen, the laird of Bacleuch was first committed in St. Andrews, and afterwards entered in England, where he remained not long¹⁵⁸.”—­Spottiswood’s History of the Church of Scotland, p. 414, 416, Ed. 1677.

Scott of Satchells, in the extraordinary poetical performance, which he has been pleased to entitle A History of the Name of Scott (published 1688), dwells, with great pleasure, upon this gallant achievement, at which, it would seem, his father had been present.  He also mentions, that the laird of Buccleuch employed the services of the younger sons and brothers only of his clan, lest the name should have been weakened by the landed men incurring forfeiture.  But he adds, that three gentlemen of estate insisted upon attending their chief, notwithstanding this prohibition.  These were, the lairds of Harden and Commonside, and Sir Gilbert Elliot of the Stobbs, a relation of the laird of Buccleuch, and ancestor to the present Sir William Elliot, Bart.  In many things Satchells agrees with the ballads current in his time, from which, in all probability, he derived most of his information as to past events, and from which he sometimes pirates whole verses, as noticed in the annotations upon the Raid of the Reidswire.  In the present instance, he mentions the prisoner’s large spurs (alluding to the fetters), and some other little incidents noticed in the ballad, which was, therefore, probably well known in his days.

[Footnote 158:  The bishop is, in this last particular, rather inaccurate.  Buccleuch was indeed delivered into England, but this was done in consequence of the judgment of commissioners of both nations, who met at Berwick this same year.  And his delivery took place, less on account of the raid of Carlisle, than of a second exploit of the same nature, to be noticed hereafter.]

All contemporary historians unite in extolling the deed itself as the most daring and well-conducted atchievement of that age. “Audax facinus cum modica manu, in urbe maenibus et multitudine oppidanorum munita, et callidae:  audaciae, vix ullo obsisti modo potuit.”—­Johnstoni Historia, Ed. Amstael. p. 215.  Birrel, in his gossipping way, says, the exploit was performed “with shouting and crying, and sound of trumpet, puttand the said toun and countrie in sic ane fray, that the like of sic ane wassaladge wes nevir done since the memory of man, no not in Wallace dayis.”—­Birrel’s Diary, April 6, 1596.  This good old citizen of Edinburgh also mentions another incident which I think proper to insert here, both as relating to the personages mentioned in the following ballad, and as tending to shew the light in which the men of the border were regarded, even at this late period, by their fellow subjects.  The author is talking of the king’s return to Edinburgh, after the disgrace which he had sustained there, during the riot excited by the seditious ministers, on December 17, 1596.  Proclamation had been made, that the Earl of Mar should keep the West Port, Lord Seton the Nether-Bow, and Buccleuch, with sundry others, the High Gate.  “Upon the morn, at this time, and befoir this day, thair wes ane grate rumour and word among the tounesmen, that the kinges M. sould send in Will Kinmond, the common thieffe, and so many southland men as sould spulye the toun of Edinburgh.  Upon the whilk, the haill merchants tuik thair haill gear out of their buiths or chops, and transportit the same to the strongest hous that wes in the toune, and remained in the said hous, thair, with thameselfis, thair servants, and luiking for nothing bot that thai sould have been all spulyeit.  Sic lyke the hail craftsmen and comons convenit themselfis, thair best guides, as it wer ten or twelve householdes in are, whilk wes the strongest hous, and might be best kepit from spuilyeing or burning, with hagbut, pistolet, and other sic armour, as might best defend thameselfis.  Judge, gentill reider, giff this wes playing.”  The fear of the borderers being thus before the eyes of the contumacious citizens of Edinburgh, James obtained a quiet hearing for one of his favourite orisones, or harangues, and was finally enabled to prescribe terms to his fanatic metropolis.  Good discipline was, however, maintained by the chiefs upon this occasion; although the fears of the inhabitants were but too well grounded, considering what had happened in Stirling ten years before, when the Earl of Angus, attended by Home, Buccleuch, and other border chieftains, marched thither to remove the Earl of Arran from the king’s councils:  the town was miserably pillaged by the borderers, particularly by a party of Armstrongs, under this very Kinmont Willie, who not only made prey of horses and cattle, but even of the very iron grating of the windows.—­Johnstoni Historia, p. 102. Ed. Amstael.—­Moyse’s Memoirs, p. 100.

The renown of Kinmont Willie is not surprising, since, in 1588, the apprehending that freebooter, and Robert Maxwell, natural-brother to the Lord Maxwell, was the main, but unaccomplished, object of a royal expedition to Dumfries. “Rex ...  Robertum Maxvallium … et Gulielmum Armstrangum Kinmonthum latrociniis intestinis externisque famosum, conquiri jubet.  Missi e ministerio regio, qui per aspera loca vitabundos persequuntur, magnoque incommodo afficiunt.  At illi latebris aut silvis se eripiunt.”—­Johnstoni Historia, p. 138.  About this time, it is possible that Kinmont Willie may have held some connection with the Maxwells, though afterwards a retainer to Buccleuch, the enemy of that tribe.  At least, the editor finds, that, in a bond of manrent, granted by Simon Elliot of Whytheuch, in Liddesdale, to Lord Maxwell, styled therein Earl of Morton, dated February 28, 1599, William Armstrang, called Will of Kinmond, appears as a witness.—­Syme’s MSS.  According to Satchells, this freebooter was descended of Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie (See Ballad, p. 105, of this volume.)—­Est in juvencis, est et in equis, patrum virtus.  In fact, his rapacity made his very name proverbial.  Mas James Melvine, in urging reasons against subscribing the act of supremacy, in 1584, asks ironically, “Who shall take order with vice and wickedness?  The court and bishops?  As well as Martine Elliot, and Will of Kinmont, with stealing upon the borders!”—­Calderwood, p. 168.