The Committee of Public Safety

Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie was indeed a notorious reiver of the early 16th century. It is said that he exacted blackmail from Gilnockie to Newcastle, a distance of over fifty miles, but always on the English side of the Border. In 1530 James V of Scotland was 17 years old. He did not subdue the Scottish Reivers by his callous act at Carlenrig when he hanged Armstrong and twenty-two of his followers. He achieved the reverse! From that year the Armstrongs of Liddesdale would have no truck with that impetuous monarch. In 1542 he got his come-uppance when a large Scottish army was routed by a much smaller English force at the Battle of Solway Moss. James was not present at the debacle which saw his army picked off as they tried to cross the river Esk at Longtown, Cumbria. He opted instead to wait at Lochmaben Castle. It is said that when he heard the news of the defeat he retired north and died of the humiliation but not before receiving the news that he had a baby daughter of but eight days old. She would become Mary, Queen of Scots.

Moss has written a fictional account of another notable incident involving Clan Armstrong called Deadlock and Deliverance (you can contact the author here if you are interested in purchasing a copy). This is the rescue of William Armstrong of Kinmont AKA “Kinmont Willie” from the hands of the evil English. Moss writes on his website:

Kinmont Willie was captured by the English following a ‘Day of Truce’ at the Dayholme of Kershope. The ‘Day of Truce’, purportedly held at monthly intervals was a time when those reivers who had transgressed the Border Law were brought to the very Border Line to answer for their crimes…

Kinmont had been taken against the ‘Assurance’ of the Truce. His capture by the English was illegal and, even though they sought to hold on to him against all the odds, they would suffer a miserable humiliation for their rash effrontery.

Kinmont was freed following a daring raid on Carlisle castle by a small party of clansmen from the Scottish Border valleys aided and abetted by members of some of the more prominent Cumbrian families. The most notable of the English reiving clans, the Grahams, also played a major part.

The rescue led to a war of words between the monarchs, Elizabeth I of England and James Vl of Scotland. Their relationship reached its lowest ebb over the affair with warnings that the two countries had been at war before for reasons of less magnitude.

My late grandmother was quite fond of her Scottish heritage. She probably even though the replacement of the Stuarts by the Hanoverians was a tragedy even though her own ancestors loathed the House of Stuart. In my mind, any blow offered against Stuart tyranny is a blow for truth, justice, and the right of a man to earn his keep by stealing his neighbor’s cattle. I don’t cry for Bonnie Prince Charlie and I don’t cry for the king over the sea. Mencius Moldberg, whose usually wrong but wrong in an interesting, loses me when he argues for a Stuart restoration under Franz, Duke of Bavaria (by descent the Stuart pretender to the English and Scottish thrones). I see the Royal Stuart Society and can only imagine Jacobite and Jesuit machinations against my English liberties and plotting an Anschluss of Scotland, England, Ireland, Bavaria, and Liechtenstein into a Greater Liechtenstein under Hereditary Prince Alois. May it never be. The Border Folk, usually called the Scots-Irish in the US, are one of the last bulwarks against Stuart tyranny. I can think of no better conclusion than the Ballad of Kinmont Willie:

O hae ye no heard o’ the fause Sakelde?
O hae ye no heard o’ the keen Lord Scroope?
How they hae ta’en bauld Kinmont Willie,
On Haribee to hang him up?

Had Willie had but twenty men,
But twenty men as stout as he,
Fause Sakelde would never the Kinmont ta’en,
Wi’ eight score in his company.

They band his legs beneath the steed,
They tied his hands behind his back.
They guarded him, fivesome on either side,
And they led him through the Liddel-rack.

They led him through the Liddel-rack,
And also through the Carlisle sands;
They took him tae Carlisle Castle,
To be at my Lord Scroope’s commands.

“My hands are tied, but my tongue is free,
And whae will dare this deed avow?
Or answer by the Border law?
Or answer tae the bauld Buccleuch?”

“Now haud thy tongue, thou rank reiver.
There’s never a Scot shall set thee free:
Before ye cross my castle gate,
I trow ye shall take farewell of me.”

Now word has gane tae the bauld keeper,
In Branksome Ha’, where that he lay,
That Lord Scroope has ta’en the Kinmont Willie,
Between the hours of night and day.

And here detained him, Kinmont Willie,
Against the truce of Border tide.
And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch
Is keeper on the Scottish side?

“Had there been war between the lands,
As well I wot that there is nane,
I would slight Carlisle Castle high,
Though it were built of marble stane.”

“I would set that castle in a lowe,
And sloken it wi’ English blood.
There’s never a man in Cumberland,
What kent where Carlisle castle stood.”

“But since nae war’s between the lands,
And here is peace, and peace should be;
I will neither harm English lad or lass,
And yet the Kinmont shall be free.”

And as we crossed the Debatable land,
And tae the English side we held,
The first of men that we met wi’,
Whae should it be but fause Sakelde?

“Where ye be gaun, ye broken men?”
Quo’ fause Sakelde; “Come tell to me?”
Now Dickie o’ Dryhope led that band,
And there never a word of lear has he.

And as we left the Staneshaw-bank,
The wind began full loud tae blaw;
But ’twas wind and weet, and fire and sleet,
When we came beneath the castle wa’.

They thought King James and a’ his men
Had won the house wi’ bow and spear;
It was but twenty Scots and ten,
That put a thousand in sic a steir!

And as we reached the lower prison,
Where Kinmont Willie he did lie,
“O sleep ye, wake ye, Kinmont Willie,
Upon the morn that thou’s to die?”

Then shoulder high, with shout and cry,
We bore him doon the ladder lang;
At every stride Red Rowan made,
I wot the Kinmont’s airns play’d clang!

He turn’d him on the other side,
And at Lord Scroope his glove flung he.
“If ye na like my visit in merry England,
In fair Scotland come and visit me!”

All sair astonished stood Lord Scroope,
He stood as still as rock of stane;
He scarcely dared tae trew his eyes,
When through the water they had gane.

“He is either himsel’ a devil frae hell,
Or else his mother a witch maun be;
I wadna hae ridden that wan water,
For a’ the gowd in Christendie.”