dumfries-1920/04-038

Transcription

HISTORICAL MONUMENTS (SCOTLAND) COMMISSION.

but had to have axes used to cut down Ill Will Armstrong's "strong peel." ¹ Once
more Canonbie was left isolated in the waste.
These proceedings were followed throughout the year by a series of forays
upon the West March of England, in the course of which the land between Esk and
Leven was cleared of its inhabitants and made to resemble the Debateable Land.
The Armstrongs certainly thought they had grievances. Their appearance in the
Debateable Land was not resented by the English Warden, and he allowed them
to make use of Carlisle market. Then, under instructions from headquarters, ² he
reversed his attitude, and the Armstrongs retaliated in kind.
Border politics indeed had special local complexities. It was in the interests
of both nations that the rieving practices, the seizure of cattle, the burning of houses
and barns, and the slaying of men - though this last normally a regrettable necessity ³
- should cease, and from time to time both Governments addressed themselves
rigorously to this cause. No small obstacle was the fact that Lord Maxwell, the
Warden on the west, had taken the Armstrongs of Eskdale under his patronage,
and had John Armstrong "the laird" as a tenant. Similarly, Lord Dacre on his
side had been accused of being too complacent to the same clan. When James V.
got rid of the Douglas control, one of his first tasks was to deal with the evil condi-
tions on his frontier, urged thereto both by the defiance of all authority and by the
complaints of Henry VIII. In 1529 James took a straight course to the seat of
trouble; he began by committing to ward the principal Border lords, including
Maxwell, Johnstone, and Drumlanrig (Douglas) from Dumfriesshire, and then
summarily hanged a company of the leading Armstrongs, who came to meet
him, on the trees at Caerlanrig between Hawick and Langholm. Among them was
John Armstrong of Gilnockie, the ballad hero of the Debateable Land. Of the
Liddesdale Armstrongs it was reported to King James the year before that they had
boasted "thay woolde not be ordoured, naither by the King of Scottes thair Soveraine
Lorde, nor by the King of Einglande, but after suche maner as thair faders have
used before thayme," likewise that they had been the destruction of fifty-two
parish churches in Scotland, besides what they had done in England. ⁴
Such sharp lessons, however, proved to be only a pruning of the mischief,
not an uprooting. The problem of the Debateable Land as a refuge for "male-
factors and trespassers" remained. ⁵ Two years after James's "Jethart justice"
on the Armstrongs, Charteris, the Laird of Amisfield, an important figure of the time
both locally and about the Court, was approaching Lord Dacre with the proposal
that the English Warden should join with Lord Maxwell in "th' distroying of th'
inhabitantes of the Debateable ground." ⁶ Further, too, there was difference on
the question whether Canonbie ⁷ was debateable or not, which was argued at length
between the two kings. ⁸ These and other border difficulties were, however, incidental
to the main forces of estrangement developing between James V. and his uncle of
England. But when war did come in the autumn of 1542, it was mainly a Border affair
of forays great and small. November saw several provocative raids in Dumfriesshire
as far as Hutton, some miles beyond Lochmaben, one way, and up to Staplegordon on
the other. ⁹ The principal military object in these operations was burning: mere

1 Letters and Papers, iv. part ii. p. 1828.
2 Armstrong, App. xxii. p. 251.
3 See Bishop Leslie, De Origine, etc., Scotorum.
4 State Papers, iv. 4, p. 555.
5 Ibid., v. 4, p. 107.
6 Ibid., iv. 4, p. 608 n.
7 Canaby, Canabe, as so pronounced.
8 State Papers, iv. 4, pp. 579 ff.
9 Hamilton Papers, i. p. lxviii.

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