The Steel Bonnets by George MacDonald Fraser

Author:George MacDonald Fraser
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing (Perseus)
Published: 2011-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

XXVI

Armstrongs in action

In the circumstances, it was not surprising that the Armstrongs began to assume the proportions of a national menace to England, and foremost among them was one of the Mangerton branch, who with his own band of adventurers, operated from the Canonby district, where he had a tower upon the Esk. In the records of the time he is John of Gilnockie, brother to Thomas, Laird of Mangerton; to his fellow-Borderers he was Black Jock; but in the language of romance and the legends of outlawry he is known as Johnnie Armstrong.

There are obvious reasons why he shares with his distant relative, Kinmont Willie, the distinction of being the most famous of all Border reivers. He was the centre of a historical incident which was recorded in the folk-lore of his country. But that apart, he was a most successful scourge of the Marches. The belief persists among his countrymen that he raided only on the English side, and from what we know of Angus’s Border policy and the state of frontier relations at the time, this may be true, although one may doubt whether Armstrong left his own side alone out of any patriotic sentiment. He levied blackmail throughout the English Marches, and built up a private force of formidable reputation. Indeed, its very size and splendour were to be his undoing. But beyond that, and the fact that he enjoyed the protection of Robert, 5th Lord Maxwell, Warden of the Scottish West March, we know little enough about him. He and his son Christie signed—or at least put their “hands at the pen”, since Johnnie was illiterate—a bond with Maxwell at Dumfries in 1525, whereby John received the tenancy of lands about Langholm and agreed to serve Maxwell in peace and war—which probably meant leaving Maxwell’s cattle alone if he turned a blind eye to their other activities.

However predatory these may have been, there do seem to have been periods in the mid-1520s when the Border was reasonably quiet. Scotland was satisfied enough with Angus’s conduct to grant him £1600 for his services—he had earlier received a present of £100 from King Henry—and although he seems to have exerted pressure on the riding clans only with political caution, this was enough to give the West March at least the occasional outward appearance of order. But as always appearances were deceptive; a Border official, after two months of tranquillity, might report that the Marches had never kept better rule, and then the peace would be abruptly shattered by an English incursion into Roxburghshire, or by a joint Tynedale-Liddesdale outrage like the burning of Tarset Hall, in the English Middle March.

Attempts were made to reach agreements whereby both countries would deny refuge to rebels and outlaws from the other side, and Wolsey noted an arrangement under which England would give assistance to the Scots Wardens on request, to aid in hunting down evil-doers on the Scottish side. But such co-operation looked better on paper than in practice; Liddesdale

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