KINMONT WILLIE.
In the year 1596, Mr. Salkeld, the deputy of Lord Scroope, the English warden of the West Marches, and Robert Scott, the representative of the Laird of Buccleuch, then keeper of Liddesdale, held a meeting on the border line of the kingdoms, according to the custom of the times, for the purpose of arranging such differences, and redressing such grievances, as either party might have to allege. On these occasions a truce was always proclaimed, inviolable on pain of death, from the day of the meeting to the next day at sunrise. After the conference in question, as William Armstrong of Kinmonth, a notorious freebooter, whose ordinary style was Kinmont Willie, was returning to his home, accompanied by only three or four persons, he was pursued by a couple of hundred Englishmen, taken prisoner, and in contravention of the truce, lodged in the castle of Carlisle. The Laird of Buccleuch sought to obtain the enfranchisement of his client and retainer, through the mediation, first of the English warden, and then of the Scottish ambassador. Receiving no satisfaction, he took the matter into his own hands, raised a party of two hundred horse, surprised the castle of Carlisle, and carried off the prisoner by main force. This dashing achievement was performed on the 13th of April, 1596.
According to a rhymester who celebrated the daring feat of Buccleuch about a hundred years later, Kinmont Willie was a descendant of Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie.
Interesting details of the surprise of the castle, and further notices of Kinmont Willie are given by Scott in the Border Minstrelsy (ii. 32), where the ballad was first published.
"This ballad is preserved," says Scott, "on the West Borders, but much mangled by reciters, so that some conjectural emendations have been absolutely necessary to render it intelligible."
O have ye na heard o' the fause Sakelde?
O have ye na 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,5
But twenty men as stout as he,
Fause Sakelde had never the Kinmont ta'en,
Wi' eight score in his cumpanie.
They band his legs beneath the steed,
They tied his hands behind his back;10
They guarded him, fivesome on each side,
And they brought him ower the Liddel-rack.
They led him thro' the [Liddel-rack],
And also thro' the Carlisle sands;
They brought him to Carlisle castell,15
To be at my Lord Scroope's commands.