[227]. A tract on the extreme western border, beginning between the mouths of the Sark and Esk and stretching north and east eight miles, with a greatest breadth of four miles. The particulars of the boundaries are given from an old roll in Nicolson and Burn’s Westmorland and Cumberland, I, xvi, and as follows by Mr T. J. Carlyle, The Debateable Land, Dumfries, 1868, p. 1: “bounded on the west by the Sark and Pingleburn, on the north by the Irvine burn, Tarras, and Reygill, on the east by the Mereburn, Liddal, and Esk, and on the south by the Solway Frith.” The land was parted between England and Scotland in 1552, with no great gain to good order for the half century succeeding.
[228]. It has been maintained that there was a Gilnockie tower on the eastern side of the Esk, a very little lower than the Hollows tower. “We can also inform our readers that Giltknock Hall was situate on a small rocky island on the river Esk below the Langholm, the remains of which are to be seen:” Crito in the Edinburgh Evening Courant, March 8, 1773. “Many vestiges of strongholds can be traced within the parish, although there is only one, near the new bridge already described, that makes an appearance at this point, its walls being yet entire:” Statistical Account of Canoby, Sinclair, XIV, 420.
Sir John Sinclair, 1795, says, in a note to this last passage, that the spot of ground at the east end of “the new bridge” is, “indeed, called to this day, Gill-knocky, but it does not exhibit the smallest vestige of mason-work.” Mr. T. J. Carlyle, The Debateable Land, p. 17, gives us to understand that the foundations of the tower were excavated and removed when the bridge was built; but this does not appear to be convincingly made out.
[229]. The History of Liddesdale, Eskdale, Ewesdale, Wauchopedale, and The Debateable Land, by Robert Bruce Armstrong, 1883, pp 177 f, 227 f, 245, 259 f; Appendix, pp. xxvi, xxxi.
[230]. The Cronicles of Scotland, etc., edited by J. G. Dalyell, 1814, II, 341 ff. (partially modernized, for more comfortable reading).
[231]. Wherein, if this be true, John differed much from Sym.
[232]. Rerum Scoticarum Historia, 1582, fol. 163 b, 164.
[233]. History of Scotland, Bannatyne Club, 1830, p. 143.
[234]. Anderson’s History, MS., Advocates Library, I, fol. 153 f. Anderson flourished about 1618–35. He gives the year both as 1527 and 1528. Cited by Armstrong, History of Liddesdale, etc., p. 274 f. For what immediately follows, Armstrong, pp. 273, 279.
[235]. A place two miles north of Mosspaul, on the road from Langholm to Hawick.