The fatal battle of the standard was fought on Cowton Moor, near Northallerton (A.S. Ealfertun), in Yorkshire, 1138. David I. commanded the Scottish army. He was opposed by Thurston, archbishop of York, who, to animate his followers, had recourse to the impressions of religious enthusiasm. The mast of a ship was fitted into the perch of a four-wheeled carriage; on its top was placed a little casket, containing a consecrated host. It also contained the banner of St Cuthbert, round which were displayed those of St Peter of York, St John of Beverly, and St Wilfred of Rippon. This was the English standard, and was stationed in the centre of the army. Prince Henry, son of David, at the head of the men of arms, chiefly from Cumberland and Teviotdale, charged, broke, and completely dispersed, the centre; but unfortunately was not supported by the other divisions of the Scottish army. The expression of Aldred (p. 345), describing this encounter, is more spirited than the general tenor of monkish historians;—"Ipsa globi australis parte, instar cassis araneæ dissipata"—that division of the phalanx was dispersed like a cobweb.
MINSTRELSY
OF THE
SCOTTISH BORDER.
PART THIRD.
IMITATIONS
OF
THE ANCIENT BALLAD.
[CHRISTIE'S WILL.]
In the reign of Charles I., when the moss-trooping practices were not entirely discontinued, the tower of Gilnockie, in the parish of Cannoby, was occupied by William Armstrong, called, for distinction's sake, Christie's Will, a lineal descendant of the famous John Armstrong, of Gilnockie, executed by James V.[31] The hereditary love of plunder had descended to this person with the family mansion; and, upon some marauding party, he was seized, and imprisoned in the tolbooth of Jedburgh. The Earl of Traquair, lord high treasurer, happening to visit Jedburgh, and knowing Christie's Will, enquired the cause of his confinement. Will replied, he was imprisoned for stealing two tethers (halters); but, upon being more closely interrogated, acknowledged, there were two delicate colts at the end of them. The joke, such as it was, amused the Earl, who exerted his interest, and succeeded in releasing Christie's Will from bondage. Some time afterwards, a law-suit, of importance to Lord Traquair, was to be decided in the Court of Session; and there was every reason to believe, that the judgment would turn upon the voice of the presiding judge, who has a casting vote, in case of an equal division among his brethren. The opinion of the president was unfavourable to Lord Traquair; and the point was, therefore, to keep him out of the way, when the question should be tried. In this dilemma, the Earl had recourse to Christie's Will; who, at once, offered his service, to kidnap the president. Upon due scrutiny, he found it was the judge's practice frequently to take the air, on horseback, on the sands of Leith, without an attendant. In one of these excursions, Christie's Will, who had long watched his opportunity, ventured to accost the president, and engage him in conversation. His address and language were so amusing, that he decoyed the president into an unfrequented and furzy common, called the Frigate Whins, where, riding suddenly up to him, he pulled him from his horse, muffled him in a large cloak, which he had provided, and rode off, with the luckless judge trussed up behind him. Will crossed the country with great expedition, by paths, only known to persons of his description, and deposited his weary and terrified burden in an old castle, in Annandale, called the Tower of Graham.[32] The judge's horse being found, it was concluded he had thrown his rider into the sea; his friends went into mourning, and a successor was appointed to his office. Meanwhile, the poor president spent a heavy time in the vault of the castle. He was imprisoned, and solitary; receiving his food through an aperture in the wall, and never hearing the sound of a human voice, save when a shepherd called his dog, by the name of Batty, and when a female domestic called upon Maudge, the cat. These, he concluded, were invocations of spirits; for he held himself to be in the dungeon of a sorcerer. At length, after three months had elapsed, the law-suit was decided in favour of Lord Traquair; and Will was directed to set the president at liberty. Accordingly, he entered the vault, at dead of night, seized the president, muffled him once more in the cloak, without speaking a single word, and, using the same mode of transportation, conveyed him to Leith sands, and set down the astonished judge on the very spot where he had taken him up. The joy of his friends, and the less agreeable surprise of his successor, may be easily conceived, when he appeared in court, to reclaim his office and honours. All embraced his own persuasion, that he had been spirited away by witchcraft; nor could he himself be convinced of the contrary, until, many years afterwards, happening to travel in Annandale, his ears were saluted, once more, with the sounds of Maudge and Batty—the only notes which had solaced his long confinement. This led to a discovery of the whole story; but, in these disorderly times, it was only laughed at, as a fair ruse de guerre.
Wild and strange as this tradition may seem, there is little doubt of its foundation in fact. The judge, upon whose person this extraordinary stratagem was practised, was Sir Alexander Gibson, Lord Durie, collector of the reports, well known in the Scottish law, under the title of Durie's Decisions. He was advanced to the station of an ordinary lord of session, 10th July, 1621, and died, at his own house of Durie, July 1646. Betwixt these periods his whimsical adventure must have happened; a date which corresponds with that of the tradition.
"We may frame," says Forbes, "a rational conjecture of his great learning and parts, not only from his collection of the decisions of the session, from July 1621 till July 1642, but also from the following circumstances: 1. In a tract of more as twenty years, he was frequently chosen vice-president, and no other lord in that time. 2. 'Tis commonly reported, that some party, in a considerable action before the session, finding, that the Lord Durie could not be persuaded to think his plea good, fell upon a stratagem to prevent the influence and weight, which his lordship might have to his prejudice, by causing some strong masked men kidnap him, in the links of Leith, at his diversion on a Saturday afternoon, and transport him to some blind and obscure room in the country, where he was detained captive, without the benefit of day-light, a matter of three months (though otherways civilly and well entertained); during which time his lady and children went in mourning for him, as dead. But, after the cause aforesaid was decided, the Lord Durie was carried back by incognitos, and dropt in the same place where he had been taken up."—Forbes's Journal of the Session, Edin. 1714. Preface, p. 28.