ARMSTRONG. — KING JAMES. — ROXBURGHSHIRE. 195 



expedition against the Border outlaws, an evil genius, or, according to 

 others, the traitorous invitation of some courtier, prompted the laird of Gilk- 

 nockie " to present himself" before King James, with a body-guard of thirty-six 

 horsemen, arrayed in all the pomp of Border chivalry. He approached the 

 sovereign with high expectations of favour ; but James, indignant at this 

 display, and eyeing the borderer and his retinue with a jealous scrutiny, sternly 

 observed — " What lacks this knave that a king should have ?" and ordered him 

 and his men to instant execution. Armstrong, who had a " safe-conduct," was 

 confoimded by this sentence and breach of faith, and endeavoured to soften it 

 oy expressions of loyalty to the king's person. He offered, if the sentence were 

 revoked, to support the royal authority with a company of forty gentlemen, 

 serving at their own cost; and " engaged that there was not a subject in England, 

 duke, earl, or baron, but whom, at a given day, he would produce before the 

 king, dead or alive." But seeing that James remained inexorable, the Borderer, 

 with sarcastic bitterness, exclaimed, " What a fool was I, to expect grace at a 

 graceless face !. . .But," he added, " had I suspected this, I should yet have lived 

 upon the Borders in spite both of King Henry and King James ; and Henry, weU 

 I wot, would down-weigh my horse in gold, to know that I were this day con- 

 demned to die." The king's orders were instantly obeyed ; Armstrong and his 

 gallant troop were all hanged upon growing trees, at a place called Carlinrig 

 Chapel, and buried in a deserted church-yard, where their graves are still shown. 

 That James V. accomplished much for the public safety by his summary justice 

 in this expedition, is perpetuated in the proverb, that " he made the rush-bush 

 keep the cow :" but, at the same time, it cannot be denied that, in some striking 

 instances " might overcame right," and that he was the open abettor of that very 

 system of cruelty and oppression which he professed to condemn and punish. 

 A strong instance of this occurred to the ancestors of the present writer.* 



• The extensive possessions in Eskdale Moor, now belonging to the duke of Buccleuch, were, from 

 time immemorial, the exclusive property of the Beatties, (Border Antiq.) who took a prominont part in the 

 battle of Arkinholm, in 1455 ; and at this early period are described (Scott, Hist. Scotland, vol. i. 304), as 

 a " ntimerous and bold people." Their last chief, Beattie, the " galliaW," fell in confiict at a place 

 near Langholm, which still retains the name of the " Galliard's haugh." (Border Antiquities, vol. ii. Ap- 

 pend. XII.) This border sept appears to have settled here soon after the first Crusade, (MSS. "Beatti.") They 

 were stripped of their Eskdale possessions in the following manner. In 1537-8, when Lord Maxwell and 

 Cardinal Beaton returned from France, after concluding a treaty of marriage between James V. and Mary 

 of Guise, Maxwell was presented with the lands comprehended under the five kirks of Eskdale (Statist. 

 400-1), and summoned the Beatties to acknowledge him as their feudal superior. This they resolutely 

 declined, and prepared to resist the royal grant as unjust. Negociations were attempted, but failed 

 Roland Beattie, then chief of the clan, represented to Maxwell the danger of persisting in his claim. 

 Maxwell saw the personal risk in which be was involved but as the muster on both sides had already 

 commenced, and swords were drawn, immediate flight was the only hope left for the new " seigneur." — 



