CHAP. I. KSKDALE. 289 



time of peace, a kind of outcasts, against whom the 

 united powers of England and Scotland were often 

 employed. On the Scotch side of the Esk were the 

 Jolmstoiies and Armstrongs, and on the English the 

 Graemes of Netherby ; but both clans were alike wild 

 and lawless. It was a popular border saying that 

 " Elliots and Armstrongs ride thieves all ;" and an old 

 historian says of the Graemes that " they were all stark 

 moss-troopers and arrant thieves; to England as well as 

 Scotland outlawed." The neighbouring chiefs were no 

 better : Scott of Buccleugh, from whom the modern 

 Duke is descended, and Scott of Harden, the ancestor of 

 the novelist, were both renowned freebooters. 



There stand at this day 011 the banks of the Esk, 

 only a few miles from the English border, the ruins of 

 an old fortalice, called Gilnockie Tower, in a situation 

 which in point of natural beauty is scarcely equalled 

 even in Scotland. It was the stronghold of a chief 

 popularly known in his day as Johnnie Armstrong. 1 

 He was a mighty freebooter in the time of James V., 

 and the terror of his name is said to have extended as 

 far as Xewcastle-upon-Tyne, between which town and 

 his castle on the Esk he was accustomed to levy black- 

 mail, or "protection and forbearance money," as it 

 \vas called. The King, however, determining to put 

 down by the strong hand the depredations of the march 

 men, made a sudden expedition along the borders ; and 

 Johnnie Armstrong having been so ill-advised as to 

 make his appearance with his followers at a place 

 called Carlenrig, in Etterick Forest, between Hawick 

 and Langholm, James ordered him to instant execu- 

 tion. Had Johnnie Armstrong, like the Scotts and 

 KITS and Johnstones of like calling, been imprisoned 



1 Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to j country adjacent to this day hold the 

 i- 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Bor- memory of Johnnie Armstrong in 



the 



der,' says that the common people of 



the high parts of Liddlesdale and the 



VOL. II. 



very high respect. 



