20 Anniversary Address. 



the body of a former Armstrong of Manger ton, treacherously 

 murdered by the Lord of Hermitage, was set down on its way 

 to the churchyard of Ettleton higher up the hill. Tradition 

 assigns the crime sometimes to a Soulis, sometimes to a 

 Douglas, but nothing certain remains on record. The cross 

 is of elegant design, and is badly figured in the old Statistical 

 account of the parish (Vol XVI., 86.), by the Rev. James 

 Arkle, minister in 1793, who states it to be 8 feet 4 in. high, 

 set on a base 1 foot 4 in. high. A two-handed sword, 4 feet 

 long, is sculptured on its south face, above which are some 

 letters and apparently an arm, the heraldic distinction of the 

 Armstrongs. The letters appeared to be ^ £ but it was diffi- 

 cult to decipher them on the moss-grown surface. 



About 300 or 400 yards up the hill, is the churchyard of 

 Ettleton, the burial place of the Armstrongs, some of whose 

 tombstones, with armorial bearings and long inscriptions, 

 were examined. On that of Thomas Armstrong, of New 

 Strongerside (or Stonegarthside), obiit 1769, are three arms 

 with several hearts, having reference apparently to their 

 dependence on the Douglas family. Others exhibit only 

 two and some one arm. According to Nisbet, the general 

 blazon of the Armstrongs of the south, was " argent a dexter 

 arm issuing from the sinister side, clothed, gules, holding a 

 tree eradicated and broken at the top," or according to others 

 " a sword." But to Armstrong of Mangerton he assigns, 

 "argent, 3 tortreaux or pallets (i.e. cakes) azure, representing, 

 according to John Fern, strength," and this is the shield 

 painted on Sir Walter Scott's hall at Abbotsford, where the 

 arms of the principal Border families are represented. The only 

 remains of the church discernible are the foundations of a small 

 oblono* nave in the south-west corner of the inclosure, near to 

 which lies a piscina lately turned up in digging a grave. A 

 little to the north of the churchyard is a piece of ground 

 called Silver-field, where coins are occasionally found, which 

 may have been the site of the parsonage or of the old village 

 of Ettleton, but there are no traces of building, nor is any- 

 thing known on the subject. A solitary tree about half a mile 



