Notes on Branxholme. By W. Eliott Lockhart. 453 



In the end, though they had to mourn the loss of Willie o' 

 Gorrenberry — 



" Whan they cam to the fair Dodhead, 

 They were a wellcum sight m see ! 

 For instead of his ain ten milk kye, 



Jamie Telfer has gotten thirty and three." 1 

 Another instance of " breaking assurance " after a day of Truce 

 occurred iu 1596, in the capture, and imprisonment in Carlisle 

 Castle of William Armstrong of Kinmont, better known as "Kin- 

 mont Willie," as he was riding quietly home in the evening. 



This incident forms the subject of the Ballad of " Kinmont 

 Willie." 



" Now word is gane to the bauld keeper 

 To Branksome Ha,' where that he lay, 

 That Lord Scroope has ta'en the Kinmont Willie, 

 Between the hours of night and day." 



He has ta'en the table wi' his hand, 



He garr'd the red wine spring on hie — 

 ' Now Christ's curse on my head,' he said, 



But avenged of Lord Scroope I'll be. 



1 Oh is my basnet * a widow's curch ? f 



Or my lance a wand of the willow tree ? 

 Or my arm aladye's lilye hand, 



That an English lord should lightly % me ? 



And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie, 



Against the truce of Border tide ? 

 And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch, 

 Is Keeper here on the Scottish side ? " 2 

 His subsequent rescue from Carlisle Castle, which the Ballad 

 goes on to relate, will bear comparison with any other deed of 

 daring or bravery of these times, 3 and earned for Sir Walter 

 Scott the sobriquet of the "Bold Buccleuch." Professor 

 Masson very aptly remarks that " the exploit to this day, a 

 peculiarly red feather in the cap of the Buccleuch family, is also 

 one of the most memorable things in Scottish history, in the 

 years immediately preceding the Union of the Crowns." 4 



1 Border Minstrelsy — Jamie Telfer. 

 s Ibid. —Kinmont Willie. 



* helmet. t coif. % set lightly by. 



3 Vide. Fraser-Tytler's Hist, of Scotland, vol. ix., p. 195-9. This incident 

 is also extremely well told in the novel of.the "Crown Ward," byArch.Boyd. 

 * Register Privy Council, Scotland, vol. v.. Introduction, p. xlix-1. 



