Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/73

Rh make him complain of the ingratitude of those to whom his life and labours had been devoted. But still the promise given to the righteous was verified in his case, for his end was peace. He died at Edinburgh on the 18th of February, 1852, within a single day of completing the seventieth year of his age.

, of Gilnockie.—In the history of every country, however renowned, there is a period when its best men, or at least those who were reckoned so, were nothing but robbers or pirates. And yet they became the demigods of the country's worship, the heroes of its most cherished traditions, or the founders of its most illustrious families. It is not necessary to go so far back as the expedition of the Argonauts, or the exploits of Romulus, for an illustration of this great general fact. Later periods, and events more closely connected with ourselves, show, that such was also the case in Britain, so that, however edifying, it would be no very grateful task to investigate the characters of those men who "came in with William the Conqueror," or detail the doings of those who were the ancestors of our border nobility. But these men were needed in their day and generation, and they merely took the lead in that congenial society amidst which their lot had been cast. It was not wonderful, therefore, that their exploits should have been so highly admired, and their names so affectionately remembered. With these remarks we think it necessary to premise our introduction to the reader of such a man as John Armstrong, a mere border freebooter; and we introduce him the more readily, as he was the choice type and specimen of a class of men with whom Scotland especially abounded, and who continued to flourish in rank abundance, from the commencement of the war of Scottish independence against Edward I., to the Union of the two kingdoms, when the strong hand of the law could be extended over the whole island to quell or exterminate the turbulent, and reduce all to a common rule.

The name of Armstrong, like many others, was probably at first nothing more than a nickname. The race who bore it inhabited a large part of Liddesdale, and that territory called the Debatable Land, lying between the rivers Sark and Esk. This Debatable Land, as its name may intimate, was claimed by both kingdoms—a misfortune of which the Armstrongs seem to have frequently availed themselves, by plundering the people of both countries indifferently, and thus reaping a double harvest. As they were very numerous, their retainers extended far along the banks of the Liddel, in which the several captains of the clan sought, not a home, but a mere shelter from the enemies they provoked; and when these recesses could no longer defend them, they took refuge among morasses and swamps, the secure by-ways to which were only known to themselves, and where they could safely laugh at the pursuer. In consequence of their inroads upon English and Scots, they were finally proclaimed a broken clan, and were outlawed both by England and Scotland; but at the time of which we write, they were under the command of a chief called Armstrong of Mangertoun. John, the hero of the family, was a younger brother of Christopher Armstrong, its chief, and had his strong-hold at the Hollows, within a few miles of Langholm, where the ruins of the tower are still visible. To have acquired such a band of followers as rode at his bidding, and become so terrible to his enemies, as well as endeared to his friends, implies no small portion of courage, hardihood, and skill, manifested by many a border inroad. These achievements, unlike those of Robin Hood, appear to have passed away, having no gleeman to chronicle them to posterity; but such was their