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 Armstrong appendix of ancient names, deduced from the authority of Ossian and other poets. Armstrong's dictionary will always be prized by Gaelic scholars, but it was partially eclipsed, three years after its appearance, by the publication of the still more comprehensive 'Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum,' compiled under the direction of the Highland Society of Scotland (2 vols. 4to, 1828). Mr. Armstrong sank his small fortune in the publication of his three-guinea quarto, and in a pecuniary sense he was a considerable loser by its publication. For about twenty-two years he maintained his family by establishing the South Lambeth Grammar School, and on his retirement from the head-mastership to Richmond in 1852 a representation of his necessitous condition was sent to Lord Palmerston, who obtained for him a civil list pension of 60l. This opportune assistance and a grant from the Literary Fund enabled him to recommence his scholastic business, which, though now of small proportions on account of his great age, he continued till he was struck down by paralysis about a week before he died. In 1826 he had been appointed Gaelic lexicographer in ordinary to the king, but the appointment was honorary and no salary was attached to it. He died in Choumert Road, Peckham Rye, Surrey, 25 May 1867. Lord Derby advised her majesty to cheer the last days of the veteran scholar by a grant of 100l. from the Royal Bounty Fund; and in 1869 the queen, on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone, granted an annual pension of 50l. to his widow. Dr. Armstrong married, in 1842, Emma, daughter of Mr. Stephen Dungate, by whom he left issue three daughters.

[Private information; Gent. Mag. ccxxiii. 113.]  ARMSTRONG, THOMAS (1624?–1684), royalist, and concerned in the Rye House Plot, was the son of an English soldier serving in one of James's Low Country expeditions, and was born at Nimeguen, where his father was quartered, about 1624. He was brought to England young, and served under Charles I; he joined Ormond in Ireland in 1649, and declared for Charles II ( Chronicle of Civil Wars, part i. p. 240), for which and similar royalist services he was imprisoned in Lambeth House by Cromwell. There he endured many privations, owing to the inability of his party to provide him with money or help; but he contrived, after a year's imprisonment, to get released. About 1665 he was sent out of England, by the Earl of Oxford and other cavaliers, to Charles, with a considerable sum of money for the use of the exiled prince. He delivered the gift into the prince's own hands, and returning to England was, on the sixth day, imprisoned by Cromwell in the Gatehouse. In 1658, after another interval of liberty and of fidelity to the royal cause, Armstrong suffered a third imprisonment in the Tower; but on the death of the Protector, on 3 Sept. of that year, was released, and married Katharine, a niece of Clarendon's ( Hist, of the Stuarts, vol. i. p. 687). He was one of the signatories to the Royalists' Declaration to Monk, April 1660 ( Chronicle, p. 122); and on the Restoration, in the following month, he was knighted by the king for his services, made lieutenant of the first troop of guards, and subsequently gentleman, or captain, of the horse. Shortly afterwards Armstrong became intimate with the Duke of Monmouth; and, according to the testimonies of unfriendly authorities, he 'led a very vitious life' ( Hist, of Own Times, vol. i. p. 577). Sprat says that he 'became a debauch'd Atheistical Bravo' ( True Account of the Horrid Conspiracy, p. 29); he fell, at any rate, into disfavour at court, whence he was dismissed; and having 'distinguish'd himself by murdering Mr. Scroop, a considerable Gentleman, in the Play-house' ( Hist. of England, p. 1027), he left England in 1679 with the Duke of Monmouth for Flanders, to join some English regiments there.

In 1682, Armstrong, who was 'Parliament man' for Stafford (State Trials, vol. x.), being back again in England, was frequently a visitor at the house of the disaffected Earl of Shaftesbury in Aldersgate Street (Copies of the Informations, 1685, p. 196), and was gradually embroiled in the Rye House plot. He was frequently at Colonel Romsey's house in King's Square, Soho Fields (Copies of Informations, p. 28), desiring interviews with Ferguson early in the morning, before Romsey was dressed; he was at West's chambers in the Temple, offering to get admittance to the Duke of York, under the pretence of discovering some plot against him, and then to kill him (Copies, p. 61). He was a visitor at all those taverns where the conspirators met, viz. the Fortune at Wapping, the Horse Shoe on Tower Hill, the King's Head in Atheist Alley, the Young Devil Tavern between the two Temple gates (for full list see True Account, p. 52); he was at Shephard's house in Abchurch Lane with Lord William Russell and the rest, going thence, with the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Grey, to look into the condition of the king's guards, to see if it were possible to break through them to carry the king away, and returning with