Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/217

 The Armstrong Clan.

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��similarly situated. It has been sup- posed that the latter figure very nearly represented the numerical strength of the Armstrongs after the breaking up of the confederation in 1530.

As has been stated, Johnnie Arm- strong, called "Gilnockie," was the greatest chief of the clan, and a farther notice may not be inappropriate.

He had three brothers, "Thomas, the Larde " of Mangerton, Alexander, and George.

" Gilnockie " kept twenty-four well- horsed and able men about him con- tinually, and though he harassed the English counties as far as Newcastle, and laid them under tribute, yet he molested not his own countrymen.

King James, having heard great complaints of outrages upon the border, went south, with a large army, determined to extirpate the marauders. He encamped at the head of the river Ewes, at a place now called Cant, or Camp Knowes. To him, there, "Gil- nockie " with forty-eight of his friends repaired, hoping for the king's clem- ency. They were treacherously en- snared, and brought before the king. He came before the king, clad with all the pomp and magnificence of the first prince in Europe. His proffers of ser- vice and aid were sternly rejected. Seeing that he was entrapped, and his life was to be forfeited (putting his language into modern English), he exclaimed proudly to the king : "I am but one fool to seek grace at your graceless face. But had I known, sir, that you would have taken my life this day, I would have lived upon the borders in despite of King Harrie and you both, for I know King Harrie would weigh down my best horse with gold to know that I was condemned to die this day."

��So he and thirty- five of his men were carried to Carlenrig, and to the branches of trees were hanged, and buried in the churchyard, and till a recent period their graves could be pointed out.

He was the Robin Hood of the border, and after the grasses have for three hundred and fifty-five years grown above him, and waved in the summer breezes, his name is still held in great respect by the peasantry of the locality. They assert that the trees upon which he and his followers were hanged withered away as a token of the injustice of the deed.

" Where rising Teviot joins the frosty-lee Stands the huge trunk of many a leafless tree ; No verdant woodbine wreaths their age adorn ; Bare are the boughs, the gnarled roots uptorn ; Here shone no sunbeam, fell no summer dew. Nor ever grass beneath the branches grew. Since that bold chief who Henry's power defied. True to his country, as a traitor died. Yon mouldering cairns, by ancient hunters

placed Where blends the meadow with the marshy

waste, Mark where the gallant warriors lies ; but long Their fame shall flourish in the Scotian song, — The Scotian song, whose deep impulsive tones Each thrilling fibre, true to passion, owns, When, soft as gales oer summer seas that blow. The plaintive music warbles love-lorn woe. Or, wild and loud, the fierce exulting strain Swells its bold notes, triumphant o'er the slain."

Quoting again from my notes of travel: "After leaving the 'Hollows Tower ' of ' Gilnockie ' Armstrong, the churchyard at Canobie was inspected, where many of this clan are buried, and there the most ancient memorial stones were found, with the following inscrip- tions : —

" ' Here lies Francis Armstrong in Fairlowes, who died Oct. ye 9*'% 1735, aged sixty-three years,' being born in 1672.

" ' Here lies Francis Armstrong who died in the water on the Lord's day.

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