Border Raids and Reivers

“The night tho’ wat, they didna mind,
But hied them on fu’ merrilie,
Until they cam’ to Cholerford brae,
Where the water ran like mountains hie.”

Dashing into the stream they soon reached the opposite bank. The English, who were in hot pursuit, when they reached the Tyne, which was rolling along in glorious flood, durst not venture further. They were filled with chagrin when they saw the prisoner, loaded as he was with fifteen stones of good Spanish iron, safe on the other side. They had sustained a double loss. The prisoner was gone, and he had taken his valuable iron chains with him. The land-sergeant, or warden’s officer, taking in the situation at a glance, cried aloud —

“The prisoner take,
But leave the fetters, I pray, to me.”

To which polite request the Laird’s ain Jock replied —

“I wat weel no,
I’ll keep them a’; shoon to my mare they’ll be,
My gude bay mare – for I am sure,
She bought them a’ right dear frae thee.”

No Liddesdale reiver was ever likely to part with anything in a hurry, least of all to give it up to an Englishman.

The Armstrongs, almost without exception, were noted thieves. They seem to have possessed a rare genius for reiving. Their plans were generally so well formed, and carried out with such a fine combination of daring and cunning, that the “enemy” almost invariably came off “second best.” One of the last, and most noted of this reiving clan, was William Armstrong, a lineal descendant of the famous Johnie of Gilnockie, who was known on the Borders by the name of Christie’s Will, to distinguish him from the other members of his family and clan. He flourished during the reign of Charles I., a circumstance which shows that moss-trooping did not altogether cease at the union of the Crowns. It is related that, on one occasion, Christie’s Will had got into trouble, and was imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Jedburgh. The Lord High Treasurer, the Earl of Traquair, who was visiting in the district, was led to enquire as to the cause of his confinement. The prisoner told him, with a pitiful expression of countenance, that he had got into grief for stealing two tethers (halters). The eminent statesman was astonished to hear that such a trivial offence had been so severely punished, and pressed him to say if this was the only crime he had committed. He ultimately reluctantly acknowledged that there were two delicate colts at the end of them! This bit of pleasantry pleased his lordship, and through his intercession the culprit was released from his imprisonment.

It was a fortunate thing for Lord Traquair that he acted as he did. A short time afterwards he was glad to avail himself of the services of the man whom he had thus been the means of setting at liberty. The story is one of the most romantic on record, and amply justifies the adage that “truth is stranger than fiction.” A case, in which the Earl was deeply interested, was pending in the Court of Session. It was believed that the judgment would turn on the decision of the presiding judge, who has a casting vote in the case of an equal division among his brethren. It was known that the opinion of the president was unfavourable to Traquair; and the point was, therefore, to keep him out of the way when the question should be tried. In this dilemma the Earl had recourse to Christie’s Will, who at once offered his services to kidnap the president. He discovered that it was the judge’s usual practice to take the air on horseback, on the sands of Leith, without an attendant. One day he accosted the president, and engaged him in conversation. His talk was so interesting and amusing that he succeeded in decoying him into an unfrequented and furzy common, called the Frigate Whins, where, riding suddenly up to him, he pulled him from his horse, muffled him in a large cloak which he had provided, and rode off with the luckless judge trussed up behind him. Hurrying across country as fast as his horse could carry him, by paths known only to persons of his description, he at last deposited his heavy and terrified burden in an old castle in Annandale, called the Tower of Graham. The judge’s horse being found, it was concluded he had thrown his rider into the sea; his friends went into mourning, and a successor was appointed to his office. Meanwhile the disconsolate president had a sad time of it in the vault of the castle. His food was handed to him through an aperture in the wall, and never hearing the sound of human voice, save when a shepherd called his dog, by the name of Batty, and when a female domestic called upon Maudge, the cat. These, he concluded, were invocations of spirits, for he held himself to be in the dungeon of a sorcerer. The law suit having been decided in favour of Lord Traquair, Christie’s Will was directed to set the president at liberty, three months having elapsed since he was so mysteriously spirited away from the sands at Leith. Without speaking a single word, Will entered the vault in the dead of night, again muffled up in the president’s cloak, set him on a horse, and rode off with him to the place where he had found him. The joy of his friends, and the less agreeable surprise of his successor, may be more easily imagined than described, when the judge appeared in court to reclaim his office and honours. All embraced his own persuasion that he had been spirited away by witchcraft; nor could he himself be convinced to the contrary, until, many years afterwards, happening to travel in Annandale, his ears were saluted once more with the sounds of Maudge and Batty– the only notes which had reached him during his long confinement. This led to the discovery of the whole story, but in those disorderly times it was only laughed at as a fair ruse de guerre.[105 - Border Minstrelsy, vol. iv. pp. 91-94.]

The victim of this extraordinary stratagem was Sir Alexander Gibson, better known as Lord Durie. He became a Lord of Session in 1621, and died in 1646, so that the incident here related must have taken place betwixt these periods.

The version of this incident, given in the well, known ballad “Christie’s Will,” if not so romantic as the foregoing, is certainly more amusing. The balladist represents Lord Traquair as “sitting mournfullie,” afraid lest the vote of the Court of Session would make him bare at once of land and living —

“But if auld Durie to heaven were flown,
Or if auld Durie to hell were gane,
Or … if he could be but ten days stoun …
My bonnie braid lands would still be my ain.

At this juncture Christie’s Will offers his services —

“O, mony a time, my Lord,” he said,
“I’ve stown the horse frae the sleeping loun;
But for you I’ll steal a beast as braid,
For I’ll steal Lord Durie frae Edinburgh toun.”

“O, mony a time, my Lord,” he said,
“I’ve stown a kiss frae a sleeping wench;
But for you I’ll do as kittle a deed,
For I’ll steal an auld lurdane off the bench.”

He lighted at Lord Durie’s door,
And there he knocked maist manfullie;
And up and spake Lord Durie sae stour,
“What tidings, thou stalwart groom, to me?”

“The fairest lady in Teviotdale,
Has sent, maist reverent sir, for thee.
She pleas at the Session for her land a’ hail,
And fain she would plead her cause to thee.”

“But how can I to that lady ride
With saving of my dignitie?”
“O a curch and mantle ye may wear,
And in my cloak ye sall muffled be.”

Wi’ curch on head, and cloak ower face,
He mounted the judge on a palfrey fyne;
He rode away, a right round pace,
And Christie’s Will held the bridle reyne.

The Lothian Edge they were not o’er,
When they heard bugles bauldly ring,
And, hunting over Middleton Moor,
They met, I ween, our noble king.

When Willie looked upon our king,
I wot a frightened man was he!
But ever auld Durie was startled more,
For tyning of his dignitie.

The king he crossed himself, I wis,
When as the pair came riding bye —
“An uglier croon, and a sturdier loon,
I think, were never seen with eye.”

Willie has hied to the tower of Græme,
He took auld Durie on his back,
He shot him down to the dungeon deep,
Which garr’d his auld banes gae mony a crack.

······

The king has caused a bill be wrote,
And he has set it on the Tron —
“He that will bring Lord Durie back
Shall have five hundred merks and one.”

Traquair has written a braid letter,
And he has seal’d it wi’ his seal,
“Ye may let the auld Brock out o’ the poke;
The land’s my ain, and a’s gane weel.”

O Will has mounted his bony black,
And to the tower of Græme did trudge,
And once again, on his sturdy back,
Has he hente up the weary judge.