2292. Kinmont Willie (Child #186) Traditional Scottish

Kinmont Willie, also known as William Armstrong of Kinmont, was probably the best known of the Border reivers, outlaws who were active in the last decades of the 16th century. He was captured by the forces of the English Warden of the West March in violation of a truce day in 1596, when all who attended to witness the criminal trials were granted ’safe conduct’ for the Day until the next sunrise. Despite the truce, Kinmont, a witness to the trials, was captured and imprisoned in Carlisle Castle. Walter Scott of Buccleuch (“the Bauld Buccleuch“), was the keeper of Liddesdale, where the arrest had been made. He protested to the English Warden, Thomas Scrope, 10th Baron Scope of Bolton, who refused to release Armstrong. Buccleuch then led a party of men on a daring raid into England and broke Armstrong out of the castle with inside help from the English Grahams and Carletons. Elizabeth I of England was furious that one of her Border fortresses had been broken into at a time when peace existed b