* * * * *
We have seen the hero of this ballad act a distinguished part in the
deliverance of Jock o' the Side, and are now to learn the ungrateful
return which the Armstrongs made him for his faithful services.[180]
Halbert, or Hobbie Noble, appears to have been one of those numerous
English outlaws, who, being forced to fly their own country, had
established themselves on the Scottish borders. As Hobbie continued
his depredations upon the English, they bribed some of his hosts, the
Armstrongs, to decoy him into England, under pretence of a predatory
expedition. He was there delivered, by his treacherous companions,
into the hands of the officers of justice, by whom he was conducted to
Carlisle, and executed next morning. The laird of Mangerton, with whom
Hobbie was in high favour, is said to have taken a severe revenge upon
the traitors who betrayed him. The principal contriver of the scheme,
called here Sim o' the Maynes, fled into England from the resentment
of his chief; but experienced there the common fate of a traitor,
being himself executed at Carlisle, about two months after Hobbie's
death. Such is, at least, the tradition of Liddesdale. Sim o' the
Maynes appears among the Armstrongs of Whitauch, in Liddesdale, in the
list of clans so often alluded to.
[Footnote 180: The original editor of the _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_
has noticed the perfidy of this clan in another instance; the delivery
of the banished Earl of Northumberland into the hands of the Scottish
regent, by Hector of Harelaw, an Armstrong, with whom he had taken
refuge.--_Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, Vol. I. p. 283. This Hector of
Harelaw seems to have been an Englishman, or under English assurance;
for he is one of those, against whom bills were exhibited, by the
Scottish commissioners, to the lord-bishop of Carlisle.--_Introduction
to the History of Westmoreland and Cumberland_, p. 81. In the list
of borderers, 1597, Hector of Harelaw, with the Griefs and Cuts of
Harelaw, also figures as an inhabitant of the Debateable Land. It
would appear, from a spirited invective in the Maitland MSS. against
the regent, and those who delivered up the unfortunate earl to
Elizabeth, that Hector had been guilty of this treachery, to
redeem the pledge which had been exacted from him for his peaceable
demeanour. The poet says, that the perfidy of Morton and Lochlevin was
worse than even that of--
--the traitour Eckie of Harelaw,
That says he sould him to redeem his pledge;
Your deed is war, as all the world does know--
You nothing can but covatice alledge.
_Pinkerton's Maitland Poems_, Vol. II. p. 290.
Eckie is the contraction of Hector among the vulgar.
These little memoranda may serve still farther to illustrate the
beautiful ballads, upon that subject, published in the _Reliques_.]
Kershope-burn, where Hobbie met his treacherous companions, falls
into the Liddel, from the English side, at a place called Turnersholm,
where, according to tradition, turneys and games of chivalry were
often solemnized. The Mains was anciently a border-keep, near
Castletoun, on the north side of the Liddel, but is now totally
demolished.
Askerton is an old castle, now ruinous, situated in the wilds of
Cumberland, about seventeen miles north-east of Carlisle, amidst that
mountainous and desolate tract of country, bordering upon Liddesdale,
emphatically termed the Waste of Bewcastle. Conscouthart Green, and
Rodric-haugh, and the Foulbogshiel, are the names of places in the
same wilds, through which the Scottish plunderers generally made their
raids upon England; as appears from the following passage in a
letter from William, Lord Dacre, to Cardinal Wolsey, 18th July, 1528;
_Appendix to Pinkerton's Scotland_, v. 12, No. XIX. "Like it also
your grace, seeing the disordour within Scotlaund, and that all the
mysguyded men, borderers of the same, inhabiting within Eskdale,
Ewsdale, Walghopedale, Liddesdale, and a part of Tividale, foranempt
Bewcastelldale, and a part of the middle marches of this the
king's bordours, entres not this west and middle marches, to do any
attemptate to the king our said soveraine's subjects: but thaye come
throrow Bewcastelldale, and retornes, for the most part, the same waye
agayne."
Willeva and Speir Edom are small districts in Bewcastledale, through
which also the Hartlie-burn takes its course.
Of the castle of Mangertoun, so often mentioned in these ballads,
there are very few vestiges. It was situated on the banks of the
Liddel, below Castletoun. In the wall of a neighbouring mill, which
has been entirely built from the ruins of the tower, there is a
remarkable stone, bearing the arms of the lairds of Mangertoun, and
a long broad-sword, with the figures 1583; probably the date of
building, or repairing, the castle. On each side of the shield are
the letters S.A. and E.E. standing probably for Simon Armstrong,
and Elizabeth Elliot. Such is the only memorial of the laird of
Mangertoun, except those rude ballads, which the editor now offers to
the public.