Coming Soon

Audio information

Narrator - Alastair Cunningham
Historic Guide (Jamie Telfer) - Dougie Telfer
Sung Ballads - Kathy Hobkirk
Poems - Dougie Telfer

Character Profiles

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  Johnnie Armstrong (d. 1530)

  
  Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie was perhaps the most famous of all the Border reivers; feared in England, dearly loved and respected by his people. It is said he could put 2,000 men in the saddle and he enjoyed leading them over the border. In 1530, 17 year-old King James V visited the Borders both for some hunting and in an attempt to stamp out the reiving. Johnnie was summoned to meet his king at Caerlenrig. Mistaking the king's intention, Johnnie arrived with 36 followers, all wearing their very best attire. We don't know what passed between the young king and the flamboyant Armstrong freebooter, but James ordered that Johnnie and all his men should be hung as traitors on the trees nearby. There was no trial. Johnnie is reputed to have said, "I am but a fool to seek grace in a graceless face". The ballad of Johnnie Armstrong, handed down over the generations, amplifies the tale of this most celebrated of reivers, unjustifiably killed by his own king.
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  Sir William de Soulis (d. 1320)

  
  The de Soulis family had owned Hermitage Castle since 1240. It may still have been a wooden structure when Sir William de Soulis began his reported reign of terror in 1318. It is said he practiced the 'black arts' and kidnapped the local children, using their blood in his sinister rituals, during which he would conjure up his demonic goblin companion, 'Robin Redcap'. The local people petitioned King Robert the Bruce, begging to be relieved of their wicked lord. In exasperation after several outrages, Bruce reportedly  said, "Soules, Soules, go boil him in brew!" Taking his words literally, the locals stormed the castle, wrapped de Soulis in lead (to nullify his supernatural powers), and boiled him at a stone circle on the hill called Nine Stane Rig.
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  Auld Wat Scott of Harden

  1550 - 16 29
  
  An infamous reiver, he led raids both across the Border and against his fellow countrymen. When his son was killed by a rival band of Scotts, Wat refused to let his sons start a feud and instead locked them in a cellar whilst he rode to Edinburgh, obtaining a grant of the murderer's land. He  famously remarked, 'the lands of Gilmanscleuch are worth the loss of a son'. Auld Wat was with 'The Bold Buccleuch' in the rescue of Kinmont Willie Armstrong from Carlisle Castle. He was married to Mary Scott, daughter of John Scott of Dryhope, known as the "Flower of Yarrow"; one of their descendants was Sir Walter Scott, the novelist.
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  The Bold Buccleuch

  1565 - 1611
  
  The Bold Buccleuch, heidsman of the Scotts, was 'Keeper of Liddesdale' 1594 - 1603, also a reiver who could put 3,000 men in the saddle. He famously led the raid to rescue 'Kinmont Willie' Armstrong from Carlisle Castle. Sent to England by James VI to explain himself, he  was asked by Elizabeth I how he dared to undertake such an enterprise, and replied, "What is it that a man dare not do?".  Elizabeth turned to a lord-in-waiting and said, "With ten thousand such men, our brother in Scotland might shake the firmest throne of Europe."