the editor finds, that, in a bond of manrent, granted by Simon Elliot of Whytheuch, in Liddesdale, to Lord Maxwell, styled therein Earl of Morton, dated February 28, 1599, William Armstrang, called Will of Kinmond, appears as a witness.—­Syme’s MSS.  According to Satchells, this freebooter was descended of Johnie Armstrong of Gilnockie (See Ballad, p. 105, of this volume.)—­Est in juvencis, est et in equis, patrum virtus.  In fact, his rapacity made his very name proverbial.  Mas James Melvine, in urging reasons against subscribing the act of supremacy, in 1584, asks ironically, “Who shall take order with vice and wickedness?  The court and bishops?  As well as Martine Elliot, and Will of Kinmont, with stealing upon the borders!”—­Calderwood, p. 168.

This affair of Kinmont Willie was not the only occasion upon which the undaunted keeper of Liddesdale gave offence to the haughty Elizabeth.  For, even before this business was settled, certain of the English borderers having invaded Liddesdale, and wasted the country, the laird of Buccleuch retaliated the injury by a raid into England, in which he not only brought off much spoil, but apprehended thirty-six of the Tynedale thieves, all of whom he put to death.—­Spottiswoode, p. 450.  How highly the Queen of England’s resentment blazed on this occasion, may be judged from the preface to her letter to Bowes, then her ambassador in Scotland.  “I wonder how base-minded that king thinks me, that, with patience, I can digest this dishonourable ********.  Let him know, therefore, that I will have satisfaction, or else *********.”  These broken words of ire are inserted betwixt the subscription and the address of the letter.—­Rymer, Vol.  XVI. p. 318.  Indeed, so deadly was the resentment of the English, on account of the affronts put upon them by this formidable chieftain, that there seems at one time to have been a plan formed (not, as was alleged, without Elizabeth’s privity,) to assassinate Buccleuch.—­Rymer, Vol.  XVI. p. 107.  The matter was at length arranged by the commissioners of both nations in Berwick, by whom it was agreed that delinquents should be delivered up on both sides, and that the chiefs themselves should enter into ward in the opposite countries, till these were given up, and pledges granted for the future maintenance of the quiet of the borders.  Buccleuch, and Sir Robert Ker of Cessford (ancestor of the Duke of Roxburgh), appear to have struggled hard against complying with this regulation; so much so, that it required all James’s authority to bring to order these two powerful chiefs.—­Rymer, Vol.  XVI. p. 322.—­Spottiswoode, p. 448.—­Carey’s Memoirs, p, 131. et sequen.—­When at length they appeared, for the purpose of delivering themselves up to be warded at Berwick, an incident took place, which nearly occasioned a revival of the deadly feud which formerly subsisted between the Scots and the