Canonbie, Canobie, and Cannobie

Johnnie Armstrong

Johnnie Armstrong Meets the King

Johnnie Armstrong of Ginockie was a powerful leader who ruled a vast area along the Scottish Border. He is perhaps one of the best known figures among the Border reivers. A stirring ballad was written about him soon after his death and he was further romanticized in the nineteenth century writings of Sir Walter Scott.

Johnnie became very rich and powerful and could put 3000 horsemen in the field. Very little is known of his early life but it was rumored that he made a fortune while at sea then returned to the Esk River Valley and became a powerful leader.

Armstrong became known as “Black Jok” because he specialized in blackmail or black rent. “It was said that there was not one English place of prominence between his home at Hollows Tower, known as Gilnockie and east Newcatles which did not pay protection money to Black Jok.” The “rent” was paid to insure they would be protected from raids by both Armstrong and other Border reivers. Armstrong operated for some years under the protection of Robert, the 5th Lord Maxwell who was the Scottish West March Warden. The six Marches consisted of three on the Scottish side of the border and three on the English. The Marches were established by Scotland and England to supervise the unruly border areas. Maxwell, was one of Scotland’s great feudal barons. He was in a long lasting feud with the Johnstone Clan. Maxwell had engaged the Armstrongs as extra troops the fight the Johnstones. He subsequently owed the Armstrongs protection. Although responsible for keeping the reivers under control, Maxwell “looked the other way” as the Armstrongs and their allies, the Nixons, Elliots and Crosiers went about their reiving. Black Jok burnt Netherby in Cumberland in 1527, in return for which William Dacre, 3rd Baron Dacre burnt him out at Canonbie in 1528; and Gavin Dunbar, the Archbishop of Glasgow as well as Chancellor of Scotland, intervened with an excommunication for Armstrong. In a way the power and wealth of Armstrong was an embarrassment for the young King James V. Maxwell began to fear the power of Johnnie Armstrong and his lack of loyalty. Henry VIII was putting diplomatic pressure on James V to put an end to the lawlessness that was rampant in the Borders region. At the time there was a truce of sorts between England and Scotland and Black Jok and other reivers flouted the peace with their lucrative harassment of the English Border. James V wanted to subjugate the power of the Scottish Border clans. James V moved south to the Scottish Borders in June 1530 intent on proving to the Border clans that it was he who ruled in Scotland, including the Borders. He first executed other reiving clan leaders and then headed south to deal with Armstrong. It is said that James V tricked Armstrong into meeting him at Carlenrig. Some sources say that a “loving letter” was sent inviting him to hunt with the king. Whatever the case, a shrewd Johnnie Armstrong would never have agreed to meet the king without a guarantee of safe conduct.

According to the “Ballad,” Armstrong made a great show, dressed in his finery as would have befitted any court and accompanied by an entourage of about twenty-four Lairds and retainers, including Elliots, Littles and Irvines. Perhaps the confusion over the actual numbers hanged with Armstrong, twenty-four, thirty-six or fifty, stems whether or not the retainers were also hanged. Johnnie Armstrong sported a hat from which hung nine gold and silver tassels, and but for the sword of honor and a crown, he could have been King. When it became clear that he was to be hanged John Armstrong declared himself a subject of James his liege and stated he had only raided the English. The most famous lines, oft quoted by Sir Walter Scott, were uttered by Armstrong, when the extent of the King’s duplicity was revealed:

“To seek hot water beneath cold ice
Surely it is a great folly
I have asked grace at a graceless face,
But there is none for my men and me.”

He is also reputed to have said, “Had I known, Sire, that you would take my life this day, I should have stayed away and kept the Border in spite of King Henry and you, both. For I know that Henry Tudor would be a blithe man this day to know that John Armstrong was condemned to die. Which proves who lacks in judgement, does it not?” Nevertheless, all was in vain as he and his men were led to the trees around Carlenrig and hanged from the back of their mounts.

Legend has it that the trees at Carlenrig, where Armstrong and his followers were hanged, withered and died, and none have grown there since.”
In the aftermath of the hanging, Robert, Lord Maxwell, who came to fear Armstrong’s burgeoning power benefited from Armstrong’s death. On 8th July 1530, three days after the death, Maxwell received into his hands all the property that had belonged to Johnnie Armstrong.

Being the reivers that they were, you can be sure that the Armstrongs had their revenge. Twelve years later, in 1542, James V was to die, some say of a broken heart, following the rout of the Scottish army at the Battle of Solway Moss which took place eight days after the birth of his daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots. Some of the Armstrongs joined the English army in dealing a mortal blow to the Scots as they vainly tried to cross the river Esk at Longtown. It was the Armstrongs who picked off the remnants of the Scots army as they fled in panic north through Liddesdale.

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Canobie, Canonbie, Cannobie

Part 2: Lochinvar

Lochinvar and “fair” Ellen

“Lochinvar” is a ballad with eight six-line stanzas. It tells the story of a Scottish knight, “young Lochinvar,” who is described as faithful and true but who arrives at the wedding of his romantic interest to steal her away for his own. Of course, our interest in the poem is that it is set in and around Canonbie Scotland. The brave knight swims across the River Esk, which runs though Canonbie.

Netherby Hall is a real place. “For four centuries the Graham family nurtured and developed Netherby and  its estates. Theirs is a tale of ‘rogues to riches’, steeped in the history of the Borders with its notorious Reivers and a unique part of the country that went by the forbidding name of the Debatable Land.” It appears the Netherby Grahams descended from nobility but sometime before 1492, the King of Scots, probably James III, got fed up of Lang Will’s business practices. “He was well known for his Reiver ways of extracting rents, mails, for land he did own but he went too far when he stole lands from the Earl of Morton. Put to the horn… he was eventually forced to flee with his family to the Debateable Land.” It was a British badlands of sorts, an area where any person who was out with the law could be killed without any redress on the killer,” a place for the Grahams to find refuge. “As such it was home to some of the most notorious Border Reivers, the Grahams among them. Lang Will’s family prospered. By the 1540s, made up of at least six sons,  they had half a dozen peel towers and the  eldest son, Richard, owned Netherby.  Lang Will’s rent collecting business… raised vast amounts of money, 100,000 merks according to one source. They were allies of the Armstrongs and linked by marriage to the Johnstones…”

Netherby Hall and Coop House

O, Young Lochinvar is come out of the west;
Through all the wide border his steed was the best;
And save his good broad-sword he weapon had none;
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

He staid not for brake, and he stopped not for stone;
He swam the Eske river, where ford there was none;
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,
‘Mong bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all;
Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword,
( For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word, )
“O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?”
 
“I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied —
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide —
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine;
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.”
 
The bride kissed the goblet — the knight took it up;
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar —
“Now, tread we a measure ! ”    said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;
While her mother did fret and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bride-maidens whispered,  ” ‘T were better by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar. ”
 
One touch to her hand and one word in her ear,
When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near
So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung !
“She is won !     we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;
They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar
 
There was mounting  ‘mong Græmes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran
There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lea,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar

Cannobie Lea on River Esk

Canobie, Canonbie, Cannobie

Part 2: Sir Walter Scot and Border Ballards

Canobie, Scotland

Sir Walter Scott was one of the most influential writers, in the English language, during the nineteenth century. Today, most, including myself, know very little about the life and work of this writer. He is responsible for one of the most vivid lines from my childhood, one that is indelibly seared into my conscience. It is two lines from the epic poem Marmion written in 1808, which are one of the most quoted excerpts from Scottish poetry which is derived from Canto VI, XVII :

Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!

Another quote that I’ve heard often but didn’t ever know where it came is, “Blood is thicker than water,” which comes from Guy Mannering, Ch. 37 (1815). Then there is this choice saying from, The Heart of Midlothian’, Ch. 8 (1818). Revenge is the sweetest morsel to the mouth, that ever was cooked in hell. And then this from The Talisman, Ch. 24 (1825). A miss is as good as a mile.

Sir Walter Scott

Most important to us here is the fact that the Scott’s were an old Scottish borders family. “Scott spent his childhood years in Edinburgh, with occasional extended visits to his grandfather Robert Scott’s farm in Tweeddale in the Borders, where he became versed in his family’s history, and in Borders culture in general.” (BBC) As a boy, youth and young man, Scott was fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders. He was an obsessive collector of stories, and developed an innovative method of recording what he heard at the feet of local story-tellers using carvings on twigs, to avoid the disapproval of those who believed that such stories were neither for writing down nor for printing.” (Wiki) “He attended the famed Edinburgh High School, and then followed in his father’s wake by taking a law degree at Edinburgh University, being called to the Bar in 1792. At 25 he began writing, first translating works from German then moving on to poetry.

In 1797 he married the daughter of a French refugee, Charlotte Carpenter, with whom he had four children. Five years later, he published a three-volume set of collected Scottish ballads, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders. This was an early indicator of his interest in Scotland and history from a literary standpoint.” (BBC)
“Scott was a poet, novelist, ballad-collector, critic and man of letters, but is probably most renowned as the founder of the genre of the historical novel, involving tales of gallantry, romance and chivalry. In 1802-03, Scott’s first major work, Minstrelsy Of The Scottish Border appeared. As a poet Scott rose into fame with the publication of The Lady of the Lake (1810), Rokeby (1813), and The Lord of the Isles (1815). With their romantic, often sublime, depictions of landscape, they fuelled the taste for the ‘picturesque’ and encouraged the trend for the inclusion of Scotland in the ‘Grand Tour,’ the cultural European tour that enticed much of the travel-minded gentry in the 18th and 19th centuries.” (BBC)

His novels and poetry are still read, and many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. Scott’s novel Ivanhoe was required reading in many American high schools into the 1950’s.

Next week we will return to our main interest, which resides in the epic poem Marmion, in which are found the lines about the hero Lochinvar. The setting for this poem is the borders of Scotland near Canonbie.

Indian Meadows

An Indian Settlement

At right, is a late 17th century representation of an East Coast Algonquian village. A description of the semi-abandoned Pigwacket village made in 1703 by an English scouting party led by Major Winthrop Hilton states: “When we came to the fort, we found about an acre of ground, taken in with timber [palisaded], set in the ground in a circular form with ports [gates], and about one hundred wigwams therein; but had been deserted about six weekes, as we judged by the opening of their barnes [storage pits] where their corn was lodged.”  The bark-covered wigwams or longhouses in this view are typical of Abenaki dwellings used in this region.  By tradition, “Pigwacket” is said to mean “at the cleared place.”

One of the interesting items found in Joseph Howe’s Historical Sketch of the Town of Methuen, was the references to “Indian meadows.” In 1642, a large area along the Merrimack River, into southern New Hampshire, was purchased from the Native Americans. In the deed is states that, “We, Passaquo and Saggahew, with ye consent of Passaconnaway: have sold unto ye inhabitants of Pentuckett all ye lands we have in Pentuckett…in consideration of ye same three pounds & ten shillings.” Before the Europeans came, this area was heavily populated by Native Americans.
From the Bethel, Maine historical society we learn that, “…the Abenaki, an eastern Algonquian sub-group, maintained their historic homeland over an area stretching from the Iroquoian tribal lands in southern Québec to the northern Massachusetts border and from the Passamaquoddy territory in eastern Maine to the shore of Lake Champlain in western Vermont.  Translated as “people of the Dawnland” or “eastern people,” the Abenaki were composed of numerous bands of Native Americans historically identified by the names of the river valleys, or principal villages, in which they lived at the time of European contact.”

“Data is lacking for a reliable estimate of Abenaki populations before 1600, but it is reasonable to state that in that year several thousand individuals inhabited the White Mountain region of Maine and New Hampshire, with a total population in New England as a whole of well over 100,000 native people.  Interrelated through marriage, and sharing a common dialect, the Abenaki participated in an annual cycle of migration that took them southward to seashore camps for the summer, northward to deep woods hunting camps in the winter, and back to their riverside villages for late fall feasting and spring fishing and planting.”

“By the middle of the 17th century, the traditional Indian way of life in this region was undergoing drastic change.  An attitude of friendly curiosity turned to distrust and hostility as the native population watched their numbers rapidly dwindle due to virulent epidemics introduced by Europeans.  Indian intertribal relationships disintegrated due to the burgeoning fur trade and the introduction of firearms.  The demand for furs, especially, strained the native economy by using up time previously spent in search of large game for food and skins; the fur trade also made natives much more aware of the importance of territorial boundaries, a concept foreign to the Abenaki before European notions of private land use and ownership were imposed on the region.  The intermingling of cultures was further strained by the effects of the liquor trade, a significant component in English and French efforts to maintain Abenaki allegiances as the century wore on.”

Now, with that brief synopsis of Native American history in New England, we return to Indian meadows. It seems that in the early settlement of Haverhill, the most desirable tracts, was land that had been cleared by the Indians. Howe states, “….It is said that the uplands at the time were mostly covered by a heavy growth of timber, except and occasional spot burned over by fires set by the Indians. The meadows were, many of them, cleared and covered with a tall and dense growth of grass. The Indians were accustomed to burn the grass in the fall, that they might more easily capture the deer resorting to them to feed on the young grass in the spring. These meadows appear to have been much sought after by the early settlers, who obtained from them he principle subsistence for their cattle. They cut and stacked the hay in summer and in the winter drew it home on sleds. An early writer says of Haverhill: ‘keeping of cattle…encourages them to spend their days in those remote parts… being an overwhelming desire in most men after meadow land.’ ”

Native Americans were not the “live in harmony with the land” types we’ve been lead to believe. “The most significant type of environmental change brought about by Pre-Columbian human activity was the modification of vegetation. … Vegetation was primarily altered by the clearing of forest and by intentional burning. Natural fires certainly occurred but varied in frequency and strength in different habitats. Anthropogenic fires, for which there is ample documentation, tended to be more frequent but weaker, with a different seasonality than natural fires, and thus had a different type of influence on vegetation. The result of clearing and burning was, in many regions, the conversion of forest to grassland, savanna, scrub, open woodland, and forest with grassy openings.”(William M. Denevan) In Windham, the “Range” between Cobbett’s Pond and Canobie Lake was once a large, Indian settlement, which was abandoned. This may have been one of the “remote parts” of Haverhill that attracted first English and then Scotch-Irish settlers.

Bridges Across Beaver Brook in Windham

Early Bridge across Beaver brook. Image Courtesy of Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities

There are three major crossing points in Windham across Beaver Brook. The Mammoth Road bridge crossing is shown in the two photographs above. The brook also happens to be the town line between Windham and Londonderry. Mammoth Road was a toll highway, built in 1831, that ran from Hooksett to Lowell. On the left the old wooden span has been replaced with a metal bridge. The second crossing, again on the border between Windham and Londonderry was at Kendall Mills. This bridge stood in front of the dam that created Kendall Pond. The two photographs at the bottom show this crossing. The third bridge is located on Bridle Bridge Road. This road, before it was bypassed, was once the main route to Nashua and again was at the border between Windham and Hudson.

New metal bridge at the same location on Mammoth Road