Johnnie Armstrong orJohnie Armstrong was a Scottish raider and folk-hero. Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie was captured and hanged byKing James V in July 1530. He is related to the Baird family.Child ballad number 169 tells of his life.
John Armstrong ofLangholm and Staplegorton, called Johnnie ofGilnockie, was a famous ScottishBorder reiver of the powerfulArmstrong family. A plunderer and raider, he operated along the lawlessAnglo-Scottish Border in the early 16th century, beforeEngland andScotland were joined by theUnion of the Crowns. Like his fellow reivers, he raided into England when Scotland was in the ascendancy, and would change allegiances as power shifted. He led a band of a hundred and sixty men, despite having no income from rents.
The romanticised picture of Armstrong was promoted by the nineteenth-century writings of SirWalter Scott andHerbert Maxwell. Armstrong operated with impunity for some years under the protection ofRobert Maxwell, 5th Lord Maxwell, as a leader of a gang of raiders. He burntNetherby inCumberland in 1527, in return for whichWilliam Dacre, 3rd Baron Dacre burnt him out atCanonbie in 1528; andGavin Dunbar, theArchbishop of Glasgow as well asChancellor of Scotland, intervened with anexcommunication for Armstrong, whose activities made the central authority look weak and were a hindrance to diplomacy with England. WhenKing James V took personal control of the situation, Armstrong and his men were dealt with severely, as rebels.[1] In July 1530, Armstrong was captured. The king had promised him safe conduct, but he was hanged with 36 of his men atCaerlanrig chapel.[2] A memorial to Armstrong and his men stands in the chapel graveyard.
The king's movements in July 1530 were recorded in hishousehold book.[3] The account lists food purchases and dates with the king's location. He leftLinlithgow Palace on 2 July to ride to Peebles. Next, his entourage rode to Douglas Water, and James was at Caerlangrig on Tuesday 5 July. After his encounter with Johnnie Armstrong, James returned to Peebles, and spent a few days hunting atCramalt Tower. On 20 July he returned to Linlithgow.[4]
In 1540 Johnnie Armstrong was mentioned in a play or interlude performed atLinlithgow Palace before James V. The play is thought to have been an early version ofA Satire of the Three Estates byDavid Lindsay. An actor looked at a king depicted in the play, and declared this "was not the Kinge of Scotlande, for ther was another King in Scotlande that hanged John Armestrang with his fellowes, and Sym the Lairde, and many other more, which had pacified the countrey, and stanched thefte."[5]
The Ballad of Johnnie Armstrong, one of manyBorder ballads dealing with the reivers, relates that the king sends him a letter, requesting his presence at court and promising him safety. Johnnie is fooled by this honour and orders his men to dress richly, as befits the court. On their arrival, Johnnie asks for a pardon, but instead the king tries to arrest them, and Armstrong orders them to fight. They are all killed, although Johnnie is brought down only by a treacherous attack from behind. As is common in many such Scottish ballads, his son, still "on his nurse's knee", vows revenge.
The variants sometimes open with a lament that it is not safe to appear before the king, or end with a thanksgiving that, as a reiver, Johnnie Armstrong had kept the English out of Scotland.
"The Ballad of Johnny Armstrong" has been recorded by David Wilkie and Cowboy Celtic, and by Gunning and Cormier. A version also appears in the 2016 album 'Dodgy Bastards' by Englishfolk rock bandSteeleye Span.
Armstrong's story was dramatised byJohn Arden in his playArmstrong's Last Goodnight.