ng the subjects of his oppression. Nor did it matter
much to him where, or on whom, he raided. The King's treachery at
Carlinrig had destroyed--at least so far as the Armstrongs and their
friends were concerned--the last lingering spark of patriotism. Their hand
was now turned against every man, English and Scottish alike. They had
become pariahs, outcasts, whose only ambition was revenge. But bad as
Kinmont was, and his record is of the worst, it might be said of him, as
it was said of one of the greatest and best men Scotland has ever
produced, that "he never feared the face of man." He was always to the
front, dealing out hard blows; courting danger, but never dreaming of
defeat. He cared as little for the warden as for the meanest and most
defenceless subject of the realm. Scrope tells us, for example, that on
one occasion "certain goods were stolen by Scottish men from one of the
Johnstones, a kinsman of the laird Johnstone being warden, whereupon the
fray arose, and the warden himself, with his company and friends, pursued
the same. But Kinmont and his complices being in the way to resist them,
the warden and his company returned again to Annand, the which he taketh
in very yll parts."[92]

It was no doubt a sore point with the warden that he should be thus
interfered with in this masterful fashion, and one can readily sympathise
with him in his chagrin. Such an incident shows that Kinmont and his
friends were in a position to set the constituted authorities at defiance,
and conduct their reiving "without let or hindrance." The warden, however,
was not altogether free from blame for this state of matters. He seems to
have given the thieves every encouragement as long as they confined their
depredations to the English Border. Scrope, in a letter to Walsingham,
informs him that "as well in the tyme of my being with you, as also synce
my return home, manye and almost nightlie attemptates have been committed
in Bewcastle and elsewhere within this wardenrie, as well by the
Liddesdales as also by the West Wardenrie of Scotland, specially Kinmont,
his sonnes and complices; who ... are nevertheless at their pleasure
conversaunte and in company with the warden, and no part reprehended for
their doynges." Hunsdon, another English warden, even goes the length of
suggesting that the King himself (James VI.) privately encouraged Kinmont
in his evil doing. He says that four hundred horse came to "Hawden
brigges," and took up the