| A
note on the play by John Arden
This play is founded upon historical fact, but the ascertainable
facts are few and rather bald.
Henry VIII of England (like his predecessors) was always anxious to
obtain Scotland, either as a satellite or as a direct conquest.
He defeated and killed James IV at Flodden (1513).
James’ widow was the sister of Henry VIII, so it seemed likely
that the satellite condition would soon be fulfilled.
Her son, the child-king James V, at first controlled by his mother
and her pro-English friends was eventually freed from their dominance and
they were driven into exile. He
was not yet a ruler in his own right, however, the English policy was
thereafter directed against the ‘patriot’ faction of Scots nobles who
now had James under their wing. As
Flodden had meant the destruction of the military strength of Scotland,
threats of further war were always a potent aspect of this policy.
The activities of the Scottish borderers provided a pretext for
such a threat. These
borderers lived by preying on their opposite numbers in England (and, of
course, vice versa). As their
lands were the first to be devastated in open hostilities between the
countries, it was natural for them to anticipate such hostilities as a way
of gaining their daily bread and thereby cut their losses in the event of
a regular war.
One Scots borderer, John Armstrong
of Gilnockie, was particularly notorious and successful. In 1530, two years after the English had made specific demand
for his apprehension, he was hanged by James V, who had ridden to the
borders, apparently to hunt but in fact to carry out swift justice among
the reivers and moss-troopers. The
hanging of Gilnockie seems to have been achieved by treachery and there
was no trial. This punitive
expedition was the first independent act of the young king.
Not many years later, war did break out, the English were
successful and James V is said to have died of disappointment at the
army’s defeat.
For
the rest of the sixteenth century the borders remained troubled, just as
relations between England and Scotland remained troubled.
When the grandson of James V became King James I of England, the
moss-troopers became peaceful farmers and country gentlemen.
But the hanging of Gilnockie had seriously damaged what had been
the very considerable independent power of the Armstrong family.
Later Armstrongs rode against England indeed, but never in such
strength, nor with so many confederate allies.
To the ballad-makers of c. 1603 Johnnie Armstrong seemed ‘the
last of the giants,’ and the song that was made of his hanging expresses
this in clear “Homeric” imagery.
But there is a qualification to be made here.
For
Armstrong was not his own man. He
was the vassal of the powerful Maxwell family, who not only held estates
on the border and contributed to the continual unrest there, but also were
of high political importance at the Scottish Court.
Before the kin could proceed against the moss-troopers he had first
to imprison Lord Maxwell and a number of other noblemen.
He did more than this—he appears to have made a deal with them: because the upshot of Gilnockie’s hanging was a grant of
the Gilnockie lands to Lord Maxwell direct.
In other words Maxwell had sold his dependant for material and
political advantage.
Such
activities are not unknown today. While
I was considering the possibility of writing a play based upon the ballad
of Johnny Armstrong I read Conor Cruise O’Brien’s book To
Katanga and Back. I was
immediately struck by a number of pertinent similarities between Scotland
in 1528 and the Congo in 1961. Tshombe
of Congo was a threat to the central government of the Congo if he
remained a separatist leader. But
he was not his own man. He
was backed by Belgian mining interests and also by foreign governments
whose activities at the United Nations bear a certain resemblance to the
activities of Maxwell and his friends in Edinburgh.
The attempt of the UN to persuade (and finally, to force) him back
under the control of the central government brought Dr. O’Brien—a man
of letters as well as a diplomat—into a society where intrigue (to which
he was professionally accustomed) was no less common than violence in its
most naked form. Who, for
instance, killed Lumumba? Did
Dag Hammarskjold’s aircraft fall out of the sky on its own, or was it
induced to fall, and if so, by whom?
Sir Walter Scott on the Armstrong Legend
Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie . . .
is a noted personage both in history and tradition.
He was, it would seem from the ballad, a brother of the Laird of
Mangertoun, chief of the name. His
place of residence (now a roofless tower) was at the Hollows, a few miles
from Langholm, where its ruins still serve to adorn a scene which, in
natural beauty, has few equals in Scotland.
At the head of a desperate band of freebooters, this Armstrong is
said to have spread the terror of his name almost as far as Newcastle, and
to have levied blackmail, or protection and forbearance money, for many
miles around. James V . . .
undertook an expedition through the Border countries, to suppress the
turbulent spirit of the Marchmen; but before setting out upon his journey,
he took the precaution of imprisoning the different Border chieftains who
were the chief protectors of the marauders . . . The king then marched
rapidly forward at the head of a flying army of ten thousand men, through
Ettrick Forest and Ewsdale. The
evil genius of our Johnnie Armstrong, or, as others say, the private
advice of some courtiers, prompted him to present himself before James at
the head of thirty-six horses, arrayed in all the pomp of border chivalry. Pitscottie [the chronicler] uses nearly the words of the
ballad in describing the splendor of his equipment, and his high
expectations of favor from the King.
But James, looking upon him sternly, said to his attendants,
“What wants that knave that a king should have?” and ordered him and
his followers to instant execution. ‘But
John Armstrong,’ continues this minute historian, ‘made great offers
to the king: that he should
sustain himself with forty gentlemen, ever ready at his service, on their
own cost, without wronging any Scottishmen; secondly that there was not a
subject in England, duke, earl, or baron, but, within a certain day, he
should bring him to his majesty either quick or dead.
At length he, seeing no hope of favor, said very proudly, “It is
folly to seek grace at a graceless face; but,” said he, “had I known
this, I should have lived upon the Borders in despite of King Harry and
you both; for I know King Harry would down-weigh my best horse with gold,
to know that I were condemned to die this day.”’
|
