Kinmont Willie

[1] "Kinmont Willie" is one of three border ballads that recount a raid to break someone out of prison, the others being Jock o' the Side and Archie o' Cawfield.

[2] It shares several motifs with these other prison-break ballads, including the raiders' demonstration of physical strength in carrying the prisoner with leg irons still attached, and the raiding party crossing a stream and turning to mock their pursuers from the far bank.

[4] William Armstrong of Kinmont, a notorious Border reiver, was seized by the English authorities on a day of truce, in breach of agreements between Scotland and England.

[4] "Kinmont Willie" first appeared in print in 1802, in the first edition of Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

In his final paper on the subject, Lang summarized the dispute:[9] Lastly, Kinmont Willie, and Scott's share in it, is matter of presumption, not of proof.