Walter Scott, 1st Lord Scott of Buccleuch

Armstrong, a well-known border reiver, was captured by English soldiers led by Deputy Warden Salkeld on 17 March 1596, in violation of a truce day.

Finding their ladders too short to scale the walls, the raiding party breached a postern gate — or more probably bribed a contact inside the castle to open it for them — located Armstrong's cell and freed him, returning him back across the Scottish border.

[8] The raid on Carlisle created a diplomatic incident between England and Scotland, and war between the two nations appeared imminent until Buccleuch surrendered himself to the English authorities.

Unaccustomed though she must have been to such rejoinders from her own courtly nobles, Elizabeth not only did not resent the answer, but turning to a lord-in-waiting, said, "With ten thousand such men, our brother in Scotland might shake the firmest throne of Europe".

Buccleuch's kinsman, the author Sir Walter Scott, transcribed a well-known ballad about the raid entitled Kinmont Willie in his collection Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol.

[9] Scott married (contract dated 1 October 1586) Mary, daughter of Sir William Kerr of Cessford and Janet Douglas.