Kinmont Willie [Child 186]

DESCRIPTION: Kinmont Willie, a notorious raider, comes to the border under a truce, with few men at his back, and is treacherously taken by a large force under Lord Scroop and others. He is imprisoned as a raider, but finally rescued
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1803 (Scott)
KEYWORDS: betrayal prison rescue borderballad
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Apr 13, 1596 - Rescue of William Armstrong of Kinmouth (Kinmont Willie) from the castle at Carlisle
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Child 186, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
Bronson 186, "Kinmont Willie" (1 version)
Chambers-ScottishBallads, pp. 54-59, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
Leach-TheBalladBook, pp. 504-509, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishBallads, pp. 370-374, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 137, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
Grigson-PenguinBookOfBallads 56, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
Gummere-OldEnglishBallads, pp. 116-122+327-328, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
HarvardClassics-EnglishPoetryChaucerToGray, pp. 108-114, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
DT, KINMWILL
ADDITIONAL: Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Edinburgh: Longman and Rees, 1803 ("Digitizede by Microsoft"), Vol. I, pp. 129-154, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
Michael Brander, _Scottish and Border Battles and Ballads_, 1975 (page references to the 1993 Barnes & Noble edition), pp. 111-116, "Kinmont Willie" (1 text)
Roud #4013
NOTES [251 words]: Kinmont Willie was a real person, and he caused a major border incident at a time when James VI of Scotland was really trying to stay on good terms with Elizabeth I of England, since he wanted to succeed her.
According to Rosalind Mitchison, A History of Scotland (second edition), p. 158, "In 1597 [her date; Child's extensive note says 1596] there was the international incident of Kinmont Willie. The English broke Border law by capturing him at a day of truce, and refused from personal animosity to the Scottish Warden, Buccleuch, to hand him back. Buccleuch then rescued him from Carlisle castle. The subsequent outbreak of diplomatic huffiness was resolved by a joint English and Scottish commission."
This was typical of the problems of the time: The governments wanted peace, but the borderers wanted to keep on looting.
This was probably traditional at one time -- there are other folktales about Kinmont Willie -- but the only surviving text is that printed by Walter Scott, and he admitted to emending it. One suspects that he did more than amend it; it probably has nearly as much Scott as genuine Scot ballad in it....
There is a relatively recent book on the topic, Halbert J. Boyd, Kinmont Willie, Grant & Murray, 1934. But it has no footnotes, no index, no introduction, and only a half-page list of references. I honestly don't even know if it's fiction or non-fiction! (I'd guess fiction, though, because of the amount of quoted dialog. In practice it is certainly fictionalized.) - RBW
Last updated in version 6.3
File: C186

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