This
initial difficulty Colonel Elliot meets by marking on his map, as
Armstrong country, the north bank of the Liddel down to Kershope burn;
and the Captain crosses Liddel below that burn at Ritterford. Thence
he goes north by west, across Tarras water, up Ewes water, up
Mickledale burn, by Merrylaw and Ramscleugh and so on to Howpasley,
which is not on the lower but the upper Borthwick.
Looking at Colonel Elliot's chart of the Captain's route, all seems
easy enough for the Captain. He does not try to ride into Teviotdale,
for which he is making, up the Liddel water, and thence by the
Hermitage tributary on his left. Colonel Elliot studs that region with
names of Armstrong and Elliot strongholds. He makes the Captain,
crossing Liddel by the Ritterford, bear to his left, through a space
empty of hostile habitations, in his map. This seems prudent, but the
region thus left blank was full of the fiercest and most warlike of the
Armstrong name. That road was closed to the Captain!
Colonel Elliot has failed to observe this fact, which I go on to prove,
from a memoir addressed in 1583 to Burleigh, by Thomas Musgrave, the
active son of the aged Captain of Bewcastle, Sir Simon Musgrave.
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