The hold is
"utterly decayed," the riders are only thirty-seven men fairly
equipped. Soldiers are asked for, sometimes fifty are sent from the
garrison of Berwick, then they are withdrawn. Bewcastle is forayed
almost daily; "March Bills" minutely describe the cattle, horses, and
personal property taken from the Captain and the people by the
Armstrongs and Elliots.
Once, in 1582, Thomas Musgrave slew Arthur Graham, a near neighbour,
and took one hundred and sixty kye, but this only caused such a feud
that the Musgraves could not stir safely from home. From 1586 onwards,
Thomas Musgrave, officially or unofficially, was acting Captain of
Bewcastle. He had no strength to justify him in raiding to remote
Ettrick, through enemies who penned him in at Bewcastle.
I look on Musgrave as the Captain whose existence is known to the
ballad-maker, and I find the origin of the tale of his defeat and
capture in the ballad, in a distorted memory of his actual capture.
On 3rd July 1596, Thomas (having got Scrope's permission, without which
he dared not cross the Border on affairs of war) attempted a
retaliatory raid on Armstrongs within seven miles of the Border, the
Armstrongs of Hollace, or Hollhouse.
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