Mangerton Tower is a ruined Scottish tower castle house formerly belonging to the Armstrong family.
Mangerton Tower is at Mangerton in Newcastleton or Castleton parish in Roxburghshire, close to the border between England and Scotland, on the banks of the Liddel Water.
The tower was burnt by the English commander Ralph Eure in 1543 in revenge for fire raising in Tynedale. [1] Hector Armstrong murdered Bartye Young, whose friend had guided Eure to Mangerton. [2]
In March 1569 Regent Moray came from Kelso to Liddesdale to punish the border people. He was accompanied by Lord Home, Ker of Cessford, Ker of Ferniehirst, and Scot of Buccleuch and 4000 men. After holding unsatisfactory talks with the local leaders, "the best of the surname men", Moray burned the farmsteads in Liddesdale, and did not leave one house standing. He stayed at Mangerton, then had the house blown up with gunpowder and returned to Jedburgh. [3] He was unable to capture Armstrong of Mangerton. [4]
In 1592 the Laird of Mangerton had helped the rebel Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell. James VI went to Jedburgh intending to punish Bothwell's supporters and demolish Mangerton, Whithaugh, and other houses. Whithaugh was another house of Armstrong family, just north of Mangerton. [5] The Duke of Lennox started work on the demolition of Whithaugh and stopped when the Laird yielded to him. Armstrong of Mangerton made his peace with the king and his house was left intact. [6]
The Armstrongs of Whithaugh crossed the English border on 8 June 1597 and attacked travellers on Turnlippet Moor who were going to Newcastle. [7] In September 1601 the English border warden Lord Scrope "laid waste" to Mangerton in retaliation for border raids in the aftermath of the murder of Sir John Carmichael. [8] Scrope wrote to James VI to justify capturing 16 nororious "rievers and spoilers" at the "stone house of Mangerton". [9]
Only a part of the ground floor of Mangerton Tower remains. A stone panel has a coat of arms and the date 1563, with the initials "SA" and "E", or 1583 with "SA" and "FF". [10]
Johnnie Armstrong, a brother of Thomas Armstrong, Laird of Mangerton, was a well-known outlaw who was captured and hanged by James V of Scotland at Caerlanrig in 1530. [11]
Mungo Armstrong became a spy for the English border officer Thomas Wharton. In December 1540 he was at Hermitage Castle and received a copy of a ballad from Edinburgh. He brought it to Carlisle for Wharton, letting the Mayor of Carlisle, John Thomson, make a copy of it. [12]
In 1541 Archibald Armstrong, the young laird of Mangerton, with his servant John Grey, who was blind in one eye, went into England with others and burnt the corn of William Carnaby at Halton. [13]
An English border official Thomas Musgrave listed many members of the Armstrong families of Mangerton, Whithaugh, and Langholm, and their relations in 1583. They had kin on both sides of the border. [14]
The Laird of Mangerton and Christie Armstrong of Barngleis were prisoners in Edinburgh Castle in October 1588. In July 1591 the Laird was ordered to surrender John Jokke Armstrong as a pledgee for the "gang of Mangertoun". [15]
The court jester to James VI and I, Archibald Armstrong, was a relative of the Mangerton family. In 1617 Archibald Armstrong obtained a royal pension of £50 yearly for his Scottish kinsman, John of the Syde, an Armstrong from Mangerton. [16]
James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray was a member of the House of Stewart as the illegitimate son of King James V of Scotland. At times a supporter of his half-sister Mary, Queen of Scots, he was the regent of Scotland for his half-nephew, the infant King James VI, from 1567 until his assassination in 1570. He was the first head of government to be assassinated with a firearm.
William Armstrong of Kinmont or Kinmont Willie was a Scottish border reiver and outlaw active in the Anglo-Scottish Border country in the last decades of the 16th century.
Sir James Melville (1535–1617) was a Scottish diplomat and memoir writer, and father of the poet Elizabeth Melville.
The Casket letters were eight letters and some sonnets said to have been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Earl of Bothwell, between January and April 1567. They were produced as evidence against Queen Mary by the Scottish lords who opposed her rule. In particular, the text of the letters was taken to imply that Queen Mary colluded with Bothwell in the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley. Mary's contemporary supporters, including Adam Blackwood, dismissed them as complete forgeries or letters written by the Queen's servant Mary Beaton. The authenticity of the letters, now known only by copies, continues to be debated. Some historians argue that they were forgeries concocted in order to discredit Queen Mary and ensure that Queen Elizabeth I supported the kingship of the infant James VI of Scotland, rather than his mother. The historian John Hungerford Pollen, in 1901, by comparing two genuine letters drafted by Mary, presented a subtle argument that the various surviving copies and translations of the casket letters could not be used as evidence of their original authorship by Mary.
Liddesdale, the valley of the Liddel Water, in the County of Roxburgh, southern Scotland, extends in a south-westerly direction from the vicinity of Peel Fell to the River Esk, a distance of 21 miles (34 km). The Waverley route of the North British Railway runs down the dale, and the Catrail, or Picts' Dyke, crosses its head.
Thirlestane Castle is a castle set in extensive parklands near Lauder in the Borders of Scotland. The site is aptly named Castle Hill, as it stands upon raised ground. However, the raised land is within Lauderdale, the valley of the Leader Water. The land has been in the ownership of the Maitland family since 1587, and Thirlestane served as the seat of the Earls of Lauderdale. The castle was substantially extended in the 1670s by the first and only Duke of Lauderdale. Further additions were made in the 19th century. The castle is now cared for by a charitable trust, and is open to the public.
Archibald Douglas, Parson of Douglas, was also Parson of Glasgow, a Senator of the College of Justice, Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I of England, and a notorious intriguer.
Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell, was Commendator of Kelso Abbey and Coldingham Priory, a Privy Counsellor and Lord High Admiral of Scotland. He was a notorious conspirator who led several uprisings against his first cousin, King James VI, all of which ultimately failed, and he died in poverty in Italy after being banished from Scotland. Francis's maternal uncle, the 4th Earl of Bothwell, was the chief suspect in the murder of James VI's father, Lord Darnley.
Sir John Carmichael was a Scottish soldier, the Keeper of Liddesdale, a diplomat, and owner of Fenton Tower at Kingston, East Lothian.
Alexander Home, 5th Lord Home was a Scottish nobleman and Warden of the Eastern March.
Sir Richard Cockburn of Clerkington, Lord Clerkintoun (1565–1627) was a senior government official in Scotland serving as Lord Privy Seal of Scotland during the reign of James VI.
Sir Roger Aston of Cranford, Middlesex, was an English courtier and favourite of James VI of Scotland.
Barbara Ruthven was a Scottish courtier and favourite of Anne of Denmark, expelled from court after the death of her brother.
Sir James Sandilands was a courtier to King James VI and I and captain of Blackness Castle
Richard Douglas was a Scottish landowner, courtier, and letter writer.
George Nicholson or Nicolson, was an English diplomat in Scotland.
James Douglas of Spott was a Scottish landowner and conspirator.
The Raid of Holyrood was an attack on Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh on 27 December 1591 by Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell in order to gain the favour of King James VI of Scotland. Bothwell subsequently staged a raid at Falkland Palace, and in July 1593 made another attempt at Holyrood.
Nicholas Williamson was an English lawyer and Catholic recusant in the 1590s. He was arrested in 1595 after planning a visit to the court of James VI of Scotland. The Jesuit William Crichton had hoped that Williamson would encourage the ambition of James VI for the throne of England.
Thomas Musgrave, Captain of Bewcastle was an English landowner and soldier involved in Scottish border politics. He was keeper of Bewcastle Castle for Elizabeth I.
