Armstrong's Last Goodnight [antikvár]

General NotesThis play is founded upon history: but it is not to be read as an accurate chronicle. The biggest liberty I have taken with the known historical facts is in connecting Sir David Lindsay with the events leading up to the execution of Johnny Armstrong in 1530. But these events must have involved considerable political and diplomatic manoeuvring, and it is known that Lindsay was not only the author of The Three Estates and Lord Lyon King of Arms but also regularly employed upon diplomatic missions for the Scottish Crown. His own views upon the Armstrong business may be partly deduced from the lines in The Three Estates, where he makes his crooked Pardoner offer for sale as a blessed relic -. . . arte cordbaith gret and lang, Quhilk hangitjohne the ArmistrangOf gude hemp, soft and sound; Gude, halie pepill I stand for'd Quha ever beis hangit with this cord Neidis never to be dround.Also, in Complaint of the Common-weal of Scotland he says, of the state of the Border counties:In to the South, allace 11 was neir slane; Ouer all the land I culd fynd no relief: Almost betuix the Mers and Lowmabane I culd nocht knaw ane leill man be ane theif. To schaw thair reif, thift, murthour, and mischief, And vicious workis, it wald infect the air: And as langsum to me, for tyll declair.From which we may guess that (a) he was able some years later to regard the celebrated hanging with sardonic and perhaps complacent detachment, and that (b) he by no means approved of the violent activities of the Border freebooters, who have in succeeding centuries found their own romantic advocates.