This ballad celebrates a bold and masterly exploit of Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm, laird of Buccleuch, April 13, 1596, which is fully narrated by a contemporary, Archbishop Spotiswood, in his History of the Church of Scotland, ed. 1655, pp. 413 ff. Kinmont Willie was "one William Armstrong, commonly called Will of Kinmouth, against whom the English had a quarrel for many wrongs he had committed, as he was indeed a notorious thief." Sir Walter Scott, who alone preserves the ballad, says that it had been "much mangled by reciters" and that "some conjectural emendations [were] absolutely necessary to render it intelligible." Probably a great deal more emendation was done than this observation would indicate. One would like, for example, to see sts. 10-12 and 31 in their mangled condition.
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