Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

xcvi Sll; JOIIX JOUXSTONE, KNIGHT, i:)G7-15S7.
possibly lo tliis peiiod-thnt an incident belongs wViicli is related by JTolin-
shed, a contemporary rni;lisli historian, lie states tliat on one occasion
Jolinstone was so hard pressed by ilaxwell that he look refuge in the tower of
Bonshaw, the stronghold of the chief of the Irvings. Maxwell laid siege to
the place, and even brongh!; cannou against it, with wliieh he so battered the
walls that the besieged were on the point of surrendering, when Lord Scrope,
the English warden, intervened as araediator, and an agreeinent was arranged.^
This is not improbable, as partly owing to the plague and partly to a special
embassy from England, the attention of the Scottish king and court was so
occnjiied that they liad little time to bestow on the border. The contest,
liov.-ever, betvvxen JIaxwell and Johnstone was interrupted for a time by a
misadventure to the latter. lie had placed a party of his men in ambnsli at
a place " between Tinwald and tlie "Warden-ditches" to attack Ilolicrt ]Ma.\-
well of Cow-hill on his way from Dumfries towards Langholm. The party had
been observed, and were attacked by George Carruthcrs of ITolniends, captain
of the castle of Thrieve under ]\Iax\vi']l, and oue of his staunchest supporters.
Johnstone's meir were compdetely defeated, and lie liimself, who v.'as at their
head, was taken prisoner.- The date of lliis incident is not stated, but
Sir John was apparently a captive in October 1585, when the banished
lords, Mar, Angus, and others, were allowed to return to Scotland. One of
their first acts after reacliing Berwick was to cslaUish connnunication witii
Lord ^Laxwell, who had been in arms all the summer before on account
of his quarrel with the warden,^ and there can be little doubt that much
of Maxwell's hostile activity was a protest against Arran's government, and
practically a demonstration on behalf of the exiled lords. ]Cven so early
1 IJo!in?lied, vol. ii. pp. 429-431 ; Booh of but no i.I.ii'e is sl.iled, and only tlie j-ear is
Cirlaverock, vol. i. p. 202. The draft of an given, I.'iSo.
agreement between the Earl of Morton and ^ Uoliuslied, vol. ii. \>. 431 ; The Book cf
Sir John Johnstone, containing a mntual Carlaverock, vol. i. p. 263 n.
assurance to last till l.st May loSG, i3 still ' I'apcrs relating,' to Patriek, Master of
pre.'scrved in the ATinnndale C'hartcr-ehcst, Gray, p. uO.