September 27, 2017

Just posting this badass cross that happens to be in the form of a sword in a stone. Or is it a sword that’s pretending to be a cross? You decide.

There is a famous (infamous?) quote from a visitor to Liddesdale who, noticing the many fortified towers and farmhouses around the Borders, also noted that there were, in fact, no churches in Liddesdale. "Are there no Christians here?” he asked, and received the reply: “Na, we's a' Elliots and Armstrangs."

From my experience, this statement checks out.

The story behind the Milnholm Cross, like most stories of the Borders, is a bloody one. Which, I suppose, is not very surprising given that it is a sword. A certain William de Soulis was going about the countryside deflowering young virgins, as was his God-given right (or so he claimed). The most awful rights always seem to be God-given, or why would they claim divine backup to justify them? In any case, under this divine inspiration, he stupidly abducted an Armstrong girl. The predictable pursuit ensued.

But Alexander ordered his men to stand down and De Soulis invited him to Hermitage Castle under the guise of truce… then murdered him. Milnholm Cross was erected 1320 to the memory of Alexander Armstrong, Lord of Mangerton. He’s possibly buried beneath it or at nearby Ettleton Cemetery.

Of course, this happened in the Borders, so the story does not end there. Because of his depredations across the countryside, De Soulis was implicated in the disappearances of numerous children, and had a reputaion for unnatural practices, including witchcraft (we’d probably call him a pedophile.) There are gruesome legends about how the Armstrongs and others stormed the castle, arrested him, dragged him off to a nearby stone circle, and boiled De Soules in molten lead, which would be fitting. He likely died in prison. But however they eventually punished him, Hermitage Castle did eventually end up in the hands of the Armstrongs/Elliots for brief stretches of time.

Standing stolidly on the open moor, it is without a doubt my favorite castle. Even in ruins, is one of the most starkly brooding edifices to be found anywhere. It deserves its own post, but here is a little taste: