The Armstrong Clan Society 

  Dedicated to the Armstrongs, Crosiers, Fairbairns, Grosiers, Nixons and those interested in these surnames.

Armstrong Clan Society - One Hundred Thousand Welcomes!

The Armstrong Clan Society has been organized to:

1) Seek friendship and unity among Armstrongs and associated families.

2)  Provide for the preservation of Armstrong artifacts unique to the family and to maintain a library.

 3) Serve as a genealogical and historical recorder of the membership,

 4) Provide quarterly news, Armstrong history and genealogy via The Armstrong Chronicles,

 5) Establish geographic membership representation.

Membership

All Armstrongs, Croziers, Fairbairns, Groziers and Nixons, regardless of spelling, and their descendants, are eligible for full membership in The Society. All others interested in furthering the goals of The Society may become associate members. In the United States and Canada, dues are $25 per year, including two adults and all minor children. In all other countries dues are $35 per year, payable in US funds.

 click here to download a membership application.

THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER WIDOW

In modern times, one can think of the Reiving days as the “good old days”. Days filled with freedom, adventure, excitement, and frequently death.  Truth is that these times were very brutal and lawless. Pain and suffering abounded both on and off the fighting grounds. Tradition is that the ballard below refers to a Border freebooter, who was hanged over his own tower’s gate by King James V. This deed took place during James’ dishonorable expedition to the Borders in 1529 – 1530 which also cost the lives of Johnnie Armstrong and some thirty of his best men. This short ballard is just a small example of the sorrow and pain inflicted on the Reivers loved ones by the brutality of the times.

THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER WIDOW
 

My love he built me a bonny tower,
And clad it all with lily flower,
A brawer tower ye never did see,
Than my true love built for me.

There came a man by middle day,
He spied his sport, and went away;
And brought the King that very night,
Who broke my tower, and slew my knight.

He slew my knight to me so dear;
He slew my knight, and poin'd* his gear;
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremitie.

I sewed his sheet, making my mane;
I watched the corpse, myself alone;
I watched his body, night and day;
No living creature came that way.

I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gazed, and while I sat;
I dug a grave and laid him in,
And heaped him with the sod so green.

But think not ye my heart was sair,
When I laid the moul on his yellow hair;
O think not ye my heart was gaye,
When I turned about, away to go?

No living man I'll love again,
Since that my lovely knight was slain;
With a lock of his yellow hair
I'll chain my heart for ever more.

 

*Poin'd means Poinded, as attached by legal distress. That  is “took all his stuff”.