While Scrope was Warden, the outlaw Kinmont Willie Armstrong was arrested (in violation of a truce day) and imprisoned at Carlisle Castle. Scrope had only recently been appointed to the post of Warden, and he was unsure of what to do with an outlaw who had been illegally arrested. On 13 April 1596, as a result of a raid orchestrated by Walter Scott, 1st Lord Scott of Buccleuch, Kinmont Willie was freed. In a failed attempt to recapture Kinmont Willie, Scrope "burnt the towns of Annan and Dumfries to the ground, capturing two hundred prisoners whom he marched home 'naked, chained together on leashes'". This caused a major diplomatic incident. Scrope derived a significant part of his income from coal mining at Preston in Wensleydale.Lawrence Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy (Oxford, 1965), p. 341.
