Notes on Cummektrees. 87 



the farmer's wife saw approaching- two excisemen, coming as she 

 suspected to pay them an early visit, and leaving her husband, 

 who had not got out of bed, to deal with them she quickly slipped 

 out by the back door. After some talk with the farmer they dis- 

 covered the cellar under the house, but while they were parleying 

 above the wife was busy below removing some articles to the 

 cellar under the peat stack, and coming in when the men were 

 proceeding to inspect the cellar she was indignant that a douce 

 farmer and his wife should have fallen under their evil and 

 unwarranted suspicions. 



The name of William de Heriz, the first witness to the 

 charter of William de Erus to Adam de Carleol, takes us to the 

 opposite or north side of the parish, where Hoddom Castle and 

 Repentance Tower are situated. The former, with its spires rising 

 among the surrounding woods, stands near the north-east corner 

 and not far from the river in one of the most beautiful spots in the 

 vale of the Annan. With respect to the history of this building 

 there is an apparent discrepancy in the accounts that come down 

 to us. There was an older house on the other or Hoddom side of 

 the river which was inhabited by some of the Bruce family about 

 the beginning of the fourteenth century. By the fifteenth century 

 the Herries family had large possessions in Dumfriesshire, among 

 them being the half-barony of Hoddom ; and the old house referred 

 to having been destroyed in a border foray, John Herries of 

 Herries built with its stones the old part of the present castle, 

 about the middle of that century. On the other hand, it is stated 

 in an old family history which is printed in the Herries peerage 

 case that John Maxwell, Lord Herries, son of Robert, fifth Lord 

 Maxwell, " built the house of Hoddomstaines in Annandale and the 

 watch tower of Repentance to be a beacon." This Lord Herries, 

 who was a great friend of Mary Queen of Scots, lived a century 

 after the John Herries just mentioned. Though these accounts 

 appear contradictory both may be correct. In a raid of the 

 English in 1572 or 1573, conducted by Lord Scrope and the Earl 

 of Sussex, and directed principally against the Maxwells, Hoddom 

 was one of a number of castles that suffered greatly. To use 

 Scrope's own words, he " took and cast down the Castles of Caer- 

 laverock, Hoddom, Dumfries, Tinwald, Cowhill, and sundry other 

 gentlemen's houses, dependers on the house of Maxwell, and 

 having burnt the town of Dumfries, returned with great spoil into 



