1^4 Battle of Sark. 



substantially truthful account of it has been the chief source of 

 information for all writers subsequent. Boece (edition of 1574, 

 p. o71) relegates the truce which followed the "recent battle " to 

 the year 1450. Buchanan (xi., 29-0 1) declares that this truce was 

 in 1448. Leslie dates the battle itself explicitly 145U. Holinshed 

 and Pittscottie, closely following Boece, are indefinite as to the 

 year of the battle. So there is a rather pretty problem of histori- 

 cal arithmetic to decide between 1445, 1448, 1449, and 1450, to 

 leave 1458 out of count altogether. The state of the evidence 

 could not well be worse : three possibly contemporary testimonies 

 with three scarcely reconcilable verdicts — Bower's continuation 

 speaks for 1445; Law's M.S. for 1458; the Asloan MS. leaves 

 open to debate whether it means 1448 or 1441). Interpreted by 

 the letter it is for 1448, because the year at chat time was usually 

 computed as ending on 24th March. On the other hand, when we 

 remember that the 25th FeV)ruary, 1448, was really 1449 by the 

 modern style, and note that the sei^uence is a notice of an event 

 in Februar"y, 144§, followed by notice of an event in October of 

 the same year, it becomes natural to think (apart from occasional 

 undoubted confusions in the computation of the ecclesiastical and 

 the public year) that the reference to October may, much prefer- 

 ably, be read to mean October, 1449. 



A factor in the case is the great conference of borderers held 

 under William, Earl of Douglas, at Lincluden on 18tli December, 

 1448, when the code of tactics and military regulations was 

 adjusted for the defence of the West March. Was it after or 

 before the battle of Sark that it occurred to Earl William thus to 

 assemble in council the experienced warriors of the West Border ? 



An important Dumfries episode calls also for a definitive 

 assignment of its place in the series of events associated with the 

 story of the battle. The Asloan MS. version of the matter runs 

 thus : — 



The yer of God J^iiij Cxlix.— The birnyng of Dunbar be young Peisie 

 and Sir Robert Ogile in the month of May, and that samyn yer Drumfres 

 was brynt be the erll of Salisbery in the moneth of Junij. 



Boece, whose evidence here, as in the battle of Sark, is specially 

 important because all the subsequent historians gained their infor- 

 mation from him alone, states (p. 367) that in 1448 hostilities were 

 renewed on the expiry of the truce, and tiiat in the course of them 

 " the town of Dumfries was shamefully plundered by the Earl of 



