Transactions. 159 



The Scottish warlike preparations carue to nothing. The 

 spoliation of Guisbrough teincls was probably the first visiblesign in 

 Annan of the gathering trouble. The war of independence broke 

 out in 1296. Carlisle was assailed, but with ill-success, by the 

 Scottish earls. In revenge, Berwick was stormed, and with pitiless 

 severity its inhabitants slain. At Dunbar the Scottish army, 

 and with it all apparent hope of freedom, was crushed. 



VII. The Battle of Annan Moor (1297). 



In 1297 the fury of the war storm first broke on Annan town. 

 Wallace, by his victory at Stirling Bridge, had roused the 

 flagging spirit of his country ; he had swept the English before 

 his impetuous energy ; castle after castle fell, and their garrisons 

 fled. In a few short weeks he had redeemed the honour and 

 liberty of the nation. He even carried the war into the invaders' 

 territory. Though repulsed at Carlisle, he left a trail of ruin 

 behind him from Cockermouth to Newcastle-on-Tyne. But at 

 Christmas time* Sir Robert Clifford, a gallant soldier in command 

 of the garrison at Carlisle, crossed the Solway — the great ford 

 near the Lochmabenstane, adjacent to the convergent mouths of 

 the Kirtle and the Sark. He had with him 100 horse and 

 20,000 foot, and his purpose was revenge. The cavalry rode on 

 ahead of the foot soldiers. They met with no opposition till they 

 reached Annan Moor. There they found the inhabitants, 

 doubtless the whole available fighting force of the town and 

 vicinity, gathered to resist them. The Annandians appear not to 

 have been aware of the strong force of infantry in the English 

 rear ; they thought the 100 horse constituted the entire strength 

 of the inroad, and confiding too much in their numbers despised 

 the enemy. 



It had become popular amongst both French and Scots at this 

 time to jibe the English by sneering allusions to the tails which 

 they, probably owing to a monkish miraculous legend, were supposed 

 to possess.! The tailed Englishman was a bye-word and a reproach, 

 and Englishmen may be pardoned if they displayed some 

 sensitiveness on the subject. The men of Annan hailed the 

 horsemen of Clifibrd with the contemptuous salutation, " Ye dogs 



* Hemimjburgh, p. 146. 



tSee my monograph on tliis queer subject, Caiulatun Am/licus, in 

 transactions of Glasgow Archuiological Society, 1895. 



