162 Transactions. 



Robert the Bruce par excdlence, grandson of the Competitor, and 

 destined restorer of Scottish liberty — had thrown in his lot with 

 the national party. That composite body was still far from being 

 united. In August at the Council, in which Bruce was made 

 one of the guardians of the threatened realm, there were hot 

 words between John Comyn and him. Comyn took the young 

 Bruce by the throat* — an attention which maybe was not 

 forgotten one day some seven years latei' when the two met in 

 the Greyfriars' Monastery at Dumfries. But measures of defence 

 were resolved upon in the Council despite the quarrels which 

 disgraced it. Bruce made an attempt, unsuccessfully,! to 

 wrench Lochmaben, his own castle, out of English hands. No 

 garrison holding Lochmaben could be safe unless it had command 

 of Annan lying between it and its base of reinforcement and 

 supply. A few trifling passages in an army account demonstrate 

 that Annan was at this time in English hands. Stores of various 

 kinds for the troops in Lochmaben were conveyed by boats from 

 Skimburness to Annan — Skimburness in those days the great 

 shipping port of Cumberland, situated a mile north of Silloth, 

 then not yet a town. The stores for which there was a natural 

 waterway were discharged on the river bank in the town itself, 

 and needed careful guarding until they were forwarded by land. 

 But the attack of Bruce on Lochmaben raised apprehensions of a 

 sally on Annan, and greater precautions were required. A house 

 in the clocherium or belfry of the town's church was specially 

 repaired for storage if of the goods in transit to Lochmaben. It 

 is not carrying inference too far to suggest that the fire which 

 consumed the church in 1298 had left the walls intact — or at 

 least had left the belfry tit for active service. 



Analogy points to the conclusion that probably the belfry was 

 one of those square castellated towers common in the early 

 English period. These were frequently low, but broad-set, massive, 

 and strong. There can be little doubt that a defensive purpose, 

 to afford a secure place in an hour of sudden danger, was a 

 determining element in the design which developed this ecclesi- 

 astical structure. Over at Burgh-by-Sands there may still be 

 seen one of these stern types of the Border church tower built 

 half for God, and half for the protection of man. When the tide 



* National MSS. Scotland, Vol. ii. No. 8 ; Bahis Calendar ii., 1978. 

 fSaw'.s Calendar ii., 1115. 

 XBain's Calendar, ii., 1115. 



