166 Transactions. 



king, the brunt fell lieavier on the English marchnien than on 

 th« Scots, yet in 1317, an English scout reported* that the vale 

 of " Anand " was so utterly wasted and burned that from Loch- 

 maben to Carlisle neither man nor beast was left. How Annan 

 itself fared meanwhile we do not know. That it was free after a 

 sort we do know, but that is all. 



It is possible to believe tradition when it asserts that to Bruce 

 Annan owes its creation as a royal burgh albeit the so-called 

 tradition is not vouched for by any old authority. The 

 case rests only upon a probability with much in its favour. 

 That Annan was a baronial burgh of a kind under the ancestors 

 of King Robert, as lords of Annandale, is proved by the applica- 

 tion of the term burgus to it. t The essential distinction between 

 a burgh of barony and a royal burgh is that the latter holds not 

 of any mediate lord, but directly of the king — -a distinction dimmer 

 in the 13th century than it later became. What unlikeliliood 

 therefore is there in the suggestion that the larger vills, Loch- 

 maben and Annan, should both, formally or otherwise, have become 

 or been made royal burghs when their over lord the Bruce became 

 king 1 The Greyf riar of Carlisle, writing in or near the year 

 1346, believed that Annan had once been a burgh, j although by 

 his account that was a lost honour in his day. It is to be pre- 

 sumed that James V. did no more than justice to the burgh in 

 1539 when, in granting it a new charter, he referred to the former 

 existence of charters of foundation which war and fire had destroyed. 

 It is a confirmation to find similar evidence even in the negative 

 statement of the Carlisle friar. And it is pleasant to feel that in this 

 case one may without any sacrifice of critical historical method 

 believe with tradition that Robert the Bruce made Annan a 

 royal buigh. 



XIII. Baliul's Battle oj Annan (1332). 

 Bruce died ; the good Sir James faced over the sea as a 

 crusader to carry the gallant heart of his master against the 

 enemies of God. The tempest which had lulled after Bannock- 

 burn broke out with fresh vehemence when Edward III. came 

 to the English throne. He made a tool of Edward Baliol, son of 

 Edward I.'s poor King John Baliol. Chance favoured Edward 



*Bain's Gal. iii. 543. 



■[New Statistical Account, Dumfriesshire, p. 522. 



iAbove ch. iii. 



