Transactions. 173 



XVII. Loid Dacre's Raid (15U). 

 The disaster of Flodden in 1513 was certain to thrill the natives 

 of Border towns not only with the national sorrow, but with a 

 keen sense of iuqiending danger from invasion. The bitterest 

 expectations were realised. A raid of Lord Dacre, in 1514, on 

 the west march, ^k^as peculiarly ferocious. In a savage and 

 exulting despatch* he tells how bitterly he revenged the losses 

 inflicted on his own side of the marches by Scottish inroads. 

 " For oone cattel taken by the Scotts we liave takyn, won, and 

 brought away out of Scotland cth [100], and for oone shepe ccth 

 of a suretie. And as for townships and houses burnt," he goes 

 on to say, " I assure your lordships for trouthe that I have and 

 has caused to be burnt and distroyit sex tymes mbr townys and 

 liousys witliin the West and Middill Marches of Scotland in the 

 same sea.son then is done to us." Lord Dacre believed that in the 

 matter of fire and sword it was more blessed to give than to receive ! 

 "Upon the West Marches," he boasted, "I liaif burnt and distroyed 

 the townshipps of Annand, Dronnok, Dronnokwood, TordoflP," 

 and so on through a long list of over 30 places in Annandale and 

 Eskdale he pursues his arithmetic of havoc. " Whereas there 

 was in all times passed," he says, in conchision, " ceccth pleughes, 

 and above whiche er now clerely waisted, and noo man dwelling 

 in any of them at this day save oonly in the towrys of Annand 

 steepill and Walgliopp" — i.e., Wauchop, in Eskdale. Thus from 

 Annan to the Border only Annan steeple remained. The lineal 

 descendant of that old belfry spoken of in the 13th century — if 

 not, indeed, that actual belfry itself, which is the more probable 

 proposition — the church tower of Annan alone rose above that 

 scene of wreck and desolation. But the houses of the town soon 

 rose again, for in spite of all lier calamities Annan had kept 

 her stout heart as well aj her strong steeple. 



XVIII. Amuvii's Biirglial Charter (1539). 



Hitherto we have seen few if any clear proofs of municipal life. 



Annan had no place in the rolls of the Exchequer; sent no member 



to Parliament ; is only once or twice mentioned in any transaction 



of public busine.ss as a burgh ; has no credentials to produce for 



its having exercised distinctively corporate rights or had any civic 



life. With its very existence in constant danger, anything in the 



*Dated 17th May, l.")14, trauscribetl in Pinkerton'it Hi-<tory of Scotland, 

 ii., 462. 



