Ihxinsactions. 175 



destined soon to feel the strain of opposing ])olicies — the English 

 scheme for a marriage between the young Queen and the heir to 

 the English throne, and the Scottish policy — for sucli it came to 

 be — of resisting that matrimonial project of Henry VIII. 

 Religious controversy, ever an inflammatory factor in politics, 

 added fuel to the burning question. All methods — diplomacy, 

 bribery, and bluster by turns — were used by Henry to bring 

 about the English match. Failing policy, he was prepared to 

 resort to force. It was a strange kind of courtship ; even 

 whilst it was going on the generals of Henry were planning how 

 they could best bring Scotland to her knees. In 1543 Lord 

 Wharton, at a military council, recommended a scheme for 

 ravaging the Scottish border. Amongst other places he wished 

 to burn and lay waste, he proposed the destruction of Annan* — 

 " the towne of Annande, which is the chief town in all Anerdaill 

 except Dumfreis." Lord Wharton's notions about the bounds of 

 Annandale were not pedantically precise. He had an antipathy 

 to Annan, not without good cause. Its church, we are told by 

 another Englishman f, was " a strong place and very noysum 

 alwey unto our men as they passed that way." It was tlius a 

 serious obstacle to wardens' raids — hence Wharton's zeal for its 

 destruction, his regarding it as a sort of Carthage on the west 

 march. 



This council of war in 1543 gives the iirst inkling of events to 

 follow. In 1545 every nerve was strained to induce Lord 

 Maxwell, who had been taken captive at Solway Moss, to 

 surrender to the English his castles of Oarlaverock and Loch- 

 maben. This attempt was furthered by a cruel working upon 

 the prisoner's fears and by his bad health, which confinement 

 did not improve. It was at last so far successful that Carlaverock 

 was yielded. Whilst this consummation of the King's wishes 

 wavered in the balance. Lord Wharton again was pressing for 

 consideration his designs against the burgh upon whose doom he 

 was bent. He contrasted two alternative schemes. J One was 

 to assail Dumfries, which, however, he thought " over liarde and 

 dangerous to be attempted with a warden's roode."§ The other, 



* Slate Papers of Henry VIII. (1534-1546), vol. v., p. 344. 



iPaltpn'H Account in DalzeU's Fragments, pp. 94-5. 



tStatc Papers, Henry VIII., Vol. v., 545. 



§" A wardan's roode which ia to go and cum hi a day and a night." 

 The definition is Wharton's. own in letter (MS. Slate Papers, Scotland, 

 Edward VI., 1547), dated 16 Sept., 1547, transcribed in "Auld Lang Syne " 

 column (No. cix.) of Dumfries Standard. 



