178 Transactions. 



Surrender was out of the question. The captain would hold the 

 steeple. Such were the Regent's orders, and they would be 

 implicitly obeyed. The odds against him were fifty to one — his 100 

 men against Wharton's 5000. But there was hope that by the 

 morrow a detachment from the Regent might arrive to raise the 

 siege. 



That night the English laid their plans for the morning's work. 

 They had few guns, a falcon, a falconette, and four falcons, a 

 battery of only six small pieces, which they planted so as to assail 

 the battlements of the steeple. The guns appear to have been 

 placed to the west or south-west of the church where the steeple 

 was fully exposed. Such at least would have been a natural 

 inference from the position of the place even had there been no 

 confirmatory fact. It happens, however, that Annan has, in a 

 street name, preserved a memory of that eventful 1 2th of September, 

 and commemorated the position of the siege train until this day in the 

 " Battery Brae," which, descending from the High Street to the 

 Kirk Burn on the way to the Moat, exactly conforms to the 

 requirements of tlie contemporary account of the .siege given by 

 Wharton in his despatch. 



With daybreak, the fight began, archers and hackbutmen 

 assailed the defenders from every side; the artillery played upon 

 the embattled top ; and Wharton's ancient animosity at last found 

 its echo amid smoke and flame and the crackle of ordnance. 



The garrison bated no jot of heart or hope ; the " pensall of 

 defyaunce " fluttered free ; Lyon, the captain, and his colleagues, 

 did their duty like men. The Master of Maxwell by some 

 accounts* was there, and so were the Laird of Jolnistone and 

 Murray of Cockpool. The English writers were not slow to 

 recognise the strenuous gallantry of Lyon and the Borderers, 

 who kept the tower with him. The Scots "made sharp war," is the 

 laconic phrase of a despatch. They valiantly defended themselves, 

 says Holinshed. The steeple was " well defended," says yet 

 another old historian.! Botii church and .steeple were stoutly 

 held. They were, says an English chronicler | "places of themselves 

 verie strong and raightlie reinforced with earth." Deftly the 

 Regent's gunners handled the few guns at their command. The 



*Lesh'y's Historic of Scotland, p. 202 ; Holinshed, ii., 241. 

 ■\Herries' Memoirs (Ahbotsford Club), p. 22. 

 tHolinshed, ii. 241. 



