158 Transactions. 
tions of the charters—these are decisive to show that Annan, 
usually denominated a “vill” or minor town, was before the last 
decade of the 13th century of very respectable size and import- 
ance. But, will be asked, was it a ‘burgh ”—that word so 
complex in meanings, and so hard* to define? Both Annan and 
Lochmaben were called “‘burghs” in 1296, although under 
circumstances} apparently implying that royal burghs they were 
not. The rents of them then belonged to Brus, not to the Crown. 
Their tenure seemingly was from Brus, not from the king. 
Still, Annan must have been a goodly town when the first brunt 
of warfare fell upon it. Then the clouds darkened over its fair 
prospect of progress—clouds which, save for a brief interval, were 
not to lift for long. With this outlook, ends the first period of 
Annan’s history, its epoch of peace. 
VI. The beginning of the War (1295). 
Symptoms of coming tribulation manifested themselves before 
hostilities began. Robert de Brus, Lord of Annandale, and father 
of the future king, occupied an ambiguous position. He had 
hopes from the English King, and self-interest did not in those 
days help a man to be a patriot. In the national crisis when the 
stern Plantagenet was on his way north, the Scots Parliament 
declared that not only: the partisans of England, but also all 
time-servers and neutrals, were public enemies and traitors. Their 
lands accordingly were confiscated. Brus maintained his attitude 
of neutrality, and therefore suffered the threatened penalty. 
When the conqueror of Wales was on the march for Scotland, it 
was no time for patriotic Scotsmen to stand upon ceremony 
regarding the formality of a confiscation. Annandale was 
granted to John Comyn, Harl of Buchan, who took possession of 
Lochmaben Castle. Walter of Hemingburgh, an early English 
historian, was a canon of Guisbrough. As we have seen, the 
teinds of several Annandale parishes, including Annan, belonged 
to his monastery. He tells that Buchan entered into possession 
of the Brus’s lands ;{ and he adds, with a special personal interest 
in the matter, that “‘he caused to be carried off and forcibly 
retained without payment all our teinds of said lands for the 
munition of Lochmaben.” 
* Pollock and Maitland’s Wz istory of Hnglish Law, i. 653. 
+Bain’s Calendar, ii., 826. 
+Walter of Hemingburgh (Eng. Hist. Soc.) p. 90. 
