Transactions. 159 
The Scottish warlike preparations came to nothing. The 
spoliation of Guisbrough teinds was probably the first visiblesign in 
Annan of the gathering trouble. The war of independence broke 
out in 1296. Carlisle was assailed, but with ill-success, by the 
Scottish earls. In revenge, Berwick was stormed, and with pitiless 
severity its inhabitants slain. At Dunbar the Scottish army, 
and with it all apparent hope of freedom, was crushed. 
VIl. The Battle of Annan Moor (1297). 
In 1297 the fury of the war storm first broke on Annan town. 
Wallace, by shis victory at Stirling Bridge, had roused the 
flagging spirit of his country ; he had swept the English before 
his impetuous energy ; castle after castle fell, and their garrisons 
fled. In a few short weeks he had redeemed the honour and 
liberty of the nation. He even carried the war into the invaders’ 
territory. Though repulsed at Carlisle, he left a trail of ruin 
behind him from Cockermouth to Newcastle-on-Tyne. But at 
Christmas time* Sir Robert Clifford, a gallant soldier in command 
of the garrison at Carlisle, crossed the Solway—the great ford 
near the Lochmabenstane, adjacent to the convergent mouths of 
the Kirtle and the Sark. He had with him 100 horse and 
20,000 foot, and his purpose was revenge. The cavalry rode on 
ahead of the foot soldiers. They met with no opposition till they 
reached Annan Moor. There they found the inhabitants, 
doubtless the whole available fighting force of the town and 
' vicinity, gathered to resist them. The Annandians appear not to 
have been aware of the strong force of infantry in the English 
rear ; they thought the 100 horse constituted the entire strength 
of the inroad, and confiding too much in their numbers despised 
the enemy. 
It had become popular amongst both French and Scots at this 
time to jibe the English by sneering allusions to the tails which 
they, probably owing toamonkish miraculouslegend, were supposed 
to possess.t The tailed Englishman was a bye-word and a reproach, 
and Englishmen may be pardoned if they displayed some 
sensitiveness on the subject. The men of Annan hailed the 
horsemen of Clifford with the contemptuous salutation, ‘“ Ye dogs 
*Hemingburgh, p. 146. 
tSee my monograph on this queer subject, Caudatus Anglicus, in 
transactions oi Glasgow Archeological Society, 1895. 
