162 Transactions. 
Robert the Bruce par excellence, grandson of the Competitor, and 
destined restorer of Scottish liberty—had thrown in his lot with 
the national party. That composite body was still far from being 
united. In August at the Council, in which Bruce was made 
one of the guardians of the threatened realm, there were hot 
words between John Comyn and him. Comyn took the young 
Bruce by the throat*—an attention which maybe was not 
forgotten one day some seven years later when the two met in 
the Greyfriars’ Monastery at Dumfries. But measures of defence 
were resolved upon in the Council despite the quarrels which 
disgraced it. Bruce made an attempt, unsuccessfully,t to 
wrench Lochmaben, his own castle, out of English hands. No 
garrison holding Lochmaben could be safe unless it had command 
of Annan lying between it and its base of reinforcement and 
supply. A few trifling passages in an army account demonstrate 
that Annan was at this time in English hands. Stores of various 
kinds for the troops in Lochmaben were conveyed by boats from 
Skimburness to Annan—Skimburness in those days the great 
shipping port of Cumberland, situated a mile north of Silloth, 
then not yet a town. The stores for which there was a natural 
waterway were discharged on the river bank in the town itself, 
and needed careful guarding until they were forwarded by land. 
But the attack of Bruce on Lochmaben raised apprehensions of a 
sally on Annan, and greater precautions were required. A house 
in the clocheriwm or belfry of the town’s church was specially 
repaired for storage{ of the goods in transit to Lochmaben. It 
is not carrying inference too far to suggest that the fire which 
consumed the church in 1298 had left the walls intact—or at 
least had left the belfry fit for active service. 
Analogy points to the conclusion that probably the belfry was 
one of those square castellated towers common in the early 
English period. These were frequently low, but broad-set, massive, 
and strong. There can be little doubt that a defensive purpose, 
to afford a secure place in an hour of sudden danger, was a 
determining element in the design which developed this ecclesi- 
astical structure. Over at Burgh-by-Sands there may still be 
seen one of these stern types of the Border church tower built 
half for God, and half for the protection of man. When the tide 
*National MSS. Scotland, Vol. i. No. 8; Bain’s Calendar ii., 1978. 
+Bain’s Calendar u., 1115. 
tBain’s Calendar, 11., 1115. 
