166 Transactions. 
. 
king, the brunt fell heavier on the English marchmen than on 
the Scots, yet in 1317, an English scout reported* that the vale 
of “ Anand ” was so utterly wasted and burned that from Loch- 
maben to Carlisle neither man nor beast was left. How Annan 
itself fared meanwhile we do not know. ‘That it was free after a 
sort we do know, but that is all. 
It is possible to believe tradition when it asserts that to Bruce 
Annan owes its creation as a royal burgh albeit the so-called 
tradition is not vouched for by any old authority. The 
case rests only upon a probability with much in its favour. 
That Annan was a baronial burgh of a kind under the ancestors 
of King Robert, as lords of Annandale, is proved by the applica- 
tion of the term burgus toit.+ The essential distinction between 
a burgh of barony and a royal burgh is that the latter holds not 
of any mediate lord, but directly of the king—a distinction dimmer 
in the 13th century than it later became. What unlikelihood 
therefore is there in the suggestion that the larger vills, Loch- 
maben and Annan, should both, formally or otherwise, have become 
or been made royal burghs when their over lord the Bruce became 
king? The Greyfriar of Carlisle, writing in or near the year 
1346, believed that Annan had once been a burgh,{ although by 
his account that was a lost honour in his day. It is to be pre- 
sumed that James V. did no more than justice to the burgh in 
1539 when, in granting it a new charter, he referred to the former 
existence of charters of foundation which war and fire had destroyed. 
It is a confirmation to find similar evidence even in the negative 
statement of the Carlisle friar. And 1% is pleasant to feel thatin this 
case one may without any sacrifice of critical historical method 
believe with tradition that Robert the Bruce made Annan a 
royal burgh. 
XIII. Baltol’s Battle of Annan (1332). 
Bruce died: the good Sir James faced over the sea as a 
crusader to carry the gallant heart of his master against the 
enemies of God. The tempest which had lulled after Bannock- 
burn broke out with fresh vehemence when Edward III. came 
to the English throne. He made a tool of Edward Baliol, son of 
Edward I.’s poor King John Baliol. Chance favoured Edward 
*Bain’s Cal. iii. 543. 
+tNew Statistical Account, Dumfriesshire, p. 522. 
fAbove ch. iii. 
