Transactions. 173 
XVII. Lord Dacre’s Raid (1514). 
The disaster of Flodden in 1513 was certain to thrill the natives 
of Border towns not only with the national sorrow, but with a 
keen sense of impending danger from invasion. The bitterest 
expectations were realised. A raid of Lord Dacre, in 1514, on 
the west march, was peculiarly ferocious. In a savage and 
exulting despatch* he tells how bitterly he revenged the losses 
inflicted on his own side of the marches by Scottish inroads. 
“For oone cattel taken by the Scotts we have takyn, won, and 
brought away out of Scotland cth [100], and for oone shepe ecth 
of a suretie. And as for townships and houses burnt,” he goes 
on to say, “I assure your lordships for trouthe that I have and 
has caused to be burnt and distroyit sex tymes mor townys and 
housys within the West and Middill Marches of Scotland in the 
same season then is done to us.” Lord Dacre believed that in the 
matter of fire and sword it was more blessed to give than to receive ! 
“Upon the West Marches,” he boasted, ‘‘I haif burnt and distroyed 
the townshipps of Annand, Dronnok, Dronnokwood, Tordoff,” 
and so on through a long list of over 30 places in Annandale and 
Eskdale he pursues his arithmetic of havoc. ‘ Whereas there 
was in all times passed,” he says, in conclusion, ‘“ ceccth pleughes, 
and above whiche er now clerely waisted, and noo man dwelling 
in any of them at this day save oonly in the towrys of Annand 
steepill and Walghopp”—.e., Wauchop, in Eskdale. Thus from 
Annan to the Border only Annan steeple remained. The lineal 
descendant of that old belfry spoken of in the 13th century—if 
not, indeed, that actual belfry itself, which is the more probable 
proposition—the church tower of Annan alone rose above that 
scene of wreck and desolation. But the houses of the town soon 
rose again, for in spite of all her calamities Annan had kept 
her stout heart as well a3 her strong steeple. 
XVIII. Annan’s Burghal Charter (1539). 
Hitherto we have seen few if any clear proofs of municipal life. 
Annan had no place in the rolls of the Exchequer ; sent no member 
to Parliament ; is only once or twice mentioned in any transaction 
of public business as a burgh; has no credentials to produce for 
its having exercised distinctively corporate rights or had any civic 
life. With its very existence in constant danger, anything in the 
*Dated 17th May, 1514, transcribed in Pinkerton’s History of Scotland, 
ii., 462. 
