158 REcENT EXCAVATIONS AT BIRRENS. 
there. The English captain, Sir Antony, was himself badly wounded 
in the foot, eye, and hand, but after a while he completely re- 
covered. 
The official record of the battle closes somewhat dolefully for 
our side with the letter’ addressed from Pontefract by King 
Edward III. to Sir Ralf Dacre, constable of Carlisle, commanding 
that William Douglas and William Barde should be kept sefely 
ironed and in prison. The Sheriff of Cumberland was at the same 
time to proclaim that the several captors of Scotsmen should keep 
their respective prisoners secure. Barde was still a captive three 
years later. Douglas’s exact term of confinement has not been 
ascertained, but Bower says it endured for two years. The flower 
of Annandale soldiery had been nipped in its early bloom. And, 
unfortunately, as Wyntoun notes in his brief record of the event, 
the’ misfortune was only the ‘‘arles” of more—the earnest of 
worse things, in especial of the evil day of Halidon.’ 
That ilke tyme at Lowchmabane 
Off Anandyrdale the floure wes tane 
With off the West Marche men 
That had thame in till Ingland then. 
Amang thaim Willame off Dowglas 
Takyn and had till presowne was. 
This was bot erlys for to tell 
Off infortwne that efftyr fell. 
Bower, above cited, also mistakenly places the engagement at Lochmaben. 
TL.— Recent Excavations at Birrens—The Interior Buildings. 
By James Barpour, F.S.A. 
The council of this Society having brought under the notice 
of the council of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland the desir- 
ableness of having excavations made at Birrens, that body 
promptly took up the suggestion, and appointed a committee of 
superintendence, on which the writer represented the local 
Society, and made other necessary arrangements. Operations 
were begun on 29th May, 1895, and were carried on for a period 
of nearly nine months. Important information resulted regarding 
the structure of the fortifications and the plan of the interior 
buildings ; and altars, inscribed stones, pottery, and other objects 
1 Foedera, 28th March, 1333 ; Bain’s Cal., ii., 1074. 
2 Wyntoun’s Cronykil, viil., 27. 
