THE Brus INSCRIPTION aT ANNAN. 69 
24th March, 1916. 
The Brus Inscription at Annan. 
By Mr GeorceE Neritson, LL.D. 
Many considerations make it a congenial task to recog- 
nise a certain unusual and institutional importance in the 
burgh of Annan, and there is the less need to apologise for 
returning to the theme in this Society. Chance opportunities, 
combining with the happy offices of friendship and archeo- 
logy in unison, have made it possible to bring back into the 
sphere of antiquarian investigation one of the most interest- 
ing inscriptions in stone extant in Great Britain. It is a 
long chapter of connection in history of which this inscription 
in question is the key, for directly and indirectly it goes back 
to the age of the Bruces as lords of Annandale before 
Robert I. became King of Scotland, and it is most probably 
related to some late-thirteenth century building upon or near 
the great mote-castle-site of the town of Annan when as 
yet the full honours of a royal burgh can hardly have 
belonged to the place. But Annan had its share of feudal 
honour when it was, as the chronicler of Lanercost calls it, 
the ‘‘ little capital of. the district ’’ (capitanea illius patriae 
villula), having the original manorial hall or strong house of 
the Brus lords, and as such possessing the importance 
attaching to the place of legal and administrative jurisdiction 
over the wide domain of the lords of Strath Annan or 
Annandale. 
A few intermittent scraps of record in the twelfth and 
thirteenth century contain some meagre intimations about the 
residence of these Brus lords at Annan. Its chief historical 
episode—apart from the incident to be next noticed—is that 
the castellum de Anant, presumably the fortified house on 
the Mote, was reckoned! among the strongholds of the 
1 Benedictus Abbas (Rolls Series), i., 47-49, Palgrave’s Docu- 
ments and Records, 1., 77. 
