Burghs of Annandale. 61 



to establish the town of Annan, the Mote or castle had 

 sufficiently served its turn by making possible municipal 

 ideas unknown to the district before. 



Towns were not an element in the native economy of 

 the country in pre-Norman days. The Celt liked them not. 

 One of themselves, Girald, the Welshman, wrote in the 

 twelfth century in his book^ that the Irish would have 

 nothing to do with civic life — a characteristic which their 

 kinsmen in Scotland shared. It is not a little remarkable 

 that those peoples amongst whom clanship is keenest — an 

 elementary principle of cohesion which might be expected to 

 be capable of great results from its expansion under favour- 

 ing conditions — have been signally unsuccessful in the effort 

 to unite themselves in the large and powerful combinations 

 necessary to effective purpose on the grand scale. The 

 rudimentary association somehow hinders that which is wider 

 and more developed. If history establishes any distinctive 

 national characteristic of the English race it is the power to 

 sink minor differences and act on the joint compromise. The 

 country which can administer its law by getting twelve men 

 to be unanimous has in that very fact the key to its great 

 past. Pict, Scot, and Briton were not prone to be unani- 

 mous; they were too individual even to live together in 

 towns. Where the Celt was supreme there rose no burghs. 



Early Status. 



Annan's status has been discussed by other pens than 

 mine. George Chalmers, of amazing industry — alone of 

 Scottish topographical antiquaries fit without absurdity of 

 comparison to be ranked with the Englishman Camden — 

 was content with meagre evidence for the conclusion^ that 

 Annan was chartered by Alexander II. In truth, the evi- 

 dence is nil, for even if " Thomas on An " found on rare 

 coins does mean Thomas of Annan, or Thomas at Annan — 

 in itself no persuasive proposition — the burghal dignity would 

 not necessarily follow, although assuredly the presence of a 



5 Topography of Ireland, book 3, chapter 9. 



6 Caledonia, New Edition, ii., 176. 



