dumfries-1920/04-034

Transcription

HISTORICAL MONUMENTS (SCOTLAND) COMMISSION.

receive above a hundred persons 'at ease,' and forty or fifty horses." From the town
to the sea a ditch was dug, with but three places of passage, and another ditch
landward to a moss, similarly restricted in its approaches. There were also, within
two miles of the town, another tower to accommodate twenty-four horsemen, and a
high watch-tower with beacon and bell for warning. Such works put effective fetters
upon both freebooting exploits from the west and sudden raids from across the Border
- at least so far as the western districts were concerned. ¹
The strategic elements of Dumfriesshire, then, are obvious. They attach them-
selves primarily to the line of the lower Annan, where the cardinal point was the
town of Annan. This is further made clear by the Act of 1481 for the garrisoning
on that line of Lochmaben, Castlemilk, Bell's Tower (? Kirkconnel Tower on the
Kirtle), and Annan; also by Lord Herrie's recommendation in 1579 (cf. p. xli.) to

[Map inserted]
The town of Annan
FIG. 1. - Annan, c. 1560, showing Mote and Tower. ²

"strenthin the keipar dyke that environ-
ettis the town of Annan" and "cast and
strenthin the fuirds" of the river as had
been the "ancient ordour" (cf. also Art.
89). The second but more vital line is
that of the Nithsdale fortresses - Caer-
laverock, Dumfries, Dalswinton, Tibbers,
Durisdeer, and, it may be added, Morton.
Connection with England could be main-
tained through Dumfries and the estuary
of the Nith, or more regularly, through
Lochmaben and Annan to Skimburness.
Lochmaben was thus the strategic nucleus
of the defensive system, a fact abundantly
illustrated by its history. The Niths-
dale line seems curiously interdependent:
it goes down either way as a whole. After
his assassination of Comyn in 1306, Bruce
seized Dumfries, Caerlaverock, Tibbers, and Durisdeer. The English king promptly
set about their recapture. In 1309, out of about twenty-seven castles in English
occupation, there are here Caerlaverock, Lochmaben, Dumfries, Dalswinton, Tibbers.
By the close of 1313 probably all, and certainly the last three, had fallen to Bruce.
Lochmaben was among the very last strongholds in Scotland to hold out for Edward II.
Apart from Lochmaben, the most important positions, to judge from garrison
figures, were Dumfries and Tibbers; but the numbers in the former, as a base,
fluctuate considerably from time to time. Local names crop up in the English
accounts as in service on that side: in 1299 Sir Humphrey de Jardine and Sir
William de Herez; ³ in the garrisons of 1306 Thomas de Torthorwald, Hugh de
Dalswinton, Thomas Bell in command at Tibbers and Robert Bell at Durisdeer.
The same general principles characterise the fourth phase of the War of Independ-
ence, namely, that of the resistance to Edward III., which covers the reign of David
II., and the results of which are prolonged down to the reign of the second James.
It includes , however, a definite handing over to Edward III. by that transient king-
figure, Edward Balliol, of a huge sector of Lowland Scotland, including the town,
castle, and county of Dumfries. As in the earlier stages, too, the action of the local

1 Calendar Scottish Papers, ii. p. 155.
2 See Armstrong, App. lxx. p. cxii.
3 Bain, ii. No. 1115.

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