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sounds that emanated from the encampment. Stealthily crossing "Annan Water, wide and deep," they fell upon the enemy about midnight with the force of an avalanche. King Baliol was in bed, literally dreaming over again, it may be, the visions that had delighted him in his waking hours. Shouts of defiance, screams of terror, shrieks of agony, mad cries for mercy-could these sounds be the discordant medley of a hideous dream, following in horrible contrast upon the pleasant fancies that had preceded them? The royal sleeper awoke to find his camp assailed by a merciless foe, and his followers, who had on the previous day vowed to him everlasting fidelity, making but a feeble resistance-able, indeed, to offer scarcely any, as they were only half awake, and many of them naked, with neither sword nor buckler. Short and fearful was the fight; long and more terrible was the slaughter. With scarcely the rag of a royal robe to cover him from the cold, the miserable mimic of a king threw himself upon a cart horse, unfurnished with either saddle or bridle, and in this fashion galloped for bare life fifteen miles, stopping not till he reached Carlisle.* His brother Henry, Lord Walter Comyn, and many other persons of rank, were slain in the fray or during the flight, with many hundreds of common soldiers, the assailants losing very few of their number.†

*

Wyntoun, vol. ii., p. 159; Hume's House of Douglas, p. 80; and Redpath's Border History, p. 302.

+ About a mile from Moffat, on the side of the Beattock Road, may be seen an antique triple memorial, termed "The Three Stan'in' Stanes," which some authorities consider were raised on the site of this battle, to commemorate the officers slain there on the English side. Such an idea is quite untenable. While Buchanan states that the patriot army rendezvoused "prope Mophetam," near Moffat, he does not say that the conflict took place in the vicinity of that village; and the Chronicle of Lanercost distinctly fixes the locality thusUsque ad villam Annandiæ, que est in marchia inter regna," the town of Annan, which is on the march between the kingdoms. Besides, it is assumed in the idea that the nobles who fell were buried on the field, whereas Baliol obtained the bodies, and would doubtless cause them to be interred in consecrated ground. "The Three Stan'in' Stanes" are probably of Druidical origin.

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CHAPTER XI.

RENEWED EFFORTS AND SUCCESS OF BALIOL-HE REWARDS HIS PATRON, THE
ENGLISH MONARCH, BY ASSIGNING TO HIM A LARGE PORTION OF SCOTLAND
--RESISTANCE AND TRIUMPH OF THE PATRIOTS UNDER MURRAY-REIGN
OF DAVID IL-CARLYLE OF TORTHORWALD IS KILLED DEFENDING THE
KING AT THE BATTLE OF NEVILLE'S CROSS-INCIDENTS OF THE WARFARE
IN NITHSDALE AND ANNANDALE-HARROWING DOMESTIC EPISODE: MURDER
OF SIR ROGER KIRKPATRICK IN CARLAVEROCK CASTLE, BY HIS GUEST,
LINDSAY-CAPTURE OF THE ASSASSIN, AND HIS TRIAL AND EXECUTION AT
DUMFRIES-A BREATHING TIME OF PEACE, AND ITS BENEFICIAL RESULTS
ON THE TOWN AND DISTRICT-MORE BORDER RAIDS
RAVAGED BY THE ENGLISH UNDER LORD TALBOT--THEIR CAMP ON THE
SOLWAY IS SUDDENLY ATTACKED BY THE SCOTS WITH GREAT SLAUGHTER.

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DUMFRIESSHIRE

THIS visitation would have finished Baliol, had not the English monarch set him up anew. Next March, he was again at the head of an English army, invading Scotland, and laying siege to the Castle of Berwick. While thus engaged, Sir Archibald Douglas, with three thousand men, made a diversion on the south side of the Border, and returned laden with booty, after ravaging the whole district to the extent of thirty miles. With the view of paying him back in kind, Sir Anthony de Lacey, of Cockermouth, led a considerable force into Dumfriesshire. They plundered the country far and wide, till the stout Castle of Lochmaben, that had often before done good service, stopped their desolating march. Pity that its keeper, the gallant "Flower of Chivalry," Sir William Douglas, of Liddisdale, did not remain under its shelter, instead of sallying forth with chivalrous generosity, as he did, and giving the invaders battle in the open plain. He was taken prisoner in the engagement that ensued, together with a hundred men of rank; and upwards of a hundred and sixty of his soldiers were left dead on the disastrous field.* Among the slain were Sir Humphrey de Bois, of Dryfesdale (supposed by Dalrymple to be the ancestor

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of Hector Boece the historian), Sir Humphrey Jardine, and Sir William Carlyle, of Torthorwald. Lacey, satisfied with his success, proceeded with his captives and spoil to Carlisle*-the city where the goods stolen from Dumfriesshire in those days were generally resetted. The prisoned "Flower," loaded with fetters, pined in Carlisle Castle more than two years, but, unweakened by confinement, proved to be of the genuine thistle kind in many a subsequent encounter with the English.

The patriot cause suffered another serious blow when the Regent, Sir Andrew Murray, was made prisoner, in an abortive attempt to surprise the Castle of Roxburgh; and it was almost entirely crushed when Sir Archibald Douglas, his successor in the Regency, after a wasting raid into England, recrossed the Tweed, for the purpose of relieving Berwick, attacked an intervening army, strongly posted on Halidon Hill, and was thoroughly defeated, with great slaughter-Douglas himself being mortally wounded, and the Earls of Lennox, Ross, Sutherland, Carrick, Monteith, and Athol being numbered among the slain. Baliol's first failure was in these ways redeemed-his disgraceful escapade at Annan was revenged-and his aspirations once more mounted to the zenith.t

At the head of an immense force-twenty-six thousand men in number, it is said-he overran the greater part of Scotland, meeting with little opposition, and subjecting the whole of it, excepting the spots on which stood the Castles of Urquhart, Loch-Doon, Lochleven, Kildrummie, and Dumbarton. Even when this was accomplished, he remained but a nominal king. The Scots paid him an unwilling homage: remembering Bannockburn, they never supposed for a moment but that his puppet's part would soon be played out. The English, conscious of his indebtedness to them, became voracious in their demands. They had made him a king, and he must show his gratitude for their services, or he might find himself a crownless fugitive some day soon. He gave Lord Henry Percy Annandale and Moffatdale; and, to enable him to keep them with the strong hand, if need be, he added the Castle of Lochmaben to the grant. In this way Randolph's lands were disposed of; and

* Walsingham, p. 132.

+ Wyntoun, vol. ii.,

p. 170.

Redpath, p. 310.

the estates belonging to other Brucian nobles were handed over to other English lords, or those recreant patricians who were base enough to accept a reward for assisting to destroy their nation, and to feast on the honey which the lion's carcase yielded. "More! we must have more!" was the language of the exorbitant Southrons and their King. Baliol was placed in the position of a necromancer, who, after doing many marvellous feats, and acquiring much wealth, is required, by unceasing sacrifices, to propitiate the remorseless demon to whom he is indebted for his success.

It was not enough that Baliol had become the sworn vassal of Edward III., and had curtailed his own revenue by enriching that monarch's subjects; he must, over and above that deep humiliation, and these liberal largesses, give over in fee to his liege lord a goodly portion of Scottish land for annexation to England, and henceforth to be completely Anglicized. However mean-spirited Baliol was, he must have been disgusted by these exactive demands. Though loath to comply with them, he durst not hazard a refusal. In a Parliament held at Newcastle on the 12th of June, 1334, he, by a solemn legal instrument, invested his royal master with the ownership of the castle, town, and county of Berwick; of the castle, town, and county of Roxburgh; of the forts, towns, and forests of Jedburgh, Selkirk, and Ettrick; of the city, castle, and county of Edinburgh; of the constabularies of Haddington and Linlithgow; of the town and county of Peebles; and lastly, of the town, Castle, and County of Dumfries.* This most abject and disgraceful partition of the ancient kingdom of Scotland could not actually be carried out. The "departed spirits of the mighty dead" vetoed the arrangement: Wallace and Bruce, though mouldering in the dust, lived in the hearts of their countrymen, and dictated the nation's protest against the base perfidy of Baliol and the insatiable cupidity of the English King.

Edward III. supposed he had succeeded where an abler man (Edward I.) had failed. Having been invested in his new possessions, he made arrangements for their government-appointing sheriffs for each district, with Robert de Laudre as Chief Justice, and assigning to John de Bourdon the important office of Redpath, p. 310.

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General Chamberlain. One Peter Tilliol, of whom we know little, was made Sheriff of Dumfriesshire, and Keeper of the Castle of Dumfries.* To Edward de Bohun were given Moffatdale, Annandale, and the Castle of Lochmaben-Percy, their previous English possessor, receiving for them an equivalent; and they continued to be held by one or other of the Bohun family till the expulsion of the Southrons from the district. Scarcely had these police arrangements been effected, when Sir Andrew Murray, escaping from prison, unfurled the patriotic flag with such effect that Baliol took to flight from the country he had betrayed; and Edward III., dreading that his own tenure of it might be snapped asunder, passed with an army through Dumfries towards Glasgow, at the close of 1334-returning, however, in a hurry, as, though he encountered no military force, hunger, and the rigour of the season, drove him back over the Border. Next year he repeated the invasion, carrying desolation into the country as far as Morayshire, and being forced to retire a second time by the famine he had himself created. For fully three years longer the war continued, the Scots adopting the policy, recommended by Bruce, of avoiding pitched battles, and depending chiefly on guerrilla attacks, by which they risked little and severely harassed the enemy.

In the summer of 1338, Sir Andrew Murray died. He had for some time shared the Regency with Robert Stewart, who, on his death, became sole Regent. Murray had done much to keep alive the flame of Scottish patriotism; and when the management of affairs devolved entirely upon Stewart, they did not suffer at his hands. The Castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, and many smaller fortresses, were, one after another, wrested. by him from the invaders; and the national cause looked so promisingly that, in May, 1341, the young King, David, now eighteen years of age, ventured to return from France, where he had lived an exile nine long years. On landing at Inverbervie, in Kincardineshire, with his Queen, he was received with enthusiasm by the people, glad once more to have a sovereign amongst them, and that sovereign the son of the Bruce under

* Fœdera, p. 615; also, Rotuli Scotia, vol. i., p. 271, in which the following entry occurs :-' "Petrius Tilliol, de officio vice comitatus de Dumfries, et custodia castri R. ibidem."

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