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DISTURBED CONDITION OF THE
BORDER CONTINUED—AMALGAMATION OF NATIONALITIES—INFLUENCE OF ST
MARGARET—GROWING IMPORTANCE OF THE BORDER—EARLY NOTICES OF BORDER
LOCALITIES—FOUNDATION AND RISE OF THE BORDER ABBEYS —KELSO: EARLY ABBOTS,
ARCHITECTURE, ARTS AND INDUSTRIES, POSSESSIONS AND REVENUES, PRIVATE
BENEFACTIONS, CULTIVATION AND TENANCY OF LAND— MELROSE ABBEY: OLD MELROSE,
‘CHRONICA DE MAILROS,’ ARCHITECTURE OF ABBEY, JOHN MOROW—JEDBURGH: EARLY
FOUNDATION, GRANTS TO THE ABBEY, DAILY LIFE THERE, ARCHITECTURE—EARLY BORDER
CHURCHES—INFLUENCE OF THE MONKS—DAWN OF THOUGHT AND POETRY IN THE BORDERS ;
DRITHELM ; MICHAEL SCOT, ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF A BORDER ORIGIN, EARLY
STUDIES AND SUBSEQUENT CAREER, TRUE CHARACTER, LEGENDS; THOMAS THE RHYMER,
LOCALITIES ASSOCIATED WITH HIS NAME, PROPHECIES ATTRIBUTED TO HIM, THEIR
LOCAL ALLUSIONS ; LORD SOULIS ; HABBY KER.
With Malcolm II., the victor
of Carham, and the grandfather of Duncan, who succeeded him on the throne,
and was murdered by Macbeth, we come at last to historical characters whose
names are tolerably familiar. For a number of years to come, however, the
history of the Border counties is still almost a blank ; although notices
such as, for instance, those which tell of Malcolm’s vengeance for
depredations committed by Othred, Earl of Northumbria, upon Cumberland, or
of Canute’s marching northward at the head of an army to exact that fealty
for Cumberland which Malcolm, who regarded him as a usurper, had refused to
pay, and which happily was exacted without recourse to bloodshed—such
notices as these suffice to show us that the country was not allowed to
forget the use of arms. And it may here be explained that Cumbria, or the
southern portion of the British kingdom of Strathclyde, had been granted in
the middle of the preceding century by Athel-stane’s successor, Edmund, who
had conquered it, as a fief to Malcolm I.
About 1054 the redoubtable
Siward, Earl of Northumbria, acting in collusion with Macduff, Thane of
Fife, marched northward at the head of an expedition having for object to
displace Macbeth and set Maico'm, the son of the murdered Duncan, on the
throne—which objects were eventually accomplished, though not until after
Siward’s death.2 The reign of Malcolm, surnamed C'anmore, is remarkable for
the success with which, partly in arms, partly by timely submission, that
king held his own against England, even the England of William the
Conqueror. He had known exile himself, so fellow-feeling may possibly have
played a part among the motives which led him to espouse the cause of Eadgar
/Etheling, the disinherited heir to the English crown, who found an asylum
in his Court, and whose sister he married. Partly in his brother-in-law’s
interest, Malcolm invaded Northumberland no less than five times—his conduct
in this respect serving to keep up the tradition of disturbance in that part
of England, or, as may perhaps be said, inaugurating that practice of
raiding which was to become so prominent in later years. And, indeed, if we
may trust the not unprejudiced narrative of Symeon, there was a time during
this reign when Scotland was so well supplied with English slaves that not
only no village, but even no cottage, lacked them.1 On the other side, both
Robert of Normandy and William Rufus made expeditions into Lothian; but
beyond such warlike matters as these, which are briefly noted, few events of
this reign in which the Borders are concerned are known. It is evident,
however, that Lothian, as it was the richest, now became also the most
important, part of the king’s possessions. And it is also noteworthy that—
since Cumbria had been wrested from him by Rufus—at the time of his death,
which occurred in 1093, this king left the southern border of
Scotland—marked off by the river Tweed, the range of the Cheviots, and the
Solway Firth— practically what it has been ever since.
It was Malcolm Canmore’s good
fortune that he might be held to unite in his own person claims to the
allegiance of every party in the state; for he was not only grandson of
Malcolm I. of Scotland, and son of Duncan (who had long been recognised as
ruler of Strathclyde), but likewise kinsman of Siward of Northumbria, as
well as, by his first marriage, widower of Ingibiorg—widow of the Norwegian
Earl of Orkney—and lastly, husband of Margaret, sister of the Etheling. In
these circumstances it is quite probable that, as Mr Skene points out, under
Malcolm’s rule great progress was made in the amalgamation of the different
provinces, with their heterogeneous populations, which served to make up his
kingdom. And yet it is rather as a preparation for what was to come after it
than on its own account that to us this reign is of importance. Probably
there is no one woman to whom Scotland owes more than to Malcolm’s queen,
and we must count ourselves fortunate in possessing a well-written life of
her. Her biographer has told us how, whilst still in the flower of youth,
“she began to lead a very strict life, to love God above all things, to
employ herself in the study of the divine writings, and therein with joy to
exercise her mind.” And as she grew in years, so did she grow in grace. Of
the tenderness and delicacy of her charity there may be cited, as a single
instance, her treatment of the English slaves already mentioned, whose
ransom, when their bondage appeared to her heavier than they could bear, she
was in the habit of paying secretly, in order that they might be set at
liberty. Her charity was equalled alike by the fervour and constancy of her
devotion, and by the rigour of her asceticism. Nature had endowed her with
such gifts and graces of mind and person as best enabled her to recommend to
others what seemed good and beautiful to herself; and certainly there are
few pictures of domestic life more touching than that which Turgot has drawn
from life of her influence over her savage and unlettered lord. But it is as
a mother rather than as a wife that she has a special interest for
ourselves. Turgot tells us that she devoted the utmost care to training her
children in virtue, with her own lips instructing them “about Christ and the
things of Christ”; and it is probably not too much to say that the influence
of this training was felt in Scotland—through the seven kings who sprang
from her — for a space of two hundred years, or that some of its results, as
it affected one of her sons, are among the most conspicuous features of the
Border country to this day. Nor was her immediate influence restricted to
domestic matters only, a share in the government of the country being
intrusted by her warlike husband to her hands. Many immigrants had followed
her to Scotland, and by their instrumentality she found a further field for
her exertions in fostering enlightenment and the civilising arts.
The reigns of Margaret’s
sons, Edgar, and Alexander, surnamed the Fierce, were, as regards the
Borders, uneventful, except that Strathclyde was then for a time in a manner
separated from the rest of Scotland, having been bequeathed by Edgar to his
brother David, out of gratitude for wise advice. But on the accession of the
latter, in 1124, it again came directly under the Scottish crown. And it is
with the accession of David I. that the Border counties, as we may now call
them, first begin to emerge into distinct existence—and, indeed, not only
into distinct existence but into prominence, as the centre of Scottish life
and government. Heretofore, in such incidental notices as have come down to
us, they have been undistinguished from the surrounding country; but during
this and the following century we begin to hear of Sheriffs of Roxburgh,
Selkirk, and Peebles. At the same time we first hear of the Border towns.
The name of Jedburgh had, indeed, appeared in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as
far back as the year 952; but from David’s accession onward Rokesburgh, or
Roxburgh, is very frequently mentioned in history. The town took its name
from the castle, and it seems probable that the unique strategical position
of the latter — on an eminence between two rivers—would lead to its being
utilised for a stronghold from the earliest times. Camden says that its
ancient name was Marchidun—the Castle on the Marches —which is not quite
accurately descriptive. Roxburgh is Rawic’s burgh. Jeffrey infers that the
town of Roxburgh, which was in close proximity to the castle, was defended
by a wall and ditch.8 The importance to which it had already risen is shown
by the fact that, in the year following David’s accession, it was chosen as
the scene of a great ecclesiastical council, to which the bishops of the
land were convened, and at which the Pope was represented by his legate, the
Cardinal Johannes Cremensis. The object of the council was discussion of the
relations of the Scottish Church with the see of York, or Canterbury—a
question which had been brought into very prominent notice by the case of
Eadmer, bishop-designate of St Andrews, in the previous reign. In this
matter the Pope, Honorius II., had reserved to himself the right of final
judgment. But the council came to no determination.
Doubtless from Roxburgh,
also, went forth those repeated and redoubted expeditions which were
organised by David, after the death of Henry I. of England, for the
assistance of the Scots king’s niece, the Empress Maud. In 1136 an appeal of
Thorstein, Archbishop of York, who went to Roxburgh for the purpose, served
to delay one of these expeditions during Stephen’s absence in Normandy. And
when, two years later, David retired before the usurper, it was to occupy
“certain solitudes" in the neighbourhood of the same place. It is further
asserted that had Stephen entered Roxburgh, as was expected, he would have
been betrayed or surprised. He may have got wind of the plot, however, for
he crossed the Tweed at another place — thence proceeding to lay waste the'
Scottish Border until compelled by famine to withdraw. Sieges by David of
the Border fortresses of Wark and Norham were important incidents of the
warfare of these two years, and it is with regret that one is compelled to
record that upon that warfare the stain of singular barbarity remains. David
had married Matilda, daughter and heiress of Waltheof, Earl of
Northumberland, and it seems that, in the troubles of the neighbouring
kingdom, he saw an opportunity for pressing the claim of his son, Prince
Henry, to that fief. It also appears that Stephen was not unwilling to
purchase the neutrality of the Scottish king by concession in that direction
; for at the Peace of Durham, which followed the Battle of the Standard,2 he
invested Henry with the whole of Northumberland, excepting only Newcastle
and Bamborough, and from that time until David’s death its affairs were
administered from Scotland.
Meantime, whilst Roxburgh had
been assuming this position of importance in the country, the town of
Peebles had not altogether lagged behind; for we are told by Chambers that,
“besides confirming previous grants, David endowed it with gifts of land and
privileges adequate to its support.” The region of Selkirk, less favourably
situated, was probably less advanced. It appears to have been Crown
property—“the pasture-land of royal flocks and herds”— and to have formed
part of a forest, of vast extent in a westward direction, wherein the king
might indulge his fondness for the chase. Up to this time its only approach
to towns were the collection of shiels, or shielings, by the Gala —
“Galaschul,” and a village inhabited by the king’s foresters and shepherds,
beside which a church had been founded by the sect called the Culdees. The
latter came to be known as Scheleschirche, or the Kirk of the Shiels.
It is, of course, for
advancement in the arts of peace far more than for warfare that the reign of
David I. remains among the most memorable in the Borders. Indeed it is
impossible to examine the documents of the time, with their careful
provisions for marking off boundaries, for protecting sporting privileges,
and the like, without experiencing a sensation of wonder at the surprising
progress which they denote. It may be that, had more of the documents of
Malcolm Canmore’s reign been preserved, this transition would have seemed
less abrupt. Still it is undoubted that the personal influence of the king,
educated as he had been amid the refinement of the English court, together
with that of his Norman baronage, and of the clergy who enjoyed such favour
at his hands, must count for much.
David’s biography by his
friend, Ailred of Rievaulx,1 is written too much after the manner of a
monkish excursus or exhortation, and dwells mainly on the king’s great
devotional fervour and stringent self-discipline. But among the few secular
traits which it preserves are his unremitted labour, his ready attention to
the wants of the humblest among his subjects, and his encouragement, among
an uncultivated people, of the arts of gardening and building. It is with
the last that we are now to be concerned.
On this subject it has been
remarked that, “as if foreseeing that his favourite valley was to become, in
later times, the field of arms for two nations,” David restored ancient
monasteries and founded new ones thickly over Teviotdale; and that these
were ultimately destined not only to spread the blessings of religion, and,
in part, to tame the rough Borderer, but to afford him sometimes an asylum
and support when war had wasted all that was not under the protection of the
Church. Already in 1113, as Prince of Strathclyde, David had brought over
from the Abbey of Tiron, in Picardy, a colony of thirteen monks of the
reformed Benedictine order, whom he had established beside the Kirk of the
Shiels. These he had endowed with large estates both in Scotland and in his
English earldom of Huntingdon; but the foreigners, who may have been
discontented in exile, found the situation unsuitable for an abbey. In
consequence of this, and acting by the advice of his trusted counsellor
John, Bishop of Glasgow, in 1116 David, now King of Scotland, removed the
monastery to the Church of the Blessed Virgin on the banks of Tweed at
“Calkou,” and there considerably augmented its revenues. At Kelso two years
seem to have been devoted by the monks to necessary preparation and to
building houses for themselves, but on the 3rd May 1128 the conventual
church of the new abbey was founded. The abbey was dedicated to the Virgin
and St John the Evangelist, and its first abbot was Herbert, who also held
the office of chancellor of the kingdom.
The abbey thus founded rose
rapidly in riches and importance, and, in time, claimed precedence of all
the monasteries of Scotland—a point which was disputed alone by the Priory
of St Andrews. The abbots were from the beginning men of first importance in
the kingdom, who resigned their abbacy only to accept the highest
preferment. Thus, on the death of Bishop John mentioned above, we find Abbot
Herbert called to the bishopric of Glasgow; whilst Ernald, his successor in
the abbacy of Kelso, is in due course transferred to the see of St Andrews.
In his capacity as Royal Chaplain this Ernald was much at Court, and played
an important part in public affairs of the time, as did also his successor,
John. In the meantime the interests of the abbey were kept steadily in view,
and no opportunity of adding to its powers and privileges was overlooked.
At the time of the foundation
the Bishop of St Andrews, in whose diocese Kelso was situated, had granted
to the abbot and convent a perpetual exemption from all episcopal dues and
restrictions, and no long period was to elapse ere they began to enjoy in a
high degree the countenance of Rome itself. Thus Abbot Ernald became legate
of the Roman see for Scotland, whilst John obtained from the Pope, Alexander
III., by personal solicitation, the signal distinction of permission to
assume the mitre—a mark of favour which was extended to his successors also.
This abbot—who had been raised from the position of cantor of the
abbey—would appear to have been a man of peculiarly ambitious temper; for we
also find him engaged in a dispute, opposed to all custom, with the parent
Abbey of Tiron, for “ priority and subjection.” It was during his supremacy
that a colony of monks went out from Kelso to establish the Abbey of
Aberbrothoc. The favour of Pope Alexander III. to Kelso was followed up by
his successors, Lucius and Innocent III., who granted the abbey special
immunities in respect to excommunication—the latter enacting that, though
the whole kingdom were under interdict, the monks of Kelso should still be
privileged to celebrate the services of religion in their church—the offices
being conducted in a low voice, with closed doors, and without the use of
bells. And this is but a single mark of what seems to have been the special
favour of Innocent to Kelso Abbey, for we also find him taking it under his
special protection, and granting it exemption from all episcopal
jurisdiction save that of the Holy See itself. In 1215 Abbot Henry of Kelso
was present at Rome at a council held for the purpose of concerting measures
against the Waldenses and Albigenses; whilst, some thirty years later, a
further mark of papal favour was bestowed upon the abbey in the form of
special powers for excommunicating by name ill-doers and enemies to that
church. The rite in this instance was to be performed upon a Sunday or
holiday, with lighted candles and ringing of bells.
In the meantime—whilst the
Monastery of Kelso was gradually assuming, under a succession of able and
ambitious abbots, a position of more and "more independence and power in the
world—the building of the abbey church was being constantly carried on. It
is supposed to have occupied about a hundred years, and the remains—ruinous
as they now are—may be held to illustrate the variation of architectural
style in Scotland during that period. The first thing which strikes the
spectator on beholding them is that the chancel is of much greater length
than the nave, a remarkable exception to the general rule, of which no
satisfactory explanation has been given— though that it was a part of the
original plan of the building is obvious, as well from the fact that the
measurements of nave and transepts correspond, as from the style of the
western doorway showing it to have been among the earlier parts of the
building. The construction seems to have commenced with the chancel, of
which but a fragment remains, the aisles having entirely disappeared. Two
main piers, however, which with their arches are still left standing,
together with two storeys of arcades above them, serve to illustrate the
change of architectural style ; as does also the west front, where the
historical intersecting arches may be seen. The chancel arcades just
mentioned represent the triforium and clerestory, and their arches being
continuous (without interspaces of wall), present an effect which is both
striking and unusual.
The character of the crossing
is transitional, as is indicated by the pointed arch—probably introduced in
this position to give strength to sustain the tower—and by the bases and
caps of the piers. The mouldered and broken doorway of the west front—with
its deep-splayed circular arch, and characteristic mouldings, nail-heads,
zigzags, and other enrichments—is a remarkable specimen of the late Norman
period. In other respects the style of the west front is transitional— the
whole facade being treated as a single design, and contrasting in this
respect with the facade of the north transept, in which the treatment is by
storeys. Again, the doorpiece in the north wall of the north transept is a
fine example of transitional workmanship. The lower storey of the tower
belongs to the same period as the choir; whilst the upper portion, with its
quatrefoils and deeply-recessed pointed windows, has been rebuilt at a later
date. Thus the architectural styles in vogue in Scotland during the latter
part of the twelfth, and the earlier part of the thirteenth, century are
well exemplified.
During all this time, and
probably for long after it, many other forms of industry besides that of
building must have been practised in the abbey. A part of the reforms
recently introduced by St Bernard the Less among his Benedictines had been
the cultivation of arts and crafts, as a safeguard against idleness. Thus
among the monks of Tiron there were painters and carvers, besides husbandmen
and carpenters. And to these the writer of the preface to the Registrum adds
sculptors in stone and marble, tilemakers, lead and iron workers, and
painters upon glass. From a charter of the thirteenth century we also know
that the monks kept a school, which was resorted to by rich and poor from
the neighbourhood. Another art practised in the abbey was caligraphy, and of
this specimens have survived. Besides the charters of the abbey, which have
been preserved in the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh for at least two
hundred years (the earlier charters apparently in copies made early in the
fourteenth century), it is supposed that a copy of Wyntoun’s Chronicle was
written at Kelso. But the most artistically interesting relic of this kind
of work as there practised is the great charter of Malcolm IV., preserved
among the archives of the Dukes of Roxburghe at Floors. In this document
each of the arches of the initial letter contains a highly finished
illuminated portrait of a male figure, throned and crowned, and wearing
royal robes. These figures are believed to represent the founder of the
abbey and his grandson Malcolm, and the beardless face and curled hair of
the latter may probably throw light on his nickname of The Maiden.
Literature itself was not neglected amid the cloistered quiet and peaceful
surroundings of the abbey. Herbert and Ernald, abbots, are known to have
been authors, respectively, of a historical monograph and of a ‘ Treatise on
Right Government ’; whilst Walter, who was prior about the year 1160, wrote
tracts and letters—one of which dealt with the vexed question of the freedom
of the Scottish Church. But—undeniable as were their enlightenment and their
usefulness—it was probably less for these than for their works of charity
and hospitality that the monks of Kelso were celebrated. Of the latter there
is early and incontestable evidence; whilst the study of their charters
further reveals them in the light of wise and liberal administrators of the
wide estates which they came to own. And when at length, after nearly two
hundred years of prosperity, these good men fell on evil days, there were
the best of reasons for the lamentations of the Border-land.
The first lands bestowed in
the form of endowment upon the Tironensian colonists were naturally at
Selkirk, and are none too clearly defined as follows : “ The land of
Selkirk, from where a rivulet descending from the hills runs into Yarrow, as
far as to that rivulet which, coming down from Crossinemere, flows into
Tweed; and beyond the said rivulet which falls into Yarrow a certain
particle of land between the road which leads from the castle to the abbey
and Yarrow— that is, towards the old town.’’ With these were associated the
towns of Middelham (Midlem), Bothendenam (Bowden), and Aldona (Holydene)—in
the king’s words, “Just as I possess them, in lands, waters, wood, and
cleared ground ”; besides the lordship of Melrose, and possessions in
Sprouston, Berwick, and Roxburgh. And to these (deducting Melrose, which had
been in the meantime withdrawn), on the transference of the abbey to Kelso,
David added that town— “ with its proper bounds in land and water,
discharged quit and free from every burden”; Reveden, or Redden—with right
of water, pasture, and peat-cutting; thirty acres of land at Lilliesclif,
betwixt Ale and the stream which divides the lands of Midlem and Lilliesclif;
Withelawe (Whitelaw), and Traverlen (Crailing), with its “crag”; besides
rights in Edinham and elsewhere. Further, in Roxburgh he gave them the
churches (apparently three in number) and schools of the burgh, with the
property assigned thereto.
In addition to gifts of real
property, David made the monks many grants in commodities. Thus we find a
charter of Alexander II. commuting for a money payment a right on the part
of the monks to the tithe of the king’s cows and swine, and kane cheese of
Nithsdale and Tweeddale, and to the half of the hides and tallow of the
cattle slaughtered for his kitchen on the south side of the Firth of Forth,
with all the skins of the sheep and lambs, and the tenth of the deer-skins.
Besides the above there fall to be reckoned, as bestowed at this time,
privileges—such as, for instance, a monopoly in the mill at Ednam, and last,
if not least, the fishing rights in certain waters of the Tweed. Among the
latter is specified the water extending from the bounds of Kelso to Birgham,
celebrated in the present day as containing the pick of the salmon - casts,
which have been known within recent years to command in rent as much as ^400
a-year. Verily, had the case of Kelso been solitary, instead of one of many,
it might almost have been held of itself to justify the plaintive remark of
James I., quoted by Major, that his ancestor had been “ane sair sanct for
the Crown!” In the geat charter alluded to above, Malcolm IV. confirmed all
the gifts of his grandfather to the abbey, which also received some further
accessions from himself and his successors.
But, of course, the
sovereigns were not by any means the only benefactors of the abbey. On the
contrary, to follow the royal example soon became the fashion, not only
among members of the landed aristocracy, but among the wealthier burgesses
as well. Of their benefactions a few examples must suffice. To one Maccus,
son of Undweyn, David I. had granted certain lands near the confluence of
Tweed and Teviot, called from the name of the grantee Maccusville, or
Maxwell—the cradle of the great family of that name. A member of this
family, Herbert de Maxwell, who flourished in this and subsequent reigns,
grants the church of the village of Maxwell, dedicated to St Michael, to the
monks of Kelso Abbey. And to this was added — subsequently of course to
1170, the year of Becket’s martyrdom — the neighbouring chapel of St Thomas
the Martyr, which had been founded and endowed with a toft by the same
Herbert. It may be mentioned in passing that the field in which this chapel
stood is still known by the name of the Chapel Park, and that the
traditional site of the chapel has been marked with a stone. The name of
Maccus occurs again in Maxton, the name of a village a few miles higher up
the Tweed. In the reign of Malcolm IV., Galfrid de Perci granted to the
church and monks of Kelso, “for the salvation of his soul, and that of David
and his son Henry, and those of his ancestors and successors,” a carucate,
or ploughgate, of fivescore and four acres of land in Heiton, adjoining the
land of the Hospital of Roxburgh1—that is, the land still known as
Maisondieu, where outlines formed by the dtbris of buildings are still very
noticeable, and where (according to Jeffrey) the monks of Kelso had a
hospital “for the reception of pilgrims, the diseased, and the indigent.”
Then, in the same reign, William de Morville and Muriel his wife grant the
monks six oxgangs of land in the territory of Brockesmuth (on the Tweed,
between Makerstoun and Floors)—a gift which is confirmed and doubled, after
De Morville’s death, by his widow and her second husband, Robert de
Landels.2 Bernard de Hau-dene, or Hadden, whose uncle had received the manor
of that name from King William, added to lands which the monks already held
there eight acres and a rood, which adjoined them ;3 Uctred of Molle, or
Mow, on Bowmont Water, granted the church of that place, with land adjacent,
carefully defined—which he and “ Aldred the dean have walked over”;4 whilst
Anselm of Molle, Richard Scot, his son, and many others, made further
benefactions in that then important district, from which the tide of life
has now so strangely turned.
The above are but a few
examples, selected almost at random from, the vast array of benefactions
recorded in the charters, for the purpose of illustrating the manner in
which the estates of the abbey were accumulated. And it may be sufficient to
add that those benefactions include not grants by local landowners alone,
but gifts of lands situated across the Border—as at Shotton or Colpinhopes,—as
well as of churches and lands in such comparatively remote localities as
Peebles, Innerleithen, Linton Roderick or West Linton, Hermitage in
Liddesdale, Duddingston, Edinburgh, Calder, Pencaitland, Lesmahagow,
Cambusnethan, and Dumfries. Not infrequently these gifts .are made
specifically for the benefit of the soul of a relative or friend of the
donor, or in consideration of a right granted to the benefactor to have a
private chapel in his house. Nor, as has been already hinted, did the
benefactions proceed from great landed proprietors alone. Thus, under King
William, we find Arnald, son of Peter of Kelso, granting to the monks the
messuage in Kelso which had been his father’s, together with three shillings
of annual rent to be paid by Ralph, Provost of Kelso, and his heirs; whilst
one Andrew Maunsel gives them leave to construct a weir fur their mill at
Kelso upon a part of his ground lying to the east of the town of Roxburgh.
There exist indications that
the earliest system of land-tenancy employed by the monks of Kelso was that
known as “steelbow,” by which the landlord advances to the occupier, with
his farm, the stock or “plant” necessary for cultivating it. Thus it is
recorded that at Redden each husbandman, or tenant of a holding of
twenty-six acres, received with his land two oxen, a horse, three chalders
of oats, six bolls of barley, and three of wheat. Our principal source for
information regarding the system of cultivation pursued by the monks
relates, however, to a later time than this. It is an interesting rent-roll
of the abbey, belonging to about the year 1290; at which period — as the
result of many years of peace and prosperity — the status of the cultivator
had so risen that he was able not only to dispense with advances in kind
from his landlord, but even to some extent to commute for a money rent the
various stipulated “services” by which he held his land.
The rent-roll, which has been
ably analysed by Mr Cosmo Innes, shows the monks in the character of farmers
on a great scale, devoting themselves with business - like thoroughness and
minute attention to detail to the management of their estates. It appears
that then, and probably always, they kept the greater part of their lands in
their own hands, cultivating them from granges, which were under the
superintendence of a monk or a lay-brother. Among other places, there were
granges at Redden, Sprouston, Mow, Fawdon, and Bowden. These granges
consisted of large farm-steadings, with the usual accommodation for the
housing of labourers and stock, and the storing of grain and implements. A
mill adjoined them. The crops raised were wheat, oats, and barley; whilst
stock consisted principally of sheep, pigs, and’ cows. Oxen were chiefly
used for ploughing — twelve, used either together or in two relays, being
allotted to each of the old-fashioned ploughs — and, except for this
purpose, they do not seem to have been bred in large numbers by the monks.
Of course in Teviotdale pasture-lands were extensive, and the careful
provisions relating to folds and byres in the hill districts, and to
temporary lodges for the herds, show that this branch of farming received
minute attention. Innes’s Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 147. Some of the
rights which we are most apt to associate with modern feeling are curiously
protected by these old charters. One grant of pasturage especially pro-also
carefully protected from encroachment by tillage, and penalties were exacted
for the trespassing of sheep or cattle. Roads appear to have been frequent.
Waggons were in use for harvest - work, and wains — perhaps sledges — for
bringing peat from the moss. Wheaten bread was eaten on holidays.
The labour of the farm was
carried on by .serfs or villeins— styled nativi, and no doubt recruited from
the original inhabitants of the country—a class of bondmen, housed with
their families at the granges, and with them transferred from owner to owner
like the. land they cultivated. Of this form of slavery Innes quotes the
instance of “Halden and his brother William, with all their children and all
their descendants,” conveyed, in a deed four lines long, by an Earl of
Dunbar to the abbey. A later deed conveys—together with some lands at
Gordon—two crofts occupied by Adam of the Hog and John the son of Lethe,
“and Adam of the Hog himself with all his following,” and others. It has
been thought that a comparison of these two bonds reveals a difference in
the condition of the parties disposed of—the former admitting the connection
of the serf with the soil, and possibly the existence of rights therewith;
the latter regarding him as an absolute villein, or mere article of
property. But it is not apparent that any distinction of this kind was
recognised by the law. It may be pointed out in passing that the condition
of the old adscriptus glel’ie on the Borders again suggests a marked
contrast with the present order of things — under vides against the erection
of permanent buildings; whilst provisions against possible disturbance to
game, and especially to the red-deer, are of frequent occurrence. In spite
of a prevalent impression to the contrary, arising from a peculiar use of
the term “forest/* there is also evidence to show that the South of Scotland
was not at this time well supplied with timber, and that rights of
wood-cutting were carefully preserved (Liber de Melrose, Bannatyne Club,
Preface). which the hind and his family are generally prepared to “flit” for
the smallest inducement, or for none. Still, we must not forget that what at
this distance of time looks like slavery may, after all, have been generally
regarded mainly as an arrangement of convenience.
Of course the villeins
constituted but one among several ranks of cultivators under the monks, and
the only class, it may be added, who were not virtually and effectually free
from servitude. Next in order above them were the “cottars,” whose dwellings
— sometimes from thirty to forty in number—would form a hamlet adjoining the
grange. Each of these cottars would occupy from one to nine acres of land,
for which, and his cottage, he paid a rent varying from one to six shillings
yearly, with services which were not to exceed nine days’ labour in the
year. Examples of this form of tenancy are quoted from Clarilaw, where
twenty-one cottars, holding each, in addition to their cottages, three acres
less a rood of land, and grazing for two cows, paid each two bolls of meal
yearly, and were bound to reap the corn of the abbey grange of Newton.
Next in order came the
husband/', or holders of “ husband-lands,” averaging about twenty-six acres
in extent, whose holdings were scattered round those of the cottars. Each of
these “ husbandmen ” kept two oxen, and six of them would unite to furnish
the strength necessary to work the common plough. At Bowden, where the monks
had twenty-eight husband-lands, each tenant sat at a yearly rent of six
shillings and eightpence, in addition to the services which he was bound to
perform.
These services, which may be
considered typical, are specified as follows:—
“Four days’ reaping in
harvest, the husbandman with his wife and all their family; and a fifth day,
the husbandman with two other men;
Above the husbandmen came the
yeomen—a numerous class, holding their lands in perpetuity in consideration
of certain rents and services; and lastly, the great Church vassals, who had
lands free of all service, and occupied a position second only to that of
the baronage and freeholders of the Crown.
In dealing with the Border
abbeys, I have dwelt on Kelso at considerable length, not only as having
precedence of the others in time and rank, but also as constituting in many
respects a type. The others may therefore be dealt with more rapidly. The
next to. be considered is Melrose — a name which takes us back to the period
of St Cuthbert. The old monastery had been burned in 839, during an invasion
of Northumbria, by the King of Scots; but it seems
“One day carting peats from
Gordon to the Pullis (Pools), and one cartload yearly from the Pullis to the
abbey;
“The service of a man and
horse to and from Berwick once a-year; and on this occasion they were to
have their food from the monastery. (The husbandmen of Redden were bound
each to give carriage with one horse from Berwick weekly during summer, and
a day’s work on their return— or, if they did not go to Berwick, two days’
tillage) In these services of carriage, a horse’s load was three bolls of
com, or two bolls of salt, or one and a half bolls of coals ; or somewhat
less in winter;
“To till an acre and a half,
and to give a day’s harrowing with one horse yearly;
“To find a man for the
sheep-washing, and one for the sheep-shearing : these were to be fed from
the monastery ;
“To serve with a waggon one
day yearly, for carrying home the harvest;
“All were bound to carry the
abbot’s wool from their barony to the abbey, and to find carriages across
the moor to Lesmahago.”
It is probable that alt
tenants and vassals of the abbey were also bound to co-operate in relieving
it of military and other public services—of which an example is found at
Prestfield, part of the barony of Bowden, which is bound to provide a
man-at-arms to be captain over thirty archers furnished by the barony.
Among all the services
specified above, it is noticeable that, except in the harvest-field, no farm
labour is exacted from women to have been restored again before 875. At any
rate, in the latter year it served as one of the many resting-places of St
Cuthbert’s body, which the legend declares to have miraculously floated
thence, in its stone coffin, down the Tweed as far as Tillmouth. Towards the
end of the eleventh century, however, the monastery had again become ruinous
and deserted, and from this time forth the establishment is heard of
principally as a chapel dedicated to St Cuthbert and much resorted to by
pilgrims — by whom, when travelling thither from the north, the ancient road
known as the Girth-gate is thought to have been made. At this time the
chapel was attached to the Priory of Coldingham; but in 1136, when David
founded a new monastery somewhat higher up the Tweed, he annexed the older
one to it, making good the loss to Coldingham by a gift of the church at
Berwick. Henceforward St Cuthbert’s chapel sinks to secondary importance,
though it continued in existence until finally destroyed by the English in
the Border warfare with Bruce.
By the munificence of David,
the new abbey was endowed with the lands of Melrose, Eildon, Darnick, and
Gattonside, with rights of fishing in the Tweed, of timber and pasturage in
the forests of Selkirk and Traquair, and of pasturage in the land lying
between Gala and Leader on the north side of the Tweed4—which grants were
confirmed by Prince Henry and were rapidly swelled, as in the case of Kelso,
by private benefactions. Besides possessions in Northumberland, the abbey
held in particular wide estates in Galloway and other parts of the west,
which from their situation lie outside the immediate scope of this volume.
In 1235 Alexander II. granted it the lands of Ettrick Forest. As at Kelso
again, the monks— who came from Rievaulx in Yorkshire, and were the first of
their kind introduced into Scotland—belonged to a reformed order of
Benedictines,—in this case known as Cistertians, from their first monastery
at Cisteaux. But the Cistertians, at any rate in earlier times, differed
from the Tironenses in the severer regulation and greater asceticism of
their lives. Thus the receipt of dues from mills was forbidden to them, and
they were under strict sumptuary laws in regard to diet and the accessories
of life — illuminated manuscripts, rich windows, and the ecclesiastical
employment of precious stones and metals, being discountenanced among them.
Also, in face of the monkish adage that “cloister life without letters is a
living death,” the cultivation of classical literature was discouraged.
Enjoined, at least in theory, to live by the labour of their hands, they
became, like their neighbours at Kelso, great patrons and exponents of
husbandry and cattle-feeding. Their alternative occupation — original
thought being to some extent fettered—consisted in the transcribing of
books, and it is to their industry in this department that a most
interesting surviving memorial of them is due. This is the ‘ Chronica de
Mailros,’ a record of events of the highest value in Scottish history. The
names of its authors are unknown; but expressions employed by them prove it
to have been produced in the abbey, whilst the evidence from writing shows
it to have been the work of successive hands labouring in successive epochs.
Opening in the year 735, for several centuries it is mainly, though not
quite exclusively, a compilation from such works as the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle and those of Symeon and Hoveden. For the monkish chroniclers, who
generally wrote simply for utilitarian purposes, aimed rather at producing
books of reference than works of literary merit, and thus did not scruple to
take their information where they found it, or to copy slavishly from their
predecessors. From about the year 1140, however, onward to its abrupt
termination in 1270, the Chronicle has a higher value, its information being
then at first-hand and generally contemporaneous. As its compilers had
copied from others, so other compilers in their turn copied from it, and
with this object it appears to have been freely “lent out.” The MS. now
survives in a single copy deposited in the Cottonian Library, having
probably been carried off from Melrose about the time of the Reformation.
Besides its Chronicle, Melrose has handed down a collection of charters
which is perhaps unrivalled in Scotland. It comprises above a hundred royal
writs, dating from the reign of David to that of Bruce, and is rich in
illustrations of the social life and economy of the period. This collection
was preserved among the archives of the Earls of Morton, to whose family the
abbacy was granted after the suppression of the monasteries.
The luxuriant and charmingly
fanciful decorations of Melrose as it now stands form a somewhat startling
comment on the recorded asceticism of its monks. Doubtless the rigour of
that asceticism became with time relaxed; but we have also to remember that
the ruins now seen are not those of the church which—having taken ten years
to build—was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin on Sunday, the 28th July 1146.
That edifice was doubtless in a style of architecture similar to those seen
at Kelso, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh; but its unlucky situation — in the very
highroad between rival countries—exposed it in a peculiar degree to the
perils of Border warfare, and thus it is doubtful whether a vestige of the
original structure now remains. Its destruction was the work of Edward II.
in 1322, when returning from an unsuccessful expedition into Scotland.
Rebuilt by a pious bequest of Robert Bruce, it was set fire to in 1385 by
Richard II., under circumstances resembling those of its previous
destruction. Thus the remains which now survive belong wholly to a period
later than Bruce’s time, and, to a great extent, to one later than
Richard’s; whilst the Border warfare of the sixteenth century, the religious
iconoclasm of the seventeenth century, and the brutish vandalism of a later
age, which used the old abbeys as a quarry, have all left marks upon them.
Of the extensive conventual buildings once connected with the abbey, all
that now remains is a fragment of the cloister.
The ruins now present the
usual architectural patchwork harmonised by time, exhibiting a perfect
prodigality of rich detail, and constituting in all a rare mine of interest
for the student. The styles represented are the Decorated and the
Perpendicular, either of which may be here observed in as great perfection
as anywhere in Scotland. In general design the abbey forms a complete
contrast to that of Kelso, not only as exemplifying the much more artificial
workmanship of two centuries later, but also from the fact that the nave
here is of unusual length, and the choir unusually short. The effect of this
latter arrangement is, however, to some extent counteracted by a screen of
masonry (which is not a later addition) being carried across the nave. Of
the building as it now stands, the nave, from the crossing to the rood-loft,
together with parts of the transepts, constitutes the oldest portions—a
distinct change being traceable in the remaining portions of the transept,
which, with the tower, belong seemingly to a later date. The older portions
of the building—which include the exquisitely carved caps of piers in the
nave, the pinnacles and the flying buttresses (unique in Scotland) on the
south side, the splendid tracery of the window of the south transept, and
its buttresses enriched with canopies and corbels—exemplify lavishly the
Decorated period in Scotland, and are said by experts to bear a close
relationship to the Decorated work of the nave of York Minster, dated about
1400. It is not improbable, therefore, that some parts of the nave and
transept were erected between the death of Bruce and the burning of the
abbey by Richard II.; whilst restorations and additions seem to have been
carried out during the first half of the next century—to which date the
south chapels of the nave may perhaps be assigned. The arms of Abbot Hunter,
who flourished about 1450-60, suffice to fix the date of the vault of the
south transept, on one of the keystones of which they are carved, as also,
in all probability, of some of the vaulting in the eastern part of the nave.
It seems to have been the
choir which suffered most injury at the hands of Richard, for it has been
rebuilt in a later style of architecture—the upper portion of its walls, the
fine east window, with other windows here and in the transept, being
Perpendicular in their character. Since then they have had the good fortune
to escape comparatively unharmed. The royal arms, with initials and date
1505, on the westernmost buttress of the nave, seem to testify that work was
in progress there and in the south chapels as late as the reign of James IV.
The beautiful remains of the cloister present some features which bear the
appearance of early work; but expert opinion has pronounced them to
illustrate that “ late revival of early forms which prevailed towards the
close of the Gothic epoch.” The beautiful carvings there and elsewhere,
representing foliage and shells, or figures of monks and angels displaying
scrolls or playing upon musical instruments, are especially worthy of
notice; whilst the excellent nature of the local red sandstone in which they
are carved has fortunately preserved them almost undefaced.
The names of the architects
of the Border abbeys are as hopelessly lost as those of the authors of the
Border ballads; but what seems like a feeble ray of light on the building of
Melrose tantalises us in the form of two old inscriptions carved in the wall
of the south transept. The first runs as follows :—
“Sa gays ye Cumpas' evyn
about Sua truth and laute sail do but2doute,
Behalde to ye hende q. John Morvo.”
The second:—
“John Morow sum tym callit
was,
And born in Parysse certainly,
And had in keepyng al masoun werk
Of Santandroys ye hye kyrk,
Of Glasgw, Metros and Pasley,
Of Nyddysdayil and of Galway ;
I pray to God and Mari baith .
And sweet S. John kep this haly kirk frae skaith.”
The problem, “Who was John
Morow continues to exercise Border antiquarians.
Less is known of the early
history of Jedburgh Abbey than of either Kelso or Melrose. There is record
of the existence of a chapel at Old Jedburgh, a few miles farther up the
Jed, as far back as the first half of the ninth century. It was founded by
Egred, Bishop of Lindisfarne (whose name may possibly be traced in the
neighbouring Edgerstoun), and remained within the see of Durham until the
episcopacy of Ralph Flam bard, when Teviotdale was transferred to the see of
Glasgow, as was the country north of the Tweed to that of St Andrews. Soon
after this, David, as yet but Prince of Cumbria, invited to Scotland a
company of monks from the Abbey of St Quentin at Beauvais, and established
them in a priory at Jedburgh. These monks were of the order of Canons
Regular, or Augustine Friars, so called from the celebrated St Augustine,
author of the ‘Confessions.’ In 1147, or perhaps a few years later, their
priory was erected by David into an abbey, and it was probably after this
date that the building of the existing fabric began. Like Kelso and Melrose,
Jedburgh Abbey was dedicated to the Virgin, and richly endowed by the king
and the nobles of the district. Within its walls David’s successor Malcolm
breathed his last, “snatched away in the bloom of his lily-youth”; and it
was there also in all probability that the pageant at the marriage of
Alexander III. was brought to its untimely termination. Thus through the
greater part of the two centuries of the Golden Age of the Borders, the
abbey seems to have retained the special favour of the sovereign. During the
English wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it sustained frequent
injuries — the lead being stript from its roof under Edward I., whilst the
monastic buildings (which have now disappeared) were so much destroyed that
the monks sought shelter elsewhere. In short, when all things are
considered, we may well feel surprise at the present completeness of its
outer walls.
David’s grants to the monks
of the new abbey comprised the old Monastery of Jed worth, with all its
possessions—including the tithes of the two Jedworths or Jedburghs, of
Lanton, Nesbyt, the two Crelings, with the town of Orm (or Ormistoun on
Teviot), and Scrauesburghe or Scraesbrae; besides the chapel situated “ in
the passage of the wood ” over against Hernwingeslawe (Mervinslaw), and
Ulveston, Alneclive, near Alncromb, Crumsethe, and Raperlaw.2 Besides
these—the tithe of game killed by himself in hunting in Teviotdale; mill
dues of the town mill at Jedburgh; pasture rights in the king’s forest; and
(with one puzzling reservation) rights of wood and tunber for the use of the
monastery; to which were added houses in the towns of Roxburgh and Berwick,
a fishing in the Tweed, and other gifts. A noticeable grant by Malcolm IV.
was that of exemption from duty on wine imported at Berwick. Then, passing
on to the reign of Bruce, we find that that king granted to the Abbot of
Jedburgh, biding at the dependent Priory of Restenneth, the teinds of his
horses and studs, with hay for their maintenance. Robert III. added the
Hospital of St Mary Magdalen at Rutherford, on the condition of a qualified
chaplain being maintained there; and it was specially provided that, in case
of the destruction of the hospital by the inroads of the English or other
chances of war, the divine offices were to be celebrated at Jedburgh until
it should be rebuilt.3 Besides the above, the canons had property in the
shires of Stirling and Linlithgow, of Cumberland, Huntingdon, and
Northampton; had dependent priories at Restenneth and Canonby, and were
patrons of the Priory of Blantyre. Among the names of their private
benefactors occur those of Berengarius de Engain, one of David’s Norman
followers; of Christiana, wife of Gervas Ridel; of Gaufrid de Perci, who
gave the church at Oxnam; and of Ranulph de Sulas, who gave that of the vale
of Liddle.
The discipline of the
Augustine Friars is stated to have been less rigid than that of other monks,
though, judged by secular standards, the following account shows it to have
been by no means lacking in rigidity. The rules by which their daily life
was regulated were held to have been delivered to Norbert of Magdeburg,
their founder, by Augustine himself, in a golden book, whilst he slept.
Devotions were to be performed seven times a-day—first of all, in the small
hours, when the sleeping canons would be summoned to church by the ringing
of the dormitory bell, which was continued for as long a time as would be
required to recite the seven penitential psalms. Matins over, the brothers
retired to bed again until six o’clock, the hour of Prime, when they
attended mass, performed their private devotions, or went to confession,
till it was time for the daily general meeting in the chapter house. Here,
after further religious exercise, the business of the fraternity was
transacted. And now, also, any one who had been convicted of transgression
was expected to prostrate himself on the ground, to make confession, and to
ask pardon; upon which penance would be prescribed, or, in some cases,
summary chastisement administered. At this time, too, the abbot, in presence
of the chapter, would listen to pleas against any one over whom he had
jurisdiction. The sitting was concluded, except on days of high festival, by
repeating the ‘ De Profundis.’ In winter the meeting of the chapter filled
up the time till the hour of Tierce, or nine o’clock, when the canons would
troop in twos into the church, chanting the ‘Salve Regina’ as they went. At
this season High Mass was sung at Sexte, or twelve o’clock. During the
one-o’clock dinner which followed, the Scripture or some other edifying book
was read aloud — the monks taking this duty in turn, as they did that of
waiting at table. The meal consisted of two dishes, except on special
occasions, when a tliird, of dainty nature, called a pittance, would be
added. Punctuality was enforced, and a ceremonious courtesy observed—the
brothers showing attention to each other’s wants, and bowing as they handed
dishes or received them. To dinner succeeded relaxation, lasting till three,
the hour of Nones. Vespers followed at six, and Compline at seven, after
which, and a light supper, the monks would retire for the night. The
dormitory served as a general bedroom, and they slept without sheets and in
their day dress. Their fasts were at first exceedingly severe, but were
afterwards relaxed. Their work, besides study and transcription, comprised
field-labour, at which in hay-time and harvest they worked from early morn
until after Vespers, reciting the prescribed prayers where they stood. Their
habit consisted of a long black cassock, a white rochet, and a black cloak
and hood, and they differed from the generality of other orders in wearing
caps instead of cowls, and in allowing their beards to grow.
Notwithstanding that the
outer walls of the abbey remain on the whole so remarkably complete, the
choir, the presbytery, and the vaulted side aisles of the nave have all been
to a large extent destroyed. With regard to the varying dates or
architectural styles of different parts of the fabric, it is noticeable that
in the choir the two lower storeys of two bays near the crossing are in the
Norman style—which style, continued in the transepts, reappears in the west
end wall — the great doorway and windows in the latter being
characteristically Norman. The clerestory of the choir and the body of the
nave are, on the other hand, of a well-advanced transitional style —
obviously work of a considerably later date, and probably belonging to the
end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. The inference
of experts from the above is that the whole building was originally “set out
and partially executed in Norman times,” and that the work was either
interrupted for a considerable period and then resumed, or else destroyed
after being completed, and restored in the later style. Again, at a yet
later date, both transepts seem to have been much repaired. This would
probably be done after the assaults of the fifteenth century, at which time
the crossing also would seem to have been rebuilt. The restoration,
distinctly visible on the south-east pier, was probably the work of Abbot
John Hall — appointed in 1478 — whose name may be seen upon the pier. The
rebuilding of the north-west and south-west piers of the crossing, and of
the arch uniting them, is assigned to Abbot Thomas Cranstoun (appointed
1482), whose arms—three cranes and two pastoral staves borne saltier-wise —
are seen on the south-west pier, and whose initials are repeated thereabout.
The chapel to the north of the orignal Norman north transept dates
apparently from the fifteenth century; while the tower seems to have been
erected about 1500. In 1523, soon after the restoration above described, the
abbey was again attacked and burnt by Surrey; whilst in 1544 and 1545,
having been again repaired, it was again burnt and pillaged by Sir Ralph
Eure and by Hertford respectively, from which last assaults it has never
since recovered. It was, however, still destined to undergo some further
ill-usage, of a not intentionally hostile character, and, after being
occupied by a modem church until 1875, it has at last had the good fortune
to fall into the right keeping, where all has been clone for it that wise
care, joined with fine taste, can do.
The most notable details now
presented by this beautiful ruin are probably the rich and elaborate south
and west doorways — both of them fine examples of late Norman design; and
the peculiar arrangement by which main piers in the choir are carried up,
“as massive cylindrical columns,” to the height of the arch over the
triforium. As at Kelso, the west front has originally been finished with an
octagonal turret on either side; whilst; from the structural arrangement
which supplies no buttress capable of resisting the thrust of a vault, it is
evident that the central aisle was not intended to be vaulted.
Though our limits forbid us
to do more than merely glance at the minor religious establishments of the
time, a few words devoted to that subject are essential to a picture of
Border life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We may suppose that the
earliest churches in the country had been founded to facilitate or to
commemorate the labours of those Christian missionaries who first spread the
light of the Gospel among the pagan natives, and of such foundations the
church of Traquair may probably be taken as an example. At any rate, our
earliest source of local ecclesiastical information is an Inquest which was
held by the sages and elders of the district about the year 1116, with a
view to determine the possessions of the see of Glasgow, which inquest finds
that in ancient times the see had possessed a church at Treuerquyrd. At the
date above given there would appear to have been no ecclesiastical divisions
recognised which corresponded to parishes in our sense of the word— that is,
to districts appropriated to one baptismal church, or church having rights
of baptism, marriage, and burial. Probably the limits of the parish were at
first determined by those of the manor, and the case of Ednam in
Roxburghshire has been cited as illustrating the process by which the parish
came into being Here David’s brother Edgar had bestowed on an Englishman
named Thor, and nicknamed Longus, the land of “ the home on the river Eden ”
in its waste condition. Thor, at his own charges, cultivated and settled
this desert, which thus became his manor, on which he erected a church. The
church was endowed by the king with a ploughgate of land, in addition to
which it soon obtained the tithes and dues of the manor. Thor then, “for the
weal of King Edgar’s soul, the weal of his own soul and body, and the
redemption of his beloved brother,” transferred the whole to the monks of
Durham. So, from this little bit of history, not only the formation of
parishes, but the process also by which the monasteries devoured them, may
be said to receive illustration.
By the middle of the
thirteenth century we find that the parish of Molle is already territorially
defined, and has the term “parish” applied to it very much in our modern
sense. In the contemporary church records, a term of less frequent use than
parochia is plebania — used to denote the district of a mother-church
(generally of very ancient foundation) which possesses subordinate churches
; and of this a local instance is found in the plebania of Stobo, with its
four subordinate parishes of Broughton, Dawick, Drummelzier, and Tweedsmuir.
Among other Border churches, that of Seleschirche has been already referred
to. In early times it probably stood alone, for prior to 1235 there appears
to have been no church within the district known as Ettrick whilst if there
was one at Rankleburn, records are silent with regard to it. Galashiels,
formerly known as Lindean, was a vicarage in 1275. Peebles had probably been
a religious site from very early times; for the town well is dedicated to
the patron saint of Glasgow, whilst the Inquest of 1116 finds that the see
of that place had anciently possessed a church there. Between 1159 and 1165
the church of Innerleithen was granted to the monks of Kelso by Malcolm the
Maiden, who, in consequence of the body of his natural son having lain there
on the first night after death, constituted the church a place of sanctuary
equal in sanctity to that of Wedale—the violation of which incurred peril to
life and limb. The church of Hassendean in Roxburghshire belonged anciently
to the Bishop of Glasgow, to whom in 1170 it was confirmed by Pope Alexander
III.; whilst at Hawick, where a church had already existed from an early
date, one which had been newly erected was dedicated to St Mary on the 29th
day of May 1214.8 It has been thought that the two last named may have
illustrated the stimulus towards erecting more solid and imposing places of
worship which was communicated to the richer barons by the building of the
Border abbeys. A book of etchings of the eighteenth century0 represents the
ruins of Hassendean Church, which have now entirely disappeared, as at that
time possessing Norman arches with piers and chevron ornamentation—the
whole, as the letterpress puts it, “of no inelegant design.” The church of
Hawick, erected by the powerful family of Ixivel, and placed on an admirable
site, was even more distinguished by its “ fine proportions and the lavish
grandeur of its internal decorations.” The latter continued in use until
1763, when, becoming ruinous, it was taken down, and another, guiltless of
beauty, was set up in its place.
The reader will scarcely have
forgotten that a number of what may be called the parish churches of the
Border—as, for example, those of Liddesdale and Oxnam—have been cited
already as having been granted to the abbeys by various benefactors. In each
of these grants the student of ecclesiastical history will recognise a step
in the process which was destined to prove fatal to the recipients; for the
very accumulation of wealth in the hands of the latter, when thus
accompanied by the starvation of the minor benefices, carried with it the
seeds of dissolution. In dealing with the period of history which may be
said to commence with David I. and to end with the death of Alexander III.,
I have judged it proper to give the precedence to matters ecclesiastical,
for these were in truth paramount in the district at the time, and it is
therefore but fitting that they should be preferred even to things so
important in their own way as the rise of the local burghs or of the local
baronage. The age was, in fact, pre-eminently a religious one, but it was
one of religious harmony, and it so happens that, despite its much earlier
date, it has left far more of external trace on the Borders than that later
period in which religious fervour, doubtless no less genuine, became a
source of the harshest discord. The injustice of a growing age came, in
time, to cast discredit on the services rendered in their day and generation
by the monks, and though the age of prejudice against these is now past, it
is probable that they have not yet received their just dues of recognition.
Their claims upon the gratitude of posterity have been very temperately
summed up by a historian who writes that, upon a fair estimate of the
materials which have come down to us, we shall find them “always zealous for
their order, and for the welfare of their territories and tenants, as
conducing to its prosperity; encouraging agriculture and every improvement
of the soil; leading the way in an adventurous foreign trade, and in all
arts and manufactures; cultivating the learning of the time, and latterly
enjoying and teaching to others the enjoyment of the luxuries of civilised
life, while they exercised extensive hospitality and charity, and preserved
a decorum which was akin to virtue.” The same writer adds, that “when we
consider the extent of the possessions of a house like Melrose, the
affluence, and the amount of power and influence it brought to bear on such
objects as these, during ages of lawlessness and rapine, ... we cannot doubt
that their administration of their great territory and revenue,
notwithstanding all abuses incident to the system, was more for the
happiness of the people than if the possessions of the abbey had fallen at
an early period into the hands of some great temporal proprietor.”
From the peaceful life of the
Border monasteries we pass to consider the dawn of thought and poetry in the
Borders; and this—if we exclude the somewhat apocryphal connection of Merlin
with the district—takes us back to the closing years of the seventh century.
At this time there was found dwelling in a hermit’s cell attached to the
monastery of Old Melrose a certain venerable and holy man, by name Drithelm,
who was noted for the rigour of his asceticism. Thus the severest cold of
winter could not deter him from breaking the ice on Tweed and entering the
water, where he would remain immersed up to the middle or to the neck,
whilst he recited psalms and prayers. On coming out from the water, he would
allow his wet clothes to dry upon his back; and when men marvelled at his
powers of endurance, or expostulated with him on the severity of his
self-discipline, he would reply, in a simple manner, which was
characteristic of him, that he had known greater cold, or had seen greater
austerity.1 To the eye of his contemporaries Drithelm seemed a man of
limited apprehension, yet he was a visionary as well as an ascetic, and in
an age when to men’s faith all things seemed possible, his dreams were
received as literal records of experience. Thus it got to be reported of him
that, whilst still unregenerate, he had died and had been raised from the
dead. His tale of his supernatural experiences, first in regions of fire and
hail, and then in the flowery and vocal fields of Paradise, was listened to
with awe, as well it might be. The vision lives in the pages of Bede, as
told by one who had heard it from the lips of the visionary himself; and
stript of its integument of legend, it suffices to associate the name of
Drithelm with that of Bunyan.
A far more commanding figure
follows Drithelm on the Borders at the close of the Dark Age. It is true
that the story of Michael Scot, “the Wizard,” remains vague and incomplete ;
that the erudition and exhaustive research of his latest biographer2 adds to
our knowledge but little which is not based upon conjecture. Yet, in spite
of this, we see and know enough to recognise in the “Supreme Master,” as he
came to be called, a thinker and a man of learning of whom any age and any
country may well be proud. Scot was born probably about the year 1175, and
in his case the name Scot or Scotus has been generally received as a family
name, and not as a mere national distinction. The locality of his birth is
more difficult to determine, but his biographer’s contention is for the
region of the valley of the Tweed. It is true that Leland says that he came
from Durham ; but both Roger Bacon and another contemporary authority speak
of him as a Scotsman. Hence it is concluded that he may have come from that
southern part of Scotland to which the influence of the see of Durham had at
one time extended. Upper Tweeddale has been recognised as the cradle of the
Scott family, and there exists a record of payment made by the Crown in 1265
to a Michael of the name, who occupied waste lands near Peebles. Besides the
inferences from the above, local legends connected with the Wizard’s name
must also count for something in establishing his conncction with the Border
; and in any case he is not to be confounded (as Sir Walter Scott confounded
him) with the Scotts of Balwearie in Fife, a family who do not come into
existence by that name until a date later than his.
It is by no means improbable
that young Scot may have learnt his rudiments at Roxburgh, where there was
at that time a grammar-school of repute, thence proceeding to the Cathedral
School of Durham, and possibly to the University of Oxford. But his was an
age of inquiry—of eager thirst for knowledge—among the few, when the
resources of his native island afforded no adequate scope for a man of like
aspirations and mental calibre. He passed to Paris, and there won so much
distinction in the schools that the names “Mathematicus” and “the Master”
were by general consent conferred on him. He entered holy orders—less, as
one may guess, from vocation than in deference to a custom of the age—and,
as a knowledge of law was at that time greatly esteemed among clerics, he
probably proceeded to the famous law-school of Bologna, there to add that
study to those of mathematics and theology, in which he was already
proficient. It was now that his opportunity arrived, and when next we hear
of him he is at Palermo, where—between the years 1200 and 1209—tradition
represents him as tutor to the young Prince Frederick, the grandson of
Barbarossa, and afterwards the Emperor Frederick II. This sovereign, in
whose hands the power of the Western Empire may be said to have culminated,
was to become known as The Wonder of the World, and we have it on so high
authority as that of Freeman that he well deserved the name—“for perhaps no
king that ever reigned had greater natural gifts,” whilst “in thought and
learning he was far above the age in which he lived.” Are we not justified
in tracing something of his prodigious attainments to the fortunate chance
which gave his youth such teaching as Scot’s? There is evidence, at any
rate, that Scot spared no pains on the education of his royal charge, for
whose special behoof he composed a handbook to astronomy and a treatise on
physiognomy; and it is notable that the dedications to these works are not
couched in the usual terms of adulation, but in a tone of easy familiarity—
thus exhibiting in a pleasing light the relations between master and pupil.
The latter of the two books is thought to have been offered as a
wedding-gift to the king, and with Frederick’s early marriage Scot’s duties
about his person came for the time to an end.
Whilst a resident in Palermo,
the Master had been brought under those Arabic and Greek influences which
still lingered in Sicily, and had probably become conversant with the Arab
and Greek languages. When he left the Court, it was to turn his proficiency
in Arabic to practical account. And it must here be borne in mind that most
of the higher knowledge of that age was derived, from Greek originals
indeed, but through Arabic or Syrian channels,—a form of culture of which
the Arab Avicenna, or Ibn Sina, was reputed the ablest exponent. A school of
translators from the Arabic had been established not long before by the
Archbishop of Toledo, and to that city Scot now repaired, there to spend ten
of the most fruitful years of his life, and to win fame as the ablest
expounder the age had yet seen both of the unapproachable Aristotelian
philosophy itself and of the wisdom of the Arab commentators which had
clustered round it. The first works he produced at Toledo were an abridged
translation from an Arabic version of Aristotle’s ‘Treatise on Animals,’ and
an ‘ Abridgment of Avicenna,’ also based upon that work. This was published
in 1210, and dedicated to the emperor. Frederick was fond of natural
history, and possibly that fantastic taste which led him to gather
elephants, camelopards, dromedaries, panthers, and rare birds about him may
have prompted Scot’s undertaking.
At Toledo Scot also studied
alchemy, but the most important work of the years he spent there was his
translation of . the writings of a second Arab sage, Averroes of Cordova,
whose works had then recently attracted attention. Averroes, like Avicenna,
had devoted himself “ to live and die in Aristotle’s works”—in the works,
that is, of the very incarnation of forbidden knowledge, according to the
belief of the vulgar of the Middle Age; but besides this, his works were
understood to embody strange and daring speculations of his own, which had
led not only to the persecution of their author by the orthodox Moslem, but
also to their denunciation by the Church. Averroes was now dead, and of
course neither Frederick nor Michael Scot were men to be kept from the
gratification of intellectual curiosity by deterrents such as the above. It
was, however, only in the nature of things that they had to pay for the
satisfaction, and the obloquy and isolation which are the portion of
advanced thinkers in all ages were duly meted out to them. It was
Frederick’s fate to suffer excommunication more than once, whilst Scot’s
translations were censured by the Church, and the author found himself
regarded with suspicion accordingly. He may be esteemed singularly
fortunate, however, in the powerful protection which he enjoyed, for he
returned to Palermo, and there continued to act as Court physician and
astrologer. Doubtless in view of his close relations with the emperor, the
Pope, Honorius III., now thought well to condone his offence, and even wrote
to the English Primate, Stephen Langton, to obtain ecclesiastical preferment
for him,—with the result that he was actually elected to the archbishopric
of Cashel, though he declined to act, as is alleged, in consequence of a
scruple arising from his ignorance of the Irish language. After, but surely
not—as has been suggested—in consequence of this, he appears to have fallen
into a melancholy, in which the veil of the future seemed to be lifted, so
that he became endowed with the gift of prophecy, and, like “True Thomas” in
a later day, earned for himself the style of “veridicus vates.” He had no
reason to be thankful for this opening of his eyes, for the screed of Latin
doggerel in which his soothsayings are said to be embodied is little more
than a categorical prediction of misfortunes to the cities of the Empire.
“Woe to thee, Mantua!” cries the prophet, with the accent of a new
Jeremiah—“Woe to thee, Mantua, filled with so great grief! ” and he goes on
to foretell the ruin of Rome, long tottering to her downfall, and the
passing of the glory of Florence. “The Fates give warning, stars and the
flights of birds point that way.” Among other things which he foresaw, but
was powerless to guard against, was his own death. In 1230, after the
publication of his Averroes, which had been long held back, Scot came to
England, on a journey undertaken that he might communicate the results of
his researches to the universities. He may then have revisited his native
Border-land; and there, perhaps, he died. Tradition, at least, associates
his death and burial with Melrose, though Scot of Satchdls, writing at the
close of the seventeenth century, locates his tomb in Cumberland. One thing
certain is that he was dead in 1235, in which year it is finely said of him,
in a Latin poem by Henry of Avranches, that “he who had impugned Fate has
himself submitted to her decree.”
Looking back on Michael Scot
from this distance of time, we see him in his true light as a Border savant
of European reputation, one who resumed in himself all the learning of his
time, the translator of Averroes, and the restorer to the Western world of
the lost treasures of Aristotle. The romance and the pathos, not to say the
tragedy, of his story lie in the fact that his contemporaries beheld him in
so different a light. Well may melancholy have overtaken him in his
declining years! For he that has accumulated sorrow, accumulating knowledge,
and then sees himself not merely deprived of sympathy—his lifelong service
to his kind misprized—but regarded, through distorting mists of ignorance,
with hatred and mistrust,—his lot is indeed a bitter one. And yet this is
one of those tragedies of life which spring solely from the “nature of
things,” for which no one is responsible, in which either party has but
acted in accordance with the dictates of character. Indeed it must even be
allowed that Scot laid himself open to misunderstanding, that his studies
throughout reveal a bias toward the occult. Thus his early ‘ Physionomia ’
deals with a science which taught that the “ inward disposition of the soul
might be read in visible characters on the bodily frame.” Then, again, the
chemistry which absorbed so much of his time touched closely on alchemy;
whilst there was no border-line to divide astronomy from divination. Whether
he actually tampered with magic or not is scarcely of consequence, for
certainly it wanted but his final prophetic pretensions to raise him in the
eyes of the vulgar to the position of high-priest of the occult sciences.
The unworthy hostility of such fellow-workers as Roger Bacon and Albertus
Magnus would not tend to remove the reproach, and far less than a century
sufficed to establish the tradition. For when the spiritual eyes of
Dante—purged, but prejudiced and partial-seeing — fell on Scot, he saw,
indeed, the piteously worn body on which the life of thought had left its
mark, but he saw it only as that of one who u knew the trick of magical
deceits”—with the face screwed round over the shoulders, doomed to pay the
penalty of sins done in the flesh in the hell of those who would have pried
into futurity.
The same objection cannot be
urged against those sallies of the clownish imagination which have clustered
so thickly round the “ Wizard’s ” name as to make him, on the Borders, and
not there alone, the favourite type of the wielder of forbidden powers. The
most strikingly local of these legends is that which tells of the spirit,
successfully conjured up by the Master’s spells, who, when his task was
done, threatened to become a source of danger to his summoner, through
insatiable demands for more work. Michael’s wit was, however, a match for
him. The magician first commanded him to bridle the Tweed, which the spirit
accomplished—as some say by the construction of the cauld at Kelso Mill, or,
as others have it, by means of a remarkable basaltic dyke which crosses the
bed of the stream near Eden-mouth. His next task was to divide the Eildon
Hills, which at that time formed a single summit; and this also was done,
with the result seen at this day. But when, as a last resource, Scot
directed him to weave ropes of the sea-sand, the fiend was at last baffled,
and it is said that the results of his efforts, ever failing and eternally
renewed, may be observed to this day in the shifting sands at Tweedmouth. A
version of this story found farther west the country bears that one of the
spirit’s labours was the riddling of Sandyhill-neuk, which was duly
accomplished, the stones taken out being cast into Biggar Moss, several
miles off, where they may still be seen.
In these and similar
half-humorous essays in the supernatural vein—such as those which tell of
Scot’s des through air on a demon horse, his trial of powers with the Witch
of Falsehope, and many more—we see the Master brought down to the level of
rustic comprehension, and of course ignorance is the readily accepted excuse
for these liberties taken with a great name. The legend of Scot’s death is
more in keeping with a dignified conception of his character, as well as
with the suspicion of religious scepticism which, probable in the nature of
things, receives support from more than one circumstance of the true story
of his life. There is one story, indeed, which makes him come by his death
through supping of broth made from a breme sow, or sow ready for the boar ;
but the tale which will commend itself to imaginative readers avers that his
gift of divination had enabled him to foresee the manner of his end, which
was to come through the falling of a stone of not more than eight ounces’
weight. He therefore contrived, for the protection of his head, a kind of
helmet so constructed as to withstand a blow from a missile of that weight.
But Fate took him when off his guard; for happening to attend mass, and to
raise his helmet—as is suggested, in a spirit of mockery—at the elevation of
the Host, a stone, loosened by the tolling of the sacring-bell, fell at that
moment from the roof of the church and killed him on the spot. Holm Cultram
disputes with Melrose the possession of his bones, as well as of his magic
books, which were buried with him; whilst one explanation of the tales which
have grown up round his name is that he has been confounded in the popular
imagination with his predecessor the Tweedside Merlin, the part
corresponding to that of King Arthur being played in his story by the
Emperor Frederick.
A character whom legend has
transformed not less than Michael Scot, but with a kindlier, more idealising
touch, is Thomas of Erceldoune, called the Rhymer. He belongs, properly, to
Berwickshire, and it is only by virtue of his association with certain
localities in Roxburghshire that he comes within our sphere. The dates of
his birth and death are alike uncertain, but his lifetime must have covered
the greater part of the thirteenth century — ranging perhaps between the
years 1220 and 1297; whilst the most positive documentary evidence of his
existence which has come down to us is his signature, as witness, to a deed
by which Peter de Haga of Bemersyde binds himself to pay half a stone of wax
annually to the abbot and Convent of Melrose for the Chapel of St Cuthbert.
This document is undated, but from internal evidence its date may be
approximately fixed as between 1260 and 1270.2 The distinction of Thomas of
Erceldoune is twofold; for as poet he has been recognised as the father of
Scottish song, whilst as prophet his fame has entirely eclipsed that of his
predecessor, Scot. Dealing first with the more authentic and credible of his
achievements, the poems which have been ascribed to him are the metrical
romance to which Sir Walter Scott, who first printed it, gave the name of
“Sir Tristrem,” and that of “Thomas and the Queen.” The authorship of both
these poems has been the subject of much controversy, which we may resume by
stating the opinion of the latest authorities that the former is a genuine
work of the Rhymer, whilst the latter in its present form belongs to a much
later date than his (probably about 1440), but is in all likelihood based
upon an original from his hand. “Sir Tristrem ” is preserved in a single
copy—not the author’s, as is proved by internal evidence—in the Auchinleck
MS. of old English poetry in the Advocates’ Library—written on vellum in a
handwriting of the beginning of the fourteenth century. The evidence mainly
relied on for ascribing it to the Rhymer is that of the English Chronicle of
his contemporary, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, written about 1330, which may be
taken as “ recording and representing the belief of the age in which Thomas
of Erceldoune lived.” The poem deals with the adventures of the Arthurian
Tristram, and his love-passages with the two Ysondes.
The remaining poem of ‘ Tomas
off Ersseldoune ’ has been preserved more or less entire in four separate
manuscripts, whilst the prophetic portion (omitting the introductory First
Fytte) exists also in a fifth. It embodies the traditional legend of the
Rhymer and the Fairy Queen, and though the composition puzzlingly confounds
the first and third persons singular, it may be taken as at least to some
extent autobiographical. It tells how as Thomas lay on Huntley banks upon a
morn of May, and heard the singing of the birds, he beheld a lady, richly
apparelled, come riding towards him on a dappled steed. Enchanted by her
beauty, he endeavours to win her love, and, after revealing herself as queen
of a realm which is neither in heaven nor paradise, nor yet in hell,
purgatory, or “ middle earth,” she allows his suit. Then they enter together
under Eildon Hill, and after journeying for three days in darkness reach a
castle, where they take up their abode and dwell together in mutual
absorption, dalliance, and joy. At the end of three years, however, Thomas
is suddenly bidden to return to earth, to escape seizure by an infernal
power, and the lady, conducting him again to Eildon Tree, there bids him
farewell. At parting he asks a token of her, and at this point the poem, in
recording her reply, branches off into prophecy, which by most critics is
thought to be a later interpolation, added after the events in Scottish
history which it pretends to foretell. The lady then promises to meet her
lover again on Huntley banks, and so leaves him. Thus far the poem, but
legend has rounded off the tale. It tells how, after his return to earth,
the Rhymer astonished his countrymen by his prophetic powers. But the days
to be spent by him among them were numbered. And, accordingly, one day as he
sat in his tower at Earlston, making merry with his friends, it was suddenly
announced to him with wonder that a hart and hind might be seen passing
through the village. On hearing of this supernatural token, Thomas at once
rose up and went out from among his friends, and following the animals back
to their native forest, was seen no more of men.
It is interesting to note
that the localities associated with this fantastic legend may still be
identified. Eildon Tree stood on the slope of the easternmost Eildon, on a
spot which commands a magnificent view of the vale of Tweed, and is still
marked by the Eildon Stone, a rugged boulder occupying a position by the
highway-side. Close by is the Bogle burn, a streamlet falling into Tweed,
which may have derived its name from the Rhymer’s supernatural visitant.
Huntley banks, where the poet lay and watched the lady’s approach, are on
the slope of the same hill, about half a mile to the west; whilst still
farther west, and in fact at the base of the westernmost hill, is the
romantic Rhymer’s Glen. This name, however, is of modern origin, having been
conferred by Sir Walter Scott, who added the glen to his Abbotsford estate.
Turning to the “prophecies”
current under the Rhymer’s name, we may at least admit that their generally
gloomy tone was amply justified by the national disasters impending at the
time when they are said to have been uttered. As was to be expected, they
contain many local allusions, some of which are interesting for the light
which they cast, not indeed upon the future, but upon their own time. Thus
the early importance of Roxburgh is illustrated, though unconsciously, in a
MS. quoted by Pinkerton from the earlier part of the fourteenth century, in
which, among types of improbability, the Rhymer specifies the case “ when
Rokesbourh nys no burgh.” In the same context, the line, “When loudyonys
forest, ant forest ys felde ” (i.e., When Lothian is forest, and the Forest
is field), throws light on the distribution of woodland in the Border
country at the same date. The prophet is also said to have foretold the
construction of a bridge over Tweed, which should be visible from Eildon
Tree, and the fall of Kelso Kirk when “at the fullest.” But an opinion of
the value and authenticity of these later prophecies may be formed from the
fact that in one of them the Rhymer is made to impart information to
Gildas the historian, who was also among the prophets, but who, according to
all general belief, lived some seven hundred years before him!
Whilst on the subject of
these semi-legendary characters, a word must be given to that sinister being
Lord Soulis of Hermitage, and to the less known Habby Ker of Holydean.
Popular tradition describes the former as one who combined vast bodily
strength with a cruel and oppressive nature, driving his servants like
beasts of burden at their work, and leaguing with the Evil One for the
accomplishment of his designs. The ‘horror of his death was in proportion to
the misdeeds of his life, for he is said to have been seized by a party of
the king’s followers, who had taken too literally some words spoken in haste
by the sovereign, and by them boiled alive upon the Ninestane Rig, in the
neighbourhood of the castle. It is even added that the huge caldron used for
this purpose was for long preserved at Skelfhill. As he went out from his
castle for the last time, Soulis threw the keys behind him, over his left
shoulder, thus consigning the building to the care of his familiar spirit,
whom he desired to keep it until he should himself return. Leyden, who tells
these stories, suggests, however, that they may owe their origin to the
popular obloquy which the hero had incurred by taking part in a conspiracy
against Bruce. The conspiracy was detected, and the conspirator’s
possessions, which seem to have included the whole of Liddesdale, were
forfeited.
Into the house of Holydean,
near Bowden, there is built a stone, taken from a castle which once stood on
the spot, on which are carved what are known as the Three Precepts of Dame
Esbel Ker, who flourished in 1530. These precepts are — Feir God • Fle from
Sin • Mak for the Lyfe Everlesting to the End. Notwithstanding the good
words graven on it, the castle, at about the same period, served as the
abode of Habby or Robert Ker, whose deeds of cruelty earned for him an evil
notoriety in his day and generation, and whose spirit was for long
afterwards a terror to superstitious persons of the neighbourhood. Near the
house stood his “hanging tree”; and the adjoining deer-park, which now no
longer exists, formed in older times the extremity of Ettrick Forest. |
