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Devorgilla, Countess of
Balliol, Foundress of Balliol College, etc.
This remarkable lady, who was the daughter of Alan Lord or Prince of
Galloway, and the wife of the great noble Lord Balliol, is said to have been
born in Dundee, with which city she had ancestral connection through the
Cornyn, about the year 1209. William M'Doval, however, in his
History
of Dumfries, claims her as a native of Nithsdale. One of the wealthiest
and most powerful noblewomen in Europe, she seems to have been endowed with
remarkable energy of mind, public spirit, and generosity. Many of her
benefactions still continue to bless the world from which she has passed
away, almost 700 years. Among them is the famous college at Oxford, erected
in honour of her husband, and still bearing her name, “Balliol College."
Besides this educational foundation, she also erected a convent at Dundee,
another at Wigtown, the Greyfriars monastery at Dumfries, and greatest of
all, New Abbey in Kirkcudbrightshire, erected in 1275 in memory of her
husband, who died in 1269. She also built over the Nith at Dumfries a
splendid bridge of nine arches, said to be at the time and for long after
the finest in Scotland. During her later years Devorgilla resided chiefly in
Huntingdonshire, on the land she inherited from her father. Her favourite
abode was Kempstone, in that county, and there on 29th September, 1289, she
breathed her last. Twenty years before that date, on tho death of her
husband, to whom she was deeply attached, she had caused his heart to be
extracted from his body, embalmed and placed in an ivory casket. This casket
she kept beside her as a daily companion till the erection of New Abbey
furnished for it a fitting shrine. And there she had it built in over the
high altar of that magnificent monumental fane: hence the romantic name it
has ever afterwards borne of Duloe Cor or Sweetheart Abbey. They brought the
body of Dovorgilla from England to her native Scotland, burying it within
the walls oŁ the Abbey, and placing upon the lady’s bosom her husband’s
heart, in obedience to her dying wish, another illustration of the strong
love that made thorn one. The epitaph inscribed on the tomb, composed by
Hugh de Burgh,. Prior of Lovercort, ran as follows:—
“In Devorvilla moritur Scnsata
Sibilla,
Cum Martha que pia, contemplativa Maria;
Da Devorgillam requie, Rex Summe, potiri
Quam legit isto lop is, con pariterque viri.”
These lines have been
Englished and versified thus by some unknown hand:—
“In Devorgilla a Sybil sage
doth die, as
Mary contemplative, as Marth pious.
To her, oh deign, high King, rest to impart
Whom this stone covers with her husband’s heart.”
W. B. R. W. |
