62 MR HARDY ON BOWLING. 



entered into the routine of cropping.* Barley and oats were then the 

 staple pi*oducts of the district, and they demanded no pressing or en- 



* There is a tradition which curiously illustrates the scarcity of wheaten bread 

 in Berwickshire in former times. It is said, that a King Alexander, who, it appears, 

 like Nero in the days of his distress (Seutonius relates the tale), and despite the en- 

 comiums of national song, had no relish for the unleavened fare of his subjects, was, 

 during a peregrination through the Merse, assailed with the qualms of hunger, which 

 there offered no means of satisfying, till the royal party reached the town of Dunse. 

 A loaf of white bread being there procured, and it was the only town in the shire 

 that could afford such a luxury, the hungry monarch's appetite was at length appeased 

 with its appropriate aliment. The testimony of ancient records docs not belie the 

 story. It is in the demesnes of the great monasteries that we find the cultivation o^ 

 wheat first alluded to ; and that in insignificant measure compared with oats or 

 barley. Wheat was prepared at the mills of Roxburgh in 1124, when David I. 

 granted the charter to Kelso Abbey. Its relative proportion to other grains is af- 

 forded by the returns of the old religious houses. The revenue of the priory of 

 Coldingham at the Reformation, as i*espects grain, amounted to : — '^ Wheat, 6 chalders, 

 7 bolls, 3 firlots, 2 pecks; bear, 19 chalders, 12 bolls, 1 firlot, 2 pecks; oats, 5G 

 chalders, 8 bolls, 2 firlots ; pease, 3 chalders, 13 bolls, 3 firlots, 2 pecks." (Chalmers' 

 Caledonia, II., p. 334.) On the opposite side of the Borders, little difference existed. 

 The monks of Holy Island grew wheat on their territory on the mainland ; but in 

 all g«orgical affairs they were on the foreground of improvement. In 1339-40, they 

 had at Fenham, "48 acres sown with wheat, 19 with barley, and 50 with oats.** 

 (Raine's North Durham, p. 48., and passim.) This creditable example seems, how- 

 ever, to have flourished in an oasis, while negligence and sterility gathered around. 

 Allien iEneas Sylvius, the papal legate, crossed the borders into England in 1448, 

 he found the inhabitants in a " deplorable state." They stared on him, as we would do 

 at an Ethiop, and even doubted if he were a Christian. " .^neas, understanding the 

 diflSculties he must expect on his journey, had taken care to provide himself, at a 

 certain monastery, with some loaves, and a measure of red wine, at sight of which 

 they were seized with the greater astonishment, having never seen wine or white 

 bread." (Sir W. Soott's Essay on Border Antiquities, p. 18, compared with Dalyell's 

 Fragments of Scot. Hist., p. 18.) This is not incredible, considering the class among 

 whom he had fallen. As early, however, as 1255, when Henry III. met Alexander 

 III. and his Queen at Wark Castle, the provisions of wine and wheat were amply 

 liberal. (Magnus Rot. Pipae, 40 Hen. III.) In the reign of the latter monarch, 

 as the oldest monument of Scottish song testifies, there was no destitution throughout 

 his realm of " ale and brede," and " wyne and wax." But Wyntoun was a monk. 

 When Patten, in the train of Somerset's disastrous inroad in 1547, visited Berwick- 

 shire, the diet of the inhabitants had somewhat improved on that of the Alexander of 

 tradition. Previous to their blowing up Dunglas Castle (which, from the description 

 and the ruins of walls, for which the oldest inhabitant can assign no oi'igin, seems 

 to have reared its sinewy strength between the present village of Billsdean and 

 the sea), the soldiers had leisure to ascertain that it contained, " of white bread, 

 oten cakes, and Scottish ale," " indifferent good store." (Patten's Expedicion into 

 Scotlande, p. 35.) What were the prevalent grains in the North of England at the 

 game time ? The Corn-poppy (Papaver rhceas) and the Blue-bottle (Centaurea 

 eyantu), as is well known, are most frequent in fields of wheat. Turner, however, 

 a native of Morpeth, in his Herball, dedicated to the Duke of Somerset in 1548, in- 

 dicating the localities of these plants, does not mention it, which, it may be inferred, 

 he would have done had it abounded. Of " Blew-bottell or Blew-blaw," he says : — 



