60 Tramactions. 



NOTES ON LINCLUDEN AND COLLEGIATE 

 CHURCH. By J. Glover Anderson. 



Eead 7tli December, 1877. 



The Abhey of Lincluden, one of the three Scotch houses 

 belonging to the Beneclectine Nuns, was founded about the 

 year llHo by Ethred De Macdowell, one of the earliest of 

 the Lords of Galloway of whose career history has given us 

 any trace. Succeeding to one-half of the dominions of his 

 father, the munificent Fergus, upon the death of the latter in 

 1160, he married Giinild, daughter of Waldeof, Lord of 

 Allerdale, and grand-daughter of the celebrated Gospatrick, 

 Earl of Dunbar, the issue of the union being Ronald, fourth 

 Lord of Galloway, whose son, Alan, the fifth Lord, was father 

 of the pious lady Devorgilla, to whose munificence Dumfries 

 owes her "Auld Brig," and by whom the local Abbeys of 

 Wigtown* and Dulce Cor or Sweetheart, as well as the Fran- 

 ciscan Monastery at Dumfries, were founded. Attended by 

 his younger brother, Gilbert (with whom he had shared his 

 father's lands), Ethred was present at the battle of Alnwick, 

 and taking advantage of the capture of William the Lion at 

 that disastrous engagement upon his return to Galloway 

 he threw off his allegiance to the Scottish Throne and drove 

 from his dominions the agents of the Scottish Monarch. 

 Notwithstanding this rebellious course he fought on the 

 Scottish side in the internecine wars which attended the 

 captivity of King William. Gilbert attached himself to the 

 English forces, however, and obtaining the assistance of his 

 southern friends ravaged the lands of Ethred, and making 

 him prisoner put him cruelly to death in Lochfergus Castle, 

 from whence his mangled remains are said to have been con- 

 veyed to the Abbey of Lincluden, where — in the lonely pile 

 which he had helped to rear — he was stealthily laid in his 

 "narrow home." 



The Abbey of which this romantic tale is told has long 

 disappeared, and it is thus a matter of some difficulty to 



* The Abbey of Holywood is given in Mackenzie's list as having also be en 

 founded by Devorgilla, 



