Transadims. 61 



determine the style of its architecture, whether the rude 

 Saxon ? the manly Norman ? or the pure and lordly early 

 English? To the former of these it has hitherto been invari- 

 ably assigned. The date of its foundation, however, renders 

 this extremely improbable, and even making, a due allowance 

 for a possibly backward state of Scottish art, in com- 

 parison with that of England, I find it hard to believe 

 that it was not at least a Norman building, and if 

 (as is stated by some of the highest authorities on the sub- 

 ject) the ai'chitecture of the two countries during the 12th 

 and 1 3th centuries was precisely similar, the period at 

 which the Abbey was built would be that transitional epoch 

 at which the features of the sombre Romanesque had well 

 nigh glided into the noble sublimity of Gothic art. 



The history of the house down to the 14th century seems 

 — as befitted its character — to have been uneventful in the 

 extreme ; but during the reign of Robert III. of Scotland 

 the quiet dreams of the inmates were rudely shattered, and 

 "fair Lincluden's holy cells" rendered desolate by the 

 violence of Archibald the Grim. Acting under a desire— real 

 or pretended ? — to upliold the purity of tlie Church, the 

 doughty Earl, with an impecunious zeal which has only been 

 equalled by that of the Scottish noblemen of Reformation 

 times, contrived to oust the Nuns from their sacred residence 

 and to appropriate the major part of their revenue. This 

 transaction has been the theme of a good deal of discus- 

 sion ; but the question may now be said to have been 

 definitely settled by the discovery at Dundrennan of what 

 is in all probability the tomb of the last Abess of Lincluden. 

 In the south transept of that Abbey there is a memorial 

 slab mensuring oft. 6in. by 2ft. lOin., having on it an 

 incised figure, full size, or nearly so, in the garb of a Nun^ 

 with portions of an inscription in old English characters, and 

 the date 1440. Scottish Nuns were bound never to leave 

 their convent after having taken their vows, and the circum- 

 stance of a Nun's grave being found in a monastery many 

 miles from a Nunnery is therefore unique, and but for this 



