38 Transactions. 



If we proceed to enquire who this nun was, at one time 

 a lady prioress, and how it came that she was buried here, 

 the inscription gives us no information. It is especially 

 remarkable that the name of the priory of which she was 

 prioress is not given. 



As already stated, the priory of Lincluden appears to 

 have been the only nunnery in the district, and it ceased to 

 exist as such in the reign of K. Rob. 3, who died in 1406. 

 The nuns of Lincluden were of the Benedictine order, and 

 the monks of Dundrennan were Cistertians. The orders 

 thus diflfered entirely. But yet their situation in the same 

 peculiar district of country, and their common origin from 

 the Lords of Galloway might establish between them com- 

 mon ties, which the fate of the nunnery might in the case of 

 the discarded prioress not sever but strengthen. King Rob. 

 3 died in the year 1406. This was 34 years before the death 

 of the prioress, yet she may have lived so long after the 

 breaking up of her establishment, and been but in middle 

 life at that event ; while, if she retained an unblemished 

 character, it was reasonable to give her the honourable burial 

 she here received in vindication of her character, and possi- 

 bly also of the nunnery itself, as well as in testimony of their 

 common relation. 



It is not necessary to suppose that the lady prioress lived 

 in the monastery at Dundrennan. When the establishment 

 at Lincluden was broken up by its change into a college, the 

 nuns would betake themselves, according to their temper and 

 habits, and the lady prioress, chaste but weak perhaps, and 

 tmenergetic in the necessary discipline of the convent, would, 

 after a life of purity in some other establishment, or in pri- 

 vate life, receive honourable burial here. 



Her burial place is not in the common cemetery of the 

 Abbey, nor in the chapter-house, where there are other 

 tombstones, but in the eastern aisle of the south transept of 

 the Abbey church. 



If this is the tombstone of the last lady prioress of Lin- 

 cluden, it would go far towards a vindication of her character 



