Transactions. 47" 



She married John Baliol of Bernard's Castle, in England.. 

 The date of this marriage is given by Mr Nicolson, in his 

 History of Galloway, as 1228, But this is certainly wrong. 

 She would be but 15 years old, and on the other hand her 

 son John Baliol, afterwards King of Scots, was not born for 

 30 years after. He was bom, according to our historians, ia 

 1260, and died in 1314. We may rather take it, therefore, I 

 presume, that the lady Dervorgille remained a long time in 

 a state of single blessedness. Her warm feelings and suscep- 

 tible character are very conspicuous in all that relates to her 

 husband's death. He died in 1268 or 1269. Two years 

 before this, she founded at Wigton a convent of Black Friars,, 

 possibly on some occasion of her going to St. Ninian's shrine 

 in his illness. And after his death, as is well known, she 

 founded Sweetheart or Newabbey, and deposited his heart 

 there, bringing it from France, where he had died. Her 

 father, Alan, lord of Galloway, died in 1234, when she would be 

 about 21 years old, and by the death of her sisters she would 

 come as sole heir into the possession of great wealth. Two 

 events now occurred, either of which was calculated to affect 

 such a person very strongly — even violently. In 1242, whert 

 she was 29 years old, her youthful cousin, Patrick, Earl of 

 Athole, was cruelly murdered, in revenge, as it was thought, 

 for his having foiled and defeated in a great tournament his 

 great relative Sir Walter Bisset. The other event was the 

 death — but whether before or after the other is differently 

 stated by different authors — of her mother's brother, John le 

 Scot, Earl of Chester, by poison, when about setting out for 

 the Holy Land. Would it be surprising that in an age of 

 religious foundations, when the building of a church or an 

 abbey was the accustomed mode of expressing strong feeling, 

 the mind of Dervorgille, wealthy, susceptible, unmarried, 

 should take that direction, and that she should now found 

 her abbeys of Dumfries and Dundee. 



The monastery of Dumfries was founded for Franciscan 

 or Grey Friars or Friars Minors as they were variously called 

 — an order of monks which had come into this country a 



