38 
William de Romille, and is known as William de Machines. 
Afraid of popular indignation he built Skipton Castle, and afraid 
of still higher vengeance he built an Abbey at Embsay, which 
lies between Skipton Castle and the Wharfe, in the year 1121, 
dedicated to the Virgin and St. Cuthbert. A large dwelling- 
house is now built on the site of the old Abbey, during the 
building of which several remains of Saxon architecture were 
found. Mr. Butterworth and myself visited the place to learn 
if any traces of the first Bolton Abbey still remain. We were 
accompanied by Mr. Lister, of Barden Tower, who has known 
the place from boyhood. He remembered many years ago seeing 
gravestones of the old monks under some yew trees in the 
garden. We asked permission of the gardener to look for these 
relics, but could not find them. Nor could the gardener 
remember anything about them. We were about to give up the 
search when the gardener said there were, he believed, some old 
stones forming the floor of the summer-house which might be 
what we wanted to see. We accompanied him to the place and 
made a most interesting discovery. The floor of the summer- 
house consists of the lid of a stone coffin broken into two pieces. 
The carvings are very ancient and consist of a Maltese cross, 
with an ornamental border. Close to the summer-house we 
found the piscina of the church of Embsay Abbey and one of the 
pinnacles of the old church. 
The Abbey at Embsay took several years for its completion, 
but, shortly after it was finished it was abandoned. ‘Tradition 
says that the son of William de Machines and Aaliza de 
Romille was one day hunting in Bolton Woods when he came 
to a narrow part called the ‘‘Stride.”’ He had with him a 
hound which he held by a leash, and when attempting to jump 
from one side of the river to the other the hound held back so 
that he fell into the river and was drowned. He is called the 
Boy of Egremond, because he was born on an estate of his 
father’s called by that name. It would take up too much time 
to enter into the controversy as to the truth of this tradition. 
Whitaker says, ‘‘1 have little doubt the story is true in the 
main, but that it refers to one of the sons of the first foundress, 
Cecilia de Romille.”” Other antiquarians seem inclined to adopt 
the tradition as it now stands, which is, that when the forester 
who aceompanied the boy and saw him drowned, came to break 
the sad tidings to his mother, he said, ‘‘ What is good for a 
bootless bene?’ She, suspecting what had happened, said 
‘‘ Hndless sorrow.’’ She then said she would make many a 
poor man’s son his heir, and ordered the removal of the Abbey 
from Embsay to Bolton. But whatever difference of opinion 
respecting this catastrophe there may be among antiquaries, 
there is none among the poets. It is too interesting and too 
