Nov. 16. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



409 



THE BLACK BOOD OF SCOTLAND. 



(Vol. ii., p. 308.) 



I am not aware of any record in whit^h mention 

 of this relique occurs before the time of St. M;ir- 

 garet. It seems very probable that the venerated 

 crucifix which was so termed was one of the trea- 

 sures which descended with the crown of the Anglo- 

 Saxon kings. When the princess Margaret, with 

 ber brother Edgar, the lawful heir to the throne 

 of St. Edward the Confessor, fled into Scotland, 

 after the victory of William, she carried this cross 

 ■with her amongst her otlier treasures. Aelred of 

 Rievaulx (ap. Twysd. 350.) gives a reason why it 

 was so highly valued, and some description of the 

 rood itself: 



" Est autem crux ilia longitudinem habens palmse 

 de auro purissimo mirabili opere fabricata, quse in 

 modum tecliae claiiditur et aperitur. Cernitur in ea 

 qufedam Dominicae crucis portio, (sicut saepe mul- 

 torum miraculorum argumento probatum est). Salva- 

 toris nostri ymaginem liabens de ebore densissime sculp- 

 tam et aureis distinctionibus mirabiliter decoratam. " 



St, Margaret appears to have destined it for 

 the abbey which she and her royal husband, 

 Malcolm III., founded at Dunfermline in honour 

 of the Holy Trinity : and this cross seems to have 

 engaged her last thoughts ; for her confessor re- 

 lates that, when dying, she caused it to be brought 

 to her, and that she embraced, and gazed stead- 

 fastly upon it, until her soul passed from time to 

 eternity. Upon her death (16th Nov., 1093), the 

 Black Rood was deposited upon the altar of Duii- 

 feriidine Abbey, where St. Margaret was interred. 



The next mention of it that I have been enabled 

 to make note of, occurs in 1292, in the Catalogue 

 of Scottish Muniments which were received within 

 the Castle of Edinburgh, in the presence of the 

 Abbots of Dunfermline and Holy Rood, and the 

 Coimnissioners of Edward I., on the 23rd August 

 in that year, and were conveyed to Berwick-upon- 

 Tweed. Un<ler the head 



" Omnia ista inventa fuerunt in quadam cista in 

 Dormitorio S. Crucis, et ibidem reposita pia;dictos Ab- 

 bates et alios, sub ei!rum sigillis." 



we find 



" Unum scrinium argentcmn deauratum, in quo re- 

 ponitur crux ijuo vocatur la blake rode." — Robert-son's 

 Indtx, Introd. xiii. 



It does not appear that any such fatality was 

 ascribed to this reliipie as that wiiich the Scots 

 attributed to the possession of the famous stone on 

 wiiich their kings were crowned, or it might be 

 conjectured that wiien Edward I. brought " tiie 

 fatal S(?at" from Sccjue lo Westminster, he bi'ou'Tht 

 the HIa<;k Jioi.d of Scotland too That amiable 

 and i)leasing historian, Miss Strickland, has stated 



that the English viewed the possession of this 

 relique by the Scottish kings with jealousy ; that it 

 was seized upon by Edward I., but restored on the 

 treaty of peace in 1327. This statement is erro- 

 neous ; the rood having been mistaken for the 

 stone, which, by the way, as your readers know, 

 was never restored. 



We next find it in the possession of King David 

 Bruce, who lost this treasured relique, with his own 

 liberty, at the battle of Durham (18th Oct., 1346), 

 and from that time the monks of Durham became 

 its possessors. In the Description of the Ancient 

 Monuments^ Rites, and Customs of the Abbey Church 

 of Durham, as they existed at the dissolution, 

 which was written in 1593, and was published by 

 Davies in 1672, and subsequently by the Surtees 

 Society, we find it described as 



" A most faire roods or picture of our Saviour, in 

 silver, called the Black Roode of Scotland, brought 

 out of Holy Rood House, by King David Bruce . . . 

 with the picture of Our Lady on the one side of our 

 Saviour, and St. John's on the other side, very richly 

 wrought in silver, all three having crownes of pure 

 beaten gold of goldsmith's work, with a device or rest 

 to take tliem off or on." 



The writer then describes the " fine wainscote 

 work" to which this costly "rood and pictures" 

 were ftistened on a pillar at the east end of the 

 southern aisle of the quire. And in a subsequent 

 chapter (p. 21. of Surtees Soc. volume) we have 

 an acc(mnt of the cross miraculously received by 

 David I. (whom the writer confounds with the 

 King David Bruce ca])tured at the battle of 

 Durham, notwithstanding that his AuntieiU Me- 

 morial professes to be " collected fbrthe of the best 

 antiquaries"), and in honour of which he founded 

 Holy Rood Abbey in 1128 ; from which account it 

 clearly appears that this cross was distinct from 

 the Black Rood of Scotland. For the writer, after 

 stating that this miraculous cross had been brought 

 from Holy Rood House by the king, as a " most 

 fortunate reliipie," says : 



" He lost the said crosse, which was taiken upon 

 him, and many other most wourtliie and excellent Jewells 

 .... whicli all weare offred up at the shryne of Saint 

 Ciitlibert, tngelhr wllli the Bliiche Rude of Scotland (so 

 termed), with Mary and John, maid of silver, being, as 

 yt were, smoked all over, which was placed and sett up 

 most exactlie in the pilkr next St. Cutlibert's shrine," 

 &c. 



In the description written in 1593, as printed, 

 the size of the Black Rood is not menti(med; but 

 in Sanderson's Anticjnities of Durham, in which he 

 follows that (lescrij)tion, but with many variations 

 and omissions, he says (j). 22.), in mentioning the 

 Black Rood of Scotland, with the inniges, as above 

 described, — 



" VVhich rood ami jjictures were all three very richly 

 wrought in silver, and were all smoked blacke over, 



