104 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 67. 



identification, T may conclude with asking some of 

 your Dutch correspondents, whether the tract, in 

 this or in any other edition, is of considerable 

 rarity with them ? In England I never saw a 

 copy of it but that in my possession. I may add 

 that evei'y paragraph is separately numbered from 

 1 to 110, as if the production were one of impor- 

 tance to which more particular reference might be 

 made than even by the pagination. 



The Hermit of HoiiXPORT. 



THE BLACK KOOD OF SCOTLAND. 



(Vol. ii., pp. 308. 409.) 



I am not satisfied with what W. S. G. has written 

 on this subject ; and as I feel interested in it, per- 

 haps I cannot bring out my doubts better than in 

 the following Queries. 



1. Instead of this famous cross being destined 

 by St. Margaret for Dunfermline, was it not 

 transmitted by her as an heir -loom to her sons ? 

 Fordun, lib \. cap. Iv. : " Quasi munns h(Bredita7-utm 

 transmisit ad fiUos.'''' Hailes {Annals, sub anno 

 1093) distinguishes the cross which Margaret gifted 

 to Duntermline from the Black Rood of Scothind ; 

 and it is found in the possession of her son David I., 

 in his last illness. He died at Carlisle, 24th May, 

 11.13. (i^orf/?<«, ut supra.) 



2. Is not AV. S. G. mistaken when, in speaking 

 of this cross being seized by Edward I. in the 

 Castle of Edinburgh in 1292, he says it is in a 

 list of miniiments, &c., found " in quadam cista in 

 dormitorio S. Cruris" instead of in a list follow- 

 ing, " et in thesauria castri de Edinhurgh inventa 

 fuervnt ornamenta subsc}-ipta?" (Aylotfe's Ca- 

 lendars, p. 327. ; Kobertson's Index, Introd. xiii.) 



3. When W. S. G. says that this cross wiis not 

 held in the same superstitious reverence as the 

 Black Stone of Scone, and that Miss Strickland is 

 mistaken when she says that it was seized hy King 

 Edward, and restored at the peace of 1327, what 

 does he make of the following authorities? — 



(1.) Fordiin, lib. v. cap. xvii. : 



" Ilia saiicta ciux quam nigrani vocaiit omni genti 

 Scotorum non minus lerribilein quam amabilem pro 

 sua; reverentia sanctitatis." 



(2.) Letters to the Bight Reverend the Lord 

 Bishop of Carlisle, occasioned by some Passages in 

 his late Book of the Scotch Library, SfC, ascribed 

 to the historian Rymer : London, 1702. Fioma 

 " notable piece of Church history," appended to 

 the second Letter, it appears that" the Black Rood 

 accompanied King Edward in his progresses, along 

 with a famous English cross — the Cross Nigth, — 

 and that he received on these two crosses the 

 homage of several of the Scottish magnates. (The 

 same thing, I have no doubt, will apjiear from the 

 Fcedera of the same historian, which I have it not 

 in my power to refer to.) 



(3.) Chronicon de Lanercost, printed by the 

 Maitland Club, Edinburgh, 1839, p. 283. Al- 

 luding to the pacification of 1327 : 



" Ked<ii(iit etiani eis partem crucis Christi quam vacant 

 Scotti Blukerufle, et similiter unam instrumentum. . . . 

 Kagman vocabatur. Lapidem tamen de Scone, in quo 

 Solent regis Scotiae apud Scone in cieatione suacoilocaii, 

 Londonensis noiuerunt a se deniitteie quoquoinodo. 

 Omnia autem haec aspoitari fecerat de Scotia inclytus 

 rex Edwardusfilius Henrici, dum Scotlos sussubjiceret 

 ditioiii." 



Fabian and Holinshed report the same thing. 



4. Is not Fordun quoting from Turgot and 

 Aelred (whom he names Baldredus) when he 

 speaks of " ilia sancta crux quam nigrnm vocant ?" 

 And how does the description of the Durham 

 cross, — 



" Which rood and pictures were all three very richly 

 wrought in silver, and were all smoked black over, 

 being large pictures of a yard or five quarters long," 

 &c. &c.,— 



agree with the description of the Black Rood of 

 St. Margaret which, as Lord Hailes says, " was of 

 gold, about the length of a palm ; the figure of 

 ebony, studded and inlaid with gold. A piece of 

 the true cross was enclosed in it" ? 



5. As to the cross " miraculously received by 

 David 1., and in honour of which he founded 

 Holyrood Abbey in 1128," and which some an- 

 tiquaries (see A Bi'ief Account of Durham Ca- 

 thedral ; Newcastle, 1833, p. 46.) gravely assert 

 was to be seen " in the south aisle ot' the choir of 

 Durham Cathedral at its eastern termination, in 

 front of a wooden screen richly gilt and decorated 

 with stars and other ornaments," are not all agreed 

 that the story is a mere monkish legend, invented 

 long after Holyrood was founded (although, per- 

 haps, not so recent as Lord Hailes supposed) ? and 

 is it not, therefore, absurd to speak of such a cross 

 being taken at the battle of Durham, or to identify 

 it with the Black Rood of Scotland? 



6. The quotation of W. S. G. from the 71/^. 

 Dunelvu is curious ; but is there any contemporary 

 authority for the Black Rood having been taken 

 with King David at the battle of Durham ? I can 

 find none. 



7. Is it not, however, probable that King David 

 lost two crosses at Durham, one a military cross, 

 carried with his army, and taken from the Abbey 

 of Holyrood ; and the other the famous Black Rood 

 found on his person, and made an offering to the 

 shrine of St. Cuthbert ? This would reconcile some 

 apparent discrepancies. 



8. I find it noticed by Richardson in his Table 

 Book (Newcastle, 1846, vol. i.p. 123.), that "there 

 is a letter in the British Museum (F'austina, A 6. 

 47.) from the prior of Durham to the Bishop (then 

 absent), giving an account of the battle of Neville's 

 cross." Has this letter been printed, and where? 

 If not so, will any of your correspondents have the 



