THE GREYFRIARS AND THE Moat BRAE. 11 
2ist January, 1916. 
Chairman—T. A. Hauuipay, Vice-President. 
The Greyfriars and the Moat Brae, Kirkcudbright. 
By Mr J. Rosison, F.S.A.(Scot.). 
The monastery of the Greyfriars, which stood on part of the 
Moat Brae and ground occupied by the Castle of the M‘Clellans 
Lords Kirkcudbright, and southwards beyond the castle, was 
the last of the conventual friaries of the Order of St. Francis of 
Assisi to be established in Scotland. It is not proposed here 
to enter into a history of the monastery, as that has already been 
done so far as is known.* Up till the publication of Mr Moir 
Bryce’s history it was believed that Edward I., when he visited 
Kirkcudbright in 1300, placed an oblation on the altar of the 
Priory Church. This was due to the misreading of an entry in 
the Wardrobe Accounts, which refers to the Priory of St. Mary’s 
Isle. It was not till fully a century and a half later that the 
Little Brothers were established in Kirkcudbright, on the most 
commanding site in the town, overlooking the river on the north, 
with the large creek, the mouth of which in after years formed 
the harbour, on the east, and the King’s Highway, or High 
Street, on the south and west. It was in the summer of 1455 
that James II. laid siege to Threave Castle, the last of the 
strongholds of the great family of the Black Douglases. During 
the continuance of the siege artillery was transported from Kirk- 
cudbright to Threave, and if credence is to be given to the Kirk- 
cudbright tradition, the inhabitants bore an active share in the 
operations. The King was, along with his consort, a frequent 
visitor to the town during the siege, as is attested by the entries 
in the Exchequer Rolls, and it was at this period that he founded 
the monastery, probably colonised by the brethren from Dum- 
fries, and again raised the town to the status of a royal burgh, 
which it had occupied in the reign of Robert the Bruce. 
The buildings of the Greyfriars were plain in the extreme, 
and in those days the Little Brothers had not wandered so far 
* The Scottish Grey Friars. W. Moir Bryce, 
