Ml*. J. Stuart on St. Ehha and Coldingham. 213 



sprung up which yet continued to flow, (that is in the hegin- 

 Aing of the sixteenth century when the Breviary was con- 

 structed). 



In a charter of a toft in the town of Ayton, dated ahout 

 1250, reference is made to eight acres of land in the plain 

 between the Well of St. Ehha and Littledene ;* and part of 

 the Barony of Ayton is still called " St. Ebb's Well " in the 

 Investitures of the lands — where St. Ebb's Mill also appears. 

 In an ancient Rental of the Priory, Roger is entered as pos- 

 sessing a croft and two acres, and is described as " homo 

 Sanctoe Ebboe." Did this imply that there had been a terri- 

 tory in connection with the early foundation ? 



When Edgar, the King of the Scots, resolved to found a 

 Priory at Coldingham, we may reasonably believe that its 

 site was partly suggested by recollections of the earlier foun- 

 dation of St. Ebba, while in choosing to subject the new 

 establishment to the Monks of Durham, he may have been 

 led by the conjoined motives of reverence for St. Cuthbert 

 and affection for Turgot, the confessor of his saintly mother, 

 and his own early friend, then Prior of Durham. 



According to Wyntonn : — 



" Coldyngame than fowndyd he, 

 And rychely gert it dowyt be, 

 Of Saynt Eb a swet Halow, 

 Saint Cuthbert Ihare thai honowre now." 



The country of Lothian in which the Priory was placed had 

 till lately been under the dominion of his mother's people — 

 the Saxons ; and among the precious relics of the new foun- 

 dation were those of St. Margaret,t the Saxon Princess. 



Lothian was an early settlement of the Saxon people. 

 Under the name of " Saxonia " it was frequently invaded by 

 the Celtic races who were settled on the north of the Forth. 

 Thus the Chronicle of the Picts records that Kenneth, the 

 son of Alpin, who lived about the middle of the ninth 

 century, six times invaded " Saxonia," burning Dunbar and 

 taking possession of Melros.J 



There are facts from which it may be inferred that the 

 country had not been fully settled and peopled by the Angles. 

 Thus, among the lands bestowed by the munificence of the 



* Breviar. Aberd., Pars. Estio., fol. Ixxxvii. North Durham, App., p. 48. 

 f Raine's Coldingham, Appendix, p. 103. 

 X Pinkerton's Inquiry, Vol. I., p. 494. 



