26 Anniversary Address. 



The designation of the stream hence became changed to that 

 of " the Hermitage-water," and the castle took the same 

 name.* 



The approximate date of the building is obtained from a 

 notice of a threatened rupture between Henry III. and Alex. 

 II. in 1244, at the instance of a Scotch renegade, when 

 among other pretexts was urged the erection of two " frontier 

 fortresses in Lothian and Liddisdale," the latter of which is 

 stated by Fordun to have been that of Hermitage. f 



The castle continued in the possession of the Soulises for 

 nearly a century. The family rose to great eminence, and 

 held the office of cup-bearer to the king (pincerna regis). 

 Some of them were justiciaries of Lothian and sheriffs of 

 Roxburghshire, and the last was styled butelarius Scocice, 

 a dignity similar to that of Lord High Steward. Nicholas, 

 the son of Fulk, a man of high character, was a competitor 

 for the Scottish crown in right of his descent from a natural 

 daughter of Alexander Ti.,% a pretension which ultimately 

 led to the ruin of the family. They had extensive possessions 

 in the counties of Dumfries, Roxburgh, and the Lothians, 

 where their name is still extant in the parish of Saltoun 

 (quasi Soulis toun). An ancient cross at Deadrigs, in the 

 parish of Eccles, sculptured with their arms,§ points to some 

 connection with Berwickshire. William the sixth from 

 Ranulph, after having united with the great barons, in the 



but Walter de Bolbeck appears as a witness to the first charter granted by David 

 Earl of Cumberland (afterwards David I.), to the monastery of Selkirk in 1113. 



* Merching-buin was probably a boundary between two estates in the same 

 manner as the Tweeden-burn, said also to signify " boundary," divides the lands 

 of Mangerton and Whithaugh. 



f Scoto Chronicon B IX., ch. 61. "Propter quod coadunato Henricus 

 Anglise rex, exercitu suo copioso. commissurus bellum contra regem Scotise, 

 Alexandrum, eo quoddam castelhrm erectum fuit per Scotos, in Marchiis inter 

 Scotiam et Angliam in valle scilicet de Liddale quod appellatur Hermitage." 



The Scottish traitor who strove to embroil the two sovereigns was William 

 Bisset, Lord of Aboyne, who for the foul murder of Patrick, Earl of A thole, at 

 Haddington in 1242, was forfeited and banished. Balfour Ann. I., 1, 53-5. Hailes 

 Ann. I, 173. 



t Hailes Ann. I., 180 and 232. 



§ Ermine, 3 chevrons gules. Trans. Soc. Antiq. Scot, I., 269. 



