84 On the Nunnery of North Berwick, by Dr. J. Stuart. 



" the monastical superstitions for the quhilk the abbaceis 

 and nunreis of this realme were erectit of auld, are now be 

 the laws of this realm alluterlie suppresit and abolischit." 



In 1529, the Archbishop of St. Andrews lamented in a 

 writ addressed to the Pope, the frequent devastations by 

 war of the Monastery of North Berwick and its lands, and 

 the burning of its church by the invading enemy. Whether 

 the Abbey Church was afterwards rebuilt is now unknown ; 

 no vestige of it, however, remains. 



The ruins now known as the Abbey of North Berwick 

 still show enough to leave no doubt that they are of later 

 structure, apparently about the time of the Reformation, 

 when the Humes, lords of North Berwick, may have erected 

 a building on the site of the old Nunnery. There is no mark 

 of any ecclesiastical building in the existing ruins. 



A few imperfect tombstones, a fragment of an old font, 

 and a few other relics have been preserved and placed in the 

 garden of the adjoining farm — the Abbey farm of North 

 Berwick. To the eastward of the ruins many rude stone 

 coffins have been turned up, and some of the paving tiles of 

 the church have been occasionally found, highly glazed, and 

 with ornamental patterns in relief. 



On a little promontory which defends the harbour of 

 North Berwick, on the west, are the remains of a vaulted 

 building, which may be the remains of the hospital at the 

 south side of the ferry, given by Earl Duncan, of Fife, to the 

 nuns. There has been probably a chapel and cemetery 

 attached to it, and it has been said that the soil of the 

 promontory is full of human bones. 



These scanty details of the Monastery have been gleaned 

 from the Register of its Charters, printed for the Bannatyne 

 Club, and from the preface "of Mr. Innes, its learned editor. 



It may be mentioned that North Berwick holds a promi- 

 nent place in some of the trials for witchcraft which disgraced 

 the reign of James VI., and specially in connection with a 

 great " convention " of witches with the devil, which was 

 held in the kirk of North Berwick, towards the end of the 

 year 1590. The details* are given in Pitcairn's "Criminal 

 Trials" (Vol. i., p. 240), and Sir James Melville has preserved 

 the following account of the transaction in his " Memoirs " : 



"About this tym many witches wer tane in Lowdien, wha 

 deponit of some [ J maid be the Erie Bodowell, as they 



allegit against his Majesteis persone. Quhilk commying to the 



