146 Mr. Stuart on Melrose. 



Turgot, afterwards Bishop of St. Andrew's, and Confessor to 

 Margaret, the saintly queen of Malcolm Canmore. The monastery- 

 was succeeded by a church or chapel dedicated to St. Cuthbert, and 

 dependant on the Priory of Durham or Coldingham, till between 

 1126 and 1136, when David I. exchanged for it the church at 

 Berwick, and annexed it to the new Monastery at Melrose, which 

 he founded in the latter year. This chapel became famous as a 

 resort of pilgrims. Towards the middle of the 13th century this 

 sanctuary was the dwelling of a monk named Aidan, reputed of 

 great sanctity, who for twenty years never entered a bed, but slept 

 sitting or Ijdng before the altar of the Virgin in that chapel, at the 

 door of which he sat during the day time reading his psalter, sup- 

 plying the wants of the poor who visited the sanctuary, from a 

 basket of provisions which he kept beside him, and bestowing his 

 blessing upon all visitors, among whom were Bang Alexander II. 

 and many of his nobles. 



This venerable Monastery of Melrose was not on the same site 

 as that whose ruins our members have now assembled to inspect, 

 but on a promontory surrounded by the Tweed at a place now 

 called eld Melrose, about two miles farther down the stream. Yet 

 in writing of the second foundation, it seemed impossible not to 

 linger for a time over the first, and to feel that the glory of that 

 humble structure which witnessed the missionary labours of 

 Aidan and Boisil and Cuthbert, transcends that of the second, 

 although the- grandeur and beauty of the latter yet remain to 

 charm and surprize us, while the other only survives in the dim 

 pages of early chroniclers. 



In 1136 King David I. founded the modern Abbey of Melrose, 

 having brought thither from EievaUe in Yorkshire a colony of 

 Cistertian Monks. The church, which was ten years in biiilding, 

 was finished in 1 146, and was with great pomp and solemnity dedi- 

 cated to the Blessed Virgin, on the 28th July of that year, and 

 the establishment soon became rich from the benefactions of the 

 Scottish monarchs and their great subjects. 



About 1321 the church was pillaged and destroyed by the 

 English under Edward II. In consequence of that destruction. 

 Bang Eobort Bruce, to aid in rebuilding the church, granted to 

 the monks all wards, reliefs, maritages, escheats, fines, amerci- 

 aments, issues, and perquisites of both Justiciary and Sheriff 

 Courts belonging to himself and his heirs within the Sheriffdom 

 of Eoxburgh, to be held by them until they should have fully 

 raised the sum of £2000 sterling ; a gift which appears to have 

 enabled them to erect the beautiful fabric whose ruins stiR 

 remain. In 1329 the same King, a few weeks before his death, 

 addressed to his son David and his successors a letter recom- 

 mending to their especial favour the monastery of Melrose, in 

 which he had ordered his heart to be entombed, and in which 

 he earnestly enjoined them to allowthe monks to enjoy all his 

 donations for the rebuilding of their church, and to increase 

 rather than diminish them. This purpose of the Scottish monarch 

 touching the resting-place of his heart seems to have been altered 



