Ednam Hospital. By James Hardy. 841 



It is called in a Zelso Charter (No. 14) the land of the infirm, 

 — "terrain inf irmorum " — i.e., to say of sickly and decrepit 

 monks, and for the maintenance of "poor and infirm people." 



The situation of the hospital is indicated in a charter of King 

 William, the Lion, to Kelso Abbey of lands and privileges in 

 the territory of Ednam, as being at the intersection of the road 

 leading from the bridge of the ford on the west side of Ednam, 

 to the forking of the road that came from the northern part of 

 the petary of Ednam. (Chart. Kelso, No. 14, p. 18.) 



The lands and hospital of Ednam continued crown property 

 till the reign of Eobert I., who granted them to his son-in-law, 

 Walter Stuart, from whom his son, afterwards Eobert II., 

 derived them. For an interval in the reign of David II., they 

 were at the disposal of Edward III. In 1349, Edward III. 

 issued a writ for restoring the hospitals of St Mary at Berwick 

 and of Edenham to Eobert de Burton, who is said to have been 

 a busy agent of the English king on the Border. (Jeffrey's 

 Eoxburgh, iii. p. Ill, from Eot. Scot, i.) 



In 1373, in the time of Eobert II,, a concession which that 

 king had bestowed, of the lands of Ednam and the advocation of 

 the hospital, was revoked in Parliament from Eobert de Erskin, 

 knt., and dame Christian de Ketht his wife, (Act Pari. Scot, i., 

 pp. 197, 198), who were otherwise provided for; and in 1392, 

 the lands and patronage were acquired by Sir John de 

 Edmonston of that ilk, and Isobel Stuart his wife, elsewhere 

 called Euphemia and also Margaret, daughter of Eobert II. 

 (Genealogy of the Lairds of Ednem and Duntreth, Glasgow, 

 A.D., 1699, p. 4; Nisbet's Heraldry, ii., Appendix, p. 156). 



This early documentary evidence dissipates the conjecture of 

 Spottiswood (Eeligious Houses, &c., p. 290), that the hospital 

 seemed to have been founded by the Edmonstons, which has 

 been recently repeated in Walcott's compilation " The Ancient 

 Church of Scotland," p. 387. 



In 1426, an instance occurs of the exercise of the patronage: 

 "Joannes de Edmonston. tutor dativus Jacobi de Edmonston, 

 filii et heredis quondam Davidis de Edmonston de Ednem, 

 presents Mr Eobert Heriot to the chaplainry of the hospital, 

 which was vacant by the death of Mr Alexander Crichton. This 

 is confirmed by King James at Edinburgh, 27th September, 

 1426." (Spottiswood in Keith's Bishops of Scotland, p. 290. 

 Edinr. 1755). 



