On the Cross at Crosshall. By James Hardy. 369 



Fordun] ; but I submit this to the inquiry of the ingenious antiquary. 



The vulgar tradition says, that a governor of Hume Castle was killed on 

 the spot, in a skirmish Hume Castle is about two miles distant from it. " 



That the dignitary to whose honour this monument was raised 

 was a Soules, may from the arms on the scutcheons be granted, 

 but that it was to commemorate the father of the Sir John Soules 

 referred to by Mr Eobertson is most improbable. The father 

 was Nicholas de Sules, sheriff of Roxburgh, 1346, who " although 

 the wisest and most eloquent man in the kingdom was removed 

 from the councils of his sovereign in 12-55, and died at Rouen, 

 in Normandy, in 1264. By his wife Annora, the fifth daughter 

 of theEarl of Buchan, hehad atleasttwo sons, William and John."* 

 To follow out their history is not required, because the want of 

 coincidence in dates contradicts Mr Robertson's proposed identi- 

 fication. Neither are we helped by knowing who were the 

 predecessors of Nicholas. Randolph de Soulis, a Northamptonshire 

 baron, appears as the progenitor of the race, in the charters of 

 David I., Malcolm IV., and William the Lion. He held the office 

 of the king's butler during the reign of William the Lion. The 

 second Randolph, lord of Liddesdale, like his predecessor, was 

 assassinated in 1207, in his castle, by his own domestics. Fulco 

 de Sules was the next " pincerna; " and he occurs of date 1222- 

 1 223. Nicholas, the son of Fulco, and his successor as king's butler, 

 and notable as the erecter of Hermitage Castle, is the banished 

 noble who died at Rouen in 1264.f 



None of the Soules family, so far as is known, held possessions 

 in this part of Berwickshire. It is, however, quite possible that 

 some distinguished scion of the race may have fallen at this spot 

 of evil name, in some unrecorded skirmish, of which tradition is 

 the only chronicler. 



On the subject of this cross I am permitted to quote a letter 

 from Mr James Drummond, the artist, to Mr Milne Home, dated 

 8 Royal Crescent, Edinburgh, 14th September, 1875, expressive 

 of his opinion on some of the figures represented on it. 



** The cross in the parish of Eccles I made a sketch of many years ago, 

 and there is a small woodcut of it [the sime now accompanying this paper] 

 as an illustration of a certain class of Crosses in a paper which I sent tc the 

 Antiquarian Society in 1861. Nothing is such a puzzle as the date of such 

 memorials, the art being so rude that it directs one to no period, the dress or 



* Armstrong's Hist, of Liddesdale, pp. 124-125. 

 t Ibid, pp. 123-6. 



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