86 THE i^RANClSCAN FRIARY OF JEDBUKGH 



;ind could not yet have been repaired."'" This, however, is 

 liypercriticisni. It does not appear tliat tlie stonework was 

 completely demolished in the conflagration fifteen months 

 previously. It will doubtless not he known, unless the con- 

 temporary Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer (not yet 

 published) make reference to it, whether or not the Franciscan 

 community was re-established here after this blow ; but the 

 probability is that it did not recover from the ruin and 

 desolation caused in 1545. Had it been rebuilt, most likely 

 the zealous spirit of religious reform which arose fourteen years 

 later would eflt'ace it even more completely than the hostility 

 of the English sc^ldiery. Father Hay briefly sums up its 

 history in these words : " Jedburgh [Friary] — founded by the 

 inhabitants, 1513; burnt by the English."" 



The conventual buildings seem to have been completely 

 destroyed at an early date ; the place-name alone survived. 

 In a letter of remission dated lOtli August, 1588, mention 

 is made of " the aci'es lying at the place of the friars of 

 Jedburgh."'^ The "locum Fratrum Minorum de Jedburgh" 

 is referred to also in several charters given under the Great 

 Seal of Scotland between 1559 and 1642 ; and in similar 

 charters the " hoi'ti lie Freris Yairdis " '^ are mentioned, these 

 perhaps being the gai-dens indicated in ^^'ood's Plan of 

 Jedburgh. 



Of the members of this coimmuiity the most interesting 

 from a literary, and second in impoi'tance irom a national, 

 })oint of view was Adam Bell or Abel. As a canon regular 

 of the Augustinian ordei* he had spent scjme part of his life 

 at InchafFray Abbey.'* Turning next to the more rigorous 



'" Monastic Annals, p. 39, note. 



""Jedbnrgh ab incolis fandatuni 151.3; ab Anglis iiicen~«um." — 

 Hay's Scotia Sacra (MS.), p. 554. With some reluctance I have said 

 above that the Friary was founded by the Jedburgh citizens, a 

 statement for which Hay is my only authority. H has already been 

 shown that he was wrong in regard to the date of its foundation. 



'^ Laing Charters, p. 287. 



'^ Register of the Great Seal. 



'* Of the period of his existence there I have no definite information. 

 He is not among the canons of Inchaffray who sabscx'ibe a lease 

 granted on 18th July, 1521. 



