B,EPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1907 163 



may easily conceive, therefore, bow hasty and imperfect our 

 survey must be. I need hardly say, at the outset, that the 

 site on which we now stand is not that of the first monastery 

 of Melrose, founded by Columban missionaries in the 7th 

 century, when the Eastern Scottish Lowlands formed part of 

 the old Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, and hallowed by 

 its association with such saintly names as Aidan, Eata, Boisil 

 (who bequeathed his name to the contiguous parish of St. 

 Boswells), and Cuthbert. That monastery stood about two 

 and a half miles farther down the Tweed, on a lovely peninsula 

 which we are to see to-da3^ No traces of it are left. When 

 David I. — that 'sair sanct' for the Scottish Crown — established 

 the second monasterj-- of Melrose in 1136, he fixed the site 

 at the village then known as Fordel, the spot where we are 

 now assembled. Ten j'ears after the foundation, on 28th 

 July 1 146, the Church was consecrated with great pomp 

 under the invocation of the Virgin Mary. The monks 

 belonged to the Cistercian order, and were brought from 

 Eievaulx in Yorkshire. 



"The Abbey had a most eventful history. Being very near 

 the English border, it was repeatedly attacked and burnt by 

 ' our auld enemies of England ' in their frequent invasions of 



the country. Edward II. reduced it to ruin 

 Historical in 1322, in revenge for an attack made upon 

 Notes. his retreating army by Sir James Douglas. In 



1326 the Bruce, who seems to have had a special 

 affection for Melrose and its monks, gave a grant of £2000 

 for the rebuilding of the Church, and three years later the 

 heart of the hero-king was buried before the high altar. 

 How far the re-edification which followed his gift bad pro- 

 ceeded before the close of the century we cannot tell; but a 

 second disaster befell the unfortunate Abbey in 1385, when 

 Richard II. of England again committed it to the flames in 

 the course of his inglorious expedition into Scotland that 

 year. By far the greater part of the building, as we now 

 see it, dates from a period subsequent to this outrage. The 

 South transept appears to have been finished about the middle 

 of the fifteenth century. On one of the bosses of the vault 

 are carved the initials and arms (a shield charged with three 

 )iovn8 ftucl a croaier) of Audrey Hunter, Aljbot of Melroie, 



