10 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



kirk and Mertoun.* Lauder was at first a manorial 

 church, but by the beginning of the thirteenth century 

 the monks of Dryburgh, along with the Abbey of Kil- 

 winning in Ayrshire, had acquired certain rights to 

 the teinds of the parish, and they were not long in set- 

 ting up a claim to the possession and patronage of the 

 parochial church. This was successfully withstood 

 for some years by the incumbent, who found means to 

 carry his cause to Rome itself. At one stage of the pro- 

 ceedings the monks had it declared that Channelkirk 

 was the mother church of the district, and that Lauder 

 was a chapel subordinate to it, but the latter allegation 

 was unfounded in fact. Ultimately, the lord of the 

 manor, John Baliol (father of the John Baliol who was 

 awarded the Crown of Scotland by Edward I.) and his 

 wife Devorgilla, a descendant of the De Morvilles, yielded 

 them the coveted right,-f* and thereafter, with the church 

 of Lauder, and the associated hospital of St. Leonards, 

 and the chapel of St. John at Kedslie, they held undis- 

 puted possession of the greater part of Upper -Lauderdale. 

 Lower down, Coldingham and the Abbey of Paisley shared 

 the valley with them ; Coldingham, as I have already 

 shown, holding Earlston, and Paisley, by the gift of 

 Walter Fitz-Alan, the steward of Malcolm IV., the 

 church of Legerwood, with its pertinents.^ Walter 

 was a liberal benefactor to other monasteries also, par- 

 ticularly that of Melrose. In the '' Chronicle of Melrose," 

 there occurs the following notice of his death : — ''• A.D. 

 1177. Walter Fitz-Alan, the steward of the King of 

 Scotland, our intimate friend, died. May his blessed 

 soul live in glory !" The recent discovery at Legerwood 

 of a fragment of a stone cross, with Celtic interlacing 

 work upon it, renders it highly probable that a church 

 or chapel existed here in early Saxon times, founded 



* Liber de Dryburgh, Nos. 6, 8, 172, 176, 234, &c. 



t Liber de Dryburgh, Nos. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 84, 266, 279, 280, &c. 



X Registrum de Passelet, pp. 5, 7, 116, 118, 119, &c, 



