The Pre- Reformation Churches of Berwickshire. 171 



into whose hands the buildings ultimately fell — a parsimony 

 which not only grudged the smallest expenditure, although the 

 preservation of an abbey or cathedral might be at stake, but 

 even converted some of our finest edifices into sources of gain.* 

 Not a few of our most magnificent churches, and countless 

 humbler ones, have been utilised as quarries, while others have 

 been suffered to fall into decay, simply because their owners were 

 totally unaware of their value as historical relics or as works of 

 art. Of the so-called restorations to which many parish churches 

 were subjected in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and 

 in the earlier portion of the nineteenth, it is impossible to think 

 or speak with patience; the object of the 'restorers' appear- 

 ing, in most cases, to have been to save as much expense, and at 

 the same time display as much bad taste, as possible. Within 

 the last half-century, it is true, matters have greatly improved 

 in this respect; and not a few praiseworthy efforts have been made, 

 in recent years, to preserve to future generations those relics 

 of the past which have so narrowly escaped utter destruction. 

 Indeed, at the present moment, there seems to exist such deep and 

 wide-spread interest in everything considered ' mediaeval ' or 

 * Gothic,' that we are a little apt to flatter ourselves that the long 

 reign of ignorance and apathy has at length come to an end, and 

 that, henceforth, the surviving monuments of our past history 

 will be estimated and cared for as they ought to be. Meanwhile, 

 we are content to allow the last resting-place of the heart of 

 Bruce, at Melrose, to be marked out to visitors by an inscription 

 on a wretched piece of pasteboard; the tombs of Alexander II., 

 one of the best of our early Kings, of the " Douglas dead," 

 whose name won his last hard-fought field, and of many another 

 noble and gallant Scot of " the brave days of old " to lack even 

 that poor indication, or at least to have none better; and the very 

 cattle to graze in the burying- ground surrounding the once 



* The case for the Reformers will be found stated and argued with 

 couspicaous vigour, ability and fairness by McCrie in his Life of Knox, 

 (vol. I., p. 276, and Note H.H.) and scarcely requires to be reopened. In a 

 fuller investigation of the subject it would have been necessary to advert 

 to the serious, and in some cases irreparable, mischief done to several of 

 our finest churches, e.g. Portrose, Aberdeen, and Elgin cathedrals, in the 

 earlier stages of the Covenanting struggle, and by Cromwell's forces during 

 their occupation of the country. 



