P- 43*
CO LDINCHAM.
P- 49»
A e b e e l a d i e .
doms, under its proper jurifdiftion till 1747, when legiflature annexed
it to England. The lands .belonging to it, or what are called
Berwick Bounds, are about 8000 acres. The religious had five convents
here, all founded by the Scottijh kings. Here were Mathurines,
Dominicans, and Francifcans, and two nunneries, one of Benedictines
another of Cijlertians *.
This nunnery was the oldeft in Scotland-, for in this place the
virgin-wife Etheldreda took veil in 670. But by the antient name
Coludumf, it Ihould feem, that it had before been inhabited by the
religious called Culdees. After the deftruftion by the Danes, it lay
deferted till the year 1098. when Edgar founded on its fite a priory of
Benedictines, in honor of St. Cutbbert; and bellowed it on the monks
of Durham, with all lands, waters, wrecks, &c. £
Pinkie, and Carberry hill, lie a little weft of the road, a few miles
from Edinburgh ; each of them famed in hiftory. The firft noted
for the fatal overthrow of the Scots, under their Regent the Earl of
Arran, on September the 10th, 1547, by the Frotedlor Duke of So-
merfet. Ten thoufand Scots fell that day : and by this rough court-
Jhip, Mary was frightened into the arms of the Dauphin of France,
inftead of fharing the crown of England, with her amiable coufin,
Edward VI. Twenty years after, Carberry hill proved a fpot ftill
more pregnant with misfortunes to this imprudent princefs. Her
army, in 1567, occupied the very camp pofiefled by the Englijh before
the battle of Pinkie. Here, with the profligate Bothwell, lhe
• Keith, 243, 270. 274. 280. 281. f Bede, lib .IV . C. 19..
I Anderfon’ s D ip l.‘ No. IV .
hoped
hoped to make a ftand againft her infurgent nobles: her forces terrified
with the badnefs of the caufe, declined the fight. She furren-
dered to the confederates, while her hufband, by the connivance of
Morton and others, partakers of his crimes, retired, and efcaped his
merited punifhment.
At Mujjelburgh, crofs the EJk, near its mouth.
The houfe called Babel confifted of twelve or thirteen ftories
before the fire in 1700,' but is now reduced to ten or eleven.
and was granted to an anceftor of his, as a reward for taking Robert
Graham, the ruffian who murdered James I. It was then valued at
an hundred marks. He was likewife permitted to bear in his' coat
of arms a Graham bound in chains. A defcendant of his, ftyled
MLac-Robert, was the moft potent plunderer of his days; and at the
head of eight hundred men for a long time ravaged Athol, and the
adjoining countries, in the beginning of the reign of James V. but
at length was furprifed and flain. The late Struan feemed to inherit
his turbulent difpofition.
This cuftom is an ancient Englijh one, perhaps a Saxon. Chaucer
mentions it in his Knight’s Tale.
Ne how the liche-nvaie was yhold
A l l thilke night.
It was not alone in Scotland that fuch watchings degenerated into
excefs. Thefe indecencies we find long ago forbidden by the church.
In vigiliis circa corporti. mortuorum vetantur chorea, et cantilena, feculares
ludi, et alii turpes et fatui*.
* Synod. Wigcrn. an. 1240, as quoted in M r. Tyrwhitds Chaucer, IE . 234.
i ‘--
[b 2] I muft
B a b e l .
p, 50.
L a t e w a k e .
p . 99.