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The Abbot

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This Abbey has been always particularly favoured by the Bruce. We have
already seen his extreme anxiety that each of the reverend brethren
should be daily supplied with a service of boiled almonds, rice and
milk, pease, or the like, to be called the King's mess, and that
without the ordinary service of their table being either disturbed in
quantity or quality. But this was not the only mark of the benignity
of good King Robert towards the monks of Melrose, since, by a charter
of the dale 29th May, 1326, he conferred on the Abbot of Melrose the
sum of two thousand pounds sterling, for rebuilding: the church of St.
Mary's, ruined by the English; and there is little or no doubt that
the principal part of the remains which now display such exquisite
specimens of Gothic architecture, at its very purest period, had their
origin in this munificent donation. The money was to be paid out of
crown lands, estates forfeited to the King, and other property or
demesnes of the crown.

A very curious letter written to his son about three weeks before his
death, has been pointed out to me by my friend Mr. Thomas Thomson,
Deputy-Register for Scotland. It enlarges so much on the love of the
royal writer to the community of Melrose, that it is well worthy of
being inserted in a work connected in some degree with Scottish
History.

LITERA DOMINI REGIS ROBERTI AD FILIUM SUUM DAVID.

"Robertius dei gratia Rex Scottorum, David precordialissimo filio suo,
ac ceteris successoribus suis; Salutem, et sic ejus precepta tenere,
ut cum sua benedictione possint regnare. Fili carissime, digne censeri
videtur filius, qui, paternos in bonis mores imitans, piam ejus
nititur exequi voluntatem; nec proprie sibi sumit nomen heredis, qui
salubribus predecessoris affectibus non adherit: Cupientes igitur, ut
piam affectionem et scinceram delectionem, quam erga monasterium de
Melros, ubi cor nostrum ex speciali devotione disposuimus tumularidum,
et erga Religiosos ibidem Deo servientes, ipsorum vita sanctissima nos
ad hoc excitante, concepimus; Tu ceterique successores mei pia
scinceritate prosequarimi, ut, ex vestre dilectionis affectu dictis
Religiosis nostri causa post mortem nostrum ostenso, ipsi pro nobis ad
orandum ferveucius et forcius animentur: Vobis precipimus quantum
possumus, instanter supplicamus, et ex toto corde injungimus, Quatinus
assignacionibus quas eisdem yiris Religiosis et fabrica Ecclesie sue
de novo fecimus ac eciam omnibus aliis donacionibus nostris, ipsos
libere gaudere permittatis, Easdem potius si necesse fuerit
augmentantes quam diminuentes, ipsorum peticiones auribus benevolis
admittentes, ac ipsos contra suos invasores et emuios pia defensione
protegentes. Hanc autem exhortacionem supplicacionem et preceptum tu,
fili ceterique successores nostri prestanti animo complere curetis,
si nostram benedictionem habere velitis, una cum benedictione filii
summi Regis, qui filios docuit patrum voluntates in bono perficere,
asserens in mundum se venisse non ut suam voluntatem faceret sed
paternam. In testimonium autem nostre devotionis ergra locum predictum
sic a nobis dilectum et electum concepte, presentem literam Religiosis
predictis dimittimus, nostris successoribus in posterum ostendendam.
Data apud Cardros, undecimo die Maij, Anno Regni nostri vicesimo
quarto."

If this charter be altogether genuine, and there is no appearance of
forgery, it gives rise to a curious doubt in Scottish History. The
letter announces that the King had already destined his heart to be
deposited at Melrose. The resolution to send it to Palestine, under
the charge of Douglas, must have been adopted betwixt 11th May 1329,
the date of the letter, and 7th June of the same year, when the Bruce
died; or else we must suppose that the commission of Douglas extended
not only to taking the Bruce's heart to Palestine, but to bring it
safe back to its final place of deposit in the Abbey of Melrose.

It would not be worth inquiring: by what caprice the author was
induced to throw the incident of the Bruce's heart entirely out of the
story, save merely to say, that he found himself unable to fill up the
canvass he had sketched, and indisposed to prosecute the management of
the supernatural machinery with which his plan, when it was first
rough-hewn, was connected and combined.]

Long before that period arrived, Roland Avenel was wedded to Catherine
Seyton, who, after two years' residence with her unhappy mistress, was
dismissed upon her being subjected to closer restraint than had been
at first exercised. She returned to her father's house, and as Roland
was acknowledged for the successor and lawful heir of the ancient
house of Avenel, greatly increased as the estate was by the providence
of Sir Halbert Gleninning, there occurred no objections to the match
on the part of her family. Her mother was recently dead when she first
entered the convent; and her father, in the unsettled times which
followed Queen Mary's flight to England, was not averse to an alliance
with a youth, who, himself loyal to Queen Mary, still held some
influence, through means of Sir Halbert Glendinning, with the party in
power.

Roland and Catherine, therefore, were united, spite of their differing
faiths; and the White Lady, whose apparition had been infrequent when
the house of Avenel seemed verging to extinction, was seen to sport by
her haunted well, with a zone of gold around her bosom as broad as the
baldrick of an Earl.


END OF THE ABBOT.

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