The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 2/3MacGibbon, David
History
The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland from the earliest Christian times to the seventeenth century; vol. 2/3
MacGibbon, David
Church architecture -- Scotland
During the time of the tenth abbot, Constantine, the church was
dedicated by Andrew de Moravia, Bishop of Moray, in March 1233.
In the year 1241, Mary de Couci, queen of Alexander II., “looking to her
time of peril, and impressed with the frail tenure of life, bequeathed
her body to be buried in the church of Newbotle.”[92] This would seem
to indicate that the fabric of the church, if not finished by this
time, was far advanced. Mary de Couci survived for about thirty years,
when her desire to be buried here was carried out; and Father Hay
describes her tomb, apparently from the record of an eye-witness. “In
the midst of the church was seen the tomb of the queen of King
Alexander, of marble, supported on six lions of marble. A human figure
was placed reclining on the tomb, surrounded with an iron grating.”[93]
In 1275 Waldeve, the seventeenth abbot, “going the way of all flesh,
with blessed end, departed to the Lord, leaving his house in full peace
and excellent condition.”
Gervase, the nineteenth abbot, who demitted office in 1323, settled for
ever on the infirmary of the abbey an annual rent of three merks, “to be
expended for the uses of the sick and the recreation of the feeble.”[94]
These few notices seem to show that about the middle of the fourteenth
century the abbey was in a fairly complete state. It possessed great
estates in the counties of the Lothians, Lanark, Peebles, and Stirling.
Father Hay writes that, about this time, he “finds, from the books of
receipts and expenses, the annual income of the monastery could maintain
eighty monks and seventy lay brethren, with the corresponding
establishment.”[95]
But evil days were at hand. In 1385, during the expedition of Richard
II., “the English,” writes Father Hay, “burnt the monastery of Newbotle;
and, at the same time, several of the granges and farms of the monastery
were destroyed, and the others were deserted, while the lands were left
untilled. The towers or peles, built by the monastery for protection
against English marauders, fared in the same way. Some of the monks were
carried away prisoners; others fled to other monasteries. The few who
remained in the abbey, having scarce sufficient food, were compelled, by
great distress, to sell twenty-nine excellent chalices, nine crosses of
exquisite workmanship, and other sacred ornaments, with their silver
household plate. At that time the greater part of the abbey tower was
ruined by the falling of the cross.” These events happened during the
time of Hugh, the twenty-third abbot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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