By the time of Abbot Durie's resignation the abbey was already experiencing the effects of Border warfare again.

In 1496 James IV had used the monastery as his headquarters during his raid into Northumberland.

In 1502 he received the English ambassador there and in 1,528 the monks were called on to provide food for the army of Regent Albany.

Abbot Durie got away just in time to avoid the full horrors of war. The death of James V in 1542 and the accession of James Stewart's half-sister, Mary to the throne led to the 'War of the Rough Wooing'.

In 1544 the English set fire to the town pillaging and desecrating the abbey church and its tombs. In the following year they repeated the action, but the English commander, Sir Ralph Evers, was killed soon after at the battle of Ancrum Moor; ironically his body was buried in the very church he himself had looted.

By now the will was gone to repair the devastated fabric. The few remaining monks protested to their Commendator in vain but still nothing was done to restore the kirk and dormitory. By 1556 they warned that 'without the Kirk be repairit this instant somer God service will cease this winter'.

Four years later came the Reformation, and the requirement for their form of 'God service' was at an end.

Just how many monks were in residence in 1500 is not known; in 1539 the number was down to 22, including the Abbot and Prior. Desirous of retaining their 'private pensions', they renounced monasticism and embraced the reformed religion.

But the buildings were falling down about their ears. In 1573 Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm was accused by them of dismantling the monks' choir, the navel, the tower and transepts and carrying off the stones, timber, lead, iron and glass and later of taking away similar materials from the abbot's hall.

His excuse' ? He was only removing the materials to save them from falling into the hands of the English!

Soon after 1590, Dan Jo Watson and the story of almost 1000 years of monasticism at Melrose died with him.

Dan Jo Watson's death was not quite the end of the story though. The crumbling abbey church continued to be used by the townsfolk and about 1610 part of the former monks' choir was converted for parochial use and a belfry was erected at the top of the south transept. Already by this date part of the ruined cloister had been retained by the last Commendator, James Douglas, and converted into an acceptable residence.

When that headstrong nobleman was executed the abbey lands were sold by the Crown in small lots to various nobles. The lordship of Melrose went to the Earls of Haddington, and from them it was bought by Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch, widow of the ill-fated Monmouth. With the erection in 1810 of a new parish Kirk on the Weirhill, elsewhere in the town, the story of Melrose Abbey finally came to a close.

More on the heart of Robert the Bruce...

 

 

 

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[text and some pictures courtesy and copyright of Historic Scotland]

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