Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 | Page 9

conclude with asking some of your Dutch
correspondents, whether the tract, in this or in any other edition, is of

considerable rarity with them? In England I never saw a copy of it but
that in my possession. I may add that every paragraph is separately
numbered from 1 to 110, as if the production were one of importance to
which more particular reference might be made than even by the
pagination.
THE HERMIT OF HOLYPORT.
* * * * *
THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND.
(Vol. ii., pp. 308. 409.)
I am not satisfied with what W. S. G. has written on this subject; and as
I feel interested in it, perhaps I cannot bring out my doubts better than
in the following Queries.
1. Instead of this famous cross being destined by St. Margaret for
Dunfermline, was it not transmitted by her as an heir-loom to her sons?
Fordun, lib. v. cap. lv. "Quasi munus hæreditarium transmisit ad
filios." Hailes (Annals, sub anno 1093) distinguishes the cross which
Margaret gifted to Dunfermline from the Black Rood of Scotland; and
it is found in the possession of her son David I., in his last illness. He
died at Carlisle, 24th May, 1153. (Fordun, ut supra.)
2. Is not W. S. G. mistaken when, in speaking of this cross being seized
by Edward I. in the Castle of Edinburgh in 1292, he says it is in a list of
muniments, &c., found "in quadam cista in dormitorio S. Crucis."
instead of in a list following, "et in thesauria castri de Edinburgh
inventa fuerunt ornamenta subscripta?" (Ayloffe's Calendars, p. 827.;
Robertson's Index, Introd. xiii.)
3. When W. S. G. says that this cross was not held in the same
superstitious reverence as the Black Stone of Scone, and that Miss
Strickland is mistaken when she says that it was seized by King
Edward, and restored at the peace of 1327, what does he make of the
following authorities?--

(1.) Fordun, lib. v, cap. xvii:
"Illa sancta crux quam nigram vocant omni genti Scotorum non minus
terribilem quam amabilem pro suæ reverentia sanctitatis."
(2.) Letters to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Carlisle,
occassioned by some Passages in his late Book of the Scotch Library,
&c., ascribed to the historian Rymer: London, 1702. From a "notable
piece of Church history," appended to the second Letter, it appears that
the Black Rood accompanied King Edward in his progresses, along
with a famous English cross--the Cross Nigth,--and that he received on
these two crosses the homage of several of the Scottish magnates. (The
same thing, I have no doubt, will appear from the Foedera of the same
historian, which I have it not in my power to refer to.)
(3.) Chronicon de Lanercost, printed by the Maitland Club, Edinburgh,
1839, p. 283. Alluding to the pacification of 1327:
"Reddidit etiam eis partem crucis Christi quam vocant Scotti Blakerode,
et similiter unam instrumentum.... Ragman vocabatur. Lapidem tamen
de Scone, in quo solent regis Scotiæ apud Scone in creatione sua
collocari, Londonensis noluerunt a se demittere quoquomodo. Omnia
autem hæc asportari fecerat de Scotia inclytus rex Edwardus filius
Henrici, dum Scottos suæ subjiceret ditioni."
Fabian and Holinshed report the same thing.
4. Is not Fordun quoting from Turgot and Aelred (whom he names
Baldredus) when he speaks of "illa sancta crux quam nigram vocant?"
And how does the description of the Durham cross,--
"Which rood and pictures were all three very richly wrought in silver,
and were all smoked black over, being large pictures of a yard or five
quarters long," &c. &c.,--
agree with the description of the Black Rood of St. Margaret which, as
Lord Hailes says, "was of gold, about the length of a palm; the figure of
ebony, studded and inlaid with gold. A piece of the true cross was

enclosed in it"?
5. As to the cross "miraculously received by David I., and in honour of
which he founded Holyrood Abbey in 1128," and which some
antiquaries (see A Brief Account of Durham Cathedral; Newcastle,
1833, p. 46.) gravely assert was to be seen "in the south aisle of the
choir of Durham Cathedral at its eastern termination, in front of a
wooden screen richly gilt and decorated with stars and other
ornaments," are not all agreed that the story is a mere monkish legend,
invented long after Holyrood was founded (although, perhaps, not so
recent as Lord Hailes supposed)? and is it not, therefore, absurd to
speak of such a cross being taken at the battle of Durham, or to identify
it with the Black Rood of Scotland?
6. The quotation of W. S. G. from the MS. Dunelm is curious; but is
there any contemporary authority for the Black Rood having been taken
with King David at the battle of Durham?