Volume 3

34S
and services of Little Swinton (f). When Margaret, the queen mother, with
her husband Angus, fled from the regent Albany in 1515, the monastery of
Coldstream furnished them a sure sanctuary till they were kindly received into
England (g). During the subsequent war in October, 1523, the prioress of
Coldstream acted as a spy to the English general (h). In 1528 James Y. gave
to Isobel Hope-Pringle, the prioress of Coldstream, the lands of Hirsel and
Graden, with their fishings on the Tweed. Margaret, on that occasion, will-
ingly consented to relinquish her dower in favour of her sanctuary (i). The
time came at length when all religious establishments were to be annexed to
the crown, and seized by the nobles. James VI. granted the whole possessions
of the monastery of Coldstream to Sir John Hamilton of Trebroun, the third
son of the first Earl of Haddington (k). (3.) The munificent Cospatriek, who
founded Coldstream, planted a colony of Cistercian nuns at Eccles in 1156,
where he endowed a convent, which he consecrated to the Virgin Mary (l).
Patrick, the Earl of Dunbar, who succeeded Waldeve in 1182, died, satiated
with a long and worthy life in 1232, and was buried among the nuns in their
appropriate church (m). The nuns of Eccles were at length doomed to feel the
sad effects of the disastrous events of the Scottish annals. In 1294-5 Edward I.
granted them a protection (n). In 1296, when the bravest men of Scotland
(f) Chart. Cold., 92 and 74. In December 1491, a truce -with England was concluded at
Coldstream. Bord. Hist., 460.
(g) Border Hist., 501.
(h)  Pink. Hist., ii., 225, who has confounded Coldingham with Coldstream.
(i) Spottiswoode, 513.
(k) Milne's Melrose, 33. In 1621, the nunnery of Coldstreain was disannexed from the crown in
favour of Sir Thomas Hamilton of Trebroun. Private Act of that year.
(l) " A� 115(5, convcntus sancti inonialium secundo venit ad Eccles." Chron Melrose ; so Hoveden,
491 ; but the hook of Cooper states this event in 1155. In addition to the lands and revenues which
Cospatriek settled on this convent, be gave the nuns the church of St. Cuthbert, of Eccles,
with its pertinents, and with the chapels of Birgham, of Mersington, and of Letham, which depended
on it as the mother church ; and all those grants were confirmed by his successors and by the
bishops of St. Andrews. Regr. of St. Andrews, No. 56-60. About the same time, the nuns
acquired the lands of Huntrodes. In the reign of Malcolm IV., Thomas de Lesedwin granted to the
canons of Dry burgh half a mark yearly, which was payable by the prioress of Eccles, out of the lands
of Huntrodes. Chart. Dryburgh, 144. The nuns also possessed in the north-eastern parts of Eccles
parish some lands, which had obtained from them the appropriate name of Nun-lands ; and this
continues the name of a hamlet.
(m) Chron. Melrose, 201, which states the singular manner of his retirement from a tempestuous
world.
(n) Ayloffe's Calend., iii.