History and traditions of the land of the Lindsays in Angus and Mearns

EDZELL — BELL OF ST. LAWRENCE. ?>
In the times of Romanism, the Church of Edzell was attached
to the Archiepiscopal see of St. Andrews, and rated at the
small sum of twelve marks. It was also one of several de-
pendencies whose revenues were appropriated for the repair of
the parent Cathedral after its conflagration in Bishop Landel's
time ;* but oddly enough, no mention is made of it in the
Register of Ministers for 1567, although in that of the Readers
for 1572, an Andro Spens appears to have held the important
office of " exhorter," with the trifling annual stipend of about
thirteen shillings and fourpence sterling.t
Like other districts which have never been dignified as the
seat of a Cathedral, Abbey, or Priory, the ecclesiastical history
of Edzell is meagre and uninteresting ; and in these circumstances
we are compelled, like the drowning man, to grasp even at a
straw, if we think it can afford any advantage. Still, we
have great fears that our aims may be frustrated. Be that as
it may, the earliest parson of whom any trace exists bore the
name of Elwyno, and had been, doubtless, a man of considera-
tion in his day, since he witnessed the grant of Warnabalde,
ancestor of the Earls of Glencairn, and his wife, Rechenda, the
daughter and heiress of Humphrey de Berkeley, when they
gifted their Mearns-shire estates to the Abbey of Arbroath.^
Beyond the solitary instance of 1378, already mentioned, we
are not aware that the revenues of the church were ever applied
either for the support of monasteries or altarages ; and the name
of the Saint to whom it was inscribed is lost in the dubious
mists of fable. Perhaps, however, from a confused tradition
regarding a bell, belonging to the church, called the bell of St.
Lawrence, it is probable that that patient and worthy martyr,
whose feast is on the 10th of August, had been the parish
favourite. Tins instrument is said to have been specially rung
by the Durays of Durayhill, who, as will be fully shewn in a
subsequent part of this volume, were the hereditary doomsters,
or justiciaries, of the lairds of Edzell ; and although it was only
brought to light, after a long lapse of years, by being acci-
dentally dragged from the bottom of the old well of Durayhill
in the early part of the present century, and lay in the old
* (AD. 1378)— Lyon's History of St. Andrews, vol. ii, p. 312.
t Maitland Club Publication, 4to, Edin, 1830. % (A.D. 12:38.)— Reg. de Aberbrothoc, p. 198.
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