The first monastery at Melrose, mentioned by the church historian Bede in 731 AD, was apparently a 7th century foundation by St. Aidan and Northumbrian monks from Lindisfarne. It lay about three and a half miles from the present site. The nearby town of St. Boswell's took its name from its first prior, St. Boisil. His successor, St. Cuthbert, 'the apostle of Lothian', became prior of Lindisfarne.
In 1136 David I (1124-53) invited Cistercian monks from Rievaulx in Yorkshire to settle in Melrose. His former secretary, Ailred, had joined the order and been elected abbot of that monastery.
The site chosen for Scotland's first Cistercian house lay in the fertile Tweed valley below the triple peaks of the Eildon Hills where the Romans had built a camp and named it Trimontium.
According to the mediaeval 'Chronicle of Melrose', the abbey church, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, was completed in 1146. An early charter records grants of land from King David, including rights to the royal forests of Selkirk and Traquair and fishing rights for the Tweed. Later, further endowments followed, including Carrick, Eskdale and Teviotdale. The abbey's local estates in Melrose alone covered 25 hectares. Its main source of revenue was provided by rearing sheep and cattle, the wool and hides of which were exported to the Low Countries, especially Flanders, by way of Scotland's principal port of Berwick at the mouth of the Tweed.
The wool trade, together with consistent royal patronage, made the abbey one of the richest in the kingdom. In 1235, Alexander II (1214-49) granted the monks grazing rights in the lands of Ettrick. He was later buried in the church alongside other benefactors such as members of the powerful noble family of Douglas.
However, the abbey's vulnerable position close to the border with England meant that it suffered greatly from recurrent Anglo-Scottish warfare, and by the end of the 14th century many of its original buildings had been destroyed by marauding armies.
In 1322, during the reign of King Robert I (1306-29), it was sacked by a retreating army of Edward II of England. The raid, which resulted in some monks being killed, appears to have been a punitive action in retaliation for the soldiers suffering the effects of Bruce's "scorched earth" policy by which crops in their path had been deliberately destroyed and livestock removed.
In 1326, Bruce granted the abbey the feudal dues of Roxburgh to repair the damage and instructed his lieutenant Sir James Douglas to raise the revenue amounting to £2,000. He also ordered that on his death his heart should be taken on crusade before being buried before the high altar of the abbey church. This wish was duly honoured in 1330 when a band of Scots led by Douglas carried the heart on crusade against the Moors of Granada. Most of the group met their deaths in the battle of Teba,
Link but Sir Simon Lockhart (entrusted with the locked casket holding the heart) returned to Scotland with the heart (which the Douglases added emblematically to their coat-of-arms). An excavation in the chapter house in 1996 unearthed a leaden casket with human heart remains, but it seems unlikely from the position of the find that it is Bruce's (as his heart would be expected to have been buried within the church). It has been reburied in the abbey grounds beneath a modern memorial.
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In 1385, in the reign of Robert II (1371-90), a retaliatory raid led by King Richard II of England resulted in the destruction of the abbey along with those of Dryburgh and Newbattle. Most of what is seen today post-dates the destruction in 1385. The first phase of reconstruction, paid for by Richard himself, is believed to have been carried out under the direction of a Yorkshire mason. Then a French mason by the name of John Morrow, took charge of the later phase of rebuilding. By contrast with its predecessor the new church was much more lavishly decorated and represents a high point in Scottish mediaeval architecture.
In 1424 James I (1406-37) was received as a guest at the abbey on his return from his 18 years of captivity in England.
In 1498 a meeting took place, probably in the abbot's residence, between King James IV (1488-1513) and the Bishop of Durham at which James proposed his marriage to King Henry VII of England's 9-year-old daughter Margaret as an essential condition of peace between Scotland and England. The outcome of this meeting was "the Marriage of the Thistle and the Rose" in 1503 which was accompanied by a treaty of perpetual peace between the warring kingdoms*. The marriage paved the way for the 1603 Union of the Crowns which united the monarchies of Scotland and England in the person of the couple's great-grandson, James VI and I (1567-1625).
In 1544 the abbey was attacked and burnt down during the period known as the "Rough Wooing" when Henry VIII ordered punitive incursions into Scotland in an attempt to force the betrothal of the Scots' infant Queen Mary (1542-67) to his 7-year-old son, Edward, Prince of Wales. A second attack took place in the following year.
In 1560, the Scottish Reformation effectively ended the abbey's history as a religious institution, though by that time the number of monks living in the abbey had steadily dwindled. Those prepared to accept the reformed religion were allowed to continue living within the precincts where the last monk died in 1590.
Between 1618 and 1621 the choir at the east end of the church was restored for use as a parish kirk, and functioned as such over the next two centuries, while the rest steadily fell into decay. Between 1822 and 1826 repairs were carried out on the initiative of the poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott who built his home 'Abbotsford' nearby and took a close personal interest in the ruin. It was placed in state care in 1919.
*which James broke, treacherously in English eyes, when the Scottish Army invaded England and was defeated at Flodden in 1513