THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND.
(Vol. ii., p. 308.)
I am not aware of any record in which mention of this relique occurs before the time of St. Margaret. It seems very probable that the venerated crucifix which was so termed was one of the treasures which descended with the crown of the Anglo-Saxon kings. When the princess Margaret, with her brother Edgar, the lawful heir to the throne of St. Edward the Confessor, fled into Scotland, after the victory of William, she carried this cross with her amongst her other treasures. Aelred of Rievaulx (ap. Twysd. 350.) gives a reason why it was so highly valued, and some description of the rood itself:
"Est autem crux illa longitudinem habens palmæ de auro purissimo mirabili opere fabricats, quæ in modum techæ clauditur et aperitur. Cernitur in ea quædarn Dominicæ crucis portio, (sicut sæpe multorum miraculorum argumento probatum est). Salvatoris nostri ymaginem habens de ebore densissime sculptam et aureis distinctionibus mirabiliter decoratam."
St. Margaret appears to have destined it for the abbey which she and her royal husband, Malcolm III., founded at Dunfermline in honour of the Holy Trinity: and this cross seems to have engaged her last thoughts for her confessor relates that, when dying, she caused it to be brought to her, and that she embraced, and gazed steadfastly upon it, until her soul passed from time to eternity. Upon her death (16th Nov., 1093), the Black Rood was deposited upon the altar of Dunfermline Abbey, where St. Margaret was interred.
The next mention of it that I have been enabled to make note of, occurs in 1292, in the Catalogue of Scottish Muniments which were received within the Castle of Edinburgh, in the presence of the Abbots of Dunfermline and Holy Rood, and the Commissioners of Edward I., on the 23rd August in that year, and were conveyed to Berwick-upon-Tweed. Under the head
"Omnia ista inventa fuerunt in quadam cista in Dormitorio S. Crucis, et ibidem reposita prædictos Abbates et altos, sub ecrum sigillis."
we find
"Unum scrinium argenteum deauratum, in quo reponitur crux quo vocatur la blake rode."—Robertson's Index, Introd. xiii.
It does not appear that any such fatality was ascribed to this relique as that which the Scots attributed to the possession of the famous stone on which their kings were crowned, or it might be conjectured that when Edward I. brought "the fatal seat" from Scone to Westminster, he brought the Black Rood of Scotland too. That amiable and pleasing historian, Miss Strickland, has stated that the English viewed the possession of this relique by the Scottish kings with jealousy; that it was seized upon by Edward I., but restored on the treaty of peace in 1327. This statement is erroneous; the rood having been mistaken for the stone, which, by the way, as your readers know, was never restored.
We next find it in the possession of King David Bruce, who lost this treasured relique, with his own liberty, at the battle of Durham (18th Oct., 1346), and from that time the monks of Durham became its possessors. In the Description of the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customs of the Abbey Church of Durham, as they existed at the dissolution, which was written in 1593, and was published by Davies in 1672, and subsequently by the Surtees Society, we find it described as
"A most faire roode or picture of our Saviour, in silver, called the Black Roode of Scotland, brought out of Holy Rood House, by King David Bruce ... with the picture of Our Lady on the one side of our Saviour, and St. John's on the other side, very richly wrought in silver, all three having crownes of pure beaten gold of goldsmith's work, with a device or rest to take them off or on."
The writer then describes the "fine wainscote work" to which this costly "rood and pictures" were fastened on a pillar at the east end of the southern aisle of the quire. And in a subsequent chapter (p. 21. of Surtees Soc. volume) we have an account of the cross miraculously received by David I. (whom the writer confounds with the King David Bruce captured at the battle of Durham, notwithstanding that his Auntient Memorial professes to be "collected forthe of the best antiquaries"), and in honour of which he founded Holy Rood Abbey in 1128 from which account it clearly appears that this cross was distinct from the Black Rood of Scotland. For the writer, after stating that this miraculous cross had been brought from Holy Rood House by the king, as a "most fortunate relique," says:
"He lost the said crosse, which was taiken upon him, and many other most wourthie and excellent jewells ... which all weare offred up at the shryne of Saint Cuthbert, together with the Blacke Rude of Scotland (so termed), with Mary and John, maid of silver, being, as yt were, smoked all over, which was placed and sett up most exactlie in the pillar next St. Cuthbert's shrine," &c.
In the description written in 1593, as printed, the size of the Black Rood is not mentioned; but in Sanderson's Antiquities of Durham, in which he follows that description, but with many variations and omissions, he says (p. 22.), in mentioning the Black Rood of Scotland, with the images, as above described,—
"Which rood and pictures were all three very richly wrought in silver, and were all smoked blacke over, being large pictures of a yard or five quarters long, and on every one of their leads a crown of pure beaten gold," &c.
I have one more (too brief) notice of this famous rood. It occurs in the list of reliques preserved in the Feretory of St. Cuthhert, under the care of the shrine-keeper, which was drawn up in 1383 by Richard de Sedbrok, and is as follows:
"A black crosse, called the Black Rode of Scotland."—MS. Dunelm., B. ii. 35.
Strange to say, Mr. Raine, in his St. Cuthbert, p. 108., appears to confound the cross brought from Holy Rood House, and in honour of which it was founded, with the Black Rood of Scotland. He was misled, no doubt, by the statement in the passage above extracted from the Ancient Monuments, that this cross was brought out of Holy Rood House.
I fear that the fact that it was formed of silver and gold, gives little reason to hope that this historical relique escaped destruction when it came into the hands of King Henry's church robbers. Its sanctity may, indeed, have induced the monks to send it with some other reliques to a place of refuge on the Continent, until the tyranny should be overpast; but there is not any tradition at Durham, that I am aware of, to throw light on the concluding Query of your correspondent P.A.F., as to "what became of the 'Holy Cross,' or 'Black Rood,' at the dissolution of Durham Priory?"
That the Black Rood of Scotland, and the Cross of Holy Rood House were distinct, there can, I think, be no doubt. The cross mentioned by Aelred is not mentioned as the "Black Rood:" probably it acquired this designation after his time. But Fordoun, in the Scoti-Chronicon, Lord Hailes in his Annals, and other historians, have taken Aelred's account as referring to the Black Rood of Scotland. Whether it had been brought from Dunfermline to Edinburgh before Edward's campaign, and remained thenceforth deposited in Holy Rood Abbey, does not appear: but it is probable that a relique to which the sovereigns of Scotland attached so much veneration was kept at the latter place.
W.S.G.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nov. 2. 1850.