progress during the countess’s lifetime, and may thus not have been completed till the first half of the fifteenth century was well advanced. In confirmation of this, we find that the arms of Provost Haliburton (see [Fig. 803]) are carved on the south wall, and he was superior of the college about 1430. The architecture of the church corresponds in style with the decorated work usual in Scotland in the first half of the fifteenth century, of which it forms an important example.
The monument to the Countess of Douglas is amongst the finest specimens of that kind of structure in Scotland. It is, like the other features of the church, of large size for the small building in which it is erected. The principal arch is semicircular in form, a peculiarity of common occurrence at all periods in this country. It is very richly ornamented with running foliage and small shafts and mouldings, and the inner arch is enriched with a large traceried border, elaborately foiled and cusped, while the outer label is decorated with carved crockets, and is carried up with an ogee curve to a large foliaged finial on top. The sides are bounded by buttresses of light and simple form, finished with crocketed finials, and a bold cornice, enriched with leaf ornaments, runs along the top. The base which enclosed the sarcophagus displays an arcade of nine trefoiled arches, each containing a shield, on which the arms of the family were formerly blazoned, but they are now much decayed by the weather.
“The Lordship of Annandale is represented by its saltier and chief; a lion rampant, the cognisance of the M‘Dowalls, typifies Galloway; three stars show the Moray arms, which the founder of Lincluden acquired by marriage; three stars of the first, with a man’s heart below, indicate the escutcheon of the Douglases when rising nearer the political zenith. * * * One of the shields displays a fess chequé, surmounted by a band ingrailed; another, the same emblem, without the band, these telling, in heraldic language, of the Royal Stewarts’ connection with the Douglases, the chequered fess illustrating the old tally method by which stewards kept their accounts.”[146]
Fig. 805.—Lincluden College.
Cups or Chalices over Main Arch.
Within the triangle formed by the label over the main arch there occurs a very remarkable design, consisting of three cups or chalices ([Fig. 805]), each accompanied with a star following one another round the triangle. As Grose suggests, these probably represent the insignia of the earl’s office as “panitarius” or cupbearer to the king. Some letters are engraved at the angles, but they are difficult to decipher. At the back of the monument are carved the following inscriptions, “A l’aide de Dieu,” and, lower down, “Hic jacet Dña Margareta Regis Scotiæ filia quondam Comitessa de Douglas Dña Gallovidiæ et Vallis Annandiæ.”
The tomb has been rifled, and is now empty, and the effigy of the countess, which still reposed on the monument in Pennant’s time (1772), has now disappeared.[147]
On the opposite side of the choir are the triple sedilia and piscina (see [Fig. 802]), both fine works, but sadly mutilated. They are of the usual style of the period, and are adorned with much carving of a similar description to that of the tomb.
Behind the place of the high altar, three large plain corbels are inserted in the wall (see [Fig. 802]). These seem to have carried a reredos of carved stone, and some fragments of a sculptured stone, such as would have suited for this purpose, still survive ([Fig. 806]).