Mouldings of Rood Screen at St. Mungo’s.
sacristy (D), of date about 1446; the rib in the chapter house (E), of date about 1425; or the same rib in the lower church, of date about 1240. You frequently give expression to your opinion that the work executed in Scotland about the year 1500 was ‘inferior.’ Sweeping generalisations of this kind are of no value in our work. I send you a process block (Fig. [2]). It illustrates the carved boss in the vaulting of the aisle of Car Fergus, of Blacader’s time, being the very first seen on entering, and so close to the eye that it may almost be touched by the hand. No work of any period—certainly not of Bishop Cameron’s time—can excel it in beauty, and it is only one of many equally beautiful. You state that the work in the screen ‘is considerably superior to that of the adjoining altars, which are certainly by that bishop’ (Archbishop Blacader). It is a fact that you are here comparing work, which is as sharp as when it left the carver’s hand, with work at the floor level which is now so worn and defaced as almost to be obliterated. The altars are of different design, and that now on the north side is of earlier date, and was rebuilt and repaired only by the archbishop. If this single altar stood originally in the centre, as the one of the same name did at Durham, and if, as is not impossible, it was originally built by Bishop Cameron, then you condemn as ‘inferior’ what, if you had only known, you ought to praise as ‘superior.’
“Mr. Honeyman, whose early opinion you quote, writing to me, for my use here, says, in reference to the Glasgow rood screen—‘I must say that circumstances which you have brought to my notice have considerably changed my opinion regarding this. I quite recognise the close affinity of the south transept door at Melrose and the rood screen at Lincluden, and I am quite prepared to believe that the man who designed these, also designed the rood screen here. If it can be proved that the work at Melrose and Lincluden was not executed till about 1480, or later, then I shall feel bound to agree with you as to the age of our screen.’ The proof as to the age of the Melrose door has been given in my book.
“Your reliance on your unwise generalisation regarding the ‘inferior’ quality of all work at the end of the fifteenth century has blinded you to the facts at Melrose, as elsewhere. The magnificent panel carved with the royal arms, of which I gave an enlarged photograph (p. 55), is dated 1505. There is nothing finer of its kind in the country, and the carved bosses in the presbytery vault are remarkable for their rare beauty, and yet one of them bears the arms of Margaret, wife of James IV. You state that ‘the building or restoration of the eastern part of the edifice seems, from its style, to have been carried out towards the middle of the fifteenth century’ (p. 372). The further statement is made that ‘the design of the choir appears to have been borrowed from that of the transept’ (p. 370). These statements are contradictory. The south transept was not erected until after the middle of the fifteenth century, by Abbot Andrew Hunter. His arms are to be found carved on it, and also in the nave chapel, where the work is unmistakeably from the hand of the same designer. It is indubitable that the ‘perpendicular’ work was inserted in the older transept. It has never occurred to you to endeavour to explain the presence in Scotland
Fig. 2.—Carved Boss in Vaulting of Aisle of Car Fergus.
of so marked a type of English art in the middle of the fifteenth century, and you have thought it wise to ignore my interpretation that this style was adopted as an expression of the international good feeling arising from the marriage of James IV. with Margaret of England. Perpendicular work is also present at Linlithgow and Stirling, and there also it is associated with Queen Margaret.
“I described the statues at the apex of the east gable at Melrose as those of James IV. and Margaret (p. 53). You say ‘this is an entire assumption’ (p. 381), and then you immediately assume that they illustrate the coronation of the Blessed Virgin. If your interpretation is correct, the act of coronation must be indicated, and the two figures must be correlated, Christ being turned towards the Blessed Virgin, either to crown her by His own hand, or to indicate His interest in the ceremony, whilst Mary is turned towards Christ in an attitude of tenderness and adoration. These are obvious requirements. The figures are so disposed in the examples you cited and illustrated, and it is true of all the examples I have studied on the Continent and in the cathedrals of England. At Melrose the figures are not in any way related to each other. They look straight forward, and, as I proved by the aid of a telescope before writing my description, no act of crowning is indicated. The male figure corresponds exactly with that on the seal of James IV. to which I referred, and the group does not differ from that shown in a MS. of the middle of the fifteenth century, which represents a king and queen and their court. I understand and appreciate the fact that you see no significance in the angels in the niches below the central group of the king and queen, and that it is of no importance to you that the figures which were ranged on either side were not those of saints and martyrs, but of Churchmen, evidently contemporaries of King James. As the statue of an archbishop graces the apex of the east gable of York Minster, there is nothing ridiculous, as you would wish to make it appear, in a king and queen occupying a similar place at Melrose. The circumstances and temper of the moment made it appear appropriate. There is no sarcasm in the concluding paragraph of my work, although you profess to be able to detect it. It was not unpleasant to me to find that the point made by the author of The Stones of Venice, from exactly similar exhibitions of vainglory, could be made from the stones of Scotland.
P. MACGREGOR CHALMERS.”