418 HEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
English invaders; and in 1567, its whole possessions passed into the hands of laymen,-
and its inmates were driven forth from the cloisters within whose shelter they had maintained
the ‘severe rules of their order with such strictness that even the pungent satirist,
Sir David Lindsay, exempts them from the unsparing censure of his pen. In the first act
of The Satyre. of the Three Estaitis, Veritie enters with the English Bible in her hand,
and is forthwith pronounced by the Parson a Lutheran, and remanded to the stocks.
Chnstitie follows, and in vain appeals to the Lady Prioress, the AGbot, the Parson, and
my Lord Temporalitie, all of whom give the preference to Dame Sensualitie, and ignominiously
dismiss her, until at length she is also consigned to the stocks. In her appeal to
my Lord Temporalitie, she tells him she has come to prove “ the temporal state,” because
the nuns have driven her out of doors. Nevertheless, in The Complaynt of the Papingo,
when scared by the sensuality of ‘( The sillie nunnis,”
“ Chaistitie thare na langer wald abyde ;
Sa for refuge, fast to the freiris scho fled,
Quhilkis said, thay waId of ladpis tak na cure :
Quhare bene scho now, than said the gredie Gled 4
Nocht amang yow, said echo, I yow rasure :
I traist scho bene, upon the Burrow-mure,
Besouth Edinburgh, and that richt rnony menis,
Profeat amang the sisteris of the Schenis.
Thare hes scho fund hir mother Povertie,
And Devotioun her awin sister carnal1 :
Thare hath scho fund Faith, Hope, and Cheritie,
Togidder with the vertues cardinall :
Thare hes scho fund ane convent, yet unthrdl,
To dame Sensuall, nor with Riches abuait,
Sa quietlye those lad* bene inclusit.”
About three miles to the south of the Convent of St Katherine de Sienna is the Balm
Well of St Katherine, celebrated in ancient times for its miraculous powers in curing all
cutaneous diseases, and still resorted to for its medicinal virtues. St Katherine, it is
said, was commissioned by the pious Queen of Malcolm Canmore, to bring home some oil
from Mount Sinai, and staying to rest herself by this well on her return, she chanced to
drop some of the oil into the water, from which its peculiar characteristic, as well as its
miraculous powers, were affirmed to be derived. A black bituminous substance constantly
floats on the water, believed to be derived from the coal-seams that abound in the neighbourhood,
and perhaps justly commands the faith still reposed in it as a remedy for the
diseases to which it is applied. A chapel was erected near it, and dedicated to St Margaret,
but no vestige of it now remains. Thither, it is said, the nuns of the convent on the
Borough Moor were wont to proceed annually in solemn procession, to visit the chapel and
well, in honour of St Katherine. When James VI. returned to Scotland in 1617, he
visited the well, and commanded it to be enclosed with an ornamental building, with a
flight of steps to afford ready access to the healing waters; but this was demolished by
the soldiers of Cromwell, and the well now remains enclosed with plain stone work, as it
was partially repaired at the Restoration.’
With the last foundation of the adherents of the old faith we may fitly close these Memo-
] Archaeol. $cot. vol. i. p. 323.
