52 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Sciennes.
of hermit, or chaplain, resided ; and the charter of
foundation mentions that he was to be clothed ?? in
a white garment, having on his breast a portraiture
of St. John the Baptist.?
In the ?? Inventory of Pious Donations,? under
date 2nd of March, 1511, there is found a ?charter of
confirmation of a mortification by Sir John Crawford,
one of the prebends of St. Giles?s Kirk, to a
kirk built by him at St. Giellie Grange, mortifying
thereunto 18 acres of land, with the.Quany Land
Soon after the erection of this chapel the convent
of St. Katharine was founded near it, by Janet Lady
Seton, whose husband George, third Lord Seton,
was slain at the battle of Flodden, where also fell
his brother Adam, second Earl of Bothwell, grandfather
of James, fourth Earl of Bothwell, and Duke
of Orkney.
After that fatal day she remained a widow for
forty-five years, says the ?History of the House
of Seytoun ?-for nearly half a century, according
BROADSTAIRS HOUSE, CAUSEWAYSIDE, 1880. (Fronr a Pa?ntinx ay-G. M. AiRman.)
given to him in charity by the said Burgh, with an
acre and a quarter of a particate of land in his
three acres and a half of the said Muir pertaining
to him, lying at the east side of the common
muir, betwixt the lands of John Cant on the west,
and the common muir on the east and south parts,
and the Mureburgh now built on the north.?
This solitary little chapel was intended to be a
charity for the benefit of the souls of the founder,
his kindred, the reigning sovereign, the magistrates
of Edinburgh, ?? and such others as it was usual
to include in the services for the faithful departed
in similar foundations.? The chaplain was required
to be of the foundeis name and family, and after his
death the patronage rested with the Town Council.
to the ?? Eglinton Peerage ?-and was celebrated
for her ? exalted and matronly conduct, which drew
around her, at her well-known residence at the
Sciennes, all the female branches of the nobility.?
In 1516 a notarial instrument on behalf of the
sisters and Josina Henrison at their head, refemng
to the foundation and mortification of St. John?s
Kirk, on the Burgh Muir, is preserved among the
?? Burgh Records.?
The convent was founded for Dominicans, and
amid the gross corruption that prevailed at the
Reformation, so blameless and innocent were the
lives of these ladies that they were excepted from
the general denunciation by the great satirist of the
time, Sir David Lindsay, who, in his satire of the
