The large grassy area in the centre of the picture, framed by a tree-lined bend in the River Tweed, is the site of Old Melrose Abbey, founded in 651 by St Aidan of Lindisfarne; beyond it lie the Eildon Hills. St Cuthbert was Prior of the Abbey from about 664 until he left to become a hermit on Inner farne in 676. This view, looking west from the slopes of Bemersyde, is said to have been Sir Walter Scott’s favourite; some two miles ahead, in the town of Melrose itself, lies a later abbey, founded in 1136 by the Cistercians and ruined in the English Reformation.
WHEN Cuthbert was at Melrose Abbey,* Hildemer, one of King Ecgfrith’s captains, rode up in distress. His wife, it seemed, was dying, and needed a priest. But when Cuthbert with a faraway look muttered ‘I must go myself’, Hildemer’s distress only grew.
It broke his heart that Cuthbert, a frequent guest at the couple’s home, would see his wife’s pitiable and witless convulsions, no doubt caused by an evil spirit. Might his friend even doubt she was really a Christian? He said nothing, but tears pricked his eyes.
“Do not weep!” remarked Cuthbert suddenly as they rode. “You dare not mention them, but the seizures make me think no less of her as a Christian. Devils torment the innocent too. Before we reach your house she will be freed; when she takes these reins her cure will be complete.” They duly arrived to find her weak but rational, and on touching the reins of Cuthbert’s horse she announced herself fitter than ever.
Not the Cistercian monastery founded in 1136 and now largely ruined, but an older monastery founded by St Aidan in 651, about two miles to the east. Cuthbert was Prior of the Abbey from about 664, until he took up the life of a hermit on Inner Farne in 676.
