Historical and Descriptive Account
of Rosslyn Chapel and Castle
1827
|
NOTE |
Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland gained worldwide fame in 2003 when Dan Brown set his conspiracy thriller The Da Vinci Code partially within the unusual structure erected by Sir William St. Clair in the fifteenth century. The connection between the chapel and the Holy Bloodline conspiracy served to draw tourists from around the world, though the connection had already been made in the earlier nonfiction conspiracy book Holy Blood, Holy Grail. That such a connection was even possible falls to the fact that the chapel had long been connected with the Freemasons, as these selections from an anonymous 1827 pamphlet about the chapel shows. It also demonstrates that the chapel had long been associated with legends of supernatural activity, which the modern myths of a connection to the Ark of the Covenant, Holy Grail, or secret Bloodline of Jesus reflect, in partly rationalized form.
The spelling is given as in the original, but I have substituted a different engraving of the the Apprentice Pillar for clarity. |
ROSSLYN CHAPEL
Before describing the Chapel, it is proper to give some account of the illustrious family to which it owes its erection, and whose Castle is in its immediate vicinity. The founder of the family was one of the many Anglo-Norman barons whom the policy of King Malcolm Canmore allured from England, after the Conquest, to settle in Scotland, where extensive grants of land were bestowed upon them: He was William de Santo Claro, son of Waldemus Compte de St Claro, who came to England with William the Conqueror, in the year 1066; this William de Santo Claro, obtained from King Malcolm a grant of the lands and barony of Rosslyn.
The family gradually increased in power and consequence; but had probably reached the summit of its greatness about the era when this Chapel was founded. It is difficult to believe the inflated, as well as laboured account, which Father Hay, canon of St Genevieve, and a scion of this family, has given to the world of the state maintained by the founder, William St Clair, Prince of Orkney, and Duke of Oldenburg, and his Princess Elizabeth Douglas; nor is it very conceivable how he came to acquire the multitude of titles, both Scottish and foreign, which his admiring descendant has ascribed to him. In addition to his being Prince of Orkney, and Duke of Oldenburg, he was, it is said, Earl of Caithness and Strathearn, Lord St Clair, Lord Nithsdale, Baron of Rosslyn, Baron of Pentland and Pentland Moor in free forrestry, Baron of Cousland, Baron of Cardin St Clare, Baron of Herbertshire, Baron of Hertford, Baron of Graham Shaws, Baron of Kirkton, Baron of Cavers, Baron of Newborough, Baron of Roxburgh, &c.; Knight of the English Order of the Garter, and of the French Order of the Cockle, Lord Admiral of the Scottish Seas, Lord Warden of the Three Marches, Lord Chief Justice, Great Chancellor, Chamberlain, and Lieutenant of Scotland. Among other dignities which certainly did belong to this family, was that of hereditary Grand Master of the Order of Free-masonry in Scotland, which continued with it after it had lost or parted with all the other, till the last representative of the family surrendered it, for the good of Masonry, to the Scottish Grand Lodge. The existing title of Earl of Rosslyn, is British, and was first conferred upon the late Lord Chancellor Wedderburn, Lord Loughborongh, from whom it descended to his nephew, the present Earl, who is proprietor of the lands, Castle, and Chapel of Rosslyn.
Of the former wealth of that ancient family, however, the Chapel of Rosslyn is a splendid and enduring memorial. It is situated in the vicinity of the village of Rosslyn, on an elevated ground, called the College-Hill, overlooking the north Esk, and amidst most picturesque and romantic scenery, which the lyric muse of Scotland has made the subject of one of her most valued effusions. The country around is beautifully undulated, and adorned by elegant mansions; but the banks of the Esk, in particular, will engage the admiration of the stranger. That classic stream, descending from wild moorlands, laves the foot of the hill on which the Chapel stands, and flows over a rugged channel, hemmed in by precipitous and rugged rocks, which, at intervals, present a bald front through the deep foliage of the trees, which grow from every crevice, and ascending from the river, present to the eye the deep gloom of a forest. In its descent to the sea, the Esk, at a short distance from Rosslyn, passes Hawthornden, where the celebrated Drummond wooed the muse, and where some singular caves are to be seen, the refuge of Scottish warriors, who, during that period so disastrous to their country, when Edward I. of England had crushed its independence, were too proud to submit to his yoke, and, by their heroic deeds, kept alive the spirit of resistance. In alluding to the topography of Rosslyn, we cannot omit mentioning, that, a little to the northward of it, is the scene of that famous engagement, or rather succession of engagements, fought on 24th February 1302, when the Scottish forces, commanded by John Cummin and Simeon Fraser, defeated in one day, three bodies of English troops, each numerically equal to the victors.
The Chapel was founded in 1446, for a provost, six prebendaries, and two singing boys. Its founder, William St Clair, designing that it should be of the utmost splendour, engaged in the erection of it the most celebrated masons in every country of Europe, who were attracted to his service by great rewards. At that period, and long previously to it, as may be well known to the reader, the whole masons of Christendom formed a society, which was held together by certain oaths and observances, calculated to exclude the uninitiated from a knowledge of the mysteries of their art, and thus to enhance to themselves its value and importance. This singular institution, which was the origin of Free-masonry, (each of its members being by the act of his admission a free-mason), had the sanction of a Papal bull; and its members being chiefly devoted to the building of churches and chapels, it assisted in producing throughout Europe, a general uniformity of style in ecclesiastical architecture, and advancing it to the utmost attainable perfection. The masons employed to build Rosslyn Chapel, established themselves in huts near to its site; and thus, very probably, originated the village of Rosslyn, which was erected into a burgh of barony, by James II. so early as 1456, with the privilege of holding a weekly market, and a yearly fair. It was once the most populous place in the Lothians, next to Edinburgh and Haddington, but has dwindled down to an insignificant size, though distinguished by the surpassing beauty of its scenery, the magnificent ruins of its Castle, and the splendour of its surviving Chapel. It is much resorted to in the summer season by parties of pleasure from Edinburgh, from which it is distant seven miles.
The original design of the Chapel was never completed, as from the first it wanted a nave and chancel, the choir and east wall of the transept only having been built. But as it stands, it is one of the most curious and singularly beautiful specimens of Gothic architecture extant, notwithstanding some slight damage it sustained from a mob at the era of the Revolution in 1688, which, as other mobs had done at the time of the Reformation, indulged Its hatred of Popery at the expense of the buildings consecrated to its service. Elegance may be considered its predominant characteristic. The extreme beauty and fine proportions of the various clustered pillars, cannot be contemplated but with feelings of intense admiration; and every where there is that profusion of ornamental carving, as if the whole stores of a rich, but chastened imagination had been expended upon this work, not of the largest dimensions.
The height of the Chapel inside, from the floor to the top of the high arched roof, is 40 feet 8 inches, its length 69 feet, and its breadth 34 feet 8 inches. On the floor, between the fourth and fifth pillars from the west end, in the north aisle, there is a coarse flat stone, having cut upon H, the rough outline of a man in armour, with his hands lifted up and joined, as if engaged in prayer, with a greyhound at his feet, and a lion rampant at each side of his head. This is supposed to mark the tomb of Sir William St Clair of Rosslyn, of whom Father Hay relates the following adventure: King Robert Bruce, in following the chase upon Pentland hills, had often started a "white faunch deer," which had always escaped from his hounds; and he asked the nobles, who were around him, whether any of them had dogs which they thought might be more successful. No courtier would affirm that his hounds were fleeter than those of the king, until Sir William St Clair of Rosslyn unceremoniously said, he would wager his head that his two favourite dogs, Help and Hold, would kill the deer before she could cross the March-burn. The king instantly caught at his unwary offer, and betted the forest of Pentland-moor against the life of Sir William St Clair. All the hounds were tied up, except a few ratches, or slow hounds, to put up the deer; while Sir William St Clair, posting himself in the best situation for dipping his dogs, prayed devoutly to Christ, the blessed Virgin, and St Katherine. The deer was shortly after roused, and the hounds slipped; Sir William following on a gallant steed, to cheer his dogs. The hind, however, reached the middle of the brook, upon which the hunter threw himself from his horse in despair. At this critical moment, however, Hold stopped her in the brook; and Help, coming up, turned her back, and killed her on Sir William’s side. The king descended from the hill, embraced Sir William, and bestowed on him the lands of Kirkton, Logan-House, Eamcraig, &c. in free forestrie. Sir William, in acknowledgment of St Katherine’s intercession, built the chapel of St Katherine in the Hopes, the church-yard of which is still to be seen. The hill, from which Robert Bruce beheld this memorable chase, is still called the King’s Hill; and the place where Sir William hunted is called the Knight’s Field. — — On the right side of the tombstone of Sir William St Clair, is a smaller coarse stone, which bears the traces of an ensign armorial, of which only a broad sword in pale, can be recognized; and on the left, there is a similar stone, on which there appears to have been another coat-of-arms.
At the foot of the third and fourth pillars, and between them and the north wall, there is a large flag stone, covering the mouth of a vault, in which ten barons of Rosslyn are buried: it is so remarkably dry, that, when the bodies of some of them have been inspected, eighty years after their interment, they were found in perfect preservation. It was an ancient custom of this princely house, that all its barons were buried, without any coffin, in their armour. Father Hay, alluding to this custom, observes, “The late Rosslyn, my goodfather, grandfather to the present Rosslyn, was the first that was buried in a coffin, against the sentiments of James VII. who was thon in Scotland, and several other persons well versed in antiquity, to whom my mother (Jean Spottiswood, grand-neice of Archbishop Spottiswood) would not hearken, thinking it beggarly to be buried after that manner. The great expense she was at in burying her husband, occasioned the sumptuary acts which were made in the following Parliaments.” It may be here observed, that, according to a venerable tradition, the turrets of the Chapel were supernaturally illumined by flames, upon the death of any member of the family of Rosslyn. This tradition is thus beautifully alluded to in the Lay of the Last Minstrel:--
O’er Rosslyn all that dreary light,
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam:
‘Twas broader than the watch-fire light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
It glared on Rosslyn’s castled rock,
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen;
’Twas seen from Dryden’s groves of oak,
And seen from caverned Hawthornden.
Seemed all on fire that chapel proud,
Where Rosslyn’s chiefs uncoffined lie;
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.
Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altars pale;
Shone every pillar foliage bound.
And glimmered all the dead men’s mail.
Blazed battlement and pinnet high.
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair--
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.
At the north west corner, and between the seventh pillar and the wall, is the tomb of George Earl of Caithness. Though defaced by the mob of 1688, the following inscription upon it is very legible. "HIC. JACET. NONIUS. AC. POTENS. DOMINVS. GEOEGVS. QVONDUM. COMES. CATHANENSIS. DOMINVG. SINCLAIR. JUSTICIARVS. HEREDITARIVS. DIOCESIS. CATHENENSIS. QVI. OBIIT. EDINBURGH. 9. DIE. MENSIS. SEPTEMBRIIS. ANNO. DOMINI. 1582.
In the south-east corner is the High Altar, which is ascended by two steps. Beneath it is a flat, which is descended to, from the floor of the Chapel, by four steps. Here a subterraneous stair-case of twenty steps conducts, through an arch at the top, to a smaller Chapel, which was used as a sacristy or vestry. This was erected by the first Lady of William, the founder of the great Chapel, Dame Elizabeth Douglas, formerly Countess of Buchan, and daughter of Archibald the second Earl of Buchan, of that name. Though the passage to this sacristy or vestry u subterraneous, itself is. above ground, and rests on the edge of the bank: its height is 15 feet 2 inches, its length 36, and its breadth 14 feet. In the east wall is a large arched window, where once stood an altar. Looking towards it on the right hand, is seen an escutcheon couped Caithness and Rosslyn. In a direct line with it, on the opposite side of the window, is a ragged cross, very distinct. This sacristy or vestry once had in the south wall a low arched door, now shut up, by which a person might have entered it, without passing through the Chapel above. In the north wall is a large arched recess, on one side of the opening of which, the iron hinges of a door still remain. There is a similar recess in the south wall, but now filled up. In each of the side walls there is a square niche. All these may have been designed for keeping the sacred vessels employed in the service of the Chapel, and the vestments of the priests. In the south east comer, there is a piscina, or font, and, on the east side of it, there is a square niche.
Upwards of half a century ago, the Chapel of Rosslyn exhibited such symptoms of decay, that its then proprietor, General St Clair, with the laudable wish of preserving it, caused its roof to be covered of new with flag stones, and its windows to be glazed; operations which effectually arrested its progress towards decay. At the same time, he caused the floor of the Chapel to be repaired, and the wall around the adjoining cemetry to be rebuilt.
The foregoing brief sketch, which is meant chiefly as historical, comprehends only such few details, relating to the architecture of the place, as the subjoined plates do not elucidate. To that sketch die following particulars remain to be added. The Chapel, until the date of its possessions being secularized, contained, in addition to the high altar, other three, dedicated, respectively, to St Peter, St Matthew, and St Andrew; and in the sacristy, or vestry, was another altar, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The Chapel, when erected, was endowed by its founder with the church-lands of Pentland, four acres of meadow near that town, with the kips, and eight sowms of grass. In the year 1523, one of his successors farther endowed it with some portions of land in the neighbourhood, for dwelling-houses and gardens to the provost and prebendaries. These possessions, not very ample, passed away from it at the Reformation; and upon 26th February 1571, the provost and prebendaries, by a deed, in which they complain that their revenues had long been forcibly withheld from them, resigned them absolutely into the hands of the laity. According to Father Hay, who speaks as if he had actually seen the deed, which he calls a charter, there were appended to it the seal of the Chapter of this collegiate church, being St Matthew in a church—red upon white wax; and the seal of Sir William Sinclair, the then Baron of Rosslyn, being a ragged cross—red upon white wax.
The family gradually increased in power and consequence; but had probably reached the summit of its greatness about the era when this Chapel was founded. It is difficult to believe the inflated, as well as laboured account, which Father Hay, canon of St Genevieve, and a scion of this family, has given to the world of the state maintained by the founder, William St Clair, Prince of Orkney, and Duke of Oldenburg, and his Princess Elizabeth Douglas; nor is it very conceivable how he came to acquire the multitude of titles, both Scottish and foreign, which his admiring descendant has ascribed to him. In addition to his being Prince of Orkney, and Duke of Oldenburg, he was, it is said, Earl of Caithness and Strathearn, Lord St Clair, Lord Nithsdale, Baron of Rosslyn, Baron of Pentland and Pentland Moor in free forrestry, Baron of Cousland, Baron of Cardin St Clare, Baron of Herbertshire, Baron of Hertford, Baron of Graham Shaws, Baron of Kirkton, Baron of Cavers, Baron of Newborough, Baron of Roxburgh, &c.; Knight of the English Order of the Garter, and of the French Order of the Cockle, Lord Admiral of the Scottish Seas, Lord Warden of the Three Marches, Lord Chief Justice, Great Chancellor, Chamberlain, and Lieutenant of Scotland. Among other dignities which certainly did belong to this family, was that of hereditary Grand Master of the Order of Free-masonry in Scotland, which continued with it after it had lost or parted with all the other, till the last representative of the family surrendered it, for the good of Masonry, to the Scottish Grand Lodge. The existing title of Earl of Rosslyn, is British, and was first conferred upon the late Lord Chancellor Wedderburn, Lord Loughborongh, from whom it descended to his nephew, the present Earl, who is proprietor of the lands, Castle, and Chapel of Rosslyn.
Of the former wealth of that ancient family, however, the Chapel of Rosslyn is a splendid and enduring memorial. It is situated in the vicinity of the village of Rosslyn, on an elevated ground, called the College-Hill, overlooking the north Esk, and amidst most picturesque and romantic scenery, which the lyric muse of Scotland has made the subject of one of her most valued effusions. The country around is beautifully undulated, and adorned by elegant mansions; but the banks of the Esk, in particular, will engage the admiration of the stranger. That classic stream, descending from wild moorlands, laves the foot of the hill on which the Chapel stands, and flows over a rugged channel, hemmed in by precipitous and rugged rocks, which, at intervals, present a bald front through the deep foliage of the trees, which grow from every crevice, and ascending from the river, present to the eye the deep gloom of a forest. In its descent to the sea, the Esk, at a short distance from Rosslyn, passes Hawthornden, where the celebrated Drummond wooed the muse, and where some singular caves are to be seen, the refuge of Scottish warriors, who, during that period so disastrous to their country, when Edward I. of England had crushed its independence, were too proud to submit to his yoke, and, by their heroic deeds, kept alive the spirit of resistance. In alluding to the topography of Rosslyn, we cannot omit mentioning, that, a little to the northward of it, is the scene of that famous engagement, or rather succession of engagements, fought on 24th February 1302, when the Scottish forces, commanded by John Cummin and Simeon Fraser, defeated in one day, three bodies of English troops, each numerically equal to the victors.
The Chapel was founded in 1446, for a provost, six prebendaries, and two singing boys. Its founder, William St Clair, designing that it should be of the utmost splendour, engaged in the erection of it the most celebrated masons in every country of Europe, who were attracted to his service by great rewards. At that period, and long previously to it, as may be well known to the reader, the whole masons of Christendom formed a society, which was held together by certain oaths and observances, calculated to exclude the uninitiated from a knowledge of the mysteries of their art, and thus to enhance to themselves its value and importance. This singular institution, which was the origin of Free-masonry, (each of its members being by the act of his admission a free-mason), had the sanction of a Papal bull; and its members being chiefly devoted to the building of churches and chapels, it assisted in producing throughout Europe, a general uniformity of style in ecclesiastical architecture, and advancing it to the utmost attainable perfection. The masons employed to build Rosslyn Chapel, established themselves in huts near to its site; and thus, very probably, originated the village of Rosslyn, which was erected into a burgh of barony, by James II. so early as 1456, with the privilege of holding a weekly market, and a yearly fair. It was once the most populous place in the Lothians, next to Edinburgh and Haddington, but has dwindled down to an insignificant size, though distinguished by the surpassing beauty of its scenery, the magnificent ruins of its Castle, and the splendour of its surviving Chapel. It is much resorted to in the summer season by parties of pleasure from Edinburgh, from which it is distant seven miles.
The original design of the Chapel was never completed, as from the first it wanted a nave and chancel, the choir and east wall of the transept only having been built. But as it stands, it is one of the most curious and singularly beautiful specimens of Gothic architecture extant, notwithstanding some slight damage it sustained from a mob at the era of the Revolution in 1688, which, as other mobs had done at the time of the Reformation, indulged Its hatred of Popery at the expense of the buildings consecrated to its service. Elegance may be considered its predominant characteristic. The extreme beauty and fine proportions of the various clustered pillars, cannot be contemplated but with feelings of intense admiration; and every where there is that profusion of ornamental carving, as if the whole stores of a rich, but chastened imagination had been expended upon this work, not of the largest dimensions.
The height of the Chapel inside, from the floor to the top of the high arched roof, is 40 feet 8 inches, its length 69 feet, and its breadth 34 feet 8 inches. On the floor, between the fourth and fifth pillars from the west end, in the north aisle, there is a coarse flat stone, having cut upon H, the rough outline of a man in armour, with his hands lifted up and joined, as if engaged in prayer, with a greyhound at his feet, and a lion rampant at each side of his head. This is supposed to mark the tomb of Sir William St Clair of Rosslyn, of whom Father Hay relates the following adventure: King Robert Bruce, in following the chase upon Pentland hills, had often started a "white faunch deer," which had always escaped from his hounds; and he asked the nobles, who were around him, whether any of them had dogs which they thought might be more successful. No courtier would affirm that his hounds were fleeter than those of the king, until Sir William St Clair of Rosslyn unceremoniously said, he would wager his head that his two favourite dogs, Help and Hold, would kill the deer before she could cross the March-burn. The king instantly caught at his unwary offer, and betted the forest of Pentland-moor against the life of Sir William St Clair. All the hounds were tied up, except a few ratches, or slow hounds, to put up the deer; while Sir William St Clair, posting himself in the best situation for dipping his dogs, prayed devoutly to Christ, the blessed Virgin, and St Katherine. The deer was shortly after roused, and the hounds slipped; Sir William following on a gallant steed, to cheer his dogs. The hind, however, reached the middle of the brook, upon which the hunter threw himself from his horse in despair. At this critical moment, however, Hold stopped her in the brook; and Help, coming up, turned her back, and killed her on Sir William’s side. The king descended from the hill, embraced Sir William, and bestowed on him the lands of Kirkton, Logan-House, Eamcraig, &c. in free forestrie. Sir William, in acknowledgment of St Katherine’s intercession, built the chapel of St Katherine in the Hopes, the church-yard of which is still to be seen. The hill, from which Robert Bruce beheld this memorable chase, is still called the King’s Hill; and the place where Sir William hunted is called the Knight’s Field. — — On the right side of the tombstone of Sir William St Clair, is a smaller coarse stone, which bears the traces of an ensign armorial, of which only a broad sword in pale, can be recognized; and on the left, there is a similar stone, on which there appears to have been another coat-of-arms.
At the foot of the third and fourth pillars, and between them and the north wall, there is a large flag stone, covering the mouth of a vault, in which ten barons of Rosslyn are buried: it is so remarkably dry, that, when the bodies of some of them have been inspected, eighty years after their interment, they were found in perfect preservation. It was an ancient custom of this princely house, that all its barons were buried, without any coffin, in their armour. Father Hay, alluding to this custom, observes, “The late Rosslyn, my goodfather, grandfather to the present Rosslyn, was the first that was buried in a coffin, against the sentiments of James VII. who was thon in Scotland, and several other persons well versed in antiquity, to whom my mother (Jean Spottiswood, grand-neice of Archbishop Spottiswood) would not hearken, thinking it beggarly to be buried after that manner. The great expense she was at in burying her husband, occasioned the sumptuary acts which were made in the following Parliaments.” It may be here observed, that, according to a venerable tradition, the turrets of the Chapel were supernaturally illumined by flames, upon the death of any member of the family of Rosslyn. This tradition is thus beautifully alluded to in the Lay of the Last Minstrel:--
O’er Rosslyn all that dreary light,
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam:
‘Twas broader than the watch-fire light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
It glared on Rosslyn’s castled rock,
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen;
’Twas seen from Dryden’s groves of oak,
And seen from caverned Hawthornden.
Seemed all on fire that chapel proud,
Where Rosslyn’s chiefs uncoffined lie;
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.
Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altars pale;
Shone every pillar foliage bound.
And glimmered all the dead men’s mail.
Blazed battlement and pinnet high.
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair--
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.
At the north west corner, and between the seventh pillar and the wall, is the tomb of George Earl of Caithness. Though defaced by the mob of 1688, the following inscription upon it is very legible. "HIC. JACET. NONIUS. AC. POTENS. DOMINVS. GEOEGVS. QVONDUM. COMES. CATHANENSIS. DOMINVG. SINCLAIR. JUSTICIARVS. HEREDITARIVS. DIOCESIS. CATHENENSIS. QVI. OBIIT. EDINBURGH. 9. DIE. MENSIS. SEPTEMBRIIS. ANNO. DOMINI. 1582.
In the south-east corner is the High Altar, which is ascended by two steps. Beneath it is a flat, which is descended to, from the floor of the Chapel, by four steps. Here a subterraneous stair-case of twenty steps conducts, through an arch at the top, to a smaller Chapel, which was used as a sacristy or vestry. This was erected by the first Lady of William, the founder of the great Chapel, Dame Elizabeth Douglas, formerly Countess of Buchan, and daughter of Archibald the second Earl of Buchan, of that name. Though the passage to this sacristy or vestry u subterraneous, itself is. above ground, and rests on the edge of the bank: its height is 15 feet 2 inches, its length 36, and its breadth 14 feet. In the east wall is a large arched window, where once stood an altar. Looking towards it on the right hand, is seen an escutcheon couped Caithness and Rosslyn. In a direct line with it, on the opposite side of the window, is a ragged cross, very distinct. This sacristy or vestry once had in the south wall a low arched door, now shut up, by which a person might have entered it, without passing through the Chapel above. In the north wall is a large arched recess, on one side of the opening of which, the iron hinges of a door still remain. There is a similar recess in the south wall, but now filled up. In each of the side walls there is a square niche. All these may have been designed for keeping the sacred vessels employed in the service of the Chapel, and the vestments of the priests. In the south east comer, there is a piscina, or font, and, on the east side of it, there is a square niche.
Upwards of half a century ago, the Chapel of Rosslyn exhibited such symptoms of decay, that its then proprietor, General St Clair, with the laudable wish of preserving it, caused its roof to be covered of new with flag stones, and its windows to be glazed; operations which effectually arrested its progress towards decay. At the same time, he caused the floor of the Chapel to be repaired, and the wall around the adjoining cemetry to be rebuilt.
The foregoing brief sketch, which is meant chiefly as historical, comprehends only such few details, relating to the architecture of the place, as the subjoined plates do not elucidate. To that sketch die following particulars remain to be added. The Chapel, until the date of its possessions being secularized, contained, in addition to the high altar, other three, dedicated, respectively, to St Peter, St Matthew, and St Andrew; and in the sacristy, or vestry, was another altar, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The Chapel, when erected, was endowed by its founder with the church-lands of Pentland, four acres of meadow near that town, with the kips, and eight sowms of grass. In the year 1523, one of his successors farther endowed it with some portions of land in the neighbourhood, for dwelling-houses and gardens to the provost and prebendaries. These possessions, not very ample, passed away from it at the Reformation; and upon 26th February 1571, the provost and prebendaries, by a deed, in which they complain that their revenues had long been forcibly withheld from them, resigned them absolutely into the hands of the laity. According to Father Hay, who speaks as if he had actually seen the deed, which he calls a charter, there were appended to it the seal of the Chapter of this collegiate church, being St Matthew in a church—red upon white wax; and the seal of Sir William Sinclair, the then Baron of Rosslyn, being a ragged cross—red upon white wax.
THE ’PRESTICE’S PILLAR.
This Plate is chiefly designed to represent the Apprentice’s Pillar, situated in the south-east corner of the building, near the opening of the passage to the Oratory. It exhibits a grandeur of design, and a delicacy of chiselling, altogether inimitable; and never fails to rivet the spectator with delight and astonishment. On its base are several dragons, brought boldly out; they are chained by their heads, and mutually entwined. From the base to the capital, four exquisitely sculptured wreaths of flowers and foliage, each different from the other, ascend spirally round the shaft, the centre of each wreath being a foot and a half distant from that of the adjoining one. On the south-side of its capital, is a representation of Isaac placed upon the altar, with the ram beneath it, caught by the horns in a thicket. On the east end of the architrave, connecting this beautiful Pillar with the one immediately on the west, is Abraham standing in view of his devoted son, his hands lifted up in prayer. On the opposite end is a man playing on a bagpipe, and another man recumbent at his feet. On the architrave which joins the Apprentice's Pillar to the corresponding one on the south wall, is seen from the westside, the following inscription in Gothic characters, “Forte est vinum, fortior est rex, fortiores sunt mulieres; super omnia vincit Veritas. --Esd. ch. 3 verse IV.”
There is a tradition relating to the Apprentice’s Pillar which has prevailed for ages in the family of Rosslyn. The model of it was sent from Rome, but the master mason, distrusting his own capacity to work it off without first inspecting the original pillar from which it was taken, went to Rome to examine it. In his absence one of his apprentices undertook the task, and completely succeeded, which so inflamed the envy of the master, on his return, that he slew him. It is remarkable, however, that Slezer, in his Theatrum Scotiæ, London, 1693, calls this the Prince’s Pillar. so that its true name must have been mistakenly perverted, either by Slezer or the people in the neighborhood—most probably by the former, since the highest authority he could have consulted was the family of Rosslyn, who always put faith in the tradition, and since the Scottish abbreviation of the word apprentice to ’prentice, would readily induce a mistake.
There is a tradition relating to the Apprentice’s Pillar which has prevailed for ages in the family of Rosslyn. The model of it was sent from Rome, but the master mason, distrusting his own capacity to work it off without first inspecting the original pillar from which it was taken, went to Rome to examine it. In his absence one of his apprentices undertook the task, and completely succeeded, which so inflamed the envy of the master, on his return, that he slew him. It is remarkable, however, that Slezer, in his Theatrum Scotiæ, London, 1693, calls this the Prince’s Pillar. so that its true name must have been mistakenly perverted, either by Slezer or the people in the neighborhood—most probably by the former, since the highest authority he could have consulted was the family of Rosslyn, who always put faith in the tradition, and since the Scottish abbreviation of the word apprentice to ’prentice, would readily induce a mistake.
Source: Historical and Descriptive Account of Rosslyn Chapel and Castle, with Eight Engravings (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd et al., 1827), 1-8, 11-12.
