Dryburgh Abbey - Turning Point

Turning Point

The damage caused to Dryburgh was great and influential nobles seemed to have played a significant part in its restoration—in the closing years of the 1380s it seems that Robert Stewart, Earl of Fife, Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas and Walter Trail, Bishop of St Andrews all had roles in assisting the abbey to extricate itself from this disaster. King Robert III, in a charter dated 9 March 1391, granted to the canons all of the very substantial income-rich possessions of the Cistercian nuns of Southberwick which had been destroyed by Edward II in 1385. The family of the Black Douglases continued with their support and in around 1420 Archibald, fourth earl of Douglas gave Dryburgh the income from the possessions of Smailholme parish church. The fifth earl continued the grant of Smailholm and went further in 1429 by asking the pope to formally confirm this together with the inclusion of the hospitals of St Leonards of Lauder and Smailholme. In 1443, the canons suffered once again when fire destroyed the abbey, evidently by accident yet eighteen years later in 1461, the abbey is recorded as requesting protection from Pope Pius II inferring that the canons were finding it difficult to finance the repairs.