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| Lamberton Kirk |
With the impending
referendum on separation of Scotland and England coming closer by the
day, I thought I should take a look at the place where the union
of the previously sovereign states of the United Kingdom started.
An insignificant ruin
on the border, just a mile or so from the A1, stands Lamberton Kirk.
It was never of any
importance, a part of the extensive holdings of the rich and
influential Coldingham Priory , it was valued at a lowly 15 merks.
It ceased to be used in the seventeenth century, yet it provided the backdrop to the what was to become the Union of the Crowns and eventually the Act of Union.
It ceased to be used in the seventeenth century, yet it provided the backdrop to the what was to become the Union of the Crowns and eventually the Act of Union.
In 1503, Henry VII,
that crafty Tudor monarch, attempted to do by marriage what
generations of his Plantagenet predecessors had tried,
unsuccessfully, to do by force – unite Scotland and England.
His daughter
Margaret was sent north to become the wife of James IV. She was
conveyed to the border and, as
John Younge the Somerset herald, recorded in his journal of events -
apud ecclesiam
vulgariter vocatam, Lamberton Kirk
-
in the church commonly called Lamberton Kirk, she was married by
proxy to James.
A
great tournament was held with Scottish and English knights taking part and horse races were run on what was to be
Scotland's earliest racecourse on Lamberton Moor. Of this, nothing
remains but grazing for sheep.
A
widowed Margaret returned to pray
at Lamberton in 1517, going
south after the disaster of Flodden and the death of her husband in
battle but she had done her dynastic duty and produced a male heir
and thus established her grandson's claim to the English throne when
Elizabeth, the last of the Tudors died in
1603 and the two countries, though still separate, had one monarch,
James VI of Scotland and I of
England.
It
would take another century of
bloody civil war, religious strife, and national bankruptcy for
James's dream of one nation to become reality. It did in 1707 and
it all started with a thirteen year old princess coming to Lamberton
Kirk in 1503.
There
was marriage house at Lamberton. In it heyday, it was as famous as
Gretna for runaway couples to get their troths plighted. It was
demolished in the 1970's to make way for the new dual carriageway of
the A1 as it roars across the border.
Legend had it that James IV had granted Lamberton Kirk the right to hold marriage ceremonies without the banns being called so, when the church was abandoned in the early 17th century, the local toll house took on the role of marriage house. It is recorded that a notice in the window said
“Ginger
Beer sold here and marriages performed”.
The site of the house, once the source of romantic tales of elopement, is now lay-by much used by HGV's and home to a mobile snack bar - and, no, it doesn't sell ginger beer.
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| Site of the Marriage House at Lamberton Toll |
The site of the house, once the source of romantic tales of elopement, is now lay-by much used by HGV's and home to a mobile snack bar - and, no, it doesn't sell ginger beer.
Come September will the marriage of Scotland and England still be intact? Will the thistle and the rose still be growing side by side as they are at Lamberton today?
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