In Byways of Scottish History

The May, situated at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, is the largest of the islets that stud the waters of the estuary between the coast of Fife and that of the Lothians. It lies ten miles to the north-east of Dunbar, and five to the south-west of Fifeness. Its greatest length is from east to west, and measures about a mile. Its width is greatest at the western extremity, and may be estimated at rather more than half a mile. The shape of the island is exceedingly irregular.

At the south-western point a mass of precipitous rock gives it an imposing and picturesque appearance, but to the east and to the north the cliffs terminate abruptly, and are flanked by stretches of comparatively low-lying coast. Between their respective extremities the seaboard, which faces the north-east, is rugged and difficult of access, but does not otherwise present a striking outline.

In former days there were four landing-places, known as Tarpithol, Altarstanes, Pilgrims-haven, and Kirk-haven. At present there are but two. One of them is on the western side, where a gully, forming a kind of natural harbour, has been provided with a ladder, which is not, however, always available to large boats, and at certain states of the tide access to the island involves a considerable amount of clambering over the rocks. The other is situated on the north-east shore. It consists of a wharf, or rather slip, built at the head of one of the many coves. Its depth of water is less than that of the western harbour, but it has the advantage of being more sheltered.

The surface of May Island is uneven, but covered in most parts with excellent turf; and, according to Sibbald, its name, "which in the ancient Gothic signifieth a green island", was given to it "because of its commodiousness for pasture, for it is all green grass". According to the same writer, it was supposed to afford ample sustenance for a hundred sheep and some twenty cows, and was let as a grazing ground for ￡26 per annum. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, published in 1792, the Reverend James Forrester states, on the authority of a "very intelligent farmer", who had dealt in sheep for above thirty years, and who had had them from all the different corners of Scotland, that there is no place so well adapted for improving wool as the Island of May; that the fleeces of the coarsest-woolled sheep that ever came from the worst pasture in Scotland, when put on the island, became as fine as satin in the course of one season; that their flesh had also a superior flavour; and that rabbits bred on the May had a finer fur than those which were reared on the mainland.[202] The waters in the neighbourhood of the isle were long famous for their abundance of fish; and an old writer states that, in his time, many seals were slain on the east side of it.[203] At the present day the seals have wholly disappeared, and the fishing grounds are practically deserted. In a few of the more sheltered spots some attempt at cultivation has been made, but the result hardly seems to repay the labour. One feature which has always been considered of special importance is the possession of fresh water. The names of five wells are given-the Lady's Well, the Pilgrim's Well, St. John's Well, St. Andrew's Well, and the Sheep Well; but the water is not equally good in all. The most accessible is not far from the western landing-place, and by the side of the cart road that runs through the length of the island. A small lake mentioned by Sibbald is still to be seen, and is utilized.

Ecclesiastically the Isle of May belongs to the parish of Anstruther-Wester; and in the days when it was inhabited by fourteen or fifteen families, the minister of the mother church was supposed to visit them once every year.

The earliest description of the Isle of May is given by Jean de Beaugué, a French gentleman who came to Scotland in 1548 in the company of Monsieur de Dessé, the leader of the forces sent over by Henry II in support of the party that opposed the aggressive policy of England. His account represents the island as possessing coal mines, stone quarries, excellent pasturage, and abundant springs of fresh water, and as being admirably suited to afford safe anchorage to thirty or forty ships. If it were fortified and inhabited, he says, the Scotch and those foreigners who traded with them might navigate freely, without being reduced to the necessity of waiting for favourable winds to enable them to sail from Leith or Burntisland. By this means the whole country would derive immediate benefit from the proximity of an island that had hitherto served no better purpose than that of affording a convenient retreat to all the pirates who infested the coast, and who not only interfered with the fisheries and with the trade, but also harassed the armaments of the Scotch and of their allies.[204]

In Hector Boece's account of Scotland there is but a brief reference to the Isle of May "amang mony uther ilis" in the Firth of Forth. He mentions, as a natural curiosity, that, "in the middis of this Ile there springis ane fontane of fresche and purifyit water outhrow ane roche crag, to the gret admiratioun of peple, considerin it lyis in the middis of the seis". But its chief distinction, in his eyes, is that it was "decorit with the blude and martirdome of Sanct Adriane and his fallowis".[205]

The history, or, as it is perhaps more correct to call it, the legend of Adrian the Martyr of the May, is to be found in the Breviary of Aberdeen. It is there stated that he was born in the parts of Hungary and in the province of Pannonia, that he was of royal descent and of episcopal rank, and that his diligence in the sacred order was testified by the many clerics and seculars who were his companions. Desiring to benefit other nations, and inflamed with zeal for the Christian religion, Adrian betook himself to the eastern parts of Scotia, then occupied by the Picts, having along with him six thousand six hundred and six companions, among whom the most noteworthy were Glodiarus, who was crowned with martyrdom; Gayus and Monarus, white-robed confessors; Stobrandus, and other bishops adorned with the mitre. The names of the rest are written in purple blood in the Book of Life.

These holy men wrought many signs and wonders in the midst of the Picts; but at length, desiring a habitation of their own, they expelled the demons and wild beasts from the Island of May, and there made a place of prayer. They gave themselves up to devotion until the Danes, after devastating all Britannia, which is now called Anglia, landed on the island, when the holy confessors of God opposed them with the spiritual weapons of heavenly warfare. The enemy, not brooking their zealous preaching and their increasing confession of the most glorious name of Christ, rushed with their swords on the Blessed Adrian, the victim of the Lord, and crowned him with a glorious martyrdom. And in order that, concerning them, the words of the prophet should be verified anew, where the disconsolate Rachel is said to have bewailed her children, those most cruel executioners fell upon the holy and heavenly multitude who persevered in confessing Christ, and who, like sheep, fell under their swords in the Isle of May, where the martyrs of God, who, in this life, loved to serve him together, in death were not separated. There was one spirit in them and one faith. In that Isle of May there was anciently erected a monastery of well-hewn stone, which was destroyed by the Angles. But the church remains to this day, much visited for its miracles by the people, and women who go thither in the hope of offspring are not disappointed. There is also a famous cemetery, where the bodies of the martyrs repose. Such is the account of the Breviary.[206] The date ascribed to the event narrated in it is the fourth day of March, in the year 875.

In his Cronykil of Scotland Andrew Wyntoun sums up the legend in the following lines:

"This Constantyne than regnand,

Oure the Scottis in Scotland,

Saynt Adriane wyth hys cumpany

Came off the land off Hyrkany,

And arrywyd in to Fyffe,

Quhare that thai chesyd to led thar lyff.

At the Kyng than askyd thai

Leve to preche the Crystyn fay.

That he granted wyth gud will,

And thaire lykyng to fulfille,

And [leif] to dwell in to his land,

Quhare thai couth ches it mayst plesand.

Than Adriane wyth hys cumpany

Togydder come tyl Caplaweby.

Thare sum in to the Ile off May

Chesyd to byde to thare euday.

------

Hwb, Haldane, and Hyngare

Off Denmark this tyme cummyn ware

In Scotland wyth gret multitude,

And wyth thare powere it oure-yhude (over-ran).

In hethynes all levyd thai;

And in dispyte off Crystyn fay

In to the land thai slwe mony,

And put to dede by martyry.

And upon Haly Thurysday

Saynt Adriane thai slwe in May

Wyth mony off hys cumpany;

In to that haly Ile thai ly."[207]

It may be incidentally mentioned that another saint, Mungo, the patron of Glasgow, is slightly and indirectly connected with the May. According to legend, St. Thenaw's father ordered her to be stoned and cast in a chariot from the top of Taprain Law, in punishment of her supposed sin. Having been miraculously preserved from destruction, she was then accused of witchcraft, and the father was urged by his heathen subjects to expose her in a boat made of twigs and pitch and covered with leather. In this coracle she was carried out to the Ile of May, whence, attended by a company of fishes, she was wafted to Culross, where she gave birth to St. Mungo.[208] There may not impossibly be some connection between this legend and the efficacity subsequently attributed to pilgrimages to the May when performed by women; and it is said to be from St. Thenaw that various spots in the island-the Lady's Well, the Lady's Bed, the Maiden Rocks, and the Maiden's Hair-are called.

It is usually stated that the monastery to which the Breviary of Aberdeen makes reference was founded by King David, and that he bestowed it upon the monks of Reading, in England, as a "cell", or dependency of their great abbey. But, as Dugdale points out, there is no actual proof of this in that monarch's charters. By the first of them he merely gives to the Church of May, and to the Prior and monks of the same place, a certain toft in Berwick in perpetual alms for the sake of his soul and the souls of his ancestors and successors; and by the second he enlarges his donation by gifts in Balegallin and other places, to hold, indeed, of him and of his heirs, but without any indication that he was the founder. At the same time, it must be admitted that the silence of the charters is no convincing proof of the contrary.

King William, grandson of David, confirmed to God and the Church of All Saints of May, and to William, the Prior, and to his successors, brethren of the Cluniac order, in free and perpetual alms, the donations made by his grandfather David, of pious memory, and by his predecessor and brother, King Malcolm. The contribution of the latter sovereign to these benefactions appears to have been the grant of a toll of five marks by the year from ships arriving at Perth. King William also enjoins all persons fishing round the Island of May to pay their due tithes to God and the aforesaid church without reserve. He also commands that no one shall unjustly detain from them the tithes to which they were entitled in the time of King David, on pain of forfeiture; nor shall anyone presume to fish in their waters, to construct buildings on the Isle of May, to dig land, or to cut grass there, without their licence. He moreover grants and confirms to them one mansion, with a toft in Dunbar, and the use of a vessel for transporting the necessaries of their household, as Earl Gospatric had granted, and King Malcolm confirmed to them. By later charters he bestows upon the Priory a grant of fourpence from all ships having four hawsers, coming to the ports of Pittenweem and Anstruther for the purpose of catching or selling fish, and also from boats with fixed helms. Of the "can" or duty collected at those ports he enjoins that the tenth penny shall be paid to the monks, but reserves the bulk for himself. He also gives them the lands of Petother, and further shows his goodwill towards them by exempting the men dwelling on their lands from military service-de exercitu et expeditione-and also from the payment of can and toll, and by extending the latter privilege to all who come to fish in their waters.[209]

It was not only to the liberality of their kings that the Monks of the May were indebted for the extensive and valuable lands which they owned on both sides of the firth. From Gospatric, the powerful Border Earl, they received a toft near his harbour of Bele. To this his successor, Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, added five acres of land near the same harbour. He also made over to them all the land "from Windydure to Kingissete, and so by the footpath coming down to Kingsburn, and from thence up by the high road which goes by the Rede Stane and by that road to Windydure, with common pasture". In addition to this he released them from the annual payment of a cow, which they had made till then for the lands which they held from him in Lambermor.[210]

Another benefactor, whose liberality is recorded in the Registry of the Priory of St. Andrews, was John Fitz-Michael. From him the monks got the lands of Mayschelis, in the Lambermor, on the south side of Calwerburne, together with an acre of meadow, and with pasture sufficient for three hundred mother sheep, thirty bearing cows, and twenty-four brood mares with their young. They were, further, to have ten sows with their brood in Fitz-Michael's pasture; and the men living on the land were allowed the privilege of taking as much peat and turf as was necessary for use in their own houses. To complete this handsome donation, it was declared free from all hosting, service, exaction, and multure.[211] The lands of Ardarie, in Fife, consisting of a carucate and a bovate, were made over to the prior and monks of May by William of Beaueyr, in perpetual alms, for the salvation of Countess Ada, of Malcolm the King, her son, and of William, the reigning sovereign. The island community was also to have the reversion of two bovates which William had given in dowry to his wife, and of one bovate which he had granted in life tenure to his sergeant, Ralph.[212] From Eggou Ruffus the monks received some land adjoining his own property of Lingoch; whilst Alexander Cumyn, Earl of Buchan, made a yearly donation of a stone of wax, or forty shillings, to be received at Rossy, at the fair of St. Andrew. Finally, a part of the Moor of Barewe, extending westwards from the foot of the hill of Whitelawe, was gifted to the priory by Gilbert of Saint Martin.[213]

But, besides the records which thus testify to the esteem in which the Monks of May were held, and to the substantial marks of favour granted them by munificent patrons, there also exist documents which tell of less friendly relations between them and other landowners on the mainland, and of protracted litigation with rival claimants. Thus, an agreement arrived at in the year 1260, between the community on the one side and Sir John de Dundemore on the other, with regard to the ownership of the lands of Turbrech, in Fife, refers to the "many altercations" to which the question had given rise, and sets forth the terms of settlement arrived at by the contending parties. Sir John was to make over to the monks the contested property, in "free and perpetual alms, for the weal of his soul and the souls of his predecessors and of his successors". In return for this substantial concession, the Prior and Brethren undertook to grant him and his heirs in perpetuity a monk to perform divine service for them in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In addition to this, they bound themselves to pay him, at their own option, either half a mark of silver yearly, or sixty "mulwelli"-probably haddock. If they chose to make payment in kind, the fish were to be supplied in two instalments-thirty at Whitsuntide and thirty at Martinmas. They further granted him and his heirs a glass lamp in the church of Ceres, with two gallons of oil, or twelve pence, yearly, for feeding it. The Lairds of Dundemore do not appear to have been altogether satisfied with the terms of a compromise which, so far as material interests were concerned, was obviously one-sided. As a protest against the total alienation of the lands of Turbrech, Henry de Dundemore demanded that the Prior of the May should swear fealty to him on account of them. The claim, which nothing in the charter formerly granted by Sir John seems to have justified, was resisted, whereupon Henry, compensating himself in a high-handed and tangible manner, distrained a horse belonging to the monks. The matter was referred to William, Bishop of St. Andrews. His decision is contained in a document dated in Cupar, on the first Monday after the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, in the year of the Lord 1285. It is wholly adverse to the layman, whom it orders to restore the horse, within eight days, to its rightful owners.[214]