St Mary's Isle Priory

St Mary's Isle Priory was a monastic house of Augustinian canons located on the Isle of Trail or St Mary's Isle in Galloway.

It is alleged Fergus, First Lord of Galloway (1138), granted then St. Maria de Trayl, (St. Mary's Isle) to the Monks of Holyrood Abbey, (The Abbot of Sancte Crusis) as confirmed by John, Bishop of Galloway, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Fergus, having his principal seat on Palace Isle, Loch Fergus, erected the ‘Prioratus Sanctae Mariae de Trayl’ (St. Mary's Isle Priory) in penitence for rebellion against King David I of Scotland. Whether or not the endowment was made for this purpose, Holyrood Abbey established a daughter house there which is on record by the time of a grant by Lochlann, Lord of Galloway sometime between 1189 and 1193. A "prior of Galloway" by the name of "William" appeared alongside the Abbot of Holywood and his prior in a document preserved by St Andrews Cathedral Priory dated to 1173, and so it is possible that this William is the earliest recorded Prior of St Mary's Isle.

The priory maintained its dependent relationship with Holyrood Abbey. In order to help maintain the canons and prior of the monastery, in 1323 King Robert I of Scotland granted to Holyrood Abbey a tithe of the revenues from royal pleas taken from the area between the rivers Nith and Cree. The declining health of the priory, related more generally to the declining fortunes of monasteries in Scotland in the 15th century, led James IV of Scotland to seek its reincorporation into Holyrood Abbey. This only led to a kinsman of the abbot of Holyrood becoming Prior of St Mary's Isle. In the 16th century control of the priory was secularized and held by a series of Commendators.

The Prior of St Mary's Isle, like others, had a seat in Parliament, Robert Strivelin being the last prior. After his death Robert Richardson, was presented to the Priory on 30 March 1538, sat, as a vacant benefice until an incumbent was provided, in the Parliament of 1560. The declared rental at the general assumption of 1561 represents that the Priory was worth £235.4.4. in money, "in meale, oats, bear - 90, 80 and 77 bushels respectively, and that the kirks thereof were Kirkmadyne with St. Mary's Isle called Galtway. In 1572, Mr. Robert Richardson, as Usufructuary, and William Rutherford, as Commendator, granted to James Lidderdale (c1545-1621), and Thomas (1570-1629), his son, the lands which belonged to the Priory, and formally became part of their entirely secular lordship in 1608, this grant was confirmed by a charter from the King, dated the 4th November 1573.

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