Editing Coldstream (section)

===Coldstream Priory===

The Priory of St Mary was founded before 1166 by [[Gospatric III, Earl of Lothian]]. Never wealthy or powerful, the monastery nevertheless occurs frequently in the history of the border lands, being targeted several times by English forces. The monastery is the only one from the period where any charters survive thanks to the good sense of the prioress, having them copied. The house was used by both the English and Scots to gather information on each other, thanks to its location, the prioress treading a tightrope to ensure the survival of the monastery. It became a favourite of Margaret Tudor, wife of James IV, Margaret using it several times during the troubled times of the Regency. 

After the Battle of Flodden, the prioress had all the bodies of the Scottish casualties (apart from [[James IV]]’s, which was taken to England) brought to the monastery for burial - an event commemorated annually even today, by a procession & service, involving cutting a sod of grass from the battle field and it being carried back to Coldstream; since the priory is completely lost today, the sod is symbolically ‘buried’ on the Tweed Green. The last prioress signed away her community and it ceased to exist as a legal entity in 1621, although no new novices had been permitted since the 1560 Reform Parliament.  No reliable record of the number of nuns living in the house have survived. <ref>[https://monasticmatrix.osu.edu/monasticon/coldstream Coldstream] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328084205/https://monasticmatrix.osu.edu/monasticon/coldstream |date=28 March 2019 }}; Monastic Matrix</ref> [[Isabella Hoppringle]] (1460–1538) was the prioress of Coldstream from 1505 until her death. She was succeeded by her relative, Janet Pringle, the last ‘real’ prioress of the house.<ref>{{cite web| title       = Isabella Hoppringle: Biography on Undiscovered Scotland| website=Undiscovered Scotland|url=https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/h/isabellahoppringle.html| access-date = 29 March 2019}}</ref>