The Chronicle of the Abbey of Evesham is a remarkable medieval history of one of England’s great Benedictine monasteries. Beginning with the abbey’s legendary and royal foundations, it traces the fortunes of Evesham through centuries of religious devotion, political conflict, legal struggle, rebuilding, reform, and royal patronage. At the heart of the chronicle is the abbey’s determination to defend its ancient liberties. Its monks record disputes with bishops, appeals to popes and papal legates, contested elections of abbots, lawsuits over lands and privileges, and the long struggle to preserve Evesham’s exemption from episcopal control. Alongside these institutional battles are vivid accounts of saints and miracles, including St Ecgwine, St Odulf and the royal martyr St Wistan, whose relics and cult formed an important part of the abbey’s identity. The chronicle also preserves a wealth of detail about everyday monastic life. It describes the building and repair of churches, cloisters, chapels, halls, mills, granges and fishponds; the acquisition of estates and revenues; the making of vestments, shrines, bells and liturgical books; and the provision of food, clothing, recreation and medical care for the monks. Successive abbots emerge not merely as religious superiors but as administrators, builders, patrons, diplomats and defenders of the community. Extending into the later Middle Ages, the narrative reflects the changing political world around Evesham, from the Norman Conquest and the Angevin kings to the Wars of the Roses and the reign of Henry VIII. The result is both a history of a single monastery and a richly detailed record of medieval English religious, legal, economic and political life. This edition offers modern readers direct access to one of the most important monastic chronicles of medieval England, revealing how the monks of Evesham understood their saints, their privileges, their rulers and their place in history.

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Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland by Francis Groome

Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland by Francis Groome is in Victorian Books.

Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland by Francis Groome Volume 1

                    One of them was a favourite retreat of the author of The Seasons, who was a frequent inmate of Ancrum Manse, and is known as 'Thomson's Cave,' his name being carved on its roof, it is said, by his own hand. Remains of a Caledonian stone circle existed within this century at Harestanes, near Mounteviot, but all its stones save one have been removed; and a Roman road skirts Ancrum Moor, 1¾ mile NW of the village, which moor was the scene of one of the last great conflicts in the international war between Scotland and England. An English army, 5000 strong, under Sir Ralph Evera and Sir Bryan Latoun, in 1544, overran and wasted the Scottish Border northward to Melrose. Returning with their booty, they were overtaken at Ancrum Moor and utterly routed by a Scottish force under the Earl of Angus and Scott of Buccleuch. Lilliard, a maid of Teviotdale, made desperate by the loss of her lover, fought in the Scottish ranks till she fell beneath many wounds; and she has bequeathed to part of the battlefield the name of Lilliard's Edge. A monument, now broken and defaced, stands on the spot, and bore this legend, — 
                
                    'Fair Maiden Lilliard lies under this stane;
                
                    Little was her stature, but great was her fame;
                
                    Upon the English loons she laid mony thumps,
                
                    And when her legs were cuttid off, she fought upon her stumps.