[196]
Read May 11, 1797.
Sir, Somerset Place, May 20, 1797.
THE matrix of a very old seal, (made, it should seem, of the bone of some animal) and which you did me the honour to put into my hands last week for the purpose of finding out to what place it belonged, I have the pleasure to inform you I am now able, under the correction of this learned Society, to explain.
It has not, as you were induced from the similarity of names to suppose, the smallest connexion with London, the metropolis of England, but is a Scottish seal, and most probably the first and original one of the rich Abbey of Lundores in the forest, on the river Tay, by the town of Newburgh, in Fifeshire, founded by David, earl of Huntingdon, brother to William, king of Scotland, on his return from the Holy Land, A. D. 1178, for Tyronenses.
This matrix represents the Virgin Mary seated, with our Saviour in her lap, holding a branch in her right hand, and the abbey of Lundores in her left. Pl. XIII. fig. 4. The inscription runs thus: "Sigillum Sancte Marie et Sci Andree de Lundo* * *;" here a piece has been broken off; part of the R is however still visible, and there is no doubt but that the letters e and s followed it. My reasons for fill-ing
