--------_Syne couth to Braid wood fayr,_
_At a consaill thre dayis soiornyt thai._
_At_ Forest kyrk _a metyng ordand he;_
_Thai chesd Wallace Scottis wardand to be._--V. 765.
The tradition at Biggar is, that it was in the old church there that
Wallace was chosen Guardian of Scotland. But this seems to be a
mistake. For we have no proof of the erection of a church there till
the year 1545, when the college of this place was founded by Malcolm
Lord Fleming. Spottiswood’s Relig. Houses, c. 19.
The opinion that by the _Forest kyrk_ we are to understand Selkirk,
has far greater probability. Thomas Crawford, in his MS. History of
the House of Douglas, says that this meeting was held “at the Forest
Kirk in the sheriffdom of Selkirk.” Comment. in Relat. A. Blair, p.
22. Keith, in his List of Parishes, thus mentions Selkirk: “_Vulg._
Selkrig, _alias_ the Forrest.” Catalogue of Bishops, p. 223.
In a deed of David, the son of Malcolm, (while he was yet Earl of
Huntington) founding an abbey here, which was afterwards translated to
Kelso, it is called _Scelechyrca_ and _Selechyrche_. Sir J. Dalrymple’s
Collect. p. 403. The name, it is said, in Celtic, “signifies the kirk
in the wood or forest; expressing thus, in one word, the situation of
the place itself, and the state of the surrounding country.” Statist.
Acc. II. 434. But there seems to be no authority for this etymon. The
last part of the word is undoubtedly from Anglo-Saxon _circ_, _circe_,
_cyrc_, _cyric_, church. Mr Chalmers’s derivation is highly probable.
“As the occasion of the church in the forest,” he observes, “arose
from the circumstance of the king’s having a hunting-seat here, the
place of his worship may have been called _Sele_-chyrc, from the Saxon
_Sele_, a hall, a prince’s court.” This idea receives a considerable
degree of confirmation from what follows: “When a second church
was built, nearly on the same site, after the establishment of the
monastery at this hunting-seat, the prior place was distinguished by
the name of Selkirk-_Regis_, while the village of the monks was called
Selkirk-_Abbatis_.” Caledonia, II. 963.