Watton Priory was a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of ...

of the

Gilbertine The Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was founded around 1130 by Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, where Gilbert was the parish priest. It was the only completely English religious order and came to an end in the 16th century at the ...

Order at Watton in the

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The

double monastery A double monastery (also dual monastery or double house) is a monastery combining separate communities of monks and of nuns, joined in one institution to share one church and other facilities. The practice is believed to have started in the East ...

was founded in 1150 by

Eustace fitz John Eustace fitz John (died 1157), Constable of Chester, was a powerful magnate in northern England during the reigns of Henry I, Stephen and Henry II. From a relatively humble background in South East England, Eustace made his career serving Henry I ...

. The present building dates mainly from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A house was added in the nineteenth century. It is a Grade I listed building.

King Edward I of England Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassa ...

imprisoned young Scottish Princess

Marjorie Bruce Marjorie Bruce or Marjorie de Brus (c. 12961316 or 1317) was the eldest daughter of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, and the only child born of his first marriage with Isabella of Mar. Marjorie's marriage to Walter, High Steward of Scotland, ga ...

there after her capture until eight years later, when he himself died. The priory was dissolved in 1539 by Henry VIII. The last prior Robert Holgate (1481/1482 – 1555) was Bishop of Llandaff from 1537 and then Archbishop of York (from 1545 to 1554). The

Nun of Watton The Nun of Watton (born in the 1140s) was the protagonist of a drama at Watton Priory in Yorkshire, recorded by St Aelred of Rievaulx around 1160 in ''De Quodam Miraculo Mirabili'', long known as ''De Sanctimoniali de Wattun''. In this story of ...

was the protagonist of events, recorded by St

Ailred of Rievaulx Aelred of Rievaulx ( la, Aelredus Riaevallensis); also Ailred, Ælred, and Æthelred; (1110 – 12 January 1167) was an English Cistercian monk, abbot of Rievaulx from 1147 until his death, and known as a writer. He is regarded by Anglicans ...

in '' De Sanctimoniali de Wattun''. The nun had been admitted to the holy life as a toddler but the young woman was unsuited to the enforced celibacy of the life of a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

and became pregnant by a lay brother in the attached male community.

Burials

* William de Vesci (d.1253)

References

* Monasteries in the East Riding of Yorkshire Gilbertine nunneries Grade I listed churches in the East Riding of Yorkshire Grade I listed monasteries {{UK-Christian-monastery-stub