King Alexander come in Sanct Colmes Inche; quhair he was constrainit, be
violent tempest, to remane thre dayis, sustenand his life with skars
fude, be ane heremit that dwelt in the said inche: in quhilk, he had ane
litill chapell, dedicat in the honoure of Sanct Colme. Finaly, King
Alexander, becaus his life was saiffit be this heremit, biggit ane Abbay
of Chanonis regular, in the honour of Sanct Colme; and dotat it with
sindry landes and rentis, to sustene the abbot and convent thairof."[62]

As Bellenden's translation of Boece's work does not in this and other
parts adhere by any means strictly to the author's original context, I
will add the account given by Boece in that historian's own words:[63]

"Nec ita multo post Fortheae rex aestuarium trajiciens, coorta
tempestate in Emoniam insulam appulsus descendit, repertoque Divi
Columbae _saccllo_, viroque Eremita, triduo tempestatis vi permanere
illic coactus est, exiguo sustentatus cibo, quem apud Eremitam
quendam sacelli custodem reperiebat, nec tamen comitantium
multitudini ulla ex parte sufficiente. Itaque eo periculo defunctus
Divo Columbae aedem vovit. Nec diu voto damnatus fuit, coenobio paulo
post Regularium, ordinis Divi Augustini extructo, agrisque atque
redditibus ad sumptus eorum collatis."

That the very small and antique-looking edifice which I have described
as still standing on Inchcolm is identically the little chapel or cell
spoken of by Fordun and Boece as existing on the island at the time of
Alexander's visit to it, upwards of seven centuries ago, is a matter
admitting of great probability, but not of perfect legal proof. One or
two irrecoverable links are wanting in the chain of evidence to make
that proof complete; and more particularly do we lack for this purpose
any distinct allusions or notices among our mediaeval annalists, of the
existence or character of the building during these intervening seven
centuries, except, indeed, we consider the notice of it which I have
cited from the _Scotichronicon_ "_ad quandam inibi capellulam_," to be
written by the hand of Walter Bower, and to have a reference to the
little chapel as it existed and stood about the year 1430, when Bower
wrote his additions to Fordun, while living and ruling on Inchcolm as
Abbot of its Monastery.

But various circumstances render it highly probable that the old
stone-roofed cell still standing on the island is the ancient chapel or
oratory in w