roach to the upper floors is now by one staircase in the N.W.
angle of the transept. Passages between the arcades and the outer
walls went round the building on every floor, and in the angles of
the tower there are small wheel stairs leading to every floor, and
passages running round the tower on every story. These arcades and
passages have tended to weaken the structure, and it has been found
necessary to strengthen it with numerous iron tie-rods, iron beams,
etc.[429]

There was an outer door in the S.W. angle of the transept, and
another in the north wall of the nave adjoining the crossing. A tomb
recess is in the south transept wall, and in the recess beneath are
two ambries or lockers and a piscina, the only one remaining in the
building. To the south of the transept there is a vaulted chamber
that may have been the sacristy.[430]

_Arbroath Abbey (Forfarshire)._--This abbey was founded in 1178 by
William the Lion, and dedicated to S.S. Mary and Thomas a Becket. Becket
had been martyred at the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral only seven
years before, and William the Lion had recently suffered defeat and
capture by the English at Alnwick. William had been personally
acquainted with Becket, and is supposed to have regarded him as a
private friend.

"Was this the cause," asks Dr. Cosmo Innes, "or was it the natural
propensity to extol him who, living and dead, had humbled the crown
of England, that led William to take St. Thomas as his patron saint,
and to entreat his intercession when he was in greatest trouble? Or
may we consider the dedication of his new abbey, and his invocation
of the martyr of Canterbury, as nothing more than the signs of the
rapid spreading of the veneration for the new saint of the high
church party, from which his old opponent himself, Henry of England,
was not exempt?"

As showing the eagerness with which King William pushed on the
buildings, Hollinshed mentions that

"The King came by the Abbey of Aberbrothoc to view the work of that
house, how it went forward, commanding them that were overseers and
masters of the works to spare for no cost, but to bring it up to
perfection, and that with magnificence."[431]

The abbey received great endowments from King William and from many
subsequent princes and barons; acquired in 1204 a charter of privileges
from King John of England and wa