The earliest Cistercian monastery of Scotland, at Melrose, Roxburghshire. It was founded in 1136 by King David I, dedicated to Saint Mary, and given to monks from Rievaulx, Yorkshire. In the 14th and 15th centuries the church of the abbey, burned by English troops, was replaced by a noble Perpendicular and Decorated building celebrated for its carvings and windows. Its beauty is still visible in the ruins surviving from the destruction of the abbey by troops of Henry VIII in 1545. Soon afterward the victory of the Protestant Party put an end to the monastic life there, and the property was confiscated and passed into lay hands.