JEDBURG11, a royal and parliamentary burgh of Scotland, the county town of Roxburghshire, is situated on the river Jed, a tributary of the Teviot, 49 miles south-east of Edinburgh, and 10 miles north of the English border. The town consists mainly of four well-paved streets diverging at right angles from the central market-square. Next to the abbey in point of historical interest is Queen Mary's house, where she resided for some time in 1566. The county prison occupies the site of the ancient castle of Jed-burgh, destroyed in 1409. The abbey, one of the grandest ecclesiastical ruins in Scotland, was founded in 1118 by Prince David, afterwards David I., for the reception of certain Austin canons from St Quentin's at Beauvais. The nave, iin exquisite example of the transition from Norman to Early English, measures 133i feet by 59L. feet. With the exception of the north piers and a small portion of the wall above, which are Norman, the whole of the tower, 30 feet square and 86 feet high, belongs to the end of the 15th century. In the choir there is some very early Norman work ; the south chapel of the choir affords good specimens of the Decorated period. The total length of the magnificent pile, reduced to ruins by the conflicts of which Jedburgh was so often the scene, is 235 feet: Jedburgh, one of the first Scottish towns to take up the woollen manufacture (its first mill began in 1728), at present has five factories, employing 200 hands, and producing goods - chiefly tweeds - to the annual value of abut £70,000. The burgh unites with Haddington, Dunbar, North Berwick, and Lauder in returning a member to parliament. The population in 1881 was 3400.

Jedburgh, the final form of a name of which eighty-two variations have been collected, does not appear before the 15th century ; Jed-worth, still lingering among the lower ranks as Jethart, is much more ancient ; Ecgrrd, bishop of Lindisfarne (830-838), gifted that see with the village and lands of Geddewrd. Before the end of the 11th century the village had become a burgh ; and under David I. (1124-1153) it was a royal residence, and the chief town of the Middle Marches. The town received a charter from Robert I., and another in 1566 from Mary. During the troublous times on the borders in the Middle Ages, Jedburgh was an important place, and often experienced the disastrous effects of fire and sword. The phrase "Jethart Justice," meaning hanging a man and trying him afterwards, has passed into a proverb.