Historical preface: 1508-1546

Charters and Documents Relating To the City of Glasgow 1175-1649 Part 1. Originally published by Scottish Burgh Records Society, Glasgow, 1897.

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'Historical preface: 1508-1546', in Charters and Documents Relating To the City of Glasgow 1175-1649 Part 1, ed. J D Marwick( Glasgow, 1897), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/glasgow-charters/1175-1649/no1/xlviii-lxx [accessed 7 October 2024].

'Historical preface: 1508-1546', in Charters and Documents Relating To the City of Glasgow 1175-1649 Part 1. Edited by J D Marwick( Glasgow, 1897), British History Online, accessed October 7, 2024, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/glasgow-charters/1175-1649/no1/xlviii-lxx.

"Historical preface: 1508-1546". Charters and Documents Relating To the City of Glasgow 1175-1649 Part 1. Ed. J D Marwick(Glasgow, 1897), , British History Online. Web. 7 October 2024. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/glasgow-charters/1175-1649/no1/xlviii-lxx.

1508–1546

A notarial instrument, dated 10th October, 1508, sets forth the appointment by Mr. Thomas Muirhead, rector of Stobo, of the provost, bailies, and councillors of the burgh, to be patrons of the chaplainry of the then newly founded church of St. Roche within the territory of the city, (fn. 1) also the induction by him of Sir Alexander Robertone as chaplain, and the presentation by them, at Muirhead's request, of Robertone to the chaplainry, with its fruits and profits. (fn. 2) The instrument records that the transaction took place in presence of two of the canons of the cathedral "and vicars-general of the most reverend father in Christ—Robert, archbishop of Glasgow, being abroad." The archbishop thus referred to was Robert Blacader, but Lesley records that he died on his way to the Holy Land on 28th July, 1508. (fn. 3) The intelligence of his death had, therefore, obviously not reached Glasgow when the transaction recorded in the instrument took place. (fn. 4) With his death the exemption of Glasgow from the jurisdiction of St. Andrews terminated.

Following the example of his predecessors James II. and III., James IV., on 7th June, 1509, issued a letter in which he charged the ordinaries spiritual of the kingdom to take no tax or impositions from the regents, students, or officers of the university of Glasgow. (fn. 5)

Archbishop Scheves of St. Andrews predeceased Archbishop Blacader, having died in 1497, (fn. 6) and was succeeded by James Stuart, duke of Ross, a brother of the king. He was made chancellor of the kingdom in 1503, and held the abbacy of Dunfermline in commendam, (fn. 7) and also the abbacy of Arbroath. He died in 1503. (fn. 8) The archbishopric then remained vacant till 1509, when Alexander Stuart, a natural son of the king, was appointed to the primacy. (fn. 9) After Archbishop Alexander Stuart's appointment, the favour which the king had previously shown to the see of Glasgow was transferred to that of St. Andrews, and he induced Pope Julius II. not to renew the exemption of Glasgow from its jurisdiction. Stuart fell with his father on the field of Flodden, on 9th September, 1513. (fn. 10)

James IV. was succeeded by his son, James V., an infant, only seventeen months old. His mother, the queen-dowager, Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII. of England, was appointed regent, but about a year afterwards she married the earl of Angus, the head of the Douglas family, and her regency then terminated. The duke of Albany, son of a younger brother of James III., was thereupon invited to return from France and assume the regency, which he did; but in 1524 he went back to France—sickened, no doubt, by his experience of the condition of affairs in Scotland—and he did not return. The young king, only in his thirteenth year, was then placed nominally at the head of affairs, but in the following year fell into the hands of the Douglases, and was kept a prisoner by them till he made his escape in 1528, and entered upon the real government of the kingdom, which he held till his death, on 18th December, 1542. (fn. 11)

Archbishop Stuart was succeeded in the see of St. Andrews, in 1514, by Andrew Forman, bishop of Moray, who had also conferred upon him the office of legate a latere, and the abbacy of Dunfermline in commendam. He died towards the end of 1521. (fn. 12) Notwithstanding the determination of the pope, on the application of James IV., not to renew the exemption of Glasgow from the jurisdiction of St. Andrews, Archbishop James Beaton (fn. 13) appears to have obtained such renewal for his lifetime, or his tenure of the archbishopric. But in 1522 he was transferred to the see of St. Andrews, in succession to Archbishop Forman, and the archbishopric of Glasgow was conferred on Gavin Dunbar, prior of Whithorn and former tutor to James V., who was consecrated at Edinburgh on 5th February, 1525. (fn. 14) That the delay in his consecration might not prevent his administering certain functions of his office, however, a charter under the great seal, dated 22nd December, 1524, authorised him, whom it described as prior of Whithorn and postulate of Glasgow, to present to all benefices that might become vacant during the vacancy in the see. In the interval between his election and consecration he had sufficient influence to obtain from Clement VII., who had just ascended the pontifical throne, a bull, dated 8th July, 1524, renewing, enlarging, and perpetuating a bull by Leo X., excepting the see and province of Glasgow from the metropolitan, primatial, and legatine jurisdiction of St.Andrews. Against this exemption archbishop James Beaton remonstrated, and it was restricted so far as to free Glasgow from metropolitan authority, but to continue the subjection of that see to primatial and legatine authority. This result, however, did not meet the wishes of archbishop Dunbar, who, supported by the favour and influence of the king, succeeded in obtaining from the pope a bull, dated 21st September, 1531, recalling the limitation, and once more exempting Glasgow from all obedience to St. Andrews, and depriving the primate of legatine authority even within his own diocese. But in 1539 the cardinal archbishop David Beaton, the nephew, coadjutor, and successor of archbishop James Beaton, (fn. 15) obtained from Pope Paul III. a bull, which declared that such an exemption should cease with papal legate, Captarini, patriarch of Venice, blows were struck and wounds given, copes and vestments torn, and the crosses of both metropolitans broken. (fn. 16)

Two notarial instruments, dated respectively 7th December, 1510, and 16th January, 1510–11, are recorded in the protocol books of Master Cuthbert Simon, chapter clerk of the diocese, (fn. 17) and exhibit the subjection of the magistrates of the city to the archbishop and to his court at this time. The former instrument narrates proceedings at the instance of the commissaries against John Shaw, Alexander Stewart, and Thomas Law, bailies of the burgh, and other citizens therein named, for having incurred the greater excommunication by making and recording in their books certain statutes against the jurisdiction of Holy Mother Church, to the effect that no citizen ought to summon another citizen before a spiritual judge respecting a matter which could be competently decided before the bailies in the courthouse of Glasgow, and by fining one Allan Leithame for complaining to the official against Archibald Watson, a fellow-citizen. In these proceedings Matthew, earl of Lennox, provost of Glasgow, appeared to defend the bailies and citizens, and protested that they would not recede from their lawful exceptions and defences of law to be brought forward at a suitable time and place. It would be interesting to know what these defences were, for they doubtless indicated a rising spirit on the part of the authorities of the city to assert such municipal independence as was then desired by them. All that is known of this case is the result, as indicated by the second of these notarial instruments, which states that, on the 16th of January, the earl of Lennox, as provost and prolocutor and procurator for the bailies and council, was obliged to appear before the archbishop and his chapter, and publicly rescind the statutes. This dispute arose on an order by the bailies on Leithame to pay Watson "half ane hundredth lentern waire," and on an appeal by the former to the diocesan court, which the magistrates regarded as a contempt of their court, for which they imposed on him a fine of eight shillings. (fn. 18)

By a charter, dated 30th May, 1514, John Shaw, provost of Glasgow, founded a perpetual chaplainry at St. Christopher's altar, (fn. 19) on the south side of the nave of the cathedral, and for upholding it and the chaplain to be appointed thereto he assigned the tenements, gardens, portions of land, barns, and annual rent therein described. He directed that the chaplain to be appointed by him should retain office for life, and that, after his own death, the magistrates and community of the city should be patrons of the chaplainry, which, however, was not to be bestowed on strangers, but only on the son of a burgess of the city, "learned and meet for the office." He also declared that the chaplainry should be "incompatible with all other office and benefice," and gave various directions as to the religious services to be conducted at St. Christopher's altar, or at the nearest altar where mass could be most conveniently said. (fn. 20)

On 28th May, 1516, the provost, bailies, and council, with consent of the archbishop, granted a seal of cause to the craft of skinners and furriers by which they ratified various articles prescribing the conditions of admission to the craft; the duties of masters in regard to apprentices; the weekly payments for the support of the altar and the vestments of the priests officiating at it; the punishment for using false stuff and withholding the goods of the altar and crafts' customs; the powers of the kirkmasters of the craft, acting with an officer of the town, to distrain for the duties payable for upholding divine service; and the right of the craftsmen to have the solemnity of the feast of their altar on the Sunday after St. James' day. (fn. 21)

On 20th May, 1522, King James, with the advice of his tutor, John, duke of Albany, governor of Scotland, by letter under his signet, (fn. 22) confirmed the letters of exemption from taxes granted to the university by King James II., (fn. 23) James III. (fn. 24) and James IV. (fn. 25)

In 1524, Rolland Blacader, sub-dean of Glasgow, founded a chapel in the cathedral, and an hospital near the Stablegreen, and provided for the payment annually of fourteenpence to the minor sacristan for ringing the bells on the anniversaries of the death of the founder and his parents, and of fourpence to the ringer of St. Kentigern's bell (fn. 26) through the town. His chaplain was also ordained to elect sixty poor people having hearth, house, and household in Glasgow, to be present in the church at the obituary celebrations the founder to pray for the souls of his parents, himself, and all the faithful dead, for which service each was to be paid eightpence. (fn. 27)

Archbishop Dunbar, by a writ, dated 30th April, 1525, expressed his consent to Master James Houston, (fn. 28) vicar of Eastwood, and sub-dean of the metropolitan church of Glasgow, founding a church at the south side of St. Thenaw's gate, now known as the Trongate, to the Lady Virgin Mary of Loretto. (fn. 29) And on the following day Houston appointed the bailies, community, and burgesses of Glasgow, to be patrons of six of the eight chaplainries to be so founded by him, retaining the right during his lifetime to dispose of these chaplainries, and to appoint and dismiss the chaplains. (fn. 30) The notarial instrument setting forth the transaction is dated 1st May, 1529, and records that Robert Stewart of Minto, then provost of the burgh, craved instruments in name of the bailies and community. (fn. 31) This instrument was followed on 4th May, 1529, by a charter granted by the magistrates and council, whereby, for the better sustentation of the chaplains, they, with consent of the archbishop, chancellor of the kingdom, and of the dean and chapter, gifted in pure and perpetual alms to God, the Virgin, and St. Ann, her mother, to Houston, the founder of the church, and to the chaplains appointed by him, sixteen acres of the Gallow Muir, on the east of the city, two of which were to be assigned to each of these chaplains and their successors. (fn. 32) This gift and the instrument following upon it Houston petitioned the archbishop to ratify, and he and his chapter accordingly did so by a charter of confirmation, dated 15th May, 1529. (fn. 33) By a deed, dated about 1539, Houston appointed the lord rector of the university, and the dean of the faculty of arts, to be visitors of the church, and he bequeathed to them certain sums, to be paid to them annually, for making their visitation. (fn. 34)

On 18th October, 1527, Robert Stewart of Minto, provost of the burgh, became bound by "band of manrent" to become "man and servitour" to James, earl of Arran. It is a sad proof of the social condition of Scotland, and the inadequacy of the law to protect the subjects of the crown, that "bands" of manrent, friendship, and alliance were not only permitted but sanctioned. The practice of entering into such bands attained its greatest height between 1440 and 1570, but it existed at a still earlier period, and continued in a modified form till a later date. By these the stronger party bound himself to defend the weaker, who, again, undertook to render personal service for such protection. In 1457 parliament forbade, under the highest penalties, the making of such bands and leagues, and enacted that "na man duellande within burghe be fundyn in manrent, nor ride, nor rowt, in feir of weir with na man, bot with the king or his officiaris, or with the lorde of the burghe that thai duell in," (fn. 35) and this enactment was renewed in 1491. (fn. 36) Notwithstanding these statutes, however, Stewart entered into this engagement. The band is conceived in the usual terms, and is declared to endure so long as the granter remains provost. (fn. 37) The statutes of 1457 and 1491, it is to be noticed, only applied to the inhabitants of burghs, and during the same century the lords auditors of causes frequently interponed their authority to compel the fulfilment of such obligations between persons dwelling in country districts. Such bands were, however, proscribed by statute in 1555, (fn. 38) though more than a century passed before they were absolutely suppressed, and some are preserved of a date even subsequent to the restoration. At one time almost every man above the rank of a small householder was a party to such covenants, and at the time of the reformation most of the great ecclesiastical dignitaries sought to secure protection by leagues of this nature. Thus the bishop of Aberdeen was under band of manrent to the earl of Huntly. (fn. 39) The archbishop and chapter of Glasgow, also had secured for that see the protection of the Lennox family, by constituting the head of that house heritable bailie of the regality. (fn. 40)

On 4th June, 1528, the magistrates and council, with consent of the archbishop, and on the application of the weaver craft, granted to that craft a seal of cause, by which they ratified and approved various articles, enacting that apprentices should serve for five years, and should pay five shillings for upholding divine service at their altar; that no one should set up booth till found worthy by the oversman of the craft, and made freeman; that each craftsman at setting up booth should pay two merks to the altar; that no master should harbour another man's apprentice or servant, under a penalty to the altar; that each man or woman having a booth should pay a penny weekly to the altar, and each servant one halfpenny; that no craftsman should take work unless he had good work looms, or take another man's work after it was warped without his leave, under a penalty of a pound of wax to the altar; that a deacon should be chosen annually by the craftsmen, and that any one disobeying him should pay a pound of wax to the altar, and eight shillings to the magistrates; and that the principals of the craft should have power, along with an officer of the town, to poind for their several duties. (fn. 41) Similarly, on 11th October, 1536, the magistrates and council, on the application of the headsman and masters of the craft of hammermen, including blacksmiths, goldsmiths, lorimers (bit-makers), saddlers, buckle-makers, armourers, and others, within the burgh, and with the consent of the archbishop, granted a seal of cause to the hammermen, by which it was ordained that no one of the craft should set up booth within the burgh till he was made a freeman, and examined and found qualified by three of the best masters of the craft; that every person so admitted should pay twenty shillings of upset to the upholding of divine service at St. Eloy's (fn. 42) altar, and ten shillings for the same object for every apprentice taken by him; that no craftsman should employ another man's apprentice or servant, till his apprenticeship was completed; that, with a view to each craftsman being answerable for the work and fines of all employed by him, he should not allow any person save his apprentice or hired servant to work in his booth; that no craftsman should allow another man's apprentice or servant to work with him; that the sufficiency in material and workmanship of all craftsmen's work should be ascertained on the afternoon of every Saturday, by two or three masters chosen for the purpose; that faulty work should be forbidden, under penalty of forfeiture; that the craftsmen should convene when ordered, and the magistrates be informed of any infringement of their statutes; that violaters of the statutes should, for each offence, pay a pound of wax to the altar; and that such masters and headsmen of the craft as failed to enforce the statutes should be punished by the magistrates. This document was sealed with the seal of the archbishop, the common seal of the chapter, and the common seal of the city. (fn. 43)

Reference is made in a notarial instrument, dated 5th November, 1539, to the "sang school" of the metropolitan kirk. This document records the infeftment of Thomas Flemyng, vicar-pensioner of Glasgow, and his successors, as trustees under the foundation of Mark Jamesoun, in a tenement and orchard in the Stable Green, the rents of which were to be paid partly to the master of that school for singing nightly "a gloriosa of three parts of pryckat singing," as it was made and set out by John Painter, and partly to certain priests, to St. Mungo's bell, and to twenty-four poor householders, for masses, lights, and prayers for the souls of John Painter, Sir Alexander Painter, and others. (fn. 44) There were thus two sang schools in Glasgow—that of the metropolitan church and that of the collegiate church of St. Mary and St. Anne already alluded to. (fn. 45)

It has been seen (fn. 46) that when bishop Joceline obtained the authority of King William to establish a burgh in Glasgow, he was also empowered to have a weekly market there, and the burgh so to be founded was to enjoy all the freedoms and customs which any royal burgh possessed. (fn. 47) Subsequently, on 6th July, 1189–98, the bishop obtained a right to hold an annual fair in his burgh in July, extending over eight days. (fn. 48) But these early rights of market and fair were regarded by the royal burgh of Rutherglen (fn. 49) as incon sistent with the earlier privileges granted to it of levying toll and custom on all goods brought within Glasgow. Its claim was, however, disposed of by a charter of Alexander II. on 29th October, 1226, which restricted the right of Rutherglen to levy toll and custom within the bishop's burgh elsewhere than at the cross of Shettleston. (fn. 50) It is said also that bishop Cameron (A.D. 1425–1440) obtained a right to hold annually in January a fair known as St. Mungo's fair. (fn. 51) Nevertheless, Rutherglen and Renfrew (fn. 52) so interfered with the burgesses of Glasgow in bringing goods to their market as to necessitate judicial proceedings, which resulted in a decree being obtained by Glasgow on 10th June, 1542, prohibiting such interference. (fn. 53)

The death of King James V., at the palace of Falkland, on 14th December, 1542, was preceded, on the 8th of the same month, by the birth of a daughter, Mary, the future hapless queen. Two years and a half before, viz., on 22nd May, 1540. a son and heir to the throne had been born, and his birth had been followed by that of another prince—the two sons affording a hopeful prospect of direct male succession on the demise of their father. But in October, 1541, their grandmother, the queen-dowager, died, and her death was speedily followed by that of the two princes. So the decease of the king—of whose reign of thirty years only ten had passed after he attained adult age—was again to be followed by a long minority. On the death of the king, cardinal Beaton claimed the custody of the infant princess in virtue of a testament which bore to have been signed by the king; but there were grave doubts as to its authenticity, and the estates, on 13th March, 1542–3, sustained the assumption of the regency by James Hamilton, earl of Arran, as his hereditary right. The child remained at Linlithgow under the charge of her mother till July, 1543, when she was removed for greater safety to Stirling, and afterwards to the island of Inchmaholm, on the lake of Menteith. Meanwhile Henry VIII. had opened negotiations for an alliance between England and Scotland based on the marriage of the young queen to his son Prince Edward, and these had proceeded far and favourably, when, largely through the influence of the cardinal, whose sympathies were all opposed to England, the negotiations fell through. Irritated beyond measure by the frustration of his schemes, Henry adopted a policy towards Scotland which revived all its national animosities. An invading army, under the earl of Hertford, (fn. 54) entered Scotland in 1544, and Leith, Edinburgh, and other towns in the south of Fife and in the border counties were burned or devastated. (fn. 55) Nor did the death of King Henry VIII., on 28th January, 1547, terminate these hostilities; another army, under the same leader, who, after the death of the king, had been constituted protector of the realm, and afterwards made duke of Somerset, entered Scotland, and, on 10th September in the same year, inflicted on the Scottish army, which had been raised to oppose the English forces, a disastrous defeat at Pinkie Cleuch. (fn. 56) But this only exasperated the nation, and induced it to enter into alliance with France, whose king, Henry II., sent to its aid an army of 6,000 men and a supply of artillery. In return, the Scottish parliament resolved that the young queen, who was then in Inchmaholme, should marry the dauphin, who was six weeks younger than her. She was accordingly removed to Dumbarton, whence, in July, 1548, she was conveyed by a French fleet to France, where she was carefully educated at court. In 1544—the same year in which the earl of Hertford invaded Scotland—a meeting of members of the estates was held in Stirling, and the earl of Arran was deposed from the regency, the queen—dowager being appointed to that office. But inasmuch, probably, as this meeting was not a full meeting of the estates, its proceedings do not form part of the parliamentary records. Nevertheless, as its result, the queen-dowager exercised the chief influence in the country.

In 1546 the kirkmasters and other masters of the craft of tailors in the burgh petitioned the magistrates and council to grant them a seal of cause, and this was done, with the consent of the archbishop, on 3rd February in that year. By this document the craftsmen were authorised to choose a deacon annually; to take apprentices for a term of service of four years; to require each apprentice, on entry, to pay half-a-merk for the upkeep of divine service at the craft's altar of St. Anne; (fn. 57) to require every craftsman setting up a booth to pay twenty shillings for his upset; to prevent every master from resetting or harbouring the apprentice or servant of another; to exact from every master holding a booth a penny weekly for the repair and adornment of the altar; to require any craftsman who spoilt the cloth of an employer to make good the loss to the owner; to empower the principal masters of the craft, acting with a town's officer, to poind for the several duties thus prescribed; to impose on every craftsman who disobeyed the deacon a fine of eight shillings, payable to the magistrates; to empower the deacon and masters to search for unfreemen who exercised the craft, and to compel such person as did not answer to the deacon, masters, and altar, after being so required by an officer of the town, either to answer or to desist from the exercise of the craft within the town. (fn. 58)

It has been seen that, by his charter of 4th January, 1489–90, James IV. empowered archbishop Blacader and his successors to establish a tron in the city, and to apply to their own use all the customs uplifted at it. (fn. 59) A tack is still preserved by which archbishop Dunbar, on 16th April, 1547, set to Henry Crawford, parish clerk of Cadder, for nineteen years after Whitsunday, 1546, the customs of the city and burgh, with mettage and weighage and all other customs belonging thereto, for payment yearly of £20 Scots to the regents of the university and pedagogue, and £4 Scots to the chaplains of the altars, "nominis Jesu" and of our "Lady of Pietie," (fn. 60) founded by archbishop Blacader for their service done to him and attendance upon him in the cathedral. This document bears that Crawford "then was and had for many years previously been in possession of the tron." (fn. 61) On 28th May, 1581, archbishop James Boyd, with consent of the chapter, mortified to the college all the customs of the tron, great and small customs, fair and market customs, and customs of met, measure, or weight, which belonged to the archbishop within the city, to be held of him and his successors in all time coming;" (fn. 62) and this grant was confirmed by James VI., under his privy seal, on 17th June, 1581. (fn. 63)

The first document in the present collection, proceeding in the name of the queen, with the consent of the earl of Arran as her tutor and governor of the kingdom, is a letter under the royal signet, (fn. 64) dated 6th July, 1547—three years, it will be observed, after the meeting in Stirling at which, it is said, the earl was deposed, and the queen-dowager was appointed regent— confirming to the university the letters of exemption from taxation which had been granted by King James II., (fn. 65) King James III., (fn. 66) King James IV., (fn. 67) and King James V. (fn. 68)

The murder of cardinal Beaton on 28th May, 1546, created a vacancy in the see of St. Andrews, which was filled by the appointment to the archbishopric of John Hamilton, (fn. 69) bishop of Dunkeld, who was a natural son of James, first earl of Arran, and half brother of then regent, the second earl. The formal translation of the new archbishop took place in 1549.

Footnotes

  • 1. The church or chapel of St. Roche was situated on the common muir, to the north of the city, near the place now known by the corrupted name of St. Rollox. A cemetery was attached to this church, and was used for the interment of persons who died during the visitation of the plague in 1645–6. A similar church and cemetery existed on the borough muir of Edinburgh. The former was used in 1530 as an hospital for persons infected with the plague, and those who died were buried in the cemetery. In 1532 the chaplain received four acres of land in the muir in consideration of suffrages and prayers to be done in the church for the souls of those interred in the cemetery. [Edin. Council Records, II., 45–59.] St. Roche was born in Montpellier, in France, about 1295. Having joined the Franciscan Tertiaries, he went, during the prevalence of the plague, to Italy, and diligently tended there the sick in the hospitals of Rome and other towns, where he effected many miraculous cures by prayer and personal contact. Returning to his native town, he was arrested as a spy and died in prison in 1327, previously obtaining from God, it is said, the favour that all plague-stricken persons who invoked his aid should be healed. In 1385 his remains were removed to Venice. He is commemorated chiefly in Italy and France as the patron of the sick, and especially of the plague-stricken.
  • 2. No. XLII., pp. 97, 99.
  • 3. Lesley's History of Scotland (Bannatyne Club), p. 78.
  • 4. During Archbishop Blacader's tenure of the see, Lollard doctrines were taught in his diocese, and in 1494, thirty persons, men and women, were summoned by him to answer for the heretical doctrines which they held and taught. These doctrines seem to have been first introduced into Scotland shortly after the death of Robert III. in 1406; and for holding and teaching them, James Resby, an English priest and disciple of Wyckliffe, was condemned and burned at Perth in 1406 or 1407. Nevertheless they continued to be extensively held. On 12th March, 1424, the Scottish parliament passed an act against them [1424, c. 3, A.P.S., II., 7], and on 23rd July, 1433, Paul Craven, a German, was burned at St. Andrews for propagating them. The persons charged with this heresy in 1494 were, however, more fortunate, for though Adam Reid of Barskimming, one of the accused, defended the doctrines held by himself and his companions, they were dismissed with an admonition to take heed of novel doctrines and to content themselves with the faith of the church. Whether their escape was brought about by the king's dislike to persecution or from some other cause does not appear [Burton, II., 386; III., 43. Grub, I., 365, 389. Cunningham, I., 136, 153. Bellesheim, II., 111, 112].
  • 5. No. XLII., p. 100.
  • 6. Bellesheim, II., 111.
  • 7. The phrase in commendam was used with reference to the tenure of a benefice "commended" or given in charge to a qualified clerk or layman to hold until a proper incumbent was provided for it, or, according to a practice of later development, bestowed upon a layman or secular ecclesiastic, with enjoyment of the revenues for life. It was specially used with reference to a benefice which a bishop or other dignitary was permitted to hold along with his own preferment. This was abolished in England by statute in 1836. [Voce Commendam, New English Dictionary, edited by Dr. Murray, Oxford.] Commendators in Scotland, in Roman Catholic times, were stewards appointed to levy the fruits of a benefice during a vacancy. They were mere trustees; but gradually the pope assumed the power of appointing commendators for life, without any obligation to account. [Voce Commendam, Chambers' Encyclopædia.]
  • 8. James Stuart, duke of Ross, the second son of James III., was born in 1476, and at his baptism was created marquis of Ormond. On 23rd January, 1480, he was granted the earldom of Ross, and on 29th January, 1488, was made duke of Ross. After his father's death he devoted himself to study, and took holy orders, and, on the death of Archbishop Scheves, was appointed primate, when he was only twenty-one years of age. But the pope granted him the requisite dispensation, and he proceeded to Rome to receive the papal confirmation. It is not known, however, whether he was consecrated. On his return to Scotland he was made chancellor of the kingdom in 1502, and had the abbacy of Dunfermline conferred upon him in commendam. He also held the abbacy of Arbroath. He died in 1504, at the early age of twentyeight. The see then remained vacant for six years, during which time the prior and archdeacon of St. Andrews were empowered to collate to all such vacant benefices as were in the patronage of the archbishop and should happen to become void. [Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops (1824), pp. 32, 33. Crawford's Officers of State, pp. 58–59. Concilia Scotiæ, Pref., p. cxxiv. Grub, I., 394–395. Bellesheim, II., 113, 114.]
  • 9. Alexander Stuart, a natural son of the king by Mary Boyd of Bonschaw, was born in 1495; and in 1509, when only fourteen years of age, was nominated to the archbishopric of St. Andrews,—Pope Julius II. having granted to him a dispensation from the impediment of illegitimacy. The young archbishop, who had been carefully trained for the church, and had studied at Padua and Siena, under Erasmus, of Rotterdam, returned to Scotland in 1510, was made chancellor of the kingdom in 1511, and received from the pope the appointment of legate a latere, the abbacy of Dunfermline, and the priory of Coldingham in commendam. He fell, with his father, on the fatal field of Flodden, on 9th September, 1513. [Keith's Catalogue, pp. 33, 34. Crawford, pp. 59–61. Concilia Scotiae, Pref., p. cxxiv. Grub, I., 395, 396. Cunningham, I., 155. Bellesheim, III., 114–116.]
  • 10. The provost of Glasgow at this time was Mathew Stewart, second earl of Lennox. If, therefore, the provost who led the citizens of Glasgow to the field of Flodden fell there with his sovereign, as is said, he was Mathew Stewart, and not Sir John Stewart of Minto, who had died a year before the battle. [Liber Protocollorum, Pref. by Joseph Bain and Charles Rogers, Vol. I., pp. 18, 19.]
  • 11. Meanwhile the queen-dowager had, in 1525, obtained her divorce from the earl of Angus, and had entered into a third marriage with Henry Stewart, the second son of Lord Avondale, afterwards created Lord Methven. From this marriage, also, she sought to be relieved, without success; and she died at Methven, Perthshire, in October, 1541.
  • 12. Andrew Forman was a son of the laird of Huttoun, in Berwickshire, and in 1499 was appointed proto-notary apostolic in Scotland. He was promoted to the see of Moray in 1501, and, besides holding that bishopric, was commendator of Dryburgh and Pittenweem, and of Cottingham in England, and archbishop of Bourges in France. The king was desirous to secure the cardinalate also for him, and the pope is said to have been willing to grant it. The archbishop also was so sanguine in his expectation of securing the coveted dignity that he made arrangements for borrowing 5,000 ducats to meet the attendant expenses, but the appointment was never conferred. Forman set himself vigorously to work to consolidate the authority of his metropolitan see, and, among other things, succeeded in having the sees of Dunkeld and Dunblane, which had been attached to the archbishopric of Glasgow, restored to St. Andrews. It would seem that Archbishop James Beaton, who had been appointed to the see of Glasgow in 1508, had succeeded somehow in obtaining the exemption of his see from the jurisdiction of St. Andrews, an exemption which had existed during the lifetime of Archbishop Blackadder, and which James IV., acting apparently in the interest of his son, Archbishop Alexander Stuart of St. Andrews, had induced Pope Julius II. not to renew. Be that as it may, Archbishop Forman induced the pope to limit the exemption to the lifetime of Archbishop Beaton. It is curious to notice that, while bishop of Moray, Forman had successfully resisted attempts, supported even by the king, to subject that see to the jurisdiction of St. Andrews. Forman's administration of the archbishopric was characterised by great energy and a reforming spirit. He died towards the close of 1521. [Keith's Catalogue, pp. 146, 147, 35. Bellesheim, II., 116, 117, 118, 125. Concilia Scotiæ, Pref., c., cxxv. Grub, I., 397, 398, 402. Cunningham, I., 151, 159, 160. Reg. Epis. Glasg., II., 533, 534.]
  • 13. James Beaton was the second son of John Beaton of Balfour and Marjory or Mary, daughter of Sir David Boswell of Balmuto. He was educated in St. Andrews, where, in 1493, he took his degree of M.A. In 1503 he was appointed provost of Bothwell, then prior of the Cathedral Church of Whithorn, and in 1504 abbot of Dunfermline. In 1505 he was appointed by James IV. to be Lord High Treasurer, and in 1508 succeeded George Vaus as bishop of Galloway, whence in the same year he was translated to Glasgow, when he resigned the treasurership. He was consecrated at Stirling on 15th April, 1509, and took the archiepiscopal oath two days afterwards. In 1515 the Regent Albany promoted the archbishop to the chancellorship of the kingdom, and he also got the abbacies of Arbroath and Kilwinning in commendam. In 1518 he was named by the regent Albany to be one of the regents of the kingdom during his absence from Scotland, and he strenuously upheld the Hamilton against the Douglas faction. It was in connection with one of the street fights between these factions, on 30th April, 1520, that the incident known as "Clean-the-causeway" took place. During his tenure of the archbishopric of Glasgow he enclosed the episcopal palace with a stone wall on the east, south, and west, and erected a bastion at the one corner, and a tower at the other, fronting the High Street. He also increased the altarages in the choir of the cathedral, and expended considerable sums in building and repairing bridges at different places within the regality. On the death of Archbishop Forman, of St. Andrews, towards the close of 1521, Beaton was transferred to that see in 1522, and during his tenure of it, Patrick Hamilton and three other protestants were burned in St. Andrews. In 1525 he appears to have aspired to the cardinalate and the position of legate a latere. James Beaton was more of a statesman than ecclesiastic, and strove earnestly not only to emancipate James V. from the tyranny of the Douglases, but to maintain the independence of Scotland against the insidious attempts of Henry VIII. He died in the autumn of 1539. [Keith's Catalogue, pp. 36, 37. Theiner, p. 522. Crawford, pp. 61, 64. Grub, I., 411; II., 2. Bellesheim, II., 131, 133, 136, 154.]
  • 14. Gavin Dunbar was a scion of the house of the earl of Dunbar and March, and second son of John Dunbar of Mochrum and Margaret Dunbar, his wife. Gavin Dunbar was educated at the university of Glasgow, and afterwards studied theology and common law. In 1514, his uncle, Bishop Dunbar of Aberdeen, made him dean of Moray, after which he was appointed prior of Whithorn. He subsequently became tutor to James V., and, on the vacancy occasioned by the preferment of Beaton to St. Andrews, was appointed to the see of Glasgow by the lords of the regency on 27th September, 1524. In 1526 he was appointed a member of the privy council, and on the fall of the earl of Angus he was, on 21st August, 1528, constituted chancellor of the kingdom. He was elected a lord of the articles in 1531 and 1532, in which last year the college of justice was instituted, and the statute establishing it appointed the chancellor to "have vote and be principal of the said counsale." [A. P. S., II., 335.] The first session of the new institution was begun in his presence and that of the king, on 27th May, 1532. When the king went to France to espouse Queen Magdalen, the archbishop was nominated one of the regents. About this time, also, he was appointed to the abbacy of Inchaffray in commendam. After the death of the king in December, 1542, and the appointment of the earl of Arran to the regency, the archbishop was continued chancellor, and appointed one of the regent's council. When, in March, 1543, the lords of the articles sanctioned a proposal by Lord Maxwell that the bible should be allowed to be read in the vulgar tongue, the archbishop, as chancellor, opposed the proposal in parliament until it should be considered and approved of by a provincial council. Notwithstanding his opposition, however, the proposal received the sanction of the legislature. [A. P. S., II., 415, 425.] Nevertheless, he was not regarded as sufficiently zealous in the interest of the church, and Cardinal Beaton was appointed to the chancellorship in 1543, and Archbishop Dunbar returned to his diocese, where he built the gatehouse of the episcopal palace. He died on 30th April, 1547. [Keith's Catalogue, pp. 256–259. Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, pp. 1–5. Theiner, p. 594. Concilia Scotiæ, pp. cxxviii., cxxix. Grub, II., 7, 18, 19. Bellesheim, II., 133, 134, 137, 138, 171, 182.]
  • 15. David Beaton was the second son of John Beaton of Balfour, in Fifeshire, and Isabella, daughter of David Monypenny of Pitmilly, and was born in 1494. Educated at St. Andrews till he was sixteen years of age, he proceeded to the University of Glasgow in 1511, and afterwards to Paris, where he completed his studies. In 1519 he was appointed by James V. to be envoy for Scotland at the court of France, and received the rectories of Campsie and Cambuslang from his uncle, James Beaton, then archbishop of Glasgow, who also presented him to the chancellorship of that see. On the translation of the elder Beaton to the archbishopric of St. Andrews in 1522, he resigned the abbacy of Arbroath, of which the life of archbishop Dunbar. This bull only gave effect, says Dr. Joseph Robertson, to a friendly compromise between the rival metropolitans. Yet their strife was not at an end. Two points of controversy were still left open:—Had the primate of Scotland right to carry his cross in the diocese or in the province of Glasgow? Was the successor of St. Kentigern entitled to raise his cross and to bless the faithful in the presence of the cardinal legate of St. Andrews? These questions were fiercely debated, and issued at length in a scandalous riot in the cathedral of Glasgow, where, in the presence of the queen-dowager, of the regent, and apparently also of the he was commendator, to his nephew, under reservation of one half of the revenues during his lifetime, and the requisite bulls of investiture were obtained from Pope Adrian IV., on the solicitation of the king and the archbishop. In 1525, David Beaton returned to Scotland and took his seat in parliament as abbot of Arbroath, and two years later was appointed keeper of the privy seal. In 1533, he (then proto-notary apostolic) and Sir Thomas Erskine, secretary of state, were appointed ambassadors to France to renew the alliance with Francis I., and to negotiate a marriage between King James and one of the French princesses, and while there so ingratiated himself as to be naturalized. He was present at the marriage of the king to the Princess Magdalen, nearly four years afterwards, and returned with them to Scotland. After the queen's death, a few months subsequently, he was again sent to France to negotiate the king's marriage with Mary of Guise, or of Lorraine, widow of the duke of Langueville, and during that visit had conferred upon him the bishopric of Mirepoix in Foix, to which he was consecrated on 5th December, 1537. This bishopric was a suffragan see of Toulouse, and brought him an annual income of 10,000 livres. He afterwards conducted Mary of Guise to Scotland, and in June, 1538, solemnised her marriage to the king in the cathedral of St. Andrews. On 20th December, in the same year, Pope Paul III., at the request of the kings, both of France and Scotland, appointed him a cardinal priest, under the title of St. Stephen, on the Caelian Hill, and in February, 1538–9, he was made coadjutor to his uncle, the archbishop of St. Andrews, and successor to him; and upon his death, in 1539, he was fully invested in the primacy. After the death of the king in December, 1542, and the coronation of the infant Queen Mary, he was created chancellor of the kingdom in December, 1543, when he resigned the privy seal, and on 30th January, 1544, was appointed by the pope legate a latere throughout Scotland. After his appointment to the archbishopric, he manifested great energy in his endeavours to suppress the teaching of reformed doctrine in Scotland. At a conference of the clergy and laity he denounced heresy, and a number of persons who were accused of having dispersed books and taught doctrines opposed to those of the church were compelled to flee from the country. Among these were Sir John Borthwick; Andrew Cunningham, son of the master of Glencairn; James Hamilton of Livingstone, brother of the Patrick Hamilton who had suffered martyrdom under archbishop James Beaton; and George Buchanan, the poet and historian. But others were executed, and, among them, George Wishart, whose burning, it is said by Buchanan, in view of the arch bishop, on 1st March, 1546, excited an amount of hatred against himself which encouraged a party, including the master of Rothes, his uncle, Kirkcaldy of Grange, and a number of others, to obtain entrance into the castle of St. Andrews on the morning of 28th May, 1546, and slay him in his own room, from the window of which his body was afterwards hung, attired, it is said, in his cardinal's dress. [Keith's Catalogue, pp. 36–38. Burton and Haig's College of Justice, 71, 72. Burton, III., 112, 168, 170, 253, 258, 262; IV., 20, 25. Grub, II., 16, 17, 23, 24, 27, 28. Bellesheim, II., 151, 152, 153, 154, 158, 161, 164, 165, 166, 176, 178. Statuta Ecclesiæ, Pref., cxxix. - cxxxiii.; Cunningham, I., 172, 180, 181, 189, 191, 192.]
  • 16. Accounts of this dispute by the Queen Dowager (Mary of Guise), by Cardinal Beaton, and by John Knox, are given by Dr. Joseph Robertson in his Preface to Concilia Scotiæ (Bannatyne Club), p., cxxxii. See also Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 39; Bellesheim, II., 171; Grub, II., 18, 19.
  • 17. He was also chaplain of St. Nicholas Hospital, and afterwards vicar of Dalyell, in Lanarkshire.
  • 18. Diocesan Register of Glasgow (Liber Protocollorum M. Cuthbert Simon), I. 495–499; II., 385–390.
  • 19. St. Christopher was a native of Palestine or Syria. Possessing immense strength, he resolved to serve no one who owned a superior. Having, however, served a king for some time, he discovered that his master was afraid of the devil, so he transferred his allegiance to him. But observing that his new master trembled before the image of Christ, he adopted Christianity, and, as a penance, undertook to carry pilgrims across a broad, unbridged stream. While so engaged, Christ appeared to him as a little child, and desired to be carried over; but while carrying him, the weight of the child proved to be so great as to make it difficult for his bearer to reach the opposite side. "Marvel not, Christopher," said the child, "for with me thon hast borne the sins of the world." His adoption of the name "Christopher" (Christ-bearer) is thus explained. His subsequent work as a saint led to his martyrdom. The Greek Church celebrates his festival on the 9th of May, and the Roman Catholic Church on 25th July. St. Christopher was invoked as a defence against pestilence.
  • 20. No. XLIV., 101–105. Abstract of Charters, No. 47, p. 440.
  • 21. Notarial Copy Seal of Cause in Archives of Skinners' Incorporation.
  • 22. No. xlv., pp. 106, 107.
  • 23. No. xxiv., p. 37.
  • 24. No. xxxi., p. 58.
  • 25. No. xliii., p. 100.
  • 26. St. Kentigern is said to have been the son of Eugenius, king of Cumbria, and of Tenaw, daughter of Loth, king of Laudonia, and to have been born in 518 or 527. His biographer, Joceline, states that he was adopted and educated by St. Servanus or St. Serf, who lived at Culross, and that he so ingratiated himself with the saint as to be called by him, in his native tongue, "Munghu," i.e., "dearest friend." But this has been shown by Dr. W. F. Skene to be a mistake, for Servanus lived nearly two centuries after Kentigern's time. [Celtic Scotland, II., 184, 185.] When a child, Kentigern is said to have done many wonderful things, such as restoring a dead bird to life, raising from the dead the cook of his master, and other miraculous works. On attaining the age of about twenty-five years, he, according to his biographer, proceeded to Carnock, where lived a holy man named Fergus, to whom it had been revealed that he should not die till he beheld Kentigern. After he reached the abode of Fergus, the good man said his "nunc dimittis" and died, and Kentigern, placing the body on a wain drawn by two untamed bulls, took his departure, praying God to carry the precious burden to the place which he might appoint for its burial. The place at which the wain stopped was Cathures, afterwards called Glasgow, where St. Ninian (A. D. 432) had consecrated a cemetery, and in it the body was buried. Pressed by the king and christians of this district to become their bishop, Kentigern yielded, and was consecrated —establishing his see at Cathures, afterwards called Glaschu, and there founded a lay society of the servants of God or College of Culdees. His residence was on the banks of the Molendinar. After some years of singular austerity, sanctity, and usefulness there, during which he performed many miracles, he was driven by the persecution of an apostate British prince, named Morken, and his successors (circa 540) to leave his diocese, and, after several wanderings, settled in the Vale of Clwyd, North Wales, where he built a monastery, which was speedily occupied by nine hundred and sixty-five men of all ages and ranks. He afterwards visited Rome seven times—on one of which visits he saw Pope Gregory, the special apostle of England— and then settled down in his monastery. After a time, however, at the urgent solicitation of Rhyderch Hael, the king of Cumbria, and in obedience to a divine command, he appointed St. Asaph to be his successor in the government of the monastery, and returned to his diocese. There also he performed many miracles—among these being that of the ring and the fish, which is said to be commemorated in the arms of the city—and there, too, he was visited by St. Columba, abbot of Iona. After a prolonged life, he passed into his rest in the year of our Lord 603 or 614. He was buried in Glasgow, which is still known as the City of St. Mungo—Mungo being his honorific and affectionate appellation. Reference has already been made [p. xxviii.] to the lights which were maintained around his tomb in the crypt of the cathedral. "Of special recollections of St. Kentigern," says bishop Forbes, "besides his bell, which existed till after the Reformation, his well still exists in the cathedral." Of the bell accounts are given by Dr. Joseph Robertson in his preface to Liber Coll. N.D. Glasgow (Maitland Club), pp. xxiv.-xxviii., and by Dr. Macgeorge in his "Old Glasgow" (1st edition), pp. 18–25. The body of the saint, contained in a feretrum or shrine, was the object of the reverence of King Edward I. when he visited Glasgow. The compotus garderobe of the twenty-ninth year of his reign (1300–1301), records seven shillings given on the 20th of August, "ad feretrum Sancti Kentegerni in ecclesia Cathedrali, Glasguensi," the same sum on the 21st at the high altar and at the shrine, and again on the 3rd of September. [Reg. Epis. Glasg., II., 621.] In an inventory of the ornaments, relics, and jewels of the church of Glasgow, made in the reign of James I., the following articles connected with St. Kentigern are enumerated: —Item, 18 precious stones of red colour for the shrine of St. Kentigern, in a paper; item, 26 precious stones of divers colours, for the said shrine, in another paper; item, 26 other precious stones of divers colours, for the said shrine, in a third paper; item, £26 15s. in money, for the shrine, reckoning a demy for 8s. and a lyon for 5s. Among the relics, also, were the following:—Item, in a silver coffer a portion of the corslets of St. Kentigern and of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and a part of the hair shirt of our patron, St. Kentigern; item, in a small vial, of a yellow colour, oil which flowed from the tomb of St. Kentigern; item, a precious bag, with the combs of St. Kentigern and St. Thomas of Canterbury; item, two linen bags containing "bones of St. Kentigern, St. Thenaw, and sundry other saints." [Reg. Epis. Glasg., II., 329.] With reference to these portions of the saint's clothof ing, it may be noticed that Joceline says he wore "the roughest haircloth next the skin, then a garment of leather made of the skin of goat, then a cowl like a fisherman's bound on him, above which, clothed in a white alb, he always wore a stole over his shoulders." [Pinkerton's Lives of the Scottish Saints (1889), Dr. Metcalfe's edition, I., xxxvii.; II. 116. Life of St. Kentigern; Historians of Scotland, Vol. V. Kalendar of Scottish Saints, by Bishop Forbes, pp. 362–372. Skene's Celtic Scotland, II., 127–143. Macgeorge's Old Glasgow, pp. 1–18.] Combs used by deceased ecclesiastics were often enclosed in their sepulchres. When the grave of St. Cuthbert, at Durham, was opened in 1826, a comb and other relics were found, and these are still preserved in the cathedral library. In honour of St. Kentigern, David Cuningham, archdeacon of Argyle, sometime before 1500, founded immediately outside the city port a chapel and chaplainry, which was known as Little St. Mungo's chapel. It was surrounded by a burying ground, and is described in the deed of foundation as situated "without the walls of the city on the common way, beyond the Molendinar," and near the trees called "St. Kentigern's trees." After the Reformation, the chapel and churchyard seem to have passed into the possession of Donald Cuningham of Aikenbar and his wife, who, on 10th May, 1593, sold the property to the town for 200 merks Scots (£13 6s. 8d), in order to its being converted into an hospital for the poor. [Abstract of Charters, No. 105, p. 454. In this conveyance the property is described as lying beyond the Gallowgate bridge. It was converted into a leper hospital and used as such for some time, but about the middle of the eighteenth century it was sold to Robert Tennant, who built upon the ground the inn known as the Saracen's Head.
  • 27. Regis. Epis. Glasg., p. 537, No. 495.
  • 28. James Houston, vicar of Eastwood, in the deanery of Rutherglen, was connected with the old family of Houston of that ilk in Renfrewshire. About 1527 he succeeded Roland Blackadder as sub-dean of Glasgow, an office to which the rectory of the parishes of Cadder and Monkland was attached. He was elected rector of the university of Glasgow in 1534, and re-elected to that office till 1541. He also held the dignity of vicar-general of the see during the time which intervened between the death of Archbishop Dunbar and the appointment of Archbishop Beaton. He died about 1551. For the service of the church a provost, eight canons or prebendaries, and three choristers, were appointed, and three prebendaries were added by subsequent benefactors; one—the ninth—being founded by Nicholas Witherspowne, vicar of Strathaven, in the deanery of Rutherglen, and two by Sir Martyn Reid, chaplain at the altar of St. Christopher in the High Kirk of Glasgow. Endowments for the support of these were provided, not only by the founder and by Witherspowne and Reid, but by the magistrates and council, partly from lands and houses within or near to Glasgow and partly from the fruits of the parish churches of Dalry and Maybole. The third prebendary of St. Anne was required to be learned and expert in playing on the organ, and to perform on it daily according to the use and wont of the metropolitan church. He had also to keep a "song school" for the instruction of youth in plain-song and descant. The right of patronage of the provostry was vested in the abbot and convent of the Benedictine Monastery of Kilwinning; that of the first and second prebends in the prioress and convent of the Cistertian Monastery of North Berwick; and that of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh, in the bailies and council of the city. The sixth prebend was designated after St. Roche, and the prebendary had assigned to him certain payments from houses within the burgh, and also the lands belonging to the church dedicated to that saint by Thomas Muirhead in 1508, previously referred to. The patronage of St. Roche's church was vested in the magistrates and council of the burgh, and they, as well as its chaplain, appear to have consented to its incorporation with the college church of St. Mary and St. Anne, on the footing of the prebendary being bound, thrice a week, to say mass and perform other offices in the church of St. Roche for the soul of the founder. When not performing service there, he had to be present with the other prebendaries at certain specified services in the collegiate church. The endowments of the church appear to have been enjoyed after the Reformation by the prebendaries, upon whose death they passed into the hands of the municipal corporation, by virtue of a charter granted by Queen Mary to the magistrates, council, and community, on 16th March, 1566–7. [No. LIX., pp. 131–137], and a precept, dated 5th June, 1568, by King James, with advice of the earl of Moray, extending the donation made by that charter. [No. LX., pp. 137–140.] They were subsequently either transferred to the university by the magistrates and council, under a charter dated 8th January, 1572–3 [No. LXIII., pp. 149–162], and ratified by parliament on 26th January, 1572–3 [No. LXIV., pp. 162–3], or were applied towards payment of the stipend of the minister of the Tron Church. In 1598 Sir Patrick Houston unsuccessfully claimed the several endowments made by his ancestor, on the ground that they had been diverted from the purposes of the foundation. The chaplainry of St. Roche was one of the church livings specially conveyed to the university and college of Glasgow by the charter of confirmation and novodamus granted by Charles I. on 28th June, 1630 [No. CIV., pp. 328–347], and ratified by parliament on 28th June, 1633 [No. CV., pp. 347–351]. The church of St. Mary and St. Anne was surrounded by a burying-ground, on the west side of which stood the song school, which was appointed, on 24th December, 1588, to be sold, with certain portions of the common property of the city, to defray debt incurred by the council in adopting precautions against the plague. [Council Records (S. B. R.), I., 124. Memorabilia, pp. 27–28.] The church itself lay waste for more than a quarter of a century after the Reformation. It was sold to James Fleming and spouse in 1570 [No. LXL], but was reacquired and again frequented as a place of worshipabout 1592. The council wereappointed patrons of the Trongate church by crown charter granted in 1636 [No. CX.], confirmed by act of parliament, 1641, c. 225. [No. CXVIII., A. P. S., v. 473]. It was destroyed by fire in 1793, when the present church, known as the Tron, St. Mary's, the New Kirk or Laigh Kirk, was erected on the same site. The tower or spire adjoining the existing church was erected in contiguity to the old church about the year 1637. [Liber Collegii Nostri Domini (Maitland Club), Pref., pp. xiv.-xxxiv. M'Ure's View of the City of Glasgow, p. 59].
  • 29. Loretto is an Italian city about three miles from the Adriatic, and the legend of the holy house connected with it, and which seems to have sprung up at the close of the crusades, has given it the name of the Christian Mecca. This legend represents that the house of Nazareth in which Mary was born, brought up, and received the annunciation, and in which she lived during the childhood of Jesus and after his ascension, was converted by the apostles into a church; that in 1291 it was carried by angels through the air, and deposited first in Dalmatia, where an appearance of the virgin and numerous miraculous cures attested its sacredness; three years later it was again carried by angels across the Adriatic to a wood near Recanti, from which wood (lauretum), or from the name of its proprietrix (Laureta), the chapel derived the name "sacellum in Laureto." In 1295 it was finally removed to its present site. Bulls in favour of the shrine of Loretto were issued in 1491 by Pope Sixtus IV., and in 1507 by Pope Julius II., and it was subsequently recognised by other pontiffs.
  • 30. Abstract of Charters, No. 47, p. 440.
  • 31. No. XLVI., pp. 107–109.
  • 32. No. XLVII., pp. 109–112.
  • 33. No. XLVIII., pp. 113–117.
  • 34. Liber Coll. Nostre Domine Glasg., pp. 48–50. Abstract of Charters, No. 51, p. 441.
  • 35. 1457, c. 24, A. P. S., II., 50.
  • 36. 1491, c. 17, A. P. S., II., 226, 227.
  • 37. Historical MSS. Commission, XI. Report (Hamilton MSS.), p. 34.
  • 38. 1555, c. 17, A. P. S., II., 495.
  • 39. A collection of these bonds will be found in a Miscellany of the Spalding Club—one from the charter room of Slaines, and the other from Gordon Castle. Miscellany, II., cvi., cx.; IV., xlviii., xlix.
  • 40. In virtue of grants from the crown and subject superiors of great districts of country, including many baronies and regalities, the bishops and archbishops of Glasgow enjoyed well defined jurisdictions within their territories, which were exercised by deputies or bailies. This jurisdiction extended both to civil and criminal matters. According to Erskine [Institutes of the Law of Scotland (Nicolson's edition), I., 105], the baron, or his bailie, might, in the exercise of his civil jurisdiction, judge in questions of debt within the barony, and in most of the possessory actions; and though, by a known rule, no person ought to judge in his own cause, a baron might judge in all such actions between himself or his vassals and tenants as were necessary for making his rents and feu duties effectual. Thus he might ascertain the price of corns due by a tenant, and pronounce sentence against him for arrears of rent. He might, in consequence of his own decree, compel his tenants to perform to him all the services, either contained in their rights or fixed by usage, and to carry their corns to the mill of the barony. He might punish them for abstracting their grain to another mill; and he could anciently have brought actions of removing against them before his own court; but in all the cases where he himself was a party, he could not judge in person. He had also a power of police, by which he might fix reasonable prices upon work wrought within the barony. According to the laws ascribed to Malcolm Mackenneth, c. 13, the criminal jurisdiction of a baron reached to all crimes except treason and the four pleas of the crown [robbery, murder, rape, and fire-raising], and even by our later law he might have judged, not only in reckless fire-raising, in processes for breaking of orchards and dovecots, destroying of green wood and of planting, etc., provided the offenders were taken in the fact, and in riots and bloodwits, the fines of which he might have appropriated to himself; but, according to the general opinion of our lawyers, in the capital crime of theft, though he should not have had the clause cum fossa et furca in his charter, yet he could judge in no other capital crime if he had not been specially infeft with that privilege. [See also Stair's Institutions, by More, I., pp. 198, 199, 240– 242.] The baron's judicial powers as thus indicated remained till the Act 20, George II., c. 43, largely curtailed them. Much interesting information as to the constitution and functions of these courts will be found in Dr. John Stuart's preface to volume ii. of the Miscellany of the Spalding Club, pp. xlii.–lii.; Extracts from the Register of the Regality Court of Spynie, Ibid., pp. 119–146; Extracts from the Court Books of the Baronies of Skene, Leys, and Whitehaugh; Miscellany, vol. v., pp. 217–238; and in the Rev. Douglas Gordon Barron's Introduction to the Court Book of the Barony of Urie, in Kincardineshire. [Scottish History Society, vol. 12.] A burgh of barony is a corporation consisting of the inhabitants of a determinate tract of ground within the barony, erected by the sovereign and subjected to the government of magistrates, elected sometimes by the inhabitants, and sometimes by the baron, their superior. A burgh of regality, on the other hand, was similarly constituted, but existed within the lands of a regality which held the highest rank, and possessed the amplest jurisdiction under the crown. As regards both descriptions of burghs, whatever jurisdiction belonged to the respective magistrates was possessed also cumulatively by the superior. Glasgow was first a burgh of barony and afterwards a burgh of regality, before it attained the rank and privileges of a royal burgh. All jurisdictions which were formerly competent to burghs of barony or regality, or their respective magistrates, in so far as such burghs were independent of the baron or lord of regality, or in so far as they were dependent on royal burghs, were reserved entire by the Heritable Jurisdiction Act 20, George II., c. 43, before referred to, excepting only their power to repledge from the court of the sheriff or steward.
  • 41. Narrated in and confirmed by the act 1681, c. 140, A. P. S., viii., 396.
  • 42. St. Eloy, or Eloi, or Elijius, born at Castillac, near Limoges, in 588, was originally a goldsmith, afterwards coiner to Clothaire II. of France, and treasurer to his successor, Dagobert. He afterwards became a priest, and, in 640, was raised to the bishopric of Noyon. He became the apostle of Flanders, and founded a great many monasteries and churches, dying in December, 659. On account of his training and eminence as a goldsmith, he became the patron of goldsmiths and hammermen.
  • 43. Copy in minute book of the Incorporation of Hammermen.
  • 44. Original in the Archives of the city.
  • 45. Such schools may at first have existed only in cathedral towns, for the training of choir boys, but long before the Reformation they were established in connection with great abbeys and religious houses, and in many of the larger burghs. They were continued after the Reformation, and English as well as music was taught in them. In his History of the Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland, the late James Grant refers to the existence of such schools in St. Andrews, Aberdeen, Perth, Brechin, Forfar, Crail, Kirkcudbright, Kirkwall, Wigtown, and Kilmarnock; and he observes that, though the "sang school" was primarily founded for the service of God in the church, provision was made for instructing the lay people in music who were willing to avail themselves of it. It would seem also that to the sang school of the cathedral the precentor or cantor held the same relation as the chancellor did to the grammar school. After the Reformation the cultivation of music so declined that, in 1579, parliament passed an act to arrest the decay. By it the patrons of colleges in which sang schools were founded were required to erect such schools and to supply masters competent to instruct the youths in the science. [1579, c. 58, A. P. S., III., 174.] But this legislation, followed by special encouragement given by James VI. and his queen to music schools in Musselburgh, Elgin, and Dunfermline, failed to effect its praiseworthy object. On each of 18th May and 2nd July, 1577, and 18th June, 1583, payments of 40s. were made by order of the town council of Glasgow, as the rent of a chamber to be a "sang school" [Council Records, I., 462, 463, 472], and in 1626 they sought to afford protection to the teaching of music by discharging all schoolmasters other than James Sanders from teaching music. [Ibid., I., 354.] Twelve years afterwards the council, finding the music school to be "altogether decayed," called Sanders before them, and, having obtained his consent, authorised Duncan Birnet to take up a music school in the burgh, and prohibited every other school from teaching music during the subsistence of the engagement of the teacher appointed by them. [Ibid., I., 388.] On 12th September, 1646, the council agreed with John Cant, musician, to pay him £40 for each of five years, "for raising the psalms in the high kirk on the sabbath, and in the Blackfriars at the weekly sermons, and for keeping ane music school." [Ibid., II., 96.] But in 1669 Glasgow was altogether "destitute of a teacher" of music, and "many were the honest men who wished that an able musician should be hired out, and brought to the town." From the information collected by Mr. Grant, it appears that, from an early period down to the end of the seventeenth century, there was in several of the most important burghs either a separate school for teaching music—vocal and instrumental—or it formed one of the branches of education in the grammar school. The art seems not to have been studied anywhere with interest or zeal, though during that period it does not appear to have been a dead subject. See a valuable paper "on scholastic offices in the Scottish Church in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries," by Dr. Joseph Robertson, in Miscellany of the Spalding Club, V., pp. 56–77; and Edgar's History of Early Scottish Education (1893), Vol. I.
  • 46. P. vi.
  • 47. This right was confirmed by King Alexander II. on 23rd July, 1224–7 [No. V.]; and again on 22nd November, 1225 [No. VII.].
  • 48. No. III., and this charter was also confirmed by Alexander II. on 23rd July, 1224–7 [No. VI.].
  • 49. P. x., footnote 9.
  • 50. No. VIII., pp. 12, 13.
  • 51. P. xxviii., footnote 1.
  • 52. P. xxx., note 2.
  • 53. No. XLIX., p. 117.
  • 54. Eldest brother of Jane Seymour, and uncle of Prince Edward.
  • 55. Dalyell's Frag. of Scottish History (1798), Erle of Hertforde's Expedicion.
  • 56. Ibid., Expedicion of Edward, duke of Somerset (Ibid.).
  • 57. St. Anne was said to be the wife of Joachim and mother of the Virgin Mary. No reference to her occurs in the fathers of the first three centuries, and she is first referred to in A.D. 368. About the time of Charlemagne her name became familiar to the churches of the west. She soon afterwards obtained a wide celebrity in the Latin Church, and in Spain especially became the patron saint of many churches. In 1584 the observance of her festival was imposed on the western church, but long previously the feast of St. Anne had become general and popular. Previous to the end of the fifteenth century the parents of the Virgin appeared as subordinate only to the Virgin herself. Later on, St. Anne appears in devotional art not merely as a historical personage, but as occupying an independent position, and in herself the object of reference or of worship. St. Anne's day in the Roman calendar was held on 26th, and in the Greek calendar on 25th July.
  • 58. Excerpts from the Records of the Incorporation of Tailors of Glasgow, 1872.
  • 59. P. xlii.; No. XXXVII., pp. 83–84.
  • 60. Lady of Piety—the name given to the representation of the Virgin Mary embracing the dead body of her Son. It is a counterpart to the Madonna with the infant Jesus in her arms. The one is a representation of the purest joy and highest motherly love; the other, of the utmost pain and grief. The pieta forms one of the stations of the cross.
  • 61. Original in the archives of the city.
  • 62. LXXII., pp. 189, 191.
  • 63. LXXIII., pp. 191, 192.
  • 64. L., pp. 118, 119.
  • 65. No. XXIV., pp. 37, 38.
  • 66. No. XXX., pp. 55–57.
  • 67. No. XLII., pp. 97–99.
  • 68. No. XLV., pp. 106, 107.
  • 69. John Hamilton was a natural son of James, first earl of Arran, and was made abbot of Paisley in 1525. He proceeded to France to pursue his studies, and while there his halfbrother, the earl of Arran, was appointed regent of Scotland, on the death of James V. Returning through England, he was hospitably entertained by Henry VIII. In 1543 he was made keeper of the privy seal, and soon after lord treasurer. On 24th January, 1543–4, the bishopric of Dunkeld became vacant by the death of bishop Crichton, and, after some delay, occasioned by the opposition of Robert Crichton, a nephew of the late bishop, Hamilton was appointed to it by the queen and lord governor. After the death of cardinal Beaton, he was promoted to the archbishopric of St. Andrews. The exact date of his pro motion is not known. He was consecrated while bishop of Dunkeld, probably in 1546, and his formal translation took place in 1549. He continued to keep possession of the abbacy of Paisley after he was made archbishop. In August, 1549, he, as primate and legatus natus, summoned and presided at an ecclesiastical council in Edinburgh, which enacted a number of canons to correct prevalent abuses. He was also active in the suppression of heresy, and during his tenure of the archbishopric Adam Wallace was burned on the Castlehill of Edinburgh in the autumn of 1550, and Walter Mill, a quiet country priest, upwards of eighty years of age, was burned in St. Andrews in 1558. Another provincial council was held under his direction at Edinburgh on 26th January, 1552, when seventeen canons were enacted, chiefly enforcing the orders of the council of 1549. In 1552 his catechism, prepared in accordance with the resolution of 1549, appeared, and in the same year he suffered from a severe illness, in consequence of which, probably, Gavin Hamilton, an ecclesiastic of the diocese of Glasgow, was appointed his coadjutor, and held that office for some time. In consideration of that service the coadjutor had assigned to him £400 a year from the revenues of the archbishopric, and also had conferred on him the commendatorship of the Benedictine monastery of Kilwinning. Another provincial council was summoned by Hamilton, and held by him at Edinburgh on 1st March, 1559. He attended the parliament of 1560, and voted against the adoption of the Confession of Faith. On 19th May, 1563, he and forty-six other persons were tried before the court of justiciary at Edinburgh for hearing auricular confession and assisting at the celebration of mass, and he was sentenced to imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle. On 17th December, 1566, he baptized the infant prince James in the chapel royal at Stirling, and this was the last occasion on which a public solemn ceremonial of the Roman Catholic Church took place in Scotland. In 1567 Queen Mary restored to him his consistorial jurisdiction, of which he had been deprived in 1560. He strenuously supported the cause of the queen, and, after her defeat at Langside, endeavoured to dissuade her from trusting herself to the protection of Elizabeth. He was afterwards accused of complicity in the murder of Darnley, and condemned, but escaped into the castle of Dunbarton, then held for the queen. After the assassination of the regent Moray by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, at Linlithgow, on 23rd January, 1570, and the election of the earl of Lennox to be regent, on 12th July in the same year, two English armies entered Scotland, under lords Sussex and Scrope, to support the cause of the reformers, and Dunbarton fell into the regent's hands on 2nd April, 1571. Among the prisoners then captured was archbishop Hamilton, who was taken to Stirling, there summarily tried, condemned in terms of his former attainder, and hanged in his pontificial robes on the 7th of the same month. [Keith, pp. 38, 39. Grub, II., 17, 30, 33, 36, 55, 84, 86, 134, 153, 154, 168. Burton, III., 283, 333; IV., 64; V., 3, 36, 37. Hossack's Mary Queen of Scots, II., 93. Bellesheim, II., 181, 182, 194; III., 72, 73, 104, 114, 170, 214.]
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