m m ft",'"' 1 ' \\m 'Oj Iri'm i§H^ k¥'f' ?^;k' ¦ *¦* 1 U 'I -si* '( ftS pfe"' '-kiu'x ' ' iHt ) 'u 1." t' I'll ,M:J*T^M. ' I i r ikik^i "l I f f ' Ml '"^ 4 - ^V' mmx'i , m WM 'W' - - V^',' ',.l!,.t.!! ' lismlkm ¦iwn ml 'All ' M ^-ifci-i a (^ 'jJiV, IMi ' f f -TO?'* BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME k. . * OF THE John Elliott Fund — Bfa HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH Printed hy R. &> R. Clark FOR DAVID DOUGLAS, EDINBURGH LONDON . SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT AND CO., LIM. CAMBRIDGE MACMILLAN AND BOWES GLASGOW . JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH W. STEPHEN RECTOR OF ST. AUGUSTINE'S, DUNBARTON VOL. I EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS 1894 PREFACE The present age has been marked by great activity in the field of Scottish Church History, and by much pains taking research into original records, which form the safest groundwork of history. In this way our knowledge both of the Celtic and of the Mediasval Church has been largely extended by the labours of our recent antiquaries and historians. The writings of Drs. Reeves, Skene, Todd, Stokes, and others, have thrown much fresh light on the Celtic Church ; and Dr. Joseph Robertson by his publica tion of the Statuta Ecclesia Scoticance, and Dr. Theiner by that of his Vetera Monumenta — papal bulls, etc., from 1 216 to 1547 — have added not less valuable information on the Church of the Middle Age. As the works of these writers are not generally access ible, it seemed to the present author that a plain statement of the results in the form of a continuous narrative would not be unacceptable at this time. He does not profess to be colourless in his opinions ; but he has honestly endeav oured to be fair and impartial in the treatment of docu mentary evidence and in the narration of historic facts. How far he has succeeded in this endeavour it is left for the reader to judge. VI PREFACE The author desires to thank the Rev. George Suther land, Portsoy, and the Rev. Canon Wilson, Edinburgh, for their assistance in revising the proof sheets. He has also to thank the following gentlemen for much aid from the libraries under their charge, and for helpful suggestions as to original sources of information — F. T, Barrett, Esq., Mitchell Library, Glasgow ; Wm. Hutton, Esq., Stirling's and Glasgow Public Library ; James Lymburn, Esq., University Library, Glasgow ; T. G. Law, Esq., Signet Library, Edinburgh. He was not less indebted to the late Dean Crabb, Diocesan Librarian, Brechin ; and the late Canon Bell, Forbes Librarian, Edinburgh. In this list he would include his obligation to personal friends whose libraries were at his service, and whose kindness is here gratefully acknowledged. He has also to thank the publisher, Mr. David Douglas, for permission to use the late Dr. Skene's maps of the Celtic and Mediaeval Church. The second volume, bringing the history down to the present time, is being prepared, and will be published without undue delay. It will contain a full index to both volumes. St. Augustine's, Dunbarton, 1st December 1893. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Introduction of Christianity — SS. Ninian, Palladius, and Ternan — Pelagian Controversy . . . . i CHAPTER II St. Patrick — Tribal Episcopacy — Celtic Collegiate Churches — The First Irish Missionaries to Alban (Scotland) ....... 26 CHAPTER III The Life and Work of St. Kentigern, Bishop of the Britons ....... 39 CHAPTER IV The Mission of St. Columba ... -57 CHAPTER V The Government of Iona and the Life and Constitution of THE Columban Communities . . . .84 CHAPTER VI Irish Missionaries in Alban (Scotland) and on the Con tinent IN the Sixih and Seventh Centuries . . no viu HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH CHAPTER VII PAGE The Celtic Mission in Northumbria, Mercia, and Essex . 126 CHAPTER VIII St. Cuthbert and his Work . . . . 152 CHAPTER IX Maelrubha, Comgan, the second Fillan — Abbot Adamnan, Serf, Fergus — Restoration of Candida Casa — King Nectan's expulsion of the Columban Clergy from Pictland — Supremacy of Dunkeld — Venerable Bede — Baldred of the Bass — Boniface — Legends of St. Andrews, and the origin of its primacy in Scotland . .160 CHAPTER X Iona ravaged by the Danes — Parishes and Dioceses — Union of Scotic and Pictish kingdoms — Supremacy of Dunkeld — Round Towers of Abernethy and Brechin — Adrian — Monan — "The Scottish Church " first named — Iona — Supremacy of the Scots — Book of Deer — Scarcity of old MSS. . 180 CHAPTER XI First Church Council, Scone — Supremacy of St. Andrews — Primus bishop of Alban — King Constantin abbot — Culdees of Lochleven —Bishop Fothadh — Lay abbots — Last attack of Iona by Danes — " The great city " of Brechin — Cadroe — Royal pilgrims to Rome — Declension of Columban Church . .199 CHAPTER XII Scotia applied to North Britain — Causes of the Church's Degeneracy — Secularisation of Church Property — Supposititious episcopal see at Mortlach — Tribal versus Diocesan bishops — King Macbeth a Church benefactor — Bishop' Fothadh, the last of the bishops "of Alban" ..... .214 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER XIII Malcolm III. " Canmore," 1058-1093 PAGE Influx of English settlers — Marriage of Malcolm to princess Margaret — Influence of the queen's life — Duthac of Tain — Iona restored — Decadence of Scottish Church — Conferences of queen Margaret with Scottish Clergy — Points discussed in conference — Reformation of Church — Claims of see of York over Scottish Church — Malcolm's English wars — Death of Malcolm and of Margaret . ... . 224 CHAPTER XIV Donald Ban and Duncan, 1093-1097 — Edgar, 1097-1107 — Alexander I., 1107-1124 Invasion by king Magnus of Norway, his visit to Iona — Edgar's religious foundations — Martyrdom of St. Magnus of Orkney — Churches of Egilsay and Orphir — Foundation of Scone Monas tery — Turgot, bishop of St. Andrews — Claims of York — Election of Eadmer to St. Andrews, and disputes arising tlierefrom — Robert, bishop of St. Andrews — Alexander's gifts to the Church and his religious foundations, e.g. Inchcolm — Diocesan sees of Moray and Dunlvcld founded by the king — David, prince of Cumbria, founds Benedictine House at Selkirk and restores see of Glasgow ...... 246 CHAPTER XV David I., 1124-1153 David's education and character — Rebellion of Mormaer of Moray — The impostor bishojj Wimund — Battle of the Standard — Papal legates and councils — Bishop Robert's work at St. Andrews — Culdees of St. Andrews and Lochleven — Library of the latter — Foundation of new sees of Ross, Aberdeen, Caithness, Dunblane, and Brechin — The Scottish cathedrals — Cathedral chapters, their constitution and influence — .Vrch- deaconries and rural deaneries . 264 X HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH CHAPTER XVI David's Reign Continued, 1124-1153 PAGE Monasteries founded by the king and his subjects — Description of different orders of monks and friars and their services to the religion, education, and civilisation of Scotland — Death of David's only son, prince Henry — Closing years and death of king David — First connection of the Scottish with the Roman Churcli through legates . . • 285 CHAPTER XVII The Culdees — Their Origin and History . . 307 CHAPTER XVIII Malcolm IV., 1153-1165; and William the Lion, 1165-1214 Early revolts — Election of Waltheof to see of St. Andrews — His refusal — Later monasteries — Malcolm solicits metropolitan powers for St. Andrews — Bishop of Moray becomes the first Scottish legate — Arnold and Richard bishops of St. Andrews — Capture of king William — Treaty of Falaise — Claims of York and Canterbury over the Scottish Church — Her independence recognised — Third Lateran Council — Arbroath Abbey founded by king William — His dispute in the election to St. Andrews — Papal interdict of Scotland — Provincial councils — More religious houses — Bishops of Glasgow and other Scottish bishops — Origin of free burghs . .... 323 CHAPTER XIX Alexander IL, 1214-1249 Scotland interdicted — Three Scottish bishops at fourth Lateran Council — Later accusations against them — Murder of Adam, bishop of Caithness — First provincial council without a legate — Visit of legate Otho — ^Provincial councils in Edinburgh and Perth — More monastic houses — Dominicans and Franciscans introduced — Bishops Malvoisin and De Bernham of St. Andrews, Gilbert of Caithness, Clement of Dunblane, Bondington of Glasgow, and Andrew of Moray .... 344. CONTENTS CHAPTER XX PAGE Side-Lights from Papal Letters, Scottish Canons during THE Reign of Alexander II. , 1214-1249 . . 360 CHAPTER XXI Alexander III., 1249-1286 Enshrining the relics of St. Margaret — King's marriage in York Minster — Battle of Largs — Church oppressed by the Regency — Appeals to Parliament — Bishop Gameline of St. Andrews — Cardinal-legate Ottoboni summons Scottish bishops to London — Seventh crusade and Scottish crusaders — Provincial council in Perth — General Council in Lyons — Boiamund adjusts and collects assessments — Progress of the Church — Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow — Sweetheart Abbey founded — Red and White friars — Marriages and deaths in royal family — King's accidental death — Side - lights from Theiner's papal letters — Literary Scotsmen of thirteenth century . . .381 CHAPTER XXII Period 1286- 1329 «> Infant Queen Margaret of Norway and Regency, 1286- 1292; John Baliol, 1292 -1296; Regency, 1296- 1306; Robert Bruce, 1306-1329. War of Independence — Treaty of Brigham — Invasions of Edward I. — Edward's claims — The pope's interposition — Vacillation of the pope — Patriotism of Scottish clergy and militant energy of the bishops — Expulsion of Anglican barons and clergy — Papal ex communications of Bruce and interdicts on Scotland — Deteriora tion of Church discipline — Provincial councils — Successions to see of Glasgow — Papal policy and assessments — Conclusion of the war and death of king Robert .... 402 xii HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH CHAPTER XXIII David IL, 1329-1371 PAGE Ceremony of anointing at coronation — Persecuting oath imposed by the papacy on Scottish kings — David's flight to France, and later, his captivity in England — Papal marriage dispensations and their moral — Injurious effects of the wars on the Church — Successions to the Scottish sees — Papal nuncios — Peter's pence — Strange heresies in Ireland — Circumlocution and costs of episcopal elections at Rome — Usurpation of the chapters' rights by the papacy — Provincial council — King David's gifts to the Church — Collegiate churches . 419 CHAPTER XXIV Robert II., 1371-1390, and Robert HI., 1390-1406 Characters of Robert II. and III. — Ignorance and turbulence of the Scottish nobles — Semi-barbarism of the Highlands — The papal schism and rival popes — Walter Wardlaw, bishop of Glasgow and first Scottish cardinal — His nephew Henry Wardlaw, bishop of St. Andrews — Bishop of Moray and " the Wolf of Badenoch " — Burning of Elgin Cathedral and Canonry — Church benefices gifted to abbeys] — Crown's claim to property of deceased bishops — Nunnery in North Berwick — Education of clergy — Fordun the .historian — Barbour the poet — Winton the chronicler — Synodal Statutes of St. Andrews . . 433 CHAPTER XXV Regency of Albany and his Son, 1406-1424 ; Reign of James L, 1424-1437 Wickliff doctrines in Scotland — First persecutions of the Lollards — Burning of Resby — Founding of St. Andrews University — Effects of continued papal schism — Councils of Pisa and Constance to heal the schism — Provincial Councils in Perth — Character and rule of James I. — The king as a church reformer — Council of Basle — Antagonism between the Scottish Church and the papal see — Legates in Scotland — Decrees against the Lollards — Burning of Paul Crawar — The king curbing the tyranny of the nobles — Their revenge in his murder . . . ^,q CONTENTS xui CHAPTER XXVI James II. , 1437-1460 PAGE Faction and treason — Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews — Abbot Livingston — Provincial councils in Perth — Crown's claim on personal estate of bisliops at their decease — Their address to Parliament — Collegiate churches — Glasgow University founded — St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews — Bishop Lauder of Argyll — Noblemen's sons and relatives begging benefices in Scottish Church from the pope — Pope encourages theological study — Dis puted presentations — Proposed absorption of priories — Observan- tines, reformed Franciscans — Suppression of Trinity friars at Fa efurd — King's death at Roxburgh .... 456 CHAPTER XXVII James IIL, 1460-1488 Death of Bishop Kennedy — Englishmen expelled from Scottish bene fices — TuUoch, bishop of Orkney — King's marriage — Papal letters and privileges — Scottish clerics begging benefices at Rome — King's usurpation and abuse of patronage — Deterioration of the Church — St. Giles', Edinburgh, made collegiate — Primacy of St. Andrews and archbishop Graham — Accusations against Graham — His trial and condemnation — Archbishop Scheves — Papal exemptions — Papal jubilee — Pilgrims' privileges at Rome, at Glasgow Cathedral, and at St. Mary's, Lasswade — Bishop Blackader of Glasgow — Rivalry between Glasgow and St. Andrews — Founding of Aberdour "Hospital" for education of girls . -. . • 469 CHAPTER XXVIII James IV., 1488-1513 Character of James IV. — Glasgow made a metropolitan see — Rivalry between the two archbishops— Suits at Rome forbidden — Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen— Founding of Aberdeen University — Hector Boece its first Principal — Introduction of printing into Scotland — First Compulsory Education Act— Marriage of the King— Death of archbishop Scheves of St. Andrews— His two royal successors— The Lollards of Kyle— James Beaton, arch bishop of Glasgow — Bishop Brown of Dunkeld — King's death on Flodden Field ... • . 483 xiv HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH CHAPTER XXIX James V., 1513-1542 PAGE Henry VIII. on the victoiy of Flodden — Henry's demands of the pope — Rival competitors for see of St. Andrews — Bishop Forman of Moray collated — Bad appointments to Scottish sees and abbeys — David Beaton and John Hamilton, future primates of St. Andrews — Archbishop Forman's Synodal Statutes — GavinDouglas, bishop of Dunkeld — Friar Dunbar, the rhymer — Burning of Patrick Hamilton and others — Moderate reformers — Founding of the College of Justice — King's marriages — Cardinal Beaton — Sir John Borthwick condemned for heresy — The English Bible sanctioned by Scottish Parliament — James V. and the Reforma tion — Satire of Lindsay and Buchanan on monks and friars — King's usurpation of ecclesiastical patronage — War with England — Death of James V. . . ... 494 CHAPTER XXX Queen Mary — Regency of the Earl of Arran, 1542-1554 Imprisonment of the cardinal — Conventions and council of clergy, assessing themselves for the]war and for Council of Trent — Brawl in Glasgow Cathedral between the archbishops — Persecutions and burnings for heresy in Perth — George Wishart martyred — Murder of cardinal Beaton — John Knox in St. Andrews — Defeat of Scots at Pinkie — Bad bishops — Abuses of patronage — ^James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow — Bishop Hamilton of Dunkeld translated to St. Andrews — Bishops Dunbar of Aberdeen and Reid of Orkney — Provincial councils in Linlithgow and Edin burgh and canons enacted — Deplorable condition of the Church — Hamilton's Catechism and the Twopenny Faith — Discussion on the Pater Noster — Burning of Adam Wallace for heresy . 521 CHAPTER XXXI Queen Mary — Regency of the Queen-Mother, 1554-1560 Return of Scottish reformers — John Knox in Scotland 1555, leaves for Geneva 1556 — Delated for heresy and burned in effigy — Answers by " appellation " — Reformers and the regent — Bond CONTENTS XV PAGE by the lords of the Congregation — Their legislation for the Church, and use of the English Prayer-Book — Preaching of Protestant friars — Burning of Walter Mylne — Protestants petition regent for religious liberty — Marriage of queen Mary of Scotland and death of queen Mary of England — Influence of English Reforma tion on the Scottish — Last provincial council, 1559 — Articles of Reformation submitted by churchmen — Rejection of the same by the council — Character of some Scottish bishops — Canons enacted in 1559 ...... 545 CHAPTER XXXII Queen Mary — Regency of Queen-Mother, 1554- 1560 (cimcluded) Quintin Kennedy and his Tractive and Controversies — Protestant preaching forbidden — Knox's arrival — Preaches in Perth — De struction of the monasteries — Defiant attitude of reformers — Knox in St. Andrews — More wrecking of churches and abbeys, east and west — Iconoclastic policy of reforming lords — Final effort of' Rome baffled by England — Progress of reformers — Death of queen-regent — Treaty of peace concluded — Parliament of August 1560 — Confession of Faith formulated — Fall of the mediaeval Church — Reflections upon its decline and fall . 562 ILLUSTRATIVE MAPS Map of the Monastic Church . . To face Chapter V. Map of the Medieval Church from the Years 1200 to 1560 ... „ „ XIX. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY SS. NINIAN, PALLA DIUS, AND TERNAN. PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY When and by whom Christianity was introduced into Scotland it is impossible now to say. " We see the light of the Word here, but we see not who kindled it." There are many legends of later growth, but very little of solid history bearing upon the subject. Some writers have laboured to find an apostolic foundation for British Christianity, but the labour has been in vain. No less than six of the Apostles have been associated with the work, and prominent among these is the name of St. Paul. His supposed visit to Britain has been inferred from a single sentence of Clement of Rome, in which the Apostle is said " to have gone to the boundary of the west " — a phrase which may be interpreted of Spain, but which it is difficult to identify with Britain. Then there is the beautiful medisval romance of Joseph of Arimathaea coming to Glastonbury with the customary twelve disciples and planting the holy thorn, which blossomed as the symbol of a fruitful church. Still labouring to find, if not an apostolic, at least a scriptural name for a founder, there is the questionable identification of Claudia, the wife of Pudens (2 Ep. to Tim.), with the British-born Claudia. B 2 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Even if we accepted the identification, it would go but a little way to prove the existence of a church in Britain at that early period.^ Beyond the limits of Scripture there are various legends professing to account for the introduction of Christianity into Britain. In the Welsh Triads we meet with the story of Bran the Blessed, father of the British prince Caractacus, who, about the middle of the first century, was taken prisoner to Rome as a hostage for his son, and, on his conversion, came home to impart the knowledge of the gospel to his subjects. Pomponia Graecina, wife of Plautus, a Roman general in Britain, was accused " of a foreign superstition," ^ and this superstition has been identi fied with the Christian religion, and Pomponia herself " practically demonstrated " to be St. Lucina.^ From Bede * we have the story of Lucius, king of the Britons, sending a letter to the bishop of Rome desiring to be made a Christian. The request is said to have been granted, and the Britons to have received and retained the faith till the Diocletian persecution. Gildas is silent on the subject, but Nennius ^ repeats the story, making, however, the date of Lucius's letter to be A.D. 167, instead of i 5 6, as given by Bede. There are graver exceptions to the Lucian legend than those of chronology. No such personage as a king of the Britons was at that time possible, and the whole story is now regarded as a fable, traceable to a Roman origin in the fifth century. The chief interest " king " Lucius has for us lies in his family likeness to a " Donald, king of the Scots," who, in 203, made a similar request to pope Victor I., which led to the conversion of Scotland. Fordun was the first to furnish the story (c. 1385), and it 1 Bright, Early Eng. Chu7xh, ^ Bellesheim's History of Catholic p. 2. Church of Scotland, pp. 2 and 3. 2 See Tacitus, Annals, b. xiii. ch. * Hist., i. 4. 32, " superstitionis externa; ream." ^ Giles's ed., p. 13. I THE COUNTRY OF THE FIRST SCOTS 3 was amplified and embellished by Boece a century later. The northern annalists were not to be beaten by the southern in finding a primitive foundation for their faith. There were no Scots settled in Britain at the date ascribed, nor for three hundred years after, — pope Victor had been dead for nine years, and a king Donald of that age was as fabulous as a king Lucius. Yet the story, palpably absurd as it is, found acceptance with historians of a later date, writing from opposite points of view, and with differ ent objects to serve. Early politicians favoured it as a proof of the independence of the kingdom ; Roman Catholics adhered to it because it assigned a Roman origin to Scottish Christianity ; the Reformers adopted it in connection with the mission of Palladius (to be noticed hereafter) who was sent (c. 430) as " the first bishop to the Scots believing in Christ." If Palladius was the first bishop to the Scots, assuming that " first " (Primus Epis- copus) meant the first of his order to visit Scotland, Christianity must have existed here without bishops for two hundred years, and thus an early historic precedent would be found for the form of church government favoured by the Reformers. But the whole fabrication falls to the ground without the necessity of argument. There were as yet no Scots in Britain, and the mission of Palladius was to the Irish Scots — the only " Scots " in existence at that time.i At whatever date Christianity came into North Britain, there can be no reasonable doubt that it came from South Britain, just as the Christian Church there was founded by missionaries from Gaul. It is probable that the rudiments of a Christian Church existed in North Britain in the second century. The words of Tertullian,^ written, it is believed, before he became a Montanist in 1 See Innes's Crit. Essay, pp. 727-733- ^ '^'^'"- J-"-j 0'T>iyr\.A\, Columba's life are Bede, the Lrish ^ Adam., p. 248. IV BIRTH, BAPTISM, AND EDUCATION 6 I He was baptized by the name of Colum at Temple Douglas, between Gartan and Letterkenny. It was a common name in his day, and there are as many as twenty saints in the Irish calendar so called. His boyhood was spent in the hamlet of Doire-Eithne in Donegal. Thence he went to Moville, in Down, where he entered the monastic school of St. Finnian, bishop and abbot, from whom he received the order of deacon. A few years afterwards he went to Leinster, his mother's country, and placed himself under the instruction of an aged bard named Gemman, from whom he acquired his first know ledge and taste of poetry, and his respect for the bardic order, which in after years he was not ashamed to acknowledge. From Leinster, Columba went to Clonard in Meath, the most eminent of all the Irish monastic schools of this period, which had the other St. Finnian for its founder and abbot. This Finnian is said to have been the greatest Irish scholar of his day, and was known as the preceptor of the twelve apostles of Ireland, of whom Columba was one. At Clonard, Columba had as fellow - students Comgall, Ciaran, and Cainnech (or Kenneth), names afterwards well known both in Irish and Scotic missions. While at Clonard, Columba received priest's orders from Etchen, an anchorite bishop, residing at Clonfad in Meath, Finnian his patron being only a presbyter. A later story, in no way reliable, says that Etchen by mistake conferred the order of priest instead of bishop upon Columba. This legend has been represented by some modern writers as the invention of a later age, labouring to prove that the Irish Church of the sixth century was episcopal.^ The fact that Etchen as a bishop conferred the order of presbyter upon Columba is as strong a proof 1 Dr. M'Lauchlan's Early Scot. Ch., p. 148. 62 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. of episcopacy as if he had ordained him a bishop. The story was more likely to have originated as an explanation in after times why so great an ecclesiastic as Columba was not raised to the episcopate.^ Columba's next and last monastic school, before he became himself the founder of similar institutions, was Glasnevin, near Dublin, where he rejoined his three friends who had been with him at Clonard. A violent distemper, in the year 544, broke up the community at Glasnevin. From this date Columba devoted himself with character istic zeal to the planting of monastic churches and missions. In 546, when he was in his twenty-fifth year, he founded the monastery of Derry ; and the monastery meant here as elsewhere not only a collegiate institution for monks and students, but a mission church for the people. In 553 Durrow was founded, the largest and most permanent of his Irish monasteries, the fame of which was known to Bede. Its most interesting relic is the Evangeliarium, known as the Book of Durrow, a MS. believed to be of the Columban age, if not, as some think, from the pen of Columba himself. From 546 to 562 many other churches were planted by the missionary, but the exact dates are not known. Dr. Reeves gives a list of thirty-seven Irish churches attributed to Columba.^ Kells, in Meath, is one of them, but there is no mention of its being a religious seat until 804. Its chief literary treasure, " the Book of Kells," is an Evangeliarium, resembling the Book of Durrow, but exceeding it in elaborateness.^ The battle of Cooldrevny, fought in 561, is said to have been caused by Columba, and is usually assigned as 1 Todd's St. Patrick, pp. 70-77. ^ Both books have found a home 2 Reeves's Introduction to Adam- in the library of Trinity College, nan, p. xlix. seq. Dublin. IV REASONS FOR LEAVING IRELAND 63 one of the reasons for his leaving Ireland.^ The second reason, viz. the quarrel with Finnian about the psalter, rests on no reliable authority. Columba had borrowed a psalter, as the story goes, from St. Finnian of Moville, and while residing at Dromin in Louth, another of Finnian's foundations, had transcribed it. The owner of the original and the transcriber both claimed the copy, and it was remitted to king Diarmid for his decision. He assigned it to St. Finnian, saying that " as to every cow belongs her calf, so to every book its son-book," or copy.^ It was perhaps some current stories of Columba's imperious and vindictive temper reaching the ears of Bede, that made the venerable historian qualify his opinion of the saint's character by his qualiscunque fuerit ipse, " Whatsoever sort of man he may have been himself, we are certain of this, that he left successors remarkable for great continence, divine love, and regular institution." ^ Adamnan merely relates that Columba was excommunicated by the synod for certain venial and excusable things, and not justly, he adds, as was afterwards made clear.* The excommunication was passed by a synod held at Teltown, in Meath. The date of it cannot be ascertained, nor the acts of Columba which it condemned. The synod was not unanimous, and St. Brendan of Birr, the warm friend of Columba, protested against it. Finnian of Moville also expressed the veneration he had for his former pupil. It is doubtful what influence, if any, the synodical censure had upon Columba's resolution to leave Ireland. In coming to Britain he only did what other Irish missionaries had done before him, and what many more did after. " Willing to be a missionary for Christ, 1 Reeves's ^i^affz., xii. Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, 2 This Psalter is called the Cathach Dublin. or "Battler" from having been tlie ^ Adam.,^ iii. c. 4. cause of the battle. It is now in the * Ibid., iii. 4. 64 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. he set sail from Scotia to Britain " {fro Christo peregrinari volens enavigavit) is Adamnan's sole explanation of his motive ; -^ and the account of Bede {Ex quo ipse predica- turus abiit^) that he left his native land "to preach the Gospel," helps to confirm it. The old Irish " Life" knows no other reason than that " his native country was left by the illustrious saint and sage, as a son chosen of God for the love and favour of Christ." This opinion may fairly be accepted in the after light of his noble missionary life. His kinsmen in the Scotic Dalriada had just sustained (a.d. 560), at the hands of the Picts, under Brude, a crushing defeat in which their king Gabhran was slain and the Scots driven back into Kintyre. Columba's mission at this juncture was well timed to strengthen the hands of the Dalriadic colony and to promote peaceable relations between them and their Pictish neighbours. It also made an open door, to which Columba would not be blind, for the preaching of Christianity to the Picts. An exile he was, but a voluntary exile for the sake of Christ and His kingdom. The fact that he returned more than once to Ireland proves that there was nothing like expatriation in his act of leaving it. Nor did he sever any ties, or surrender any jurisdiction over the monasteries he had founded in Ireland. They all came to be included in the one muintir or family, of which Iona was the head, and Columba the founder. Leaving Derry in the spring of 563, Columba, in his forty-second year, sailed down the Foyle with the tradi tional twelve companions, whose names are recorded. " In those days the saint with twelve disciples, his fellow- soldiers (com-militionibus), sailed across to Britain," is the 1 Adam,, preface to book i. p. 1 08. 2 Hist., iii. 4. IV columba's arrival IN IONA 65 simple narrative of Columba's earliest biographer.'- His companions were nearly all blood relations, and some of them afterwards occupied important positions in the Scotic mission. Conall, a near relative of Columba, was at this time king of the Scots in Dalriada, in succession to Gabhran. Cowal and Kintyre, as far north as Crinan and Loch Gilp, was all the territory now left to them. Conall was then living in Kintyre, and here Columba visited him.^ A cave chapel on Loch Caolisport, in Knapdale, is, by tradition, associated with Columba's visit on this occasion. The pretty legend about the saint sailing from Derry to Colon- say and deciding to leave it because his dear native Ireland was still in view, and then alighting by Providence or by accident on Iona, is, in face of Adamnan's statement, a fanciful picture and nothing more. The Western Islands, the Scottish Polynesia, of the sixth and seventh centuries, were not unpeopled deserts for any sea-rover. Christian or pagan, to take summary possession of at his pleasure. Iona was on the border-land between the territories of the Northern Picts and the Dalriadic Scots, and it is probable that the Scots' territory, before the battle of 560, had included Iona. The island was given to Columba by his kinsman Conall or by the Pictish king, — Bede says by the latter ; and Tighernac, who was likely to be better informed, writes that it was king Conall who " immolated the island of la to Colum-cille." Dr. Reeves is inclined to a compromise, — that it was first given by Conall, and acquiesced in by Brude after his conversion.^ The island was known as I, Hy, and Hll, with other varieties of spelling. Coupled with insula, it was written 1 See Pinkerton's Vit. Sand., 87 ; Robertson's Scotland under p, 29. Early I-Cings, p. 7 ; Cos. Innes, 2 Ada7n. i. 7. Mid. Ages, p. xiii.; Reeves's ^(/a?;/., 3 See Skene's Celt. Scot., ii. 86, p. xxxviii. F 66 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. loua insula, and in the course of transcription the u of loua was mistaken for n, and hence the later form Iona, which is likely to be the permanent name for the green islet " placed far amid the solitary main." The deriva tions of the word from the Hebrew Iona, a dove, to make it personal to Columba, and from the Gaelic I-thonna, the island of the waves, as if there were any islands in the Minch not washed by the waves, are both based upon a false etymology. After Columba's possession of Iona it came to be known as I-Colum-cille, the island of Colum of the church.i The island is three and a half miles long by a mile and a half broad, and is separated by the Sound of Iona, a mile in breadth, from the south-west point of Mull. There is both arable and pasture land on the island, and the machar or plain in the middle, on which crops were grown, is frequently mentioned. On Whitsunday, the 12th of May 563, Columba landed on Iona, first dispossessing, as has been men tioned, the two bishops of the older collegiate order. For two years he and the brethren were busy in the erection of their humble monastery. It was built on the east side of the island, facing Mull, and a little to the north of the present cathedral ruins. There was the church or oratory, with its exedra as sacristy, all built of oak ; the library where the brethren read and transcribed books for their various missions ; the refectory, of consider able size, in which there was a fireplace and water for washing the feet of guests ; the kitchen adjoining the refectory; the hospitium, or guest-chamber, for the re ception of visitors ; and the cells or bothies of the monks, surrounding a small courtyard. These were built of wood, or of wood and wattles, formed of wicker-work on either side of the wall with earth or clay compressed I Reeves's Adam., cxxviii. seq.; M'Lauchlan's Early Scot. Ch., p. 152. IV COLUMBA'S VISIT TO KING BRUDE 67 between. Adamnan also mentions the vallum or rampart, surrounding the whole, like the Irish cashels. On a little eminence overlooking the monastery was the cell of the abbot. At some distance apart stood the barn, the byre, the kiln and mill, and the workshop, all necessary accessories of the monastery. Such were the humble beginnings of an institution destined in the providence of God to carry the blessings of religion northwards to Orkney and even Iceland, and southwards to the banks of the Thames. For the first two years, while the monks were busy upon the monastic buildings, their mission work was limited to Mull and the districts of Ardnamurchan and Lochaber. In 565 Columba made a bolder venture of faith to Brude, the king of the Picts, at his royal residence on Loch Ness. His action recalls the similar venture of St. Patrick to Laoghaire, king of Ireland, at the feast of Tara. The same idea may have possessed both missionaries. To strike at the root of paganism they must first convert the king. But it was a hundred and fifty miles from Iona to Loch Ness, with narrow seas to cross and many a hill and loch intervening. The journey is easy to-day by steamboat and stage-coach ; it must have been an arduous expedition for Columba and his companions. These were Comgall and Cainnech, both of them Irish Picts, Cruithne of Dalaradia, chosen, as has been suggested, to facilitate intercourse with the pagan Pict, and to interpret, if necessary, his language. The route followed was across the lower and western ridge of Drumalban and by way of the Caledonian Canal, through Glen Urquhart, to the north shore of Loch Ness. Reeves identifies the site of Brude's - residence with the vitrified fort of Craig Phadrig, about two miles west of the river ; Skene suggests the ridge of Torvean, a mile south-west of Inverness, as more probable. 68 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Columba's reception may best be told by Adamnan. " When the saint made his first journey to king Brude, the king would not open his gates to him. Columba, observing this, approached the folding doors with his companions, and having first formed upon them the sign of the cross, he knocked and laid his hand upon the gate, which instantly flew open of its own accord. The saint and his companions then marched through the gate thus speedily opened. When the king learned what had happened, he and his councillors {senatus) were filled with alarm, and immediately setting out from their residence, hastened to meet the holy man with due respect, whom he addressed in the most conciliatory language. And ever after, from that day, so long as he lived, the king held this holy and reverend man in very great honour, as was due." The miracle in the story is capable of a natural interpreta tion, viz. the king's change of purpose to receive the mis sionaries, and his orders to unfasten the gates. There is no " economy of miracles " in Adamnan's biography, but some of them are patient, as this is, of a rational explana tion. It would be difficult to deny the whole series of miracles, recorded, as they are, with so much explicitness and circumstantiality of detail. It is just as probable and as credible that God helped the first missionaries among the heathen Picts of Caledonia by the aid of miracles as that He helped in a like manner St. Peter among the Jews of Palestine or St. Paul among the Gentiles of Malta. The conversion of Brude is implied in Adamnan's narrative. In the Pictish Chronicle ^ it is stated that he was baptized at this time by Columba, and the early life of St. Comgall confirms it. With the king's conversion the people's would follow in course ; but we miss the details of the missionary agency which effected the saving change 1 ii. 36. 2 P. 7. IV CONVERSION OF KING BRUDE 69 from paganism to Christianity. His biographer is more concerned with the signs and wonders which accompanied the path of his patron than with the progress of the Christian religion among the northern Picts. There was opposition, as Adamnan records,' from the pagan priest hood, similar to that which St. Patrick encountered at Tara. The Pictish priests are described as Magi, and by some writers as Druadh, and their leader at Brude's court was a certain Broichan, who was also foster-father (nutricius) to the king. He was a bitter opponent of the new religion, and resisted Columba in every way. One day when the saint and his monks were chanting their evening office (vespertinales laudes) according to monastic custom, Broichan attempted to stop them lest the sound should reach and attract the people. Columba is said to have had a power ful voice, audible at a mile's distance, and nothing daunted, he raised in sonorous tones the forty-fifth Psalm, " My heart is inditing of a good word ; I declare my works unto the king." Very appropriate were the words under the walls of the royal residence, and the result is said to have been the discomfiture of the Druadh. Brude's conversion took place in 565, the eighth year of his reign (557-584). Other visits were paid in after years by St. Columba to the Christian king, and mean while the instruction of his subjects was prosecuted through Northern Pictland by the Iona missionaries. In South Pictland there were Christian foundations, such as Banchory, Fordun, Abernethy, and Culross, many years before the reign of king Brude. But there is no record of any effort of the southern section to evangelise the northern. It has been assumed that the apparently speedy conversion of Brude and his northern subjects was due to their minds having been already partially leavened 1 ii- 34> 35' 70 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. by southern teaching. This may be true, but the evidence for it is wanting. It is more probable that the Christian missions begun by St. Ninian were too enfeebled to be equal to missionary enterprise. The north had still to wait for the Irish evangelist. And for three-and-thirty years, with unwearied feet, Columba sped the gospel of peace and good-will through Highland glens and island creeks, from Iona to Inverness, from the banks of the Tay to the bleak Coolins in Skye. On another occasion we find Columba again at Loch Ness with king Brude, and bespeaking the favour of the chief of the Orkneys, who was also present, for the wandering missionary Cormac. His voyages in our northern seas were as romantic in that day as Captain Cook's in the South Pacific.-^ " Some of our brethren," said Columba, " have lately set sail, and are anxious to discover ' a desert ' in the pathless sea ; should they happen after many wanderings to come to the Orkney Islands, do thou (king Brude) carefully instruct this chief, whose hostages are in thy hand, that no evil befall them within his dominions." The saint, adds Adamnan, took care to give this direction because he knew that after a few months Cormac would arrive at the Orkneys. Evidently at the northern court things were changed from the days in which Broichan and his magi were the spiritual advisers of king Brude. In the year 573 died St. Brendan of Birr, and St. Columba thereupon instituted a festival in memory of his dear friend. The following year saw the death of Conall, king of Dalriada, in the thirteenth year of his reign. Columba was then in the island of Hinba, and received the command of an angel, thrice repeated owing to the 1 Adamnan, i. 6, ii. 43, and iii. 18, also p. 252; Burton's Hist. Scot., i. pp. 259, 260. IV AIDAN, KING OF THE SCOTTISH DALRIADA 7 I saint's reluctance, to ordain Aidan as successor, in pre ference to his elder brother Eogan. They were both cousins of Conall, and sons of king Gabhran, who fell in the battle of 560. Aidan came to Iona, and there Columba ordained him king, prophesying, as he laid his hands upon him, that he would be succeeded by three generations of his children.^ Aidan was connected on his mother's side with the Britons of Strathclyde, and had recently rendered valuable service to their king Rydderch, in his wars with the Anglo-Saxons. Aidan justified his election by his kingly conduct, and Columba succeeded in acquiring for him an independent position as sovereign of the Scottish Dalriada, independent not only of king Brude, but also of the Irish Dalriada. The latter was effected in the Convention of 575 held at Drumceatt — " the whale's back " — in the county of Derry .^ Three subjects were debated at the Convention — (i) the release of a certain Scannlan Mor, whom his father, the king of Ossory, had given in hostage to Aedh ; (2) the question of the national bards, who had become burdensome to the people by their numbers and exactions ; and (3) the relative position of the Scottish Dalriada to the Irish.^ The decision at Drumceatt on the third head was " that the valour and prowess of the Dalriads should be always with the men of Erin in their hostings and warlike expedi tions, but their rents and tributes should be with the men of Alba." The result was the independence of the Scotic kingdom from all tribute to Ireland, and a mutual defensive alliance between the two peoples. Thus Aidan became the first independent sovereign of the little Scottish state which was destined to give its name, its kings, and laws 1 Adamnan, iii. 6, and Robert- 334) gives both 574 and 575 as the son's Scot, tinder Early Kings, p. date of Drumceatt. ,c. ^ See Skene's C, S., ii. pp. 125 3 Reeves {Adam., pp. 254, 264, and 501. 72 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. to the whole of Scotland. The Convention is said to have lasted fourteen months, and Montalembert, in his Monks of tJie West} gives, as his manner is, a picturesque account of its meetings. St. Columba and king Aidan both returned stronger men from Drumceatt. The saint's twelve years' work and success in Alba were not unknown to his Irish brethren, and helped him to the influence which he evi dently exercised in the Convention. It also strengthened his authority over the Irish houses of his own foundation, some of which, and amongst others his beloved Derry, he visited on this occasion. The saint had still twenty years before him in which to extend and consoHdate his missions. Prominent among these were the monasteries of Tiree, of which there were two on the island, and the monastery of Hinba, supposed to be Eilean na Naomh, or the island of the saints, in the Garveloch group, between Mull and Scarba. Columba's uncle, Ernen, the priest, presided over Hinba, and Columba had a cell near the monastery which he occupied on his many visits to the island. The remains of two bee-hive cells still mark the site of the early Christian foundation. Both Tiree and Hinba are frequently mentioned by Adamnan as associated with the saint's life, and he tells how he was visited, while in Hinba, by the four great founders of Irish monasteries. These were Comgall of Bangor and Cainnech of Aghaboe — the same who had been his companions on his first visit to Brude, — Brendan of Clonfert, and Cormac " the far-famed voyager." They were all founders of monasteries or mission churches in Scotland. We have still Kirkcormac (in Galloway), several Kilbrandons and Kilcainnechs, and Comgall's name lives in Tiree.^ I Vol. iii. pp. 190 seq. of the great Cormac " off the shore of 2 Burton's Hist. Scot., i. 260, for South Knapdale in Argyllshire. the ancient buildings on " the island IV MISSIONARY ASSOCIATES OF COLUMBA 73 There were other three churches founded by the associates of Columba during his lifetime, of sufficient prominence to be mentioned in the Irish annals. These were Lismore, Eig, and Kingarth in Bute. Lismore, the seat of the future bishopric of Argyll, the grassy island between Lorn and Morven, was founded by Moluoc, a bishop, whom Angus the Culdee calls " the bright sun of Lismore " ; and the church of Kilmaluog in Lismore still perpetuates his name there. Of Eig, Donnan was the founder, and afterwards the martyr. Kingarth is the third of these monasteries, and the founder was Cathan, bishop, and an Irish Pict, contemporary and friend of Comgall and Cainnech. The many churches in different parts under the names of Kilmaluog, Kildonnan, and Kilchattan show that the original foundations all became centres of missionary work. The personal history of the saint in these times contains the history of the Church. Many monasteries and missions were founded by Columba in the Western Isles where the frequent " Colum- cille" is met with, confirming in places far apart his well-earned right to the name " Colum of the churches." Only two Columban monasteries on the mainland are mentioned by Adamnan, the one on the side of Loch Awe and the other in Morven. None are given in the Pictish territories east of Drumalban, but the Book of Deer, recently discovered, supplies information about Aberdour in Banffshire and Deer in Buchan, where monasteries were founded by Columba. Drostan was left in charge of Deer, and the founder prophesied, after his manner, that " whosoever came against it would not be many years victorious." Drostan shed tears, on parting with his master, and Columba, on observing it, said that Dear, the Gaelic for tear, should be its name hence forward. 74 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. King Brude died at Loch Ness in the year 584, and was succeeded by Gartnaidh, who belonged to the Southern Picts, and resided at Abernethy on the river Earn. It is recorded that he built the church of Abernethy, and the date is minutely given in the Pictish Chronicle,^ as happening 225 years and 1 1 months before the church of Dunkeld was built by king Constantin, whose reign extended from 790 to 820. This would place the restora tion of Abernethy about the year 590, when Gartnaidh built a new monastic church, where king Nectan had founded a similar church dedicated to St. Bridget, as this also was, in the latter half of the fifth century. The re-founding of Abernethy points to the decay of St. Ninian's work among the Southern Picts, and the ancient tract, known as Amra Columcille, attributes this revival of Christianity on Tayside to the preaching of St. Columba. He was assisted in this mission by Cainnech, whose Pictish descent would make him a more effective evangelist among Picts. As before observed, Cainnech extended the work into Fife, where the church of Kennoquhy, now Kennoway, still recalls his name. He also founded, in what is now St. Andrews, the monastic church known by its Gaelic name of Kilrimont, the church on the royal mount. It was probably at this period, when Columba was busy with his missions on the borders of Cumbria, that the affecting interview took place between him and St. Kentigern. Among other churches established at this period by the Columban mission in the midst of the Southern Picts, and bearing the names of their various founders, was the church of Dunblane, by Blaan the bishop of Cingaradh (Kingarth in Bute), the son of king Aidan and nephew of Cathan. The gloss of Angus the Culdee says that Dunblaan was his chief city. ^ Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 291. IV columba's VISITS TO IRELAND 75 In the latter years of his life Columba revisited Ireland and spent some time with the brethren in the monastery of Clonmacnois. Alither was then abbot, and as he held that office from 585 to 5 99, the date of the saint's visit is commonly assigned to the year 590. The high esteem in which Columba was now held is evidenced by his honourable reception on this occasion. As related by Adamnan,^ it is the second of two visits he made, but it is probable that Columba was a more frequent visitor of the monasteries in Ireland which comprised his " family," and were included in his extensive parochia. In the year 593, when he had finished the thirtieth year of his ministry in Iona, the saint had a serious sick ness, and drew from it the presentiment of his approaching death. He had been praying for many days that the Lord would release him from his dwelling here, at the end of the thirtieth year, and call him to his rest. But the prayers of so many churches (so the saint said on his recovery) had respited his life for four years.^ The story of his last days is told with much feeling by both Cumine and Adamnan. In the end of May 597, when Columba had reached his seventy-sixth year, he was carried in a car to visit the working brethren on the western side of the island. Worn with many toils as well as years, he addressed them — " During the Paschal solemnities in the month of April just past I could have wished to depart to Christ, but lest a joyous festival (Easter) should be turned for you into mourning, my departure has been deferred." Hearing these words the brethren were greatly moved. Then the man of God, as he sat in his car, turned his face towards the east and blessed the island and its inhabitants. After which he was carried back to his monastery. On Sunday, the 2nd of June, he was able to celebrate the 1 Adam., i. 3. ^ Ibid., iii. 23. 76 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Holy Eucharist, and during the office the brethren remarked that his face was " suffused with a ruddy glow," which the saint explained afterwards to be caused by the appearance of an angel " sent to demand a deposit dear to God." At the end of that week he went with his attendant Diormet to bless the barn near the monastery. Blessing it and the two heaps of winnowed corn still in store, he said to Diormet that he was glad his " beloved monks " would have a sufficient supply for the year, if he was obliged to leave them ; then more solemnly he addressed his attendant : " This day in the Holy Scriptures is called Sabbath (Saturday), which means rest. And this day is indeed a Sabbath to me, for it is the last day of my present laborious life, and on it I rest after the fatigues of my labours ; and this night at midnight, which commenceth the solemn Lord's Day, I shall go the way of our fathers." On going back to the monastery he rested half-way, at a place marked afterwards by a cross, and there came to him the white pack-horse that carried the milk pails from the byre to the monastery, and laying its head on the saint's breast, began to moan piteously. Diormet would have driven it away, but the saint forbade him, saying, " Let it alone as it is so fond of me. Let it pour out its grief into my bosom ; for thou, though a man with a rational soul, canst know nothing of my departure except what I myself have just told you, but to this brute beast, devoid of reason, the Creator Himself hath evidently in some way made known that its master is going to leave it." And saying this the saint blessed the work-horse, which turned away from him sadly. The good man's affection for dumb animals appears from time to time, and this closing incident, stripped of its legendary clothing, may be read as a token of his tenderness to man and beast. IV LAST DAYS AND DEATH OF COLUMBA 77 Leaving this spot, Columba ascended the hillock over looking the monastery and stood for some little time on its summit. With both hands uplifted he uttered this prophecy : " Small and mean though this place is, yet it shall be held in great and unusual honour, not only by Scotic kings and people, but also by the rulers of foreign and barbarous nations, and by their subjects ; the saints also, even of other churches, shall regard it with no com mon reverence." Descending the hill and returning to his cell, he resumed his work on the transcription of a psalter. He wrote the 34th Psalm as far as the words " They that seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good." " Here," said he, " at the end of the page I must stop, and what follows let Baithene write." The words that follow are, " Come ye children and hearken unto me," and they came to be regarded as prophetic of Baithene's successor- ship to the abbot's office. He then went into the church to the Vesper service, the vigil of the Lord's Day, after which he returned to his cell, where he had for his couch a bare flag, and for his pillow a stone. While reclining there he gave his last instructions to the brethren. " These, O my children, are the last words I address to you — that ye be at peace, and have unfeigned charity among yourselves ; and if you thus follow the example of the holy fathers, God, the comforter of the good, will be your Helper, and I abiding with Him, will intercede for you ; and He will not only give you sufficient to supply the wants of this present life, but will also bestow on you the good and eternal rewards which are laid up for those that keep His com mandments." Upon this he became silent. Then as soon as the bell rang at midnight, he rose hastily and went into the church, and knelt down beside the altar. 78 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Diormet his attendant, following more slowly, saw, as he approached the church, the whole interior filled with a heavenly light. The same was seen by others of the brethren, and then the light disappeared. Diormet, feel ing his way in the dark, the brethren not yet having brought in the lights, cried out, " Where art thou, father ? " and presently he found the saint lying beside the altar ; and raising him up a little, and sitting down beside him, he laid the abbot's head on his bosom. Meanwhile the rest of the brethren ran in hastily in a body with their lights, and beholding their dying father, burst into lamentations. Columba opened his eyes and looked round him from side to side, with a face full of joy as if seeing the holy angels coming to meet him. Diormet then raised the right hand of the saint that he might therewith bless his monks. The father himself moved his hand as well as he was able, and having thus signified to them his parting benediction, he breathed his last.^ The body was carried from the church to his cell, where his obsequies were celebrated for three days and nights ; and when the praises of God were finished, it was wrapped in a clean shroud of fine linen, and, being placed in a tomb, was buried with due veneration. The stone which St. Columba had used as a pillow was placed as a monument at his grave, and there it still stood in Adamnan's day. None but the brethren were present either at the obsequies or at the burial, for there arose such a storm that no one could cross the Sound. After the interment the storm ceased and the waters became calm. The body of St. Columba rested undisturbed for more than a century in Iona. In the eighth century his remains were disinterred ^ and enclosed in a shrine which 1 Adam., iii. 24. ^ the relics were enshrined before the ^ Reeves (Adam., p. Ixxxii. ) says year 825. IV PERSONAL RELICS OF COLUMBA 79 was taken from time to time across to Ireland, and brought back, until, as tradition says, it fell into the hands of the Danes, who valued the gold of the shrine more than the relics of the saint. Kenneth M'Alpine claimed, and is said to have received, a portion of the relics for Dunkeld ; and Durham Cathedral, as appears from a catalogue of its relics in the fourteenth century, put forward a similar claim. Among the personal relics associated with the life of St. Columba, mention is made of the white tunic he wore at his death, which was long preserved in the island. A later tradition speaks of the " Great Cross " cased in metal and ornamented with crystal bosses, which pope Gregory the Great sent for use on the altar of Iona. This is the only traditional link between the Columban Church and the Roman see, and a very fragile one it is. It rests on no reliable authority, and may be attributed to the mediaeval chronicler's desire to establish a connection between Rome and lona.^ The pastoral staff which Columba gave to Kentigern found its way to St. Wilfrid's, Ripon, where Fordun says it was venerated down to his time — the end of the fourteenth century. A crozier or staff of Columba (could it have been the staff he received from Kentigern ?) was borne in battle by the men of Alba in the tenth century, just as the Irish carried his Psalter, "the Battler," to fields of battle so late as 1497. Another relic, better known in Scottish history, was the Brecbennoch, which Reeves says was a banner or standard in some way connected with St. Columba's history by use and blessing. Dr. Joseph Anderson ^ states that it was a shrine of brass with the relics of the saint enclosed, and he is disposed to identify it with the 1 See the Irish Liber Hymnorum, ^ See Scot, in Early Christian part ii. p. 202; Adam., Ixxxv. Times, i. 241 seq. 8o HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. reliquary of Monymusk, a dependent house of the great abbey of Arbroath, to whose custody King William the Lion had committed the Brecbennoch. The literary relics of Columba have probably a better claim to our regard. Of his industry we are assured on the authority of Adamnan in a passage already quoted — that he was always reading, writing, or praying. The Book of Kells is attributed to his pen, and on better aiithority the Book of Durrow. The only other transcript that can be ascribed with any probability to Columba is the famous Psalter, and of this Dr. Reeves remarks that " it is questionable whether the writing of the MS. be as old as St. Columba's age, though its claim to be considered his handwriting derives some weight from the great venera tion in which it was formerly held." ^ Of original com positions three existing hymns have some claim to be credited as Columba's, — the " Alius Prosator" " In Te Christe,'' and " Noli Pater!' Two accounts are given of the origin of the Altus ; the one that it was written in the Black Church of Derry, as an act of penance for the three battles of which the author had been the occasion in Ireland, and the other that it was composed extempor aneously in Iona. The hymn is of undoubted antiquity, and quotes from a version of the Scriptures older than the Vulgate of St. Jerome. Its recital was rewarded v/ith special mercies, and among others the recovery of the sick. The In Te Christe is said to have been written in Iona in the reign of king Aidan to supply the defects of the Altus, in so far as that hymn had failed to praise God in His own essence and attributes. The Noli Pater was written at the same time and place as the second hymn, and is a brief prayer to the Divine Father for protection. I Adam., p. Ixxxvi., and Dr. Jos. Anderson's Scot, in Early Christian Times, i. 147. IV ST. COLUMBA'S DEATH AND CHARACTER 8 I Of the three hymns, the Altus is the longest and most ambitious work, having a stanza of six lines for each letter of the alphabet. The following spirited paraphrase, though somewhat loose as a translation, is given of the closing lines of the Altus : " Time runs his course no more : the wandering orbs Through heaven lose their course ; the sun grows dark, Eclipsed by the glory of the Judge. The stars drop down, as, in a tempest fruit Is shakeii from the tree : and all the earth Like one vast furnace is involved in flames. See ! the angelic host attend the Judge, And on ten thousand harps His praises hymn, Their crowns they cast before His feet, and sing, — ' Worthy the Lamb that died to be the Judge ! To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be praise.' " i St. Columba died on Sunday morning, the 9th of June 597, in the 76th year of his age. With his life there closed the noblest missionary career ever accomplished in Britain. Monk and missioner, organiser and administrator, his character was many-sided. Not one element, but several elements combined, made him the moral power that he was while he lived, and his memory a tower of strength when he died. For a missionary of Christ personal piety is the corner-stone, and it was well and truly laid in the roots of Columba's early Hfe. '' Little Colum of the Church," his youthful companions called him, from their observance of his devotional ways. And the child was father of the man. Nothing but single-minded devotion to the one cause to which he had early pledged his life could have sustained him through so many toilsome years. 1 From Life of St. Columba, by lated and annotated with much anti- Dr. John Smith, Minister of Camp- quarian pains by the late Dr. Todd beltown; Edinburgh, 1798. Ap- 'ixv Ih^ Liber Hymnorum, ^!).x\.\:\.,^\^- pendix, p. 137 seq. lished by the Irish Archseological The three hymns have been trans- Society, 1869. G 82 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. In addition to his rare missionary zeal he was endowed with intellectual gifts which made one of his masters predict a great future for him. He was also a born ruler of men, and, like the most successful missionaries of modern times, could adapt himself to any circumstances, and his hands to any service. He could plan a monastery, build a cell, bale a boat, and steer it with a sailor's skill, with the same facility that he could illuminate a psalter or sing his daily office. He was also singularly indus trious, and so confirmed was his habit of application that Adamnan says he could not spend the space of one hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or some other useful work. When absent from his monastery, he went about continually doing good. To tend the sick, relieve the poor, comfort the affiicted, restore the penitent, rebuke the evil-doer, and baptize the convert, was the daily occupation of his life. The number of churches dedicated in his name, both among the Scots and the Picts, shows how widely the ven eration of the saint was extended in his adopted country. Dr. Reeves 1 gives a catalogue of thirty-two foundations among the Scots, and twenty-one among the Picts, but the list is not exhaustive. The majority of the churches among the former are situated in the Western Isles, extending as far as the Hebrides and even to the distant St. Kilda. A few are on the mainland of Argyll, and two at the mouth of the Clyde, Largs and Kilmacolm. Among the Picts, the Columban churches extend from Sanday Island in the Orkneys to Inch Colm in the Forth. The chief of the Pictish foundations was at Dunkeld, and Columba himself was its founder and patron. In the ninth century, when the Danish descents on Iona made an inland retreat necessary, Dunkeld was chosen as the I See Introduction to Adamnan, p. Ix. seq. IV DEDICATIONS TO ST. COLUMBA 83 second home of the Columban brotherhood. When the Pictish nation yielded to the Scotic rule, Kenneth M'Alpine refounded the monastic church there, and made it the representative institution of the order for the united nation. A portion of the saint's relics, real or alleged, were deposited in the site, and from that day Iona continued to decline, and Dunkeld to rise in importance.^ Even had the piratical Norsemen not come to harry the island and murder its monks, Iona must have declined in influence with the extension of the Scotic kingdom and the union of Scots and Picts into one nation. ^ Reeves, Introduction to Adamnan, p. Ixx. CHAPTER V THE GOVERNMENT OF IONA AND THE LIFE AND CON STITUTION OF THE COLUMBAN COMMUNITIES Columba's life belongs to the period of Irish Church history known as the Second Order of Saints. His own name and those of the Brendans, Comgall, and Cainnech appear in the roll of its worthies. One object of this order was to develop a native Celtic ministry more national in spirit than the First Order under St. Patrick, which is said to have comprised among its members, besides Britons like Patrick himself, Franks, Romans, and even Egyptians. Hence the communities of Columba were in their origin thoroughly Irish, the majority of the members being Irish Scots with a mixture of Irish Picts. Another feature of this order was its severely monastic character. If it was intensely missionary, it was no less severely monastic.^ Its missions were not isolated out posts in the wilderness, as so many of our foreign missions are at the present day, but connected portions of a living organisation. The Columban missions carried " the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion " from a strong centre, and that centre was the monastery. The Second Order was also marked by the predominance of presbyters. Of these it had many ; of bishops it had but few, as compared with the number in St. Patrick's day. I Prof. Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, p. iii. ' MAP I fUuBtcatLn^ Bastorr of MONASTIC CHURCH ^W CHAP. V CELTIC MONASTICISM 85 And it has been remarked ^ as a singular fact that many of the monastic churches, which grew in after times to be bishops' sees, were founded by presbyters. Dr. Reeves gives seven of these in Ireland ; and two of the seven, Derry and Raphoe, were founded by Columba. His own Iona, also, came to be the seat of the bishopric of the Isles. The election to the abbotship of the monastery followed the same rule as obtained in the election to the headship of the tribe. That headship always remained in the first chiefs family, though it was elective as to the particular member to be chosen. The Church so far accommodated itself to the social institutions of the tribe. The head of the monastery was chosen from the family of the founder, who in some instances was also the chief of the tribe. St. Columba as the founder of Iona became its patron, and the rule of succession was duly observed there. The first nine abbots, up to Adamnan, were all his blood relations. This somewhat exclusive system was expressed in the adage of that day, " though he were but a psalm singer, if he were fit, he should have it." The tribal tie was strong in Celtic monasticism. The tribe provided abbots for government, and the monastery became a home for many of the founder's kin. But there was no lineal succession in Iona as there came to be in many of the Irish houses, where secular influence made the office of abbot hereditary, not only in the tribe but in the abbot's own lineage, and so far frustrated the founder's intentions by the extinction of the conventual observance. Adamnan says nothing of any " rule " of the Columban community, and it is doubtful whether Columba or his Irish contemporaries framed any code of discipline for their " families " such as St. Benedict enjoined upon his order, or Columbanus in a still more severe form upon I Reeves, Adatnnan, Introduction, p. c. 86 . HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the brethren under him. Wilfrid, at the Conference of Whitby, spoke of the regula ac precepta of Columba, but nothing like a written rule of life is known to have existed in lona.^ It is probable that the customary canonical hours were observed, though even as to this Adamnan is silent. He tells us of Columba's singing vespers under the walls of king Brude's fort, and we read in his pages of several services following at intervals in the oratory of Iona on the eve of the saint's death. The monastic system of Iona, though sufficiently strict to favour devotion and discipline, was probably less rigid than the Benedictine rule which early spread over Christendom. The Iona brotherhood were not mere recluses seeking a shelter from the stress of life and the temptations of the world, but a Christian community banded together for the extension of Christ's kingdom among the nations. They were, in their own language, " militia of Christ," pledged " athletes," vowed to a life's warfare against sin and ignorance. In Highland glens, and on lonely islands, where they established their humble missions, they stood as sentries for Christ for many a long night " until the day dawned " and pagan shadows fled away. This missionary feature specially distinguishes the Columban foundations from some monasteries of the same period in other countries, and from those which followed in our own. The head of the brotherhood was known as abbot, or father (the old Abba of the Hebrews), and the brethren were, in the Gaelic tongue, his muintir or family. Whether in the parent monastery, or in similar houses springing from and subordinate to it, they were all re garded as one family under one head. Columba, as the founder of both monasteries and churches, became their 1 Reeves, Adamnan, p. cii. v AUTHORITY OF THE ABBOT 87 patron and exercised jurisdiction over them. This he did in the case of his own foundations and of those founded by disciples responsible to him. There thus accrued to him an extensive " parochia," as the sphere of abbatial authority was called, both in Scotland and Ireland. Some historians have applied the word primacy to Columba's jurisdiction and designated him the primate of the Scotic or Celtic Church. He certainly exercised a substantial authority over monasteries and over churches which were their missions, but to import into the monastic relations of the sixth century an ecclesiastical term which was not known, in its technical sense, to the Scottish Church until the fifteenth, is at least an anachronism and calculated to make confusion. It should be borne in mind that Iona and its dependencies were fashioned upon Irish models, — that it was a missionary outpost of the Irish Church. The solution of the question as to abbatial jurisdiction is, therefore, to be sought in the contemporary ecclesiastical history of Ireland. The abbot was generally a presbyter ; sometimes, but more rarely, a bishop ; but whether bishop or presbyter, it was as abbot that he ruled his monastery and its dependent missions. The qualification for the office was admini strative capacity, not ecclesiastical rank. If a bishop were thus qualified he might be chosen abbot, but his episcopal status gave him no claim to the office. It must also be remembered that diocesan bishops did not then exist ; the only bishops, and they were many, were tribal bishops, that is, bishops to a tribe or clan, not bishops of a district or diocese. There were no territorial bishops till a much later day.^ An abbot, therefore, had none to oversee or overrule him : he was practically supreme 1 In the LeabharBreac or Speckled St. Columba, composed in the tenth Book, in which the Old Irish Life of century, is preserved, the duties of a 88 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and independent within his own sphere. And even if a bishop lived in a monastery, as sometimes he did for the purposes of ordination and other purely episcopal functions, he was, no less than others, subordinate to the abbot while living under his rule. Such was the practice of the monastic Celtic Church. It was not so, as Bede tells us,^ with the Roman mission in the east of England. He regarded the Celtic custom of the bishop being subject to a presbyter-abbot within the monastery as " an unusual arrangement " — more inusitato. Unusual among the missions of the Roman obedience it may have been, though the case must have been familiar to Bede of a bishop being subject even to an abbess within the mon astery. The custom was not by any means unusual in the Celtic Church of this age, either in Britain or in Ireland. The Celtic Church discriminated between the powers of ordination and of jurisdiction. The former, so far as history shows, was regarded by them as the distinct pre rogative of the episcopal office. It was of the essence of that office ; and there is not a solitary instance on record of ordination by a presbyter or presbyters. Jurisdiction among the Celts belonged to a separate sphere, and might or might not be conjoined with the office of bishop. It is, on the other hand,- perfectly certain that there was nothing in the Celtic episcopate resembling the autocratic powers and lordly authority of the later mediaeval bishops. The first bishops with whom Scotland was familiar were simple-minded, earnest men, sometimes devout recluses, more often ardent missionaries, spending and being spent bishop are defined to be, "for ordain- their children after baptism, for ing ecclesiastics and for consecrating directing the labours of every church, churches ; for spiritual direction to and boys and girls to reading and princes, superiors, and advanced per- piety." sons; for hallowing and blessing ^E.LL, iii. 4. V POSITION OF BISHOP AND ABBOT 89 in the conversion of heathen people. Columba's bishops were all men of this stamp, and he had been intimate with many of them, from the first bishop, whose instructions he received as a Donegal boy, to the Irish bishops of a later day who visited him at Iona and Hinba. Dr. Reeves has summarised the evidence under this head from the pages of Adamnan : " The great founder set the example of veneration for the episcopate, and, as the ninth presbyter- abbot relates, in the service of his own mother Church (Iona) and from the altar, disclaimed all pretensions to equality with one of episcopal rank. This was no more than was to be expected from a presbyter who had served as a deacon in a monastery where presbyters, called from their chief function ininistri altaris, lived under the presidency of a bishop, one who received the hospitality of another bishop, one who instituted a feast in memory of a bishop who was his cams amicus, and whose own institution was frequented by bishops from Ireland for communion and edification." ^ Dr. Skene, whose moderation was as well known as his knowledge of Celtic literature was un doubted, remarks that " the distinction in order between the bishop and the presbyter seems to have been preserved throughout, though their relation to each other, in respect to numbers and jurisdiction, varied at different periods." And, again, of the Scotic Church he says: " Like the Irish Church it was essentially a monastic church, and also like it we find neither a territorial episcopacy nor anything like presbyterian parity, but the same anomalous position of the episcopal order. The bishops were under the monastic rule, and as such were, in respect of jurisdic tion, subject to the abbot, even though a presbyter, as the head of the monastery; but the episcopal orders were 1 References are given for each of in Adamnan. See Reeves, Intro- these statements to the several chapters duction, p. cv. 90 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. fully recognised as constituting a grade superior to that of presbyters, and the functions which, by the general law of the Church, were the exclusive privilege of the episcopate, were not interfered with." ^ Modern instances are not awanting which afford an illustration of this Celtic usage. As has been often pointed out, a bishop holding a canonry in our cathedrals would, as a member of the chapter, be subject to the dean, and so far, as canon, he would hold a subordinate place.^ Or, if he accepted a professorship in a university, he would in the same manner be subject to its provost or chancellor, even though he were a layman. The well-known story of the visit to Iona of Cronan, an Irish bishop from Munster, may here be told as a confirma tion of Columba's regard for the episcopal office. Believing Cronan to be a presbyter, Columba invited him, according to custom, to assist in the consecration of the Eucharist, that " as two presbyters they might break the bread of the Lord together." But on discovering Cronan's office, Columba thus addressed him : " Christ bless thee, brother, do thou break the bread alone according to the episcopal rite, for I know now that thou art a bishop. Why hast thou dis guised thyself so long, and prevented our giving thee the honour we owe to thee ? " ^ An ordination on the island of Tiree is recorded by Adamnan which throws a sidelight on the same subject. Findchan presided over the monas tery at Artchain. He had brought with him from Ireland a man named Aedh the Black, related to the kings of the Dalaradian Picts in Ulster. Aedh was an unpromising candidate for the priesthood, stained as he was " with the 1 Celtic Scot., vol. ii. pp. 14 and several of the later cathedral chapters 94. The question is very ably and in Scotland. fairly discussed by Dr. Grub at some ^ Reeves, Adam., i. 35 and note p. length in his Eccles. Hist., chapters 263; Grub, i. 157; Bright's Early X. and xi. Eng. Ch.Hist.,p. 142; Skene's C.S., - This was actually the case in ii. 95 ; Todd's St. Patrick, p. 6. V POWERS OF THE ABBOT IN IONA 9 1 murder of the king of all Scotia " (Ireland). But after a professed penitential residence for some time in Tiree, Findchan invited a bishop to ordain him.^ " He would not, however, venture to lay a hand upon his head unless Findchan, who was greatly attached to Aedh in a carnal way, should first place his right hand on his head as a mark of approval." The concurrence of the abbot was customary in ordinations within the monastery to signify his approval of and authority for the ordination. The action of the presbyter was no less in accordance with apostolic custom — " with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." Columba denounced the ordination, and predicted a bad end to both Findchan and Aehd, which, Adamnan is careful to say, came true in both cases. The bishop alone escapes the abbot's censure, as there was nothing irregular in his action.^ The abbot's powers were supreme over all persons within the monastery, whether brethren or strangers, and similarly over all monastic institutions and missions that owned Iona as their metropolis. The government was a type of patriarchal despotism, necessary in that day, and blessed in its results, tempered as it was by brotherly kindness, and leavened with the spirit of the evangel. The abbot could institute a festival, appoint a holiday, enjoin a special celebration of the Eucharist. On fitting occasions he would dispense with a fast, relax penitential discipline, or regulate its severity. None of the brethren could leave the island without his permission, and no stranger was at liberty to land but with his pleasure. For monastic service of any kind, or for missions however distant, the brethren were always at his disposal wherever 1 This bishop was evidently ^ Reeves, Adam. , i. 29 ; Skene's brought to the monastery ("accito C. S., ii. 94; Todd's St. Patrick, episcopo ") for the purpose of ordina- p. 8. tion. 92 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. he might send them. The principle of obedience, which was the essence of monasticism, made the brethren sub missive to the rule of the one will. We read of monks preparing on the shortest notice for a long and wearisome journey, for a distant and perilous voyage, or for service that necessitated exposure in the most inclement weather. Poverty was also professed as a principle of the order, in Iona as elsewhere. The brotherhood had, in the evan gelical sense, all things in common. Personal property was disclaimed in accordance with Columba's rule, " Be always naked in imitation of Christ, and in obedience to the precepts of the Gospel." Celibacy was also strictly en joined on the Columban community. This has been some times disputed, but on no sufficient grounds. The spirit of monasticism demanded this as one of its three essentials everywhere, and there is no evidence that a different custom obtained in the Celtic monasteries. The secular clergy were at liberty to marry ; but to priests under monastic vows, known afterwards as Regulars, marriage was everywhere forbidden. It is even doubtful whether there was a woman in Iona in the time of Columba, or of his successors for many years. An island named " Eilean- nam-ban," the women's isle, opposite Iona, on the shore of Mull, is said to have been the abode of the wives of tradesmen who were from time to time employed on the monastery. There is a story, erroneously attributed to Columba, that he forbade cows to be imported on the island upon the plea that " where there was a cow there would be a woman, and where there was a woman there would be strife." But there were cows in Iona as well as the byre and dairy, and the milking was done by the monks, as Adamnan in one case relates. It was no more singular for monks to milk cows than to bake their own bread or cook their own meals, and we know they did both. The V MONASTIC LIFE IN IONA 93 inference from cows to women, and from women to married monks, is much too sweeping. Between the abbot and his " family " there was no restraint of intercourse, though it was characterised by a degree of deference on the part of the brethren that would in the present day savour of humiliation. Even visitors bent the knee before the abbot, and in the same attitude the members appeared before any superior to express their wishes. Hospitality was a leading feature in the old monasteries, and in Iona it was dispensed with national generosity. A large portion of Adamnan's anecdotes have reference to the exercise of hospitality to strangers, including the stranger crane from Ireland that alighted exhausted on Iona. The bird was, by the abbot's orders, hospitably entertained for three days, until it recruited its strength ; for it came, as Columba re minded the attendant, " from that pleasant part of Scotia (Ireland) which is our own native land." A stranger arriving on the island was sometimes introduced at once to the abbot, and welcomed with a kiss ; at other times the interview was deferred. If the guest was expected, the abbot and brethren went to the port to meet him, and he was led first to the oratory, where thanks were offered for his safety, and afterwards to the refectory. If it were an ordinary fast-day, there was a relaxation of the fast in his favour, and more substantial fare was provided. Almsgiving to the poor, and medicine to the sick were administered by the brethren, but the professional mendi cant, known by his wallet, even in those primitive times, was not made welcome on the island. No more were criminal oftenders, one of whom upon landing from Mull was met by the abbot, and severely forbidden to set a foot upon Iona, though he expressed penitence and a desire to submit to discipline. 94 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap As regards divine worship, the divisions of the Christian year were observed. We read of Christmas and Easter, Sundays and saints' days, fast and festival. Their days were distinguished as ordinary and solemn, the latter including all Sundays (the Lord's Day, as Adamnan invariably writes it), the greater festivals, and saints' days. The chief service was the Holy Eucharist, or the sacred mysteries, as it was termed. The festival began by a preparatory service on the eve preceding the day. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the deacon prepared the bread, and the wine and water for the mixed chalice, and the presbyter (Adamnan's word for the celebrant) stood before the altar, and consecrated the sacrament. When several presbyters were present, one was selected as celebrant, with power to invite a fellow-presbyter to break the Lord's bread together in token of their equality. When a bishop officiated, he broke the bread alone, episcopali ritu, in token of his superior office, as reported in the case of bishop Cronan. The brethren then approached the altar and were communicated.^ The monks were summoned to their devotions by sound of the monastery bell, and we read in Adamnan of calls of emergency even in the dead of night, when the abbot would address them in the oratory, and having asked their prayers, would kneel down himself at the altar and sometimes pray with tears. Private devotion was much practised and encouraged by the example of the abbot, who would rise on a winter night and retire to the oratory or to some more secluded place for prayer. " Never less alone than when alone," was the devotional 1 It has been suggested that the extremely improbable, and could not phrase of the presbyters breaking the in any proper sense have been re- bread together refers rather to the garded as the scriptural breaking of act of distributing the sacred elements the bread. The usage is peculiar and to the communicants than to the points to a custom of concelebration. consecration itself. But this is See Bright's Early Eng. Ch., p. 142. V OBSERVANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN YEAR 95 maxim of these good men who " practised the presence of God." Christmas was duly observed in the Celtic Church, but the chief festival of the year was Easter {paschalis solemnitas), which was solemnised with Eucharists, as the day of the holiest joy. Preparation was made for it by a strict observance of the Lenten fast preceding. Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, except between Easter and Whitsunday, were also observed as fasting days, when no food was taken until the evening. The forty days after Easter, known as paschales dies, was the season of the greatest relaxation during the year. Reference will be made to the Easter controversy when it opens between the Celtic and Roman Missions in England. It is sufficient to observe here that the Celtic Church both in Britain and in Ireland kept Easter according to the older cycle, which varied occasionally as much as a month from the Alexandrian cycle accepted by the Continental churches; Rome included. The sacrament of baptism was administered to con verts, sometimes to whole families, at other times to individuals a little before death. In the case of adults, the sacrament was preceded by instruction in the Christian faith. When parents were converted and baptized, the baptism of their children, including the youngest, followed immediately after. The mission work of Columba and his brethren dealt with the people family by family. There appears in the biography nothing like mission preaching on a large scale, or indeed on any scale at all. It was mission teaching rather than public preaching that prepared the people for Christian baptism and the Christian life that was expected to follow. This meant a division of labour and the multiplying of many mission aries necessary for the scattered population of that age. 66 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The individual treatment appears again in the dealing with penitents. Persons falling from grace into deadly sin did public penance on their knees and made promise of amendment. On these occasions the abbot either absolved them as they knelt, or imposed a more lengthened discipline. The tenderness of Columba to penitents often found edifying expression, as in the case of Feachina, who came from Ireland to do penance and make sub mission to the abbot in Iona. Feachina fell on his knees and confessed his sins as he wept in the presence of the brethren. Columba wept with him. " Arise, my son," he said, " and be comforted. The sins that thou hast committed are forgiven thee, because it is written, ' a broken and contrite heart God does not despise.' " The abbot's discipline among the brethren was of the strictest order. Sometimes it involved banishment of the penitent for years to a prescribed station and service, in other cases perpetual exile. The burial of the dead was a religious office performed with all solemnity and with a lively faith in the resurrection. The day of dissolution was regarded as the birthday {dies natalis) into the better life. The body was laid out in the cell, wrapped in linen, during three days and nights of the obsequies in which the praises of God were sung. It was then carried to the grave and religiously buried. The tonsure and the cowl were the two symbols of the monk's profession, the one meant to bare his head, or part of it, and the other to cover it. From the days of the Hebrew Nazarites to those of the Christian monks the clothing or unclothing of the head has been a badge of religious vows. The Nazarite touched no razor, the monks took an opposite method to express personal dedication of the life. But where the Nazarites agreed, the monks differed. The tonsure which was the badge V THE CELTIC TONSURE, AND THE CROSS 97 of devotion became the apple of discord. The Greek tonsure was total and was called after St. Paul, because the Apostle, on one occasion recorded, shaved his head after a religious vow. The Roman tonsure, known as St. Peter's, was coronal, a circle shaved on the crown of the head, in supposed resemblance to the crown of thorns. The Celtic tonsure differed from both. The fore part of the head was bared in the shape of a crescent from ear to ear. This was the usage of St. Patrick's time, and it was continued under St. Columba. It was one of the customs attacked by the Roman missionaries when Roman and Celt conflicted in Northumbria. The Celtic Easter and the Celtic tonsure were alike odious in the eyes of Italian missionaries. To make the native tonsure more opprobrious it was stigmatised by them as the tonsure of Simon Magus. His name has been given very appropriately to the ecclesiastical crime of Simony, but it was a stretch of the Southern imagination to associate him with the tonsure in any shape. It was obviously a question in which there could be neither a right nor a wrong, being intrinsically a matter of discipline, and nothing more. But the Celts stuck with true Celtic tenacity to their national customs very much because they were Celtic. Not until 716 did they accept the Catholic Easter, and two years afterwards the coronal tonsure was also adopted by the monks of Iona. The sign of the cross was in common use among the brethren. This is one of several indications of the com plete accord, even in outward details, between the early Christianity of these islands and the same as professed by other Christian communities. Tertullian, the Latin father, relates how common the sign of the cross was in the daily affairs of life among the Christians of North Africa in the end of the second century when he wrote. The same H 98 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. custom is frequently mentioned by other Christian writers of a later date. In Iona, Adamnan tells that before milking they crossed the milk pail, before using tools they made the sign of the cross upon them, and they erected their sail yards in the shape of a cross. The employments of the community were necessarily various. Different members had different duties assigned according to their age and office. There were the senior brothers who were responsible for the frequent services of the Church, and who were otherwise engaged in literary work, — in reading, in the copying of Gospels and Psalters for the various mission churches, and in teaching the students, t\\ejuniores or " scolocs " who always formed a wing, and not the least important wing, of a Celtic monastery. The monastery was, and the fact bears repetition, both the school and university of that day, the Alma Mater not only of religion, but of the arts and of Hterature. Next, there were the working brothers {operarit) ; for it was the monks who first exemplified the maxim, laborare est orare, " work is worship," when the work is well done. The third class were the scholars, the majority of them being educated and trained for mission work among the Scots and Picts. The chief subject of study, as well of the abbot as of the youngest members, was the Holy Scriptures. Adamnan's narrative shows how familiar Columba was with his Bible, and how ready to quote it in season. Bede ^ also informs us that they received those writings only which were written in the Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles. Copies of the Old and New Testaments were suspended on the wall in leathern satchels ready for use in the oratory, or to be carried by the missioner on his journeys. The members also read literary and ecclesi- 1 E. H, iii. 4. V MULTIFARIOUS WORK OF THE MONKS 99 astical treatises in the Greek and Latin languages. Adamnan was, besides, familiar with Hebrew ; and his ability and learning, though probably exceptional even in an abbot, is proof that Iona was not the home of unlettered ease. Writing or copying of manuscripts formed no inconsiderable part of the literary work of the brothers, just as a printing press does, for a like reason, in a well-equipped foreign mission at the present day. Columba himself was much devoted to this exercise ; it was a passion with him from his youth, and the last occupation of his life was on an unfinished psalter. Some of the manuscripts may have been written plainly, but much pains were spent on the embellishment of others. The extant Books of Kells and of Durrow are monuments of the skill and taste of the Columban scribes in the seventh century. The working brothers had their turns of carpentery and cooking indoors, alternated with sowing, reaping, and threshing the corn for the monastery. We read of a smith, a cook, and a baker (the baker was a Saxon in the time of Columba), and it is likely that any special gift, even for cooking, would find its appropriate sphere. Self-reliant, and independent of the outside world, was the community of Iona. The brethren are said to have numbered a hundred and fifty, and it would have been a problem of agricultural economy to say how the little island was able to support them all, had we not learnt that Tiree, which was a Christian foundation before Columba's day, became " the land of corn " to Iona. One object of the monks' life was to exemplify plain living with hardy industry and independence. And so these monks of old tilled their own fields, reaped their own corn, ground their own meal, baked their own bread, boiled their own mutton, and caught and cooked their own fish. IOO HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Whether they also carded and span the wool of the Iona sheep for their cowls and tunics is not written, but the tailor finds no place in Adamnan's pages. The insular position of Iona also called for special qualifications. Visitors to Venice are at first surprised with the fact that when they would step over the door, it is into the water, or into a gondola. A resident on Iona soon discovers that he cannot go far without meeting the sea. The brethren of the monastery had much if not daily intercourse with the outer world. Their missions required it, the visits of strangers, both rich and poor, frequently called for it, were it only to ferry them across the Sound of Iona. The monks, therefore, required to be sailors, and sailors of no mean capacity and courage. They must all have been familiar with the sailing and management of boats, for fishing alternated with farming among the daily industries of the monastery, as it does still with the Highland crofters by the sea. And it is surprising how far they sailed in boats which at the best must have been frail crafts on waters so often stormy. The stories of Cormac who thrice sought " a desert," that is, an island hermitage, in the pathless sea, and of Brendan's seven years' voyage, were among the most popular tales of the middle ages.^ Orkney and Faroe and Iceland saw the boats of the Iona missionaries tossing upon their stormy seas. Bells and books and other relics of the Columban mission were found in Iceland when the Norseman first took possession of it. The boats of Iona were of various sizes, from the portable skiff for crossing rivers and inland lochs, to the larger craft furnished with masts, and capable of being propelled by both sails and oars. Adamnan gives nine or ten different names for so many 1 Skene's C. S., ii. 76. V DOMESTIC AND DEVOTIONAL LIFE IGI different shapes and sizes of boats, all made of wood, or of wicker-work covered with hides. The ordinary food of the monastery was simple, consisting of bread and barley bannocks, milk, fish, and eggs, and probably seal's flesh. On Sundays and other festivals, and on the arrival of guests, there was an addition to the common fare in the shape of mutton, and more rarely of beef. The usual garments were a cloak which had a hood attached, made of wool in its natural colour, and the tunic, an under garment which was occasionally white. When working or travelling, the monks wore sandals, and the Irish Life tells, as an instance of Columba's humility, how he used to take off the brethren's sandals and wash them. They slept in narrow beds in their cells, each bed being provided with a pallet of straw and a coverlet, which was probably used only in winter, as the monks slept in their clothes ; and Adamnan says that Columba's bed was a bare flag of stone, with a hide interposed, as suggested by Colgan.-' Brethren who desired to follow a more ascetic life than was afforded within the community withdrew to a solitary place on the low ground near the shore, the bay of which went by the name of Port-an-Diseart, or bay of the hermitage. Later acquisitions of islands and other lands gave the monks a wider selection for the exercise of solitary devotion. Islands on inland lochs became the favourite abodes of these devout recluses who have left their names behind them in many parts of the country, west and east, as St. Fillan's on Loch Shiel and St. Serf's on Loch Leven. In spiritual jurisdiction, the Co-arb, or successor of St. Columba in Iona, was supreme over all the monasteries and missions founded in Britain by the Columban order, 1 Reeves, Adam., p. 238. I02 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and over the earlier foundations in Ireland. The list of these houses, so far as known, includes twenty-one among the Picts, thirty-two among the Scots, and thirty-seven in Ireland, — in all ninety religious foundations. " Parochia," in monastic language, expressed the sphere of the patron's authority. The parochia of the abbots of Iona must there fore at one time have been very extensive. Cogitosus says of St. Bride, that her parochia extended over the whole of Ireland, which means that there were religious houses in all parts of the island subject to her authority. Those of St. Brendan and St. Ciaran were nearly as extensive. They must have overlapped each other as to districts, and this is another proof among many that anything like territorial jurisdiction was unknown in the Celtic Church. From parochia we get our modern " parish," considerably shorn of its dimensions. The history of this word alone offers a caution to students not to be misled by bare technical terms, civil or ecclesiastical. Many of our polemical controversies in church history (notably those covered by the words parish and diocese, and by bishop and presbyter) have sprung from forgetfulness of this. From the use of parochia in its larger monastic meaning we may trace its appropriation to the diocese of a bishop. In 1179 it is used as synonymous with diocesis and is applied to the bishopric of Glasgow.^ The word soon after came to be applied in Scotland, though not exclusively, to the district of the baptismal or mother Church. In the thirteenth century the words parish and parishioners were being used very much in their modern sense. The church of Jedburgh, for example, is called in I26g parochialis ecclesia? "Diocese" has had an equally varied history. It denoted at first one of the four civil ' See Register of Glasgow. 2 See Cos. Innes, Sketches Early Scot. Hist., pp. 2 and 3. V " PARISH " AND " DIOCESE " 103 divisions of the Roman empire under Diocletian, and the ruler of this secular diocese was the pretorian prefect.^ From the Roman state it was imported into the Catholic Church on the Continent, just as we find the Celtic Church borrowing the ways and usages of government from the tribal system in Ireland. When Norman feudalism was extended to Scotland, the Celtic Church had but a name to live. It was in its decrepitude, dormant if not dead ; and tribal episcopacy easily gave way to territorial episcopacy, modelled upon the feudal system. Before this change was effected, the authority of Iona, which had been slowly waning for two centuries, had almost disappeared. The incursions and ravages of the Danes in the ninth century had something to do with its decline ; the earlier expulsion of the Columban clergy from his dominions by king Nectan in the eighth century must also have weakened its influence. When the country became afterwards divided into dioceses and parishes (they came almost together), the greatness and glory of Iona had already gone. Its surviving rights in temporals and spirituals were narrowed to the adjacent lands of Mull and a few other western isles. On becoming the seat of the bishopric of the Isles, the monastic character of the island merged into the diocesan. Benedictine monks and nuns replaced the fallen brotherhood of Columba, but they failed to impress upon Iona its old character, or to revive its lost spirit and prestige. The old order changed, giving place to the new, but the old order, like the old wine, was better. The hold which St. Columba's name still has in the memory of the Scottish people, after thirteen centuries, is of itself a testimony to the influence which the saint exercised in his own day. Many writers have borne 1 Skene's C. S., i. 96. I04 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. witness to the unique character of the great monk and missionary. Dr. Johnson's words, written on his visit to Iona, are well known and often quoted : " We were now treading that illustrious island whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. . . . Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona." ^ George Chalmers, who did so much for the elucidation of Scottish history, writes with similar appreciation of the genius loci and of the holy men who made the place illustrious. " St. Columba came not to destroy but to save, not to conquer but to civilise. His name will always be remembered as the disinterested benefactor of Scotland. . . . Let us not think lightly of the saints of Iona, who were the instructors of our fathers when they were ignorant, and the moUifiers of our progenitors while they were still ferocious. The learning — I was going to say the charity • — of these ages centred all in Iona. It received the persons of living kings who retired from unstable thrones, and it equally admitted dead kings from the bloody field. From this seminary went out the teachers of the Caledonian regions. To this school the princes of North umbria were sent and acquired the Hght of the gospel from the luminaries of Iona." ^ To these may be added the encomium of a living writer — the Duke of Argyll — who inherits Iona and other islands of the saints : " Columba was an agent, and a principal agent, in one ^ Journey to the Western Islands, ed. 1825, vol. ii. 681. 2 Chalmers's Caledonia, i. 312. V SALIENT FEATURES IN CELTIC CHURCH IO5 of the greatest events the world has ever seen — the conversion of the northern nations. . . . Christianity was not presented to the Picts of Caledonia in alliance with the impressive aspects of Roman civilisation. The tramp of Roman legions had never been heard in the Highland glens, nor had their clans ever seen with awe the majesty and power of Roman government. In the days of Columba, whatever tidings may have reached the Picts of Argyll or of Inverness must have been tidings of Christian disaster and defeat. All the more must we be ready to believe that the man who at such a time planted Christianity successfully among them must have been a man of powerful character and splendid gifts." ^ Reviewing the Celtic Church down to the period of St. Columba's death at the close of the sixth century, a few salient features stand out distinct and clear. The Church was episcopal, though its bishops were tribal and not territorial bishops. The Christian ministry comprised the three orders of bishop, priest or presbyter, and deacon, and the power of ordination was, in every case that is recorded, exercised by the bishop. The distinction between the three orders was as definitely marked in the Celtic Church as it still is in the branches of the Catholic Church that are episcopal in government, but the power of ordination and the authority to rule were not ordi narily combined. The seasons of the Christian year were also known and observed, from Christmas to Whitsun day ; and the special joy of Easter and the Easter-tide is several times recorded. Less stress is laid than might have been expected upon the liturgic character of the service, but there is every probability that in the Colum ban communities a liturgy was in use as it was in the Irish and Galilean Churches of the same period. The 1 Iona, pp. 49, 52, 53. I06 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. service of the altar, as related by Adamnan, suggests an office for the celebration of the Eucharist. It was celebrated every Lord's Day, and on all the chief festivals, as well as on special occasions appointed by the abbot. It is mentioned, for instance, that on the death of St. Columba's great friend Columbanus, a bishop in Leinster, the abbot ordered a celebration which the brethren attended in white robes as on a festival.^ The absence of certain characteristics prominently developed in the mediaeval Church is no less deserving of notice. There is, for example, no acknowledgment of the Roman Church, or of any authority of the bishop of Rome over the Columban Church. The two abbots of Iona who wrote the life of their patron are silent as to any such authority or even connection. Adamnan's knowledge of the Holy Land, of Antioch, and Constanti nople, derived from the shipwrecked French bishop, could not leave him in ignorance as to the city of Rome and its bishops. Twice is Rome mentioned,^ but in both cases it is the Roman civitas and not the Roman ecclesia that Adamnan describes, in its geographical or civil relation to the other states of Europe. In the second passage the Roman city or state {civitas) is the head of all cities or states, but there is nothing of the Roman ecclesia being the head of all churches.^ As a fact of history there was no more communion between the Celtic Church and the see of Rome than there was between Iona and the see of Jerusalem. Again, the Roman mediaeval doctrine of purgatory finds no place among the principles of the Celtic clergy. Not one reference can be found in Adamnan to any thing that is even suggestive of a purgatory. On the ' Adamtian, iii. 13. 2 ];j,i^_^ ;;^ ^^ ^jj^j ;;;^ 24. 3 Burton's Hist. Scot., i. 252. V DOCTRINAL TEACHING OF CELTIC CHURCH 107 contrary, all the allusions to a future life are incompat ible with any such belief. The invocation of saints is supposed to receive some support from two, and only two cases recorded. The first is the saying of St. Columba, when dying, that he would intercede with God on behalf of his brethren ; but that is the promise of a saint's invocation of God, which is quite a different thing. The second case is Adamnan's own. He and the brethren were bringing wood from the river Sale (Shiel) to repair their monastery, and being overtaken by a storm they prayed to St. Columba that they might reach Iona in time to observe his and Baithene's commemoration, which both fell on the same day, the 9th of June. The storm abated and they reached Iona in time for the celebration of the saints' natalis. The favour, it will be observed, was a special one in connection with Columba's memory ; and out of a single instance so recorded it would be difficult to establish a recognised system of invocation. St. Columba had several of his friends who pre- deceased him, good and holy men like the saint himself; and some he commemorated before God in the Eucharist, but in no case is he said to have invoked the saints themselves. The sacramental language recorded by Adamnan has been regarded by some as favouring the doctrine of transubstantiatlon. It is a singular blunder to suppose that a doctrine unknown to Christendom until the ninth century, and then only entertained as a pious opinion by scholars like Paschasius, should have been held by the Celtic Church, and taught in our Highland glens in the sixth and seventh centuries. A little more familiarity with the sacramental teaching of the patristic age would have saved the writers from an anachronism, and the Celtic Church from being charged with a mediiEval I08 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. dogma. The language of Adamnan is no doubt strongly sacramental, but so is the language of the early fathers, and so these fathers believed was the language of St. Paul and of our Lord Himself. In Iona the officiating presbyter was said to celebrate solemnia missarum, the solemnities of the mass,^ and sacra eucharistice mysteria conficere, to consecrate the sacred mysteries of the Eucharist^ and Christi corpus conficere, to consecrate the body of Christ.^ But language to the same effect, and as strongly worded, is common in the Greek and Latin fathers who lived many centuries before the metaphysical dogma of transubstantiation was heard of. And it only shows that the sacramental doctrine of the Celtic Church was one with the Catholic faith of the primitive ages before that faith became Romanised and perverted by the schoolmen.* In another respect the Celtic Church differed materially from mediaeval and modern Romanism, namely, as to the cultus or worship, however modified, of the blessed Virgin. There is not the vestige of any such practice in Adamnan's pages, nor any trace of it in the Columban missions. There is not to be found even the dedication of a single church in St. Mary's name. While St. Bridget or Bride, who has been called the Mary of Ireland, has many dedi cations in her native country, and not a few in Scotland, 1 The term "Missa,'' or mass, edited b.v.Dr. Story, vol. i. p. 143. was originally devoid of doctrinal Anothfc ^r, whose anti-Catholic signi6cance — an ecclesiastical and spirit P^*"^ ^"-ronounced, the late not a theological term. Dr. M ,\Ti\a% Early Scottish 2 Adamnan, i. 32. Churl _ ^ shows a truer pene- 3 Ibid., i. 35, and Reeves's note, tratioi doctrj-0,f A\4amnan's meaning. P- 263. , "The*, ^iiage, " qtjoted above from * For examples of the misinter- ' Adamn'rn, "canijiotbe understood," pretation of Adamnan's language in , he -•enarks, "ai implying that the favour of transubstantiation, see two , ' doctrine of the conversion of the bread authors of opposite schools, viz. Dr. and wine into- the body and blood Bellesheim's History of the (Ro}?ianj\ of Christ as now held by the Church Catholic Church of Scotland, vol. i. i of Rome, was held by the ancient p. 100, and the Church of Scotland, \ Scottish Church." v ABSENCE OF MEDIEVAL CULTS IO9 the blessed Virgin's name is conspicuous by its absence. And whatever other inference may be drawn from that fact, this inference at least is obvious, that modern Romanism, in the fostering of what has been not unjustly described as Mariolatry, has widely diverged from the ancient faith of our Celtic forefathers. CHAPTER VI IRISH MISSIONARIES IN ALBAN (SCOTLAND) AND ON THE CONTINENT IN THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES It was the custom of the Celts to dedicate their churches in the names of local saints, the pious men who first brought the knowledge and blessings of religion amongst them. Some few dedications in Scotland were to the name of the Holy Trinity, such as the early foundation at Scone, and another in Glasgow, where there was a church of that dedication in the days of its first bishop, Kentigern.^ The old Celtic custom has among other benefits kept alive in many places the names of our first religious benefactors ; it has enriched and varied our ecclesiastical history ; and it still offers an additional incentive to the student who values the continuity between the Church's present and past. Some of the Celtic saints and founders of churches have already been noticed in the order of their life and work. Others, who were contemporary with St. Columba, or in proximity to his time, may be briefly mentioned. St. Munna or Mundas, an Irish saint, is said by one account to have visited Iona during Columba's life, and by another, after his death. His principal church in Scotland was Kilmond, now Kilmun, on the shore of the 1 Later dedications to the Holy Trinity were made in Brechin and Dunfermline. CHAP. VI IRISH MISSIONARIES IN WEST COAST I I I Holy Loch in Cowal, where, according to the Breviary of Aberdeen, he was buried in the year 635. Local tradition marks the place of his burial by the name of Sith-Munn, where a half-mark of land was held in virtue of the custody of his staff. Kilmun became a collegiate church in the fifteenth century, and is the burial-place of the ducal family of Argyll. St. Moluoc or Maluog, an Irishman and a bishop, was founder of the church on the island of Lismore, between Oban and Morven, and died, according to the annalist Tighernac, in 592. Lismore means in Gaelic the great garden, so named from its fertility, and Adamnan playfully calls it " Paradisus,'' a western Eden. The island became the site of the cathedral church of Argyll after its separation from Dunkeld, about the year 1200; hence the name of the see — Lismoriensis, The first seat of the bishopric was on the mainland of Argyll, on the south shore of Loch Etive. It was afterwards removed, probably for greater security, to the island of Lismore.-' The church of Rosmarkyn, now Rosemarky, on the northern shore of the Moray Firth, and that of Mortlach in Banffshire, were dedicated in the name of Maluog of Lismore, and were probably founded by him.^ His name is also found in other twelve dedications, chiefly among the Western Isles.^ The Duke of Argyll is now possessor of Lismore, and is the lay representative of St. Moluoc, its bishop, and custodian of his pastoral staff. His Grace also inherits other ecclesiastical possessions on island and mainland, more substantial than the bishop's bachall. Another Irish saint of this age connected with the West of Scotland is St. Marnock. His name, Mo- Ernin-occ, became in Latin Mernocus, and in the vulgar 1 Skene's C. S., ii. 408. ^ g^e Forbes's Kalendars of the 2 Ibid., ii. 135. Saints, sttb voce. I I 2 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. tongue Marnoc. The prefix mo denotes my, and the suffix occ is little, so that the name in full conveyed the twofold expression of affection and familiarity. His death is given in 635, and in his festival for the 25th October in the Aberdeen Breviary he is described as " St. Mernoc, bishop, and confessor, and patron of Kilmernock." The name is preserved in Kilmarnock town, and in the island of Inchmarnock on the western side of Bute. The former was the centre of his episcopal missions, and the latter his devotional retreat. The same saint is probably commemorated in the parish of Marnoch, Banffshire. St. Donnan of Eigg, " cold Eigg " as Angus the Culdee calls it, has already been named in connection with St. Columba, whose disciple he was. Donnan and his whole community of monks, numbering fifty-two, were put to death on the island on Sunday, the 17th April 617, by a band of pirates, possibly Picts, from the neighbouring coast, or by the order of the queen of Eigg, as another record puts it. The massacre of the community, the only martyrs in the Scotic Church, if we believe that they died for their religion, is thus described in the Feilire, a metrical calendar of Angus the Culdee. Donnan and his brethren " took up their abode in a place where the sheep of the queen of the country were kept. This was told to the queen. Let them all be killed, said she. That would not be a religious act, said her people. But they were murderously assailed. At this time the cleric was at mass. Let us have respite till mass is ended, said Donnan. Thou shalt have it, said they. And when it was over they were slain, every one of them." ^ The early British 1 Reeves's ^(/aff?., pp. 294-297; Slcene's C. S., ii. 133; M'Lauchlan's Early Scot. Ch., 202-203. VI ST. DONNAN AND ST. KESSOG I I 3 Church was singularly free from martyrdom. The massacre at Eigg is the only instance recorded in which the Christians suffered at the hands of natives ; and even of St. Donnan and his brethren, it is doubtful whether their death was not rather due to the cupidity of the native princess than to any spirit of intolerance among the people.^ Reeves ^ mentions eleven churches bearing the name of Kildonan in different parts of Scotland. There is a parish of that name in Sutherland, and in it is pointed out the Cathair Donan, or Donnan's seat, where he rested by the way. Another church at Auchterless, a parish in Aberdeenshire, held his name in venera tion, and preserved his pastoral staff, said to have been efficacious for curing fever and jaundice, until it was broken by the reformers. His name is also found as far south as Arran, Ayr, and Wigton, but his principal mission field was in the North Hebrides — Eigg, Tiree, and Uist.^ St. Kessog or Mackessog of Luss, on Loch Lomond side, may be noticed as a missionary of this period, though the legends that survive fail to give any dates of his life. They report him to have been born in Cashel, the capital of Munster, of royal parentage. He lived on the island of Inch-ta-vanach, close by Luss, and devoted his life to evangelising the neighbour hood. A doubtful tradition says that he was a martyr, and that his body, embalmed in herbs, was brought to Luss for burial. The herbs {Luss in Gaelic) germinated and gave the name to the parish. The associations of Kessog with Luss and Loch Lomond are confirmed by so many traditions that his missionary work in the district may be accepted as historical, whatever may be 1 See Bishop Forbes in his Life in the Scotic Church. of St. Kentigern, p. 347, as to there ^ Adam., pp. 296, 297. being no martyrs and many miracles ^ Burton, Hist. Scot., 1. 258 seq. I 114 HISTORY OF the SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. thought of the herbs. Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, granted a charter to John of Luss (i 292-1 3 3 3) " for the reverence and honour of our patron the most holy man, the blessed Kessog." King Robert Bruce in 131 3> a year before Bannockburn, granted to the church of Luss — Deo et beato Kessogo — a sanctuary-girth of three miles, in a charter which is still preserved in the archives of Buchanan Castle. The bell of St. Kessog was held in reverence in the Lennox down to the seventeenth century.-' St. Mirren, Merinus, is the tutelary saint of Paisley, and one of the co-patrons of its later abbey — to St. James and St. Mirren. He was trained under Comgall at the great monastic school of the Irish Bangor, which would fix his date as contemporary with St. Columba or proximate thereto. There is nothing improbable in a colony from Bangor settling in Paisley. The Irish monks of that missionary age went everywhere, preaching the Word. They took possession of every island in the Hebrides, spread themselves over the mainland, and finally in their farthest effort, under Columbanus, carried the message of the Gospel into the heart of Europe. The Breviary of Aberdeen gives Paisley as the place of St. Mirren's life and work, and of his death and burial, where " he slept in the Lord, full of miracles and holiness." According to the pious old chroniclers a man would have been no saint, and probably not even a competent missioner, without miracles ; and not improbably, where no miracles were re ported in the earlier traditions, miracles were made in the later. In the lost Kalendar of Cashel, St. Mirren's name is coupled with that of an unknown St. Tomans (Tomanus) in an entry which associates them both with a church in the British Alcluid, or Dunbarton {in una ecclesia in Britan- ^ Forbes's Kalendars of the Saints, p. 374. VI ST. MIRREN AND ST. MODAN I I 5 nica Alcluidensi), Nor is this the only connection of St. Mirren with the Lennox, which is but a few miles from Paisley. The largest island on Loch Lomond is named Inch Murryn, and the ruins of a chapel are pointed out there, dedicated in his name. The monks of Paisley, of a later day, kept their hereditary hold on the Lennox, and served themselves heirs in various ways to St. Mirren. There are two St. Modans in the list of early Scotic missionaries, the one an abbot and the other a bishop. The former spent his early life among the people by the Forth, " the Scots Water," at what is now Falkirk. Anciently it was known as Eglais Breac, the Speckled Church, and this meaning also underlies Falkirk. The natives of the Carse became imbued by the preacher's doctrine, and edified with his holy ascetic life. In old age, when " worn with excessive labours and divine studies for the salvation of that race," he retired to a more secret spot " near the ocean of Scotia, not far from Dunbertane and Lochgarloch, in a place sequestered from man, near the sea, and surrounded by high mountains." This place was Rosneath, or Ros-neveth, which, according to Dr. Reeves, means the promontory of the sanctuary. There St. Modan died " after many wonderful miracles," and the parochial church of Rosneath was dedicated in his name, and his relics enshrined within its walls. Other places, such as Kilmadan in Argyllshire and the High Church of Stirling, venerated his name. Of the other Modan the Aberdeen Breviary says little beyond associating his memory with Philorth, now Fraserburgh. His name re mains in Auchmedden and in various Pitmeddens of that district; and it is also found at Fintry in Stiriingshire, though the church there was dedicated to St. Giles. St. Molio, or Molaissi, was a pious recluse who spent part of his life on Holy Island (so called from his memory) Il6 HISTORY of THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. on the east of Arran. His name, changed almost beyond recognition, survives in Lamlash, a village in Arran oppo site the little island. On the roof of a cave in the island there is a Runic inscription, attributed to the Norsemen, stating the name and office of the saint, and also faded markings of pilgrim crosses, similar to those in the caves of Fife. The island is termed in the Norse Saga Malassey, or " Molaisse's island." Laise means a flame, and Molaise is affectionately " my Laise." And so Angus the Culdee writes of " Molaise, a flame of fire, with his comely chor isters, abbot of Rathcille, and king of the fire." In origin he was Irish, like most of the Scotic missionaries, and is identified with Molaissi or Laisren, patron of Leighlin. St. Vigean gives his name to a parish near Arbroath. His Irish name was Fechin, and was Latinised into Vi- geanus. He was a Connaught man, and well known in his own country as St. Fechin, abbot of Fobhar in West- meath ; but the traditions in the Irish " Lives " fail to show any connection between him and the east of Scotland. He died in the year 664 of the yellow plague, " the great mortality" which was fatal to many of the people both in Britain and Ireland. Another Vigean, early in the eleventh century, is also claimed as the founder of St. Vigean's church and parish. His name occurs as patron of Ecclefechan, which is called in the old charters " Ecclesia Sancti Fechani." To the Scotic missionaries of the seventh century should be added the name of Nathalan or Nechtan. The Irish Annals record his death in 678, and the Feilire of Angus speaks of him as '' Nechtan from the East, from Alba." He was a missionary bishop on Deeside, reputed to be a scholarly man of much devotion and singular charity to the poor, whom he not only supplied with food during a famine, but with corn-seed for their fields. VI SS. MOLIO, VIGEAN, NETHALAN I I 7 He was buried at Tullich in Aberdeenshire, where there is still on the old kirk lintel an ancient cross incised on a rude granite slab that is supposed to be a memorial of the saint. He was also patron of Meldrum, formerly known as Bothnethalan, the abode of Nethalan, and his memory is said to be preserved among the fishermen of Cowie in Kincardine, in an old-fashioned rhyme.^ Few of our many hundreds of Scottish parishes are without traditions and associations of some local saint to whom the " rude forefathers '' were indebted for their first knowledge of Christianity. Of many of them, little more than the name now lives in the ancient topography. Kilmadoc recalls St. Modoc ; Kilmalie, in Golspie, St. Malie ; and Kilbirnie in Ayrshire, St. Birinnus ; and so with other place-names. But little that is certain is known of them, beyond the fact that they were mostly Irish missionaries imbued with the wonderful zeal of that age for the extension of Christ's kingdom. It is a debt which has been little acknowledged, or even admitted by some of our Church historians. Not only Scotland but Europe owed much of the religion of this period to the devoted bands of Irishmen who left their native monasteries to carry the torch of truth into other lands. Foremost among the Irish missioners who spread Christianity on the Continent were St. Columbanus and his youthful companion St. Gall. In the year 590, twenty-seven years after St. Columba had settled in Iona, Columbanus with twelve Irish disciples crossed over to Britain, and from Britain to the Continent. He was a Leinster man, and had been educated at the Irish Bangor. His monastic rule was of even greater severity than the Benedictine, and it is a peculiar coincidence that the year of Columban's birth, 543, was the year of St. Benedict's ^ For these saints, see Forbes's Kalendars, sub vocibus. 1x8 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. death at Monte Cassino. The leading facts of Columban's life are derived partly from a biography written by the Abbot Jonas, who was his contemporary in the Italian monastery of Bobbio, but chiefly from Columban's own writings. Besides the monastic rule, his works comprised sermons and instructions on Holy Scripture, Latin verses, and five epistles of some historic value. Two of them were addressed to Pope Boniface IV., one to Pope Gregory the Great, one to the members of the Galilean Synod on the vexed question of the Easter cycle ; and another, which is partly biographical, to the monastery of Luxeuil, one of his own foundations. The appearance of the Irish missionaries among the Franks and Burgundians of Gaul is said to have been startling. Columban himself was a man of imposing presence, of great force of character, but not very mild in manner. He and his brethren possessed the rugged eloquence and " perfervid genius " of the Celtic race. Such as they were they left their mark for several generations upon the Christianity of Central Europe.^ Columbanus established himself among the Vosges hills, where he successively founded three monasteries, Anegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines.^ In a few years the Irish missionaries came to be reverenced by men of every class in the Vosges. For twenty years (590-610) they sowed the seeds of education and religion all around their monasteries, until they gathered within their walls many hundreds of the sons of the noblest Franks and Burgundians. " They exercised a strong moral and spiritual fascination over many earnest souls that recognised in Columban a true zealot for Christian strictness, whose passion it was, as Guizot, the historian of French civilisation, expresses it, to cast the divine fire 1 Skene, C, S,, ii. 6. - Milman's Lat. Christ., iii. c. 2. VI IRISH MISSIONS ON THE CONTINENT I 19 abroad on every side ' without troubling himself about the conflagration.' " ^ Yet all this good work was fated to come to an end, so far as it was directed by the personal supervision and energy of Columban. His Celtic temper made him prone to conflict. Not only with the civil powers, such as they were in that day, but with the Galilean clergy, and with two successive popes, Columban had to contend. Celtic ways and usages, their old-fashioned cycle for Easter, and the shape of their tonsure, did not commend them to the pope and the Galilean bishops. In an epistle to pope Boniface IV., Columban defended himself and his order. " We are all of us Irish," he says, " a people that inhabit the ends of the earth, and we receive nothing except the doctrine of the evangelists and apostles.'' He places the Church of Jerusalem above that of Rome, and tells Boniface — " You are almost heavenly, and Rome is the head of the churches of the world, saving the special prerogative of the place of the Lord's Resurrection." He speaks in plain terms to pope Boniface as to what he considered his duty ; and deprecates his making the difference in their customs a ground for breach of com munion. Equally independent was he in his dealings with pope Gregory, whom he exhorts to reconsider the Paschal question, and not to be misled by the ignorance of Galilean bishops, nor to defer unduly to the opinions of Leo or any other of the deceased popes. " Perhaps," he says, " in this case a living dog may be better than a dead lion " (Leo), making a little play upon Leo's name. The Galilean bishops had conformed to what was now the Catholic Easter, and they were not sorry for an excuse to attack Columban on this ground, and to demand his compliance with the church of the country. 1 Bright's Early Eng.'Ch. Hist., p. 100. I 20 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. But compliance and conformity were not in the Celtic character. Columban sent a long epistle to the bishops in synod — he was invited but refused to attend — addressed to our "holy lords, fathers, or brethren in Christ, the bishops, presbyters, and other orders of Holy Church." Very touching is his appeal to them for peace and toleration — " I am not the author of this difference : I have come into these parts a poor stranger, for the cause of Christ the Saviour, our common God and Lord. I ask of your holiness but a single grace, that you will permit me to live in silence in the depth of these forests, near the bones of seventeen brethren whom I have already seen die. Oh, let us live with you in this land where we now are, since we are destined to live with each other in heaven, if we are found worthy to enter there. I dare not go to you for fear of entering into some contention with you, but I confess to you the secrets of my conscience, and how I believe above all in the tradition of my country, which is, besides, that of St. Jerome." From the synod Columban appealed to Boniface IV., vindicating the doctrines and customs of the Irish Church, and claiming still to be regarded " as in his own fatherland, and not bound to accept the rules of these Gauls." Finally, he appeals " to the judgment of the hundred and fifty fathers of the Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381), who judged that the Churches of God established among the barbarians should live according to the laws taught them by their fathers." This appeal to the Second CEcumenical Council is proof that the British and Irish Churches were familiar with the legislation of the Catholic Church before the breaking up of the Empire stopped communication between the Continent and Britain, and that they considered them selves an integral portion of Christendom.-' 1 Skene's Celt, Scot,, ii. 11. VI CAREER OF COLUMBANUS I 2 I Columban had more troublesome opponents to deal with than the pope and the Galilean bishops. He had been once a favourite with Theodoric, the youthful king of Burgundy, but his rebuke of the king for his sensual life led to his being expelled from that country, and from his beloved monasteries, after twenty years' missionary labours. Theodoric's soldiers arrested him at Luxeuil, where they found him chanting the service with his brethren in the monastery church. " Man of God," they addressed him, " we pray you to obey the king's orders, and to return from whence you came." " No," replied Columban, " after having left my country for the service of Jesus Christ, I cannot think my Creator wishes me to return." But argument was in vain with the soldiers, respectful as they were in their treatment of the missionary. He and his Irish brethren were hurried across France to Nantes, where they were required to embark for their native Ireland. The journey of the missionaries through the country is said to have been a series of triumphs,. so deep was the impression which the report of their life had made on the minds of the populace. The missionaries sailed from Nantes, but the ship was wrecked, and they were thrown back on the French coast. There is a divinity that shapes men's ends, and Columban accepted it as an omen from God that he and his brethren were to continue their labours in the land of their adoption. But nearly the whole of France was closed against them. And so, deviating from the old track, they made their way up the Rhine valley. They launched their boats on the river and pulled heavily against its rapid currents until they reached Mentz. There Theodobert, another of the Frankish kings, gave them liberty to preach the Gospel in his dominions, and Columban finally settled at Reichenau, by the Lake of Constance. A monastery 122 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. was soon built, and for another ten years the missionary work was resumed. Frequent conflicts ensued with men and demons, over the idolatrous superstitions to which the natives were addicted, the Saxon Woden being the chief idol. Very unceremonious was Columban in dealing with the local idols, smashing them in pieces with Celtic fervour, or casting them headlong into the lake. The pagan spirits are said to have feared him, and to have fled wailing from their lacustrian dwelling. They con fessed, according to the legend, 'that they had no chance with men who never slept, but were always working or praying. The demons attempted to break the monks' nets in the lake, but it was of no use. " He prays con tinually," said the demon of the lake to the demon of the mountain, " and we make nothing of it." And so the spirits of the mountain and the flood were overcome by the forces of labour and prayer, and fied never more to return. Which things are, doubtless, to be read as a moral allegory of the mission. Much success attended the mission work at Reichenau. The seed sown bore fruit in a wide district long after Columban had crossed the Alps for his last home among the Lombards. Some of the brethren extended the Irish mission to other fields. One of them, St. Gall, has left his name on a town and canton in Switzerland. Among the Irish his name was Cellach, and it was Latinised in foreign service into Gallus. While a boy he was a scholar of Columban, and was his close companion in all his wanderings, until sickness obliged him to remain behind when his master migrated to Italy. In 614 he founded the monastery called by his name St. Gall, and laboured there until his death in 627. He has long been deservedly honoured as the apostle of Switzerland. VI CELTIC MSS. IN ST. GALL'S, ETC. 12^ St. Gall's monastery was an early repository of Celtic manuscripts. A catalogue of them was made in the ninth century, and is still preserved. It then contained thirty - two treatises, chiefly commentaries on Holy Scripture, with a few ecclesiastical works, and some volumes of secular literature. The books which these scholars made were written by their own hand in Latin, and freely glossed in Gaelic. These are the earliest specimens of written Gaelic which are now known to exist. It is this latter feature which gives them their priceless value to modern Celtic scholars. And not only in St. Gall and the other Celtic monasteries, but in many of the Continental libraries, such as Wiirzburg, Schafiliausen, Carlsruhe, Milan, and Turin, the ancient manuscripts have been preserved. For long they lay neglected, the language being unknown to German scholars, until Zeuss was enabled to construct from them the Gaelic portion of his Grammatica Celtica. Columban is said to have meditated a mission to the Slavons, but changing his plans, he crossed into Lombardy and settled at Bobbio near Pavia. Here he found a patron in the king of the Lombards ; and for three years more (612-615) continued to preside over a monastery which with his own hands he had helped to build. Its school and library were celebrated in the middle ages ; the monastery itself survived until suppressed by the French in 1803, and the monastery chapel is now the parish church of Bobbio. There Columban ended his pilgrim life, blessed to many a soul, on the 21st November 615. And so on for some centuries more the stream of Irish ecclesiastics on the Continental mission continued, down to the Scottish Cadroe, who made his parting vows in St. Bridget's Church, Abernethy, and to Malachy of 1 24 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Armagh, whose life was written by his friend St. Bernard, and who died at Clairvaux in 1148.^ The Irish monks, rough as their exterior and manner are said to have been, were men of learning and accomplish ments. Besides music, painting, and carving, they excelled in the art of illumination, as may be seen in the Books of Durrow and of Kells. Several illuminated MSS. from the monastery of Bobbio are in the libraries of Turin, Milan, and Naples. In Rome there were about twenty volumes of Gaelic MSS., which once formed part of the Louvain collection, and are now in the house of the Franciscans in Dublin. In the library of Schaff hausen is a manuscript of Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, which may possibly be the copy written at Iona by the scribe Dorbene about the year 710, and now carefully edited by the late scholarly Dr. Reeves, bishop of Down. The manuscript formerly belonged to Columban's monastery of Reichenau. How great was the influence of the Irish missions on the Continent has been well told by several of our historians, and by none more lucidly than by the late Professor Green.^ His estimate of the moral force of the Celtic missions in Europe is expressed in the sentence that — " For a time it seemed as if the course of the world's history was to be changed, as if the older Celtic race, that Roman and German had swept before them, had turned to the moral conquest of their conquerors ; as if Celtic and not Latin Christianity was to mould the destinies of the churches of the West." A similar opinion was expressed by the late A. W. Haddan.^ " The Celtic churches have become in the sixth and seventh centuries, not only the church of 1 Early Christian Art in Ireland, ^ jji^t. of Eng. People, i. 48 seq. by .VI. Stokes, pp. 30, 59. 3 Remains of A. W. H., p. 2i8j-c?. VI INFLUENCE OF IRISH MISSIONS I 25 the people and land of all the British Isles, but they are now the leading churches of Northern Europe, the great centre of learning, the prolific hive of missions, and the focus of devotional feeling for all Christians north of the Alps, except where Italy still kept an opening for herself through the southern portion of France and by the help of the Catholic Franks. They have assumed, from the outward tonsure to the inward spirit, a substantive and vigorous character of their own. It is dangerous to speculate upon the issues of contingencies that have not happened. Yet church historians cannot be far wrong in saying that a mere turn of the scale, humanly speaking, prevented the establishment, in the seventh century, of an aggregate of churches in north-western Europe, looking for their centre to the Irish and British churches, and as entirely independent of the papacy as are the English-speaking churches of the present day." ^ ^ On Columban's life and mis- Skene's C. S., ii. pp. 5 seq. ; Todd's sion, see, besides Green and Haddan St. Patrick, p. 36 note and p. 166; quoted, Bright's Early Eng. Ch. Forbes's Kalendars of the Saints, pp. Hist., p. 100; Stokes's Ireland and 341 and 443; contributions to the the Celtic Ch., Lecture vii. ; Ibid., Scotsman, January 1889, by Pro- Third Series of Expositor, ix. 461 lessor M'Kinnon of the Celtic Chair, and x. 136 ; Robertson's History of Edinburgh. the Christian Church, ii. pp. 25-29 ; CHAPTER VII THE CELTIC MISSION IN NORTHUMBRIA, MERCIA, AND ESSEX The labours of our great missionaries often overlap each other in time and place. Before St. Columba had closed his missionary life in Scotland, Columbanus was at work in Burgundy; and the year of St. Columba's death, 597, was the year of Augustine's arrival in Kent. He came as a missionary from Gregory the Great, to convert the pagan Angles, the sight of whose fair-haired sons in the Roman slave-market, when he was deacon Gregory, had moved him to the conversion of England. Columbanus bears the message of the Gospel from Ireland to Gaul and North Italy ; Augustine from Italy speeds it northward to Britain ; and later, Iona, still fired with Celtic zeal, sends her missionaries into Northumbria, and from thence to the banks of the Thames. The history of the Roman mission in England can only be briefly related, so far as it serves to throw light upon the Celtic mission there. The conversion of the small kingdom of Kent, with Canterbury as its capital, represented the mission work of Augustine in the few years that he presided over it. He made little progress beyond Kent, and was entirely unsuccessful in winning over the bishops of the ancient British Church, whose chap, vii ROMAN MISSION IN KENT I 2 7 people had taken refuge in Wales. They would have no dealings with the strangers from Rome. Augustine in 604 consecrated Mellitus bishop of London, and Justus bishop of Rochester, both of them to be his suffragans. In his failing health he consecrated his friend Laurence to be his successor in the see of Canterbury. Laurence renewed the attempt to win over the British and Irish to the Catholic observance of Easter, and sent letters to both Churches with this object.^ But British and Irish were equally tenacious of their Celtic usages, and refused to conform. An Irish bishop named Dagan, who had crossed into Britain to confer with the Roman bishops, was so much irritated by their manner that he declined to eat with them, or even in the same room with them. We learn from Bede^ that the British clergy were as strongly averse as the Irishman to social intercourse with the Saxons or ecclesiastical communion with the Romans, and that they " regarded the Christianity of the English as a thing of nought." The Roman mission soon after met with a series of reverses which all but ended it. Mellitus was driven from London, Justus was unsuccessful in Essex, Laurence was opposed by Ethelbert's successor in Kent ; and the three bishops in sorrowful conference agreed to abandon the mission. Mellitus and Justus actually crossed the Channel, with the intention of waiting for the archbishop in France. Better counsels, however, prevailed, and the mission was not abandoned ; but from the day of Mellitus's expulsion till forty years afterwards, London and Essex were both lost to Christianity ; and when Christianity came to these parts it came from Lindisfarne, not from Canterbury. 1 Bede (ii. 4) gives the letter ad- most dear brethren the bishops or dressed by Laurentius, Mellitus, and abbots throughout all Scotia," i.e. Justus, bishops, "to our lords and Ireland. ^ ii. 20. 128 HISTORY OF the SCOTTISH church chap. In the summer of 625 Ethelburga, ' daughter of Eadbald, king of Kent, came to be the wife of Edwin, king of Northumbria. She brought with her Paulinus, who had been consecrated bishop, to be her chaplain. This was followed, not long after, by the baptism of king Edwin on Easter Eve, nth April 627, "in the Church of St. Peter, York, which he had caused to be built while he was being catechised and instructed for baptism." The wooden church stood on the site now covered by the great minster. His nobles and many of his subjects were baptized with him, and among the candidates for baptism was his grandniece, the future St. Hilda, abbess of Whitby. This auspicious beginning promised well for the Chris tianity of Northumbria, but the bright dawn was early overclouded. Edwin fell in battle at Hatfield in York shire in October 633. Paulinus then deserted the mission, returning to Kent with the widowed queen, and becoming bishop of Rochester. It was at this juncture that the second son of Ethelfrid, revered north and south of the Border as the saintly Oswald, resolved to make a stand against Cadwalla for his country and religion. He and two brothers, with many young nobles, had taken refuge in Iona, and, as Bede says, " were there catechised according to the Scots, and regenerated by the grace of baptism." On a rising ground, near to Hexham, at a place known even then as " Heavenfield," the victory was won that reversed the defeat of Hatfield. Oswald had dreams of Iona, his Christian home for many years, the night before the battle. He told it to abbot Seghine, some years afterwards, — how St. Columba had appeared to him in a vision, like a shining angel, and promised him victory, bidding him be of good courage and play the man.^ Oswald's army was I Adam. Life, b. i. c. i. vii king OSWALD 1 29 small in numbers but " fortified by faith in Christ." He fortified their faith still further by planting, on the morn ing of the battle, a wooden cross as a symbol of their pro fession, and calling upon his followers to kneel with him and " entreat the true and living God, who knew how just was their cause, to defend them from the proud and fierce enemy." In the onset Cadwalla's troops, though superior in numbers and in experience, were overborne by Oswald's little army and driven from the field in disorder. Cadwalla himself fell, as Edwin had fallen at Hatfield, " amid car nage long-remembered." The battle of Heavenfield, fought on a winter's day in 634, was the beginning of a new Christian era not only for Northumbria but for England, still all but pagan. Few characters have deserved better of historians than king Oswald's. Many writers have united in paying tribute to his noble life, and to the services of his reign, unhappily too brief. The Venerable Bede, who may have conversed with people who remembered him, is hearty in his praise, — " the man beloved of God," as he calls him.^ A modern historian of the English Church ^ writes of him with equal admiration : " Strength and sweetness were united in a character which almost represents the ideal of Christian royalty." Oswald has given his saintly name to the Church's calendar, and to several parishes in the Border country, both English and Scottish. The battle-ground of Heavenfield was also appropriately marked in after ages by the Chapel of St. Oswald.^ Oswald's first work on rescuing Northumbria was to build up the Christian Church, — a work that had to be begun at the foundation, for nothing remained of Paulinus's mission. Not so much, we are told, as a church or an 1 Hist., iii. I. ' See Bp. Lightfoot's Leaders in ^ Prof. Bright, Early Eng. Ch., the Northern Ch., pp. 21-35 and p. 139. notes. K 1 30 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. altar, or even a cross, was visible in the whole of Bernicia. The results of the Italian mission — superficial its work must have been — were obliterated as by a sponge. Oswald turned his eyes to Iona, where he had himself learned the Christian religion, for missionary help in the conversion of his people. He applied to the " seniors " ^ of that monas tery, — " majores natu Scottorum " is Bede's phrase ; and it points to a governing body of the abbot and senior monks. The abbot at this time was Seghine, the fifth in order from St. Columba. A missionary was sent, to whom Boece in his history gives the name of Corman. Bede says he was a priest, but gives him no name ; and his reti cence is open to the suggestion that he withheld it out of consideration for his failure. Be his name what it may, his mission was abortive.^ The Iona " seniors " had mis taken their man. He speedily returned to them with the report that it was no use attempting to convert a people so rude and barbarous as the Northumbrians. The lan guage bears an ominous similarity to some modern objec tions to foreign missions. It was not accepted in Iona. Their history and traditions could tell of tribes as fierce as the Northumbrians that had been won to the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ. A voice was raised in modest remon strance, the voice of a " senior," the gentle Aidan, whose name, " the little fire-brand," so greatly belied his character. Said Aidan : " Did you not then, brother, forget the Apostle's maxim about milk for babes ? Should you not have fed them with the milk of the Word until they were fit for stronger meat ? Did you not deal too rigidly with I This phrase is sometimes trans- Paulinus and Corman ; probably be lated "Elders of the Scots," with a cause both were deserters from the possible idea that it meant the pres- mission -field of Northumbria. He byters, and that the presbyters meant makes the Iona community to send to " the ruling elders " in Iona. king Oswald "a certain Paulinus not ^ Burton, inhis History of Scotland, otherwise known." i. 268, by a curious slip, mixes up VII ORDINATION OF AIDAN 1 3 I those untaught minds, and expect too much before they were able to comprehend the sublimer precepts of the divine law ? " All eyes were turned upon Aidan, says Bede,^ and " they wisely considered what he had said, and judged him worthy of the episcopate, and a fit teacher of the ignorant and unbelieving, who was thus gifted with discretion, the mother of all virtues. Therefore, ordaining him bishop, they sent him to their friend king Oswald to preach the Gospel." Ordaining him, ''¦ilium ordinantes',' are the words of Bede, descriptive of the ordination ; and a cloud of contro versy has gathered over them in Scotland which is not quite cleared away. The important question is, who or dained Aidan to be a bishop ? It is Bede's language that has raised the controversy in modern times, and it is well to remember the standpoint of the English historian. He shows himself well acquainted with the customs of the Celtic Church, and writes in no measured terms of them where they differed from the Anglic usage ; he belonged to a branch of the Church in which the episcopal office was recognised, as it was elsewhere throughout Christen dom, as the only source of orders for the Christian ministry. And if he could inveigh so bitterly against the Celtic Church for differences so comparatively trivial as their old-fashioned Easter cycle and their peculiar tonsure, what, it may be asked, would have been his judgment on the Iona presbyters had they violated the law of the Catholic Church and presumed to ordain a bishop ? Certainly he would not have written of Aidan that he had received the rank and degree of a bishop,^ nor would he have called him repeatedly by such significant titles as '' pontifex " and " antistes." ^ The phrase " ordaining," which has created the difficulty to some minds, is not unfrequently ^ iii. 3, 5. 2 iii. 5- ' i"- 3. 6, 14, 15, 16, 17. 132 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. used for " causing to be ordained." Thus Kenwalch, king of the West Saxons, is said to have ordained bishop Agilbertus, and the Catholic people of another district are said to have ordained their bishops, and elsewhere the laity are forbidden from ordaining any presbyter without the licence of their bishop.^ In these several cases, the mean ing is clear that they caused the bishops to be ordained ; and no other inference can be legitimately drawn from the language of Bede as to Aidan's ordination, when the circumstances of the case are fairly weighed. Further, Bede was perfectly aware that there were bishops in the Celtic Church, and speaks of their being subject to the presbyter-abbot of the monastery as an " unusual arrange ment." Had their official grade not been superior to that of the abbot, there would have been nothing " unusual " in the arrangement. At the time of Aidan's ordination there were bishops, if not resident in Iona, as we know they sometimes were, certainly at Lismore and Kingarth (in Bute), both within the jurisdiction of Iona. We have already seen that an abbot in the island of Tiree, subject to Iona, had no difficulty in procuring a bishop to ordain a priest there in the time of Columba. Besides, Iona was intimately bound up with the Irish Church, of which it was still a component part ; and if a bishop could be brought from Ireland in the sixth century to ordain Kentigern, the difficulty would not have been greater in the seventh century for the ordination of Aidan. Bede's silence as to the bishop or bishops who consecrated Aidan is a slender foundation for the assumption that his ordina tion was a violation of the Catholic usage of Christendom, — in fact, no valid ordination at all. Aidan, in the summer of 635, took up his abode in 1 See for references to these cases Bright's Early Eng. Ch. Hist., p. 141 note. VII AIDAN, MISSIONARY BISHOP 1 33 the island of Lindisfarne, " the Holy Island " as it came to be known, within sight of the fortress of Bamborough, the capital of the Bernlcian kingdom.^ The island had a special attraction for a life trained in " The Island " of the west. Celtic missionaries had, besides, a passion for seclusion. St. David, the patron of Wales, chose the lonely Menevia, and Aidan preferred Lindisfarne to York, though it had been not only the seat of Paulinus but of a more ancient British episcopate. The Roman mission, it has been observed, followed so far in the steps of the old empire as to make its chief cities episcopal sees, — Canterbury, London, Rochester, and York in succession. This has been thoughtlessly censured by some writers as an indication of papal arrogance and pride, and contrasted with the Celtic humility that selected the lonely Lindisfarne. The same censure would fall upon the Apostle of the Gentiles, who made the great cities of Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth his missionary headquarters. Aidan continued the traditions of the Columban Church, and worked the Northumbrian mission from a monastic centre, as had been the case in Iona. His missionaries were all monks, and his monks were all missionaries. Aidan himself lived as a monk within the humble monastery, though there was a governing abbot, as Bede relates in his life of St. Cuthbert. Lindisfarne, off the Northumbrian shore, was to be come a second Iona. From this centre there radiated the light of religion, north and south, from the Forth to the Thames. The secret of the missionaries' success lay in the single-minded devotion, the childlike simplicity, and earnestness of purpose which the good men brought to the task. Aidan himself was a born missionary, with all his gentleness and tact, " which made him so effective 1 Bede, Hist., iii. 3. 134 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. a converter of souls, because so potent a winner of hearts." He was no less the possessor of the natural gift of leader ship, so essential to the head of a mission. Bede, with all his English prejudice, never fails to admire the strong points in his character, and to persuade you to love the man as he loved him. When he touches his Celtic peculiarities and his dogged persistence in the customs of his native Church, little as the historian liked them, he is ever ready with a qualifying phrase that, in spite of them all, Aidan was a true-hearted servant of Christ, and his work a blessing to Northumbria. Bede ^ fills in the picture of Aidan with a loving hand, as " a man of the utmost gentleness and piety, devoted to the ways of peace and charity, superior to anger and avarice, of ex treme temperance in his habits, sedulous in study and devotion, full of tenderness to sufferers, and as full of sternness to evil-doers." Besides the missionary brethren that he took with him from Iona, Aidan's brotherhood continued to be strengthened by recruits from the Irish and Argyll Scots. Bede again is our informant that " many from the region of the Scots came daily into Britain, and with great de votion preached the word of faith to those provinces of the Angles over which king Oswald reigned ; and those among them that had received priests' orders administered to the believers the grace of baptism. Churches were built in several places ; the people joyfully flocked to hear the word of God ; possessions and lands were given of the king's bounty to build monasteries ; the younger Angles were by their Scottish masters instructed, and greater care and attention was bestowed upon the rules and observances of regular discipline." The reference to the educational work in Lindisfarne I Book iii. cc. 3, 5, 17, 25. VII MISSIONARY WORK FROM LINDISFARNE I 35 points to the fact that Aidan laid the foundation where the Irish Church and her Scottish branches had laid it, in the education of the young as the hope and promise of the Church. The permanent strength of any church lies in a native ministry ; not in adventitious aid from with out, however able or willing. Foreign hands may en kindle the fire, but native hands and hearts are needed to renew and sustain it. In the monastic school lay the promise and potency of the missionary church. Aidan himself selected twelve Anglian boys as his own educa tional charge, and some of them lived to be eminent in the Church. Among them was Eata, Aidan's successor, first in the monastery and then in the see of Lindisfarne, and the two brothers Cedd and Chad. Cedd was appointed bishop of Mercia or the Midlands, and afterwards of the East Saxons, with his seat at Tilbury. Chad, the younger and more famous brother, became bishop of York and afterwards of Mercia, with his seat at Lichfield, of which he is the patron saint. Wilfrid, the strenuous advocate of the Catholic as opposed to the Celtic Easter at the conference of Whitby, was also a scholar of Aidan ; and to the list may be added the name of St. Hilda, abbess of Hartle pool and then of Whitby, and throughout her life the attached disciple of Aidan and supporter of his Celtic ways. Aidan was not less laborious as a missionary on the mainland. His journeys, always on foot where it was possible, were incessant through town and country, freely conversing as he went with rich and poor on the highway, converting the wayfarer if he were a heathen, confirming his faith if he were a believer. Aidan knew the Anglic tongue but imperfectly at first, and the king became the bishop's interpreter when preaching to his people, a sight which Bede describes as " truly beautiful." Occasionally 136 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the bishop accepted the hospitality of Oswald, and on a certain Easter Sunday, when the poor, seeking the royal alms, were numerous, the king ordered the dinner to be sent to them from his table and the silver dish to be broken and divided among them ; upon which Aidan seized his right hand and prayed that it might never grow cold. Money that the rich sent to Aidan went at once to the poor, for he was, says Bede, " a true cherisher of the needy and father of the wretched " ; or it was spent in the redemption of his people sold into slavery, many of whom, when ransomed, became Aidan's scholars, and were promoted to the priesthood. And so he continued the work of his episcopate for sixteen years. One thing alone Bede could not brook in Aidan, — his persistent adherence to the Celtic Easter. " His keeping the Pasch (Easter) out of its season I do not approve nor commend. But this I do approve, that what he kept in thought, reverenced, and preached, in the celebration of his Paschal festival, was just what we do, that is, the redemption of mankind through the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension into Heaven of the Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." Oswald at the age of thirty-eight fell in battle with the heathen Penda on 5th August 642, at Maserfield, near the Shropshire town which still commemorates his name in Oswestry, Oswald's cross or Oswald's tree. Bede relates how the saintly king " ended his life with prayer for the souls of his men ; ' O God have mercy on their souls,' cried Oswald, falling to the ground." Oswald's severed head was brought to York, amid the dismay of his Bernicians, and Aidan buried it reverently ifi Lindisfarne. In 875 it was removed and placed within St. Cuthbert's coffin in Durham, and in 1 104, when the tomb of Cuthbert was opened in Durham Cathedral, " the head of Oswald, VII DEATH OF KING OSWALD I 37 king and martyr, was found between his arms.'' This accounts for the common heraldic device of St. Cuthbert holding the head of St. Oswald in his hands. Penda, the slayer of so many kings and princes, the evil genius of Anglic Christianity, burned and ravaged Bernicia up to the gates of Bamborough. Aidan, seeing from his retreat in Fame Island the smoke of the burning village outside the fortress, ejaculated in prayer, " See, Lord, what evil Penda is doing ! " upon which the wind is said to have shifted, and blown the smoke and flames into the faces of the besiegers, so that they withdrew from a city " divinely protected." But, burned and harried as it was, Bernicia still stood up for the faith of the cross. Christianity had taken too firm a hold of the national life to be wiped out as it was in Paulinus's days. Oswy, the younger brother of Oswald, succeeded him in Bernicia, and Oswin, the son of Osric, another rose from a thorn, became king of Deira, once more dividing Northumbria. Oswin, in his brief career, resembled the saintly Oswald, and his character, as drawn by Bede, is said to be one of his " best portraits." ^ It had an ennobling influence upon gentle and simple, and his court attracted men of the noblest birth from provinces other than his own. Among the many traits of a lovely life his humility was prominent, and Bede illustrates it by the story of the king's gift to Aidan. The itinerant bishop wandered with his mission aries over his wide diocese on foot, and the king, in consideration of the rough roads and sometimes swollen streams, as well as of the bishop's advancing years, insisted upon his accepting as a gift a horse " fit for a king." Not long after, Aidan, accosted by a beggar, gave him the horse, trappings and all. Oswin remonstrated with the bishop, when next he appeared at court, upon his 1 iii. 14 ; Bright's Eng. Ch. Hist., p. 167. 138 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. indiscreet generosity. " What did you mean, lord bishop," he said to Aidan, " by giving away the horse that was to be all your own ? Had I not many other horses of less value, or other things that would better serve for alms ? " Aidan's ready answer has been attributed to his Irish wit. " What say you, O king ? Is that son of a mare worth more in your eyes than that son of God ? " Nothing more was said at the time. They entered the hall, and Aidan took his seat with his attendant presbyter, when presently the king came in and threw himself at Aidan's feet, entreating him not to be angry, and promising, as if he were the offender, that he would never again judge the bishop as to what he might bestow on sons of God. It was now Aidan's turn to be distressed, and, after begging the king to relieve his mind and sit down to his meal, he spoke in Irish to his presbyter, a " Scot " like himself, in wonder at the king's humility, and in sorrowful presenti ment of his early death. The bishop's foreboding, upon whatever founded, was soon verified. Oswin fell by the treachery of his friend king Oswy at Gilling, the 20th August 651. It is the one blot on Oswy's memory, and it is but slightly relieved in history by the penitent offering of land that he gave for a convent to be built on the spot of the murder. Oswin's body was buried at Tynemouth, not in his own Deira, and Tynemouth Priory in after ages recalled the memory of St. Oswin, the humblest of Christian kings. Aidan did not long survive the tragic death of his friend. Twelve days after, while he was in Bamborough, where Bede says he had a church and a bed-chamber, he was seized with mortal illness. Standing by the western buttress of the church, the sickness came upon him so suddenly that he could not be removed, and being laid on the ground, he breathed his last and entered into rest — VII AIDAN SUCCEEDED BY FINAN I 39 "Aidan's rest" — on the 31st August 651. It has been well said that while Augustine was the apostle of Kent, Aidan was the apostle of England.-' The death of Oswin led once more to the union of Bernicia and Deira as the kingdom of Northumbria, and the union was not again severed. The Heptarchy was to become a monarchy under the unifying influence of the Church. The age of civil disintegration was passing away, and the consolidation of the Teutonic tribes was to follow the unification of the Church. But that unification could not be accomplished while the Celtic and Roman missions were facing each other as rivals in the same field. One or other had to give way, and the sequel will presently show which. Finan had been consecrated in Iona as the successor of Aidan in 65 i. Two years later he baptized king Peada ^ " at the Wall," a site now covered by the city of Newcastle. Four priests, Cedd, Adda, and Betti, Northumbrians trained in Lindisfarne, and Diuma, a Scot, accompanied Peada on his return, to evangelise the Mid Angles.^ To strengthen the mission thus happily begun, Finan consecrated Diuma bishop of the Mercians. In his episcopate the monastery was founded which was known as " the first resting-place of Christianity in Central England." From its dedication in the name of St. Peter it came to be known as Peter borough. After a brief occupancy of the see, Diuma was succeeded by Kellach, another Scot, who resigned it upon the separation of Mercia from Northumbria and returned to Iona. He was followed in Mercia by Trumhere, abbot of Gilling, a Northumbrian educated and ordained by the Scots ; and so apparently was Jaruman, who succeeded 1 Bp. Lightfoot on Aidan in ^ xhey were the South Mercians Leaders in the Northern Church, p. separated by the Trent from the II ; Burton, Hist. Scot, i. 270. North Mercians. 2 Son of the pagan king Penda. 140 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. him in 662 and held the bishopric of the Mercians when the Celtic mission withdrew from England after the Conference of Whitby. While the work of evangelising Mercia was proceeding, the Scots resumed the mission among the eastern Saxons in 653, after an interval of thirty-seven years from its abandonment by Mellitus. Sigebert, their king, was intimate with Oswy, and in one of his friendly visits to Northumbria, Oswy argued with him on the superiority of the Christians' God to the dumb idols of the heathen. The result was the conversion and baptism of Sigebert by bishop Finan at the same place where Peada had been baptized. The king now wanted missionaries for Essex, and Cedd was recalled from Mercia in the autumn of 653 to take up that mission. So successful was he in " gathering together a large church," that Finan consecrated him bishop in the following year. Bede's narrative is that Cedd " returned home to visit Lindisfarne and converse with bishop Finan, who, on learning how the work of the Gospel had prospered with him, made him bishop for the race of east Saxons, having called in two other bishops to assist him in the ordination. Cedd, having received the degree of the episcopate, returned to his province, and fulfilling with greater authority the work which he had begun, made churches in different places."^ The two assisting bishops were in all probability Scoto-Celtic, as there was no communication then with the Roman mission in Kent ; and it has been remarked of Cedd's ordination that " it would have been impossible for Bede to write thus had there been the slightest real flaw in the episcopal character of Finan or of the two other Scotic consecrators ; and that from this one passage we might confidently infer that bishops had been employed 1 Bede, iii. 22, 23. VII CELTIC AND ROMAN MISSIONS IN ENGLAND I41 in Scotland to confer the episcopate on Aidan and Finan." ^ Cedd's mission-field extended to the Thames, and Tilbury on its banks was his chief missionary station. We read of his ordaining presbyters and deacons to assist him in preaching and baptizing, so that in Bede's words " the teaching of the heavenly life received a daily increase, to the joy of the king and amid the sympathy of his subjects."^ In the episcopate of Finan the Celtic mission was at work from the Forth to the Thames. The small kingdom of East Anglia was the only one within this wide district that was more closely connected with Canterbury than with Lindisfarne. During all these years the Roman mission had been powerless as a factor in the conversion of England. The work was really accomplished by Celtic missionaries from Iona and Ireland, working from their centre in Northumbria. And it is truly marvellous, when we think of the slow progress of other missions, early and modern, how much of England they covered in the brief space of thirty years, from 635 to 664, a single generation of human life. Finan died, after a ten years' episcopate, in 661,^ and was succeeded by Colman, who, like his predecessors, came from Iona. His rule was destined to be brief. Bede * says that Finan was " ordained and sent by the Scots, but that Colman was sent from Scotia, or Ireland, though appointed {destinatus) by Iona." In the year that Finan died Tighernac records the death of Daniel, bishop of Kingarth in Bute ; and this. Dr. Skene ^ observes, " rather confirms our suspicion that the bishops called in to consecrate these Northumbrian missionaries were the bishops of Kingarth, and that the death of bishop 1 Bright's Early Eng. Ch., pp. Ch., p. 191. Skene, C. S,, i. 258, 177, 178. ^ iii. 22. gives the year 660. 3 This is the date given by Grub, * iii. 25. i. 87, and by Bright, Early Eng. ^ C. S., ii. 164. 142 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Daniel in the same year rendered an appeal to Ireland necessary." At this period two monasteries were founded in Northumbria, in a district which came to be included within the Scottish border. Ebba, the half-sister of Oswald and Oswy, founded the double convent at Coldingham, near to the promontory which still bears her name, St. Abb's Head. The other monastery was founded by the Lindisfarne brethren on the banks of the Tweed at Old Mailros, about two miles from the site of the later Cistercian abbey, that Scott has haloed with romance. Eata, one of Aidan's twelve scholars, was its first abbot, and according to Bede he was " the gentlest and simplest man in the world." Boisil, who has left his name in the neighbouring parish of St. Boswells, was prior ; and Cuthbert, who has earned a wider fame than either, entered Old Mailros as a novice in the year of Aidan's death. Boisil received him at the monastery gate when Cuthbert, a raw youth from the hills, presented himself for admission. He had come from the Lammermoors, where he had been for some years tending sheep. A dream, which he took for a vision of Aidan borne to heaven by angels, had decided his vocation. He was to become a faithful shepherd of men on both sides of the Tweed, by whose banks he learned his first lessons in holy life and learning. From Melrose Cuthbert was drafted to the monastery of Ripon, lately founded, to be its hospitaller ; but dissen sion soon broke out on the vexing question of Easter, and the Scotic monks withdrew rather than submit to the Catholic use, giving place to Wilfrid and his supporters. Cuthbert returned to Melrose and to his friend St. Boisil. The dissension at Ripon was at the beginning of VII DISSENSIONS AS TO EASTER CYCLE 1 43 Colman's episcopate, and it was the beginning of the end. Sooner or later the question of the Easter cycle had to be faced and settled. Various circumstances tended to hasten the crisis. The king and queen were keeping different Easters, — he the Scotic, and she the Roman cycle ; and it sometimes happened that while Oswy was keeping the Easter feast, his queen Eanfled was still observing the discipline of Lent. Prince Alchfrid their son, appointed to rule Deira under his father, was no less zealous an advocate of the Roman usages, under the influence of Romanus, the queen's chaplain, who had accompanied her from Kent. But a greater name than any was thrown into the scale of the Roman party — " the splendid name of Wilfrid," whose advocacy chiefly decided the issues between the Roman and Celtic missions. The relations between the two missions became daily more strained, and to end the strife a conference was suggested. Colman had the friendly aid of bishop Cedd, then on a visit to Lastingham. He had also the sympathies of St. Hilda, whose influence touched court and cottage, and explains why her monastery was selected as the place of meeting. It was then known as Streaneshalch, the bay of the lighthouse, — better known afterwards by its Danish name of Whitby. Hilda had removed from her first convent in Hartlepool when, in the episcopate of Finan, the double monastery was founded at Whitby. The authority exercised by the great abbess over men and women within the walls, and over gentle and simple without, is one of the wonders of the Celtic Church. It had an earlier counter part in the rule of St. Bridget in Ireland. Hilda has been compared to Deborah, " the mother of Israel," and in truth she was the spiritual mother of many in 144 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Northumbria who owned and honoured her with the name of " mother." Her house was a true beacon of light to many a voyager in the seventh century. No fewer than five bishops were trained within the walls of Whitby, one of them being the famous St. John of Beverley, who became bishop of Hexham and was after wards translated to York. From him the Venerable Bede received his orders of deacon and priest. The conference was held in the spring of 664. Bede calls it a synod, and so have later writers ; it was rather a representative gathering of both Church and State. The questions at issue were the Scotic usages, but the discussion really turned on the Easter cycle alone. That seems to have been decisive of the whole matter. The dispute had already cropped up in history, — between Augustine of Canterbury and the British bishops,— between Columbanus in the Vosges as against the pope and the Galilean bishops. Nor was it heard of for the last time now at Whitby. It divided the Irish Church for two generations, south against north ; it made a schism in Iona, and it led to the Columban clergy being expelled by king Nectan from the Pictish dominion. Trivial seems the question to us, looking through the growing light of more than a thousand years, but it is probable that many a modern church controversy, fought as bitteriy and as persistently, will be regarded by other eyes than ours very much in the same light that we now regard the great Easter controversy. An explanation of it has been deferred until this conference where it marked a crisis in the history of the Celtic Church in England. At the outset, it may be said that it was a problem of astronomy, not an article of theology. According to the Mosaic law, the Passover VII SUCCESSIVE EASTER CYCLES 1 45 was celebrated on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month ; and the first month dated from the moon which should be first full after the vernal equinox. The Church of Ephesus, representing the " Asiatic " Churches, adopted this rule literally, and laid themselves open to the charge of Judaising, for they kept their Easter on the fourteenth day, whether it fell on a Sunday or not. From this they were called Quarto-decimans, or observers of the fourteenth day. They pleaded, erroneously, the example of St. John the Apostle in their favour. This usage was condemned in the Council of Nicea in 325, which formulated no cycle for Easter, but laid down that it should always be observed on a Sunday, and that Sunday was to be between the fifteenth and twenty-first days inclusive, but never on the fourteenth. The Church held that as our Lord had risen from the dead on the first day of the week after the Passover, so the festival of Easter should be observed on the Sunday between the fifteenth and twenty-first days from the first moon. Various cycles were framed from time to time to bring the lunar date into harmony with the solar year. In the Church of Alexandria, which possessed the best scientific knowledge of that day, the Easter cycle of nineteen years was introduced in 270. The Western Church had a cycle of eighty-four years, which was improved by Sulpicius Severus in 410, and was in use till 457, when a longer cycle of five hundred and thirty-two years was framed by Victor of Aquitaine, based upon the Alexandrian cycle of nineteen years. One more change by Dionysius Exiguus in 567 fixed the cycle which ultimately prevailed. It was more accurate than Victor's, though, like his, it was framed in accordance with the Alexandrian calculations.^ 1 The Dionysian table was based cycle for nineteen years by the solar on the multipUcation of the lunar cycle for twenty-eight years, which L 146 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. What is therefore known as the Roman, might, with geographical accuracy, be described as the Alexandrian Easter, or, in ecclesiastical language, the Catholic Easter. It was adopted in Rome and Italy, while the Galilean Church for a time held to the Victor cycle, and the Celtic Church to the still earlier cycle of 410. Before the Dionysian cycle was invented, the British and Irish Churches had been cut off from communication with the Continent by the irruption of Franks and Visigoths into Gaul. When communication was renewed at the close of the sixth century, the Celtic churches in these islands were found adhering to the old-fashioned Easter. They were never Quarto-decimans, and this fact discourages the idea of an Asiatic origin for the Celtic Church.^ They so far departed from the letter of the Nicene rule as to keep the Easter on any Sunday falling between the fourteenth and twentieth days of the moon instead of deferring it till the twenty-first, if the fourteenth were a Sunday. Both sides brought their adherents to the conference. Representing the Celtic Church there were king Oswy, bishop Colman, and some of his Scotic clergy, Cedd, the bishop of Essex, who acted as interpreter, and Hilda, the abbess, who, as Aidan's scholar, was faithful to Aidan's traditions. On the Roman side there were Eanfled the queen, Romanus her Kentish chaplain, prince Alchfrid, Agilbert, a Gaul by birth and now ex -bishop of the West Saxons, deacon James, the survival of Paulinus's mission, showed on what day, in each of the nineteen years before. And the five hundred and thirty-two years, the twenty-eight years of the solar cycle Paschal full moon would fall, and were taken because at the expiration inferentially upon what day Easter of that time the days of the month would fall. The selection of nineteen return again to the same days of years for the lunar cycle is explained the week. Bright's Early English by the fact that at the end of that Church, p. 202. period the various aspects of the moon ^ See Bright's Early English are within an hour the same as they Church, pp. 82, 208. were on the same days of the month VII CONFERENCE AT WHITBY 1 47 Tuda, a bishop from South Ireland who had " conformed," and, more formidable than them all, the redoubtable Wilfrid. Oswy began by pleading the necessity of unity among brethren of the same Catholic Church, and asked the opposing parties to show which was the better of the Easter traditions. Colman cited the traditions of the ' seniors " of Iona, who had entrusted him with the mission. He declared that these traditions had St. John for their author, and that he regarded them as sacred and binding. Agilbert was then asked to state his case, but he prudently devolved it upon Wilfrid, who would not require, as he should, the aid of an interpreter. This is proof that Wilfrid had not forgotten the Celtic tongue he had learned in Lindisfarne. The young abbot was nothing loath to take up the brief He spoke of the Catholic usage where he had travelled in Gaul, Italy, and Rome ; stated that the same rule obtained in Africa, Greece, and Asia — in fact through the whole of Christen dom, saving only among these persons (pointing to bishop Colman and his adherents) and their partners in obstinacy, the Picts and Britons, who, dwelling in two islands at the extremities of the earth, are foolishly contending against the rest of the world. The spirit of Colman's reply was better than its argument. He answered with quiet dignity that they could not reasonably be called foolish for following the custom of the disciple who leaned on the Saviour's breast. Wilfrid's rejoinder was as unhistoric as Colman's assertion. If the one could quote St. John's authority the other was equally ready with St. Peter's. Wilfrid suggested that St. John had temporised on the Judaic side by observing the fourteenth day, and hinted that St. Paul had sometimes done the same. He was on safer ground when he showed that the 148 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Scots were true to the (supposed) traditions of neither St. John nor St. Peter. They were not Quarto-decimans, like the Asiatics, and yet they were in opposition to the Petrine usage, so called, by keeping the fourteenth day as Easter Sunday. In fact, said Wilfrid, with a quiet home-thrust, you Scots agree neither with John nor Peter, neither with law nor gospel. Colman then quoted the canon of Anatolius. What serves it to quote his canon, said Wilfrid, when you only, of all the world, disown his cycle ? The bishop at last appealed to the memory and miracles of St. Columba, and asked if it were possible that he could have erred. Wilfrid was ready to assure him that it was not only possible but certain that he had erred ; and then, with a bluntness which must have been painful to Colman and his friends, he added that, touching Columba and his signs of attesting holiness, he would not quote the words " Many shall say to me in that day," etc. In better spirit he admitted that the Columban saints might be beloved of God though they kept Easter wrongly, because they knew no better. But then, said Wilfrid, you and your friends have not the excuse of ignorance in your opposition to the Apostolic see ; and as for your St. Columba — and I might say ours too, if he was Christ's, — even were he a saint and a wonder-worker, is he to be preferred to the prince of the Apostles to whom Christ committed the keys of the kingdom, and said " Thou art Peter," etc. ? This was the last arrow from Wilfrid's quiver, and it found or made an opening in the joints of the king's Scotic armour. King Oswy asked Colman if these words were really spoken to St. Peter ; and when the bishop admitted that they were, the king then asked him if the like words had been ever addressed to Columba. It was on the face of it an absurd question, and its absurdity VII KING OSWY'S DECISION 1 49 is not lessened when the decision is made to turn on this issue alone. Colman could of course claim no such authority for his patron. Then, said the king, " as you both agree that Peter has the keys, I cannot gainsay him who is the porter, but desire, as far as I know and can, to obey his ruling in all things, lest haply when I come to the doors of the kingdom, I may find none to unlock them, if he is against me who is proved to be the keeper of the keys." No one present seemed able to expose the weak points in Wilfrid's pleading. The Roman Church had varied as much as any other in her Easter cycles, and the Celtic reckoning had at one time been the usage of the whole Western Church, Rome included. But Rome had advanced with the progress of astronomical science, and the Celtic Church had not. That was the amount of difference. It has been questioned whether king Oswy was serious ^ in basing his decision upon a text which his own commentary served to make ridiculous ; and whether it was not a foregone conclusion brought about by the private influences of the court, and by the public incon venience which diversity of Easter cycles was producing. It is at least probable ; but the result, however reached, was the same to bishop Colman. He would be true to the traditions of Iona and Ireland, and withdraw from the mission. The Scotic clergy stood by him, and so did some thirty of the Northumbrian brotherhood in Lindisfarne. There were others, however, who were not prepared to leave the old home, and Colman generously, for their sake, asked the king to appoint Eata head of their monastery, a scholar of Aidan, in sympathy with 1 Wilfrid reported to Stephen Eddi, his biographer, that the king delivered his opinion with a smile. I 50 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the traditions of the place. Eata went from Melrose, but without resigning its charge, to Holy Island, to rule where once he had served. Colman with his brethren returned to Iona. " What heart," says Montalembert,^ " is so cold as not to understand, to sympathise, and to journey with him, along the Northumbrian coast and over the Scottish mountains, where, bearing homeward the bones ^ of his father (Aidan), the proud but vanquished spirit returned to his northern mists, and buried in the sacred isle of Iona his defeat and his unconquerable fidelity to the traditions of his race." ^ Colman's report to the " seniors " of Iona is said to have induced Cumine, who was then abbot, to write his Life of Columba in answer to the disparaging criticism of Wilfrid. The bishop retired after four years' sojourn in Iona to Innisboffin (island of the white cow), off the coast of Mayo, where he presided over a monastery which he built, until his death in 6^6. The period of Celtic ascendency in Northumbria has been described * as " the golden age of saintliness such as England would never see again." The ascendency, if not the saintliness, was bound to pass away. Intercourse with the Continent — with Gaul and Italy — was yearly increasing. Roman infiuence was spreading in Britain, and the half-dormant Italian mission in Kent was awaken ing to gird itself for the spiritual conquest of England. On the other hand, the lines of the Celtic mission were too narrow for a comprehensive Anglican communion ; its monastic type of religion, based upon the Irish clan 1 Monks of the West, iv. 170. C. S., ii. pp. 8, 17, 148-159; Burton, 2 Bede, iii. 26, says Colman Hist. Scot, i. 267-271 ; Bright's carried home with him some of the Early Ch. Hist, see index, p. 470; relics of Aidan, and that the rest Grub, i. 71 seq.; Green's Hist, of were interred in the sacristy of the Eng. People, i. 55. church at Lindisfarne. 4 lA^*.iQO\:s Leaders of North, Ch., ^ For Easter controversy, Skene, p. 14. VII END OF CELTIC MISSION IN ENGLAND 151 system, had no combining elements such as England then specially wanted to unify its Church and State. And however missionary and aggressive the Celtic spirit had been, it was essentially insular and out of sympathy with the great stream of church life flowing elsewhere in Christendom. The Roman victory at Whitby opened England, for good and ill, to the complex currents of Latin Christianity, brought Britain into line with the civilisation and culture of the day, the literature, and the art and law of the Western World, and finally prepared England for the solidarity of her people in one Church and monarchy. The outlook beyond this was not within the power of any eyes to foresee. Before passing from the Easter controversy it may be convenient here to give the dates at which the different sections of the Church in the British Islands accepted the Catholic cycle. The southern Irish had yielded about the year 634, that is, thirty years before the conference at Whitby. This was largely due to the learning and ability of Cummian, abbot of Durrow, who advocated the new cycle in a letter to Seghine, abbot of Iona. But Iona was conservative, and its influence upheld the older cycle in the north of Ireland until 704. The Strathclyde clergy also accepted the Catholic Easter in that year. Iona at last yielded after much disputation, and a schism in the monastery, in 716. The old British Church in Wales was the last to give in — North Wales in 768, and South Wales, under strong pressure, in TJT- From this last date the Welsh Church, representing the ancient Church of the Britons, became incorporated with the Anglican communion. CHAPTER VIII ST. CUTHBERT AND HIS WORK Tlie name of Cuthbert was introduced during the Easter controversy. He is honoured no less in the Lothians than he is in Durham ; and other parts of Scotland had a connection with his missionary life. He was fortunate in having his biography written within forty years of his death, and by no less an author than the Venerable Bede himself. Bede says nothing of his birth and parentage ; but an Irish Life of the saint claims him for Ireland without any authority for the tradition. The probability is that he was born where he was brought up, near the banks of the Leader, on the Borders. When eight years of age, he found shelter with a widow, whom he used to regard as his mother, in the village of Wrangholm, and for some years afterwards he tended sheep on the Lammermoors. He exchanged the life of a shepherd lad for that of a monk in Old Melrose in 65 i. In the company of Eata he went to Ripon, when the latter became its abbot ; and he and the other Scotic monks returned with Eata to Melrose when Alchfrid imposed the Roman usages upon Ripon monastery. Eata became Colman's successor in the Lindisfarne monastery ; and Tuda, a southern Irishman, succeeded him in the bishopric. In the year 664 Boisil, the prior of Melrose, died of the great plague, or " yellow pest," as the people called it, which was fatal CHAP. VIII EARLY LIFE OF CUTHBERT 1 53 to many prominent men of that day — among others, the king of Kent, and Deusdedit, archbishop of Canterbury. Cuthbert then became prior of Melrose, as he already was of Lindisfarne, whither he had gone with Eata. Probably before this date there falls to be entered his anchorite life among the Picts in Strathtay. In Dull he had his de votional retreat at the Rock of Weem, where he erected a stone cross, a wooden oratory, and a bath in which he would stand immersed for hours in water, reciting the psalter. The same traditions as to water-bath and stone crosses are reported of St. Kentigern and some other saints. Cuthbert has a traditional connection with the Lothians, and the early foundation of St. Cuthbert's in Edinburgh is a probable evidence of it. He was also a missionary among the Niduarian Picts in Galloway, and gave his name to its largest county. Kirk - Cuthbert, now Kirkcudbright. The fame of his missionary circuits lives in the pages of Bede. On foot or on horseback, he visited the distant dwellings of hinds and shepherds, and in their own rough Northumbrian tongue, learned among the sheepfolds, he won the " shepherdless sheep." " So great," says Bede, " was his skill in speaking, so intense his eagerness to make his words persuasive, such a glow lighted up his angelic face, that no one of those present dared to hide from Cuthbert the secrets of his heart ; all revealed openly by confession what they had done, for in truth they supposed that he must needs be aware of those very deeds of theirs ; and after confession, they wiped away their sins at his bidding by worthy fruits of repentance." ^ He would be absent for many weeks on these itinerant missions without returning home, " dwelling among the mountains and teaching the poor people, both by the words of his preaching and by the example of his own 1 Bede, iv. 27 ; Life of St. Cuthbert, 9 and 12. 154 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. conduct." Cuthbert was called by the voice of the Church to other fields, but he never did better pastoral work than in the glens and moorlands of his native country " dwelling among his own people." After presiding for twelve years in Lindisfarne, he resigned charge of the monastery to become an anchorite. His rule in the " holy island " was not a bed of roses. He had himself conformed to the Catholic Easter and tonsure, and so had the community, outwardly at least, in Lindisfarne. But there were some who still said the old was better, and they were thorns in the side of the prior. The strictness of his new rules also made them refractory ; but Cuthbert had his way, and lived down dissension rather than put it down. While still in the prime of life he turned his back upon the world and sought " a deseart," stimulated by the unhealthy sentiment of that age that a man could serve God better by complete seclusion from the world than by living in it and leavening it for good, as Cuthbert himself had done before, and was yet to do again for a few years before he died. There is a double element in the character of the Lammermoor shepherd — now the missionary, and now the monk — the most ardent of missionaries, the most ascetic of monks, carrying his monkish ideal to madness. While he loved the peasantry of the Borders, and was happy in teaching them the simple lessons of religion, he had always the psalmist's longing for the wings of a dove. Even at Lindisfarne, secluded as it was, he made a retreat for himself on a basaltic rock at the edge of the island, where he lived aloof from the brethren. It still bears his name, and so does a little chapel, afterwards built on it, and called " the chapel of St. Cuthbert by the sea." Leaving Lindisfarne, he went nine miles south to Fame, another islet of the group, which stood about two and a half miles from the VIII CUTHBERT IN LINDISFARNE 1 55 shore, off Ida's fortress of Bamborough. So far he had followed Aidan's footsteps, who had his retreat in the same Fame. The march of events in Northumbria brought Cuthbert, much against his will, to follow Aidan still farther. While Wilfrid was evangelising Sussex, Cuthbert was called by king Egfrid from the anchorite life of Fame to the see of Hexham. He was consecrated by Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, and six other bishops in St. Peter's, York, on Easter Day, 26th March 685. He had been elected to Hexham, but his own choice was Lindis farne, and Eata was transferred to Hexham, Cuthbert going as bishop to the old island-home which he had ruled as prior. In the same year, 685, Egfrid invaded Scotland, with consequences disastrous to himself and Northumbria. He had previously wrested the southern portion of Cumbria, which included the district of Carlisle, from the Britons, and an insane desire for conquest led him at the head of his army across the Forth. Cuthbert remonstrated in vain ; the king was deaf to the counsels of his best friends. The bishop entertained the most gloomy forebodings of the ill- starred expedition, and waited uneasily at Carlisle, now in cluded in his diocese of Lindisfarne, for tidings of Egfrid's army. One day as he stood by a fountain, a remnant of the old Roman occupation of the city, he was heard to mutter : " Perhaps at this very hour the peril of the fight is over." Next day, when questioned, he would only say " watch and pray." A few days ended the suspense, when a solitary fugitive from Egfrid's army reported the loss of the battle and the death of the king. Brude, the son of Bill, a cousin of Egfrid on his mother's side, was then king of the Picts, and when Egfrid crossed the Forth, Brude withdrew his little army beyond the Tay. Marching northwards through Strathmore, Egfrid met 156 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the Picts at Nechtan's Mere, in the modern parish of Dunnichen, near Forfar, on a Saturday afternoon, 20th of June 685.^ The Northumbrians were defeated with great loss, and their king was among the slain. Egfrid's body was taken to Iona, where it was received by Adamnan and honourably buried. The political results of the battle were most important not only to the Picts but also to the Britons and Scots, who had been for some years sub ject to Northumbria. It also crippled the power of the latter kingdom in the south, and gave the preponderance to its rivals, Mercia and Wessex. Bede^ thus sums up the effects of the defeat of Egfrid's army : " From that time the hopes and strength of the Anglic kingdom began to fluctuate and to retreat like an ebbing tide, for the Picts recovered the territory belonging to them which the Angles had held, and the Scots who were in Britain and a certain part of the Britons regained their liberty, which they have now enjoyed for about forty-six years." ^ What was the exact territory acquired by the Picts, whether it included any portion of the Lothians, which had been theirs before, and would be theirs again, is uncertain. Trumwin, bishop of the Angles at Abercorn, may have dreaded a southern extension of Pictland which would in clude his see. He did not wait for the result of the battle. Like another Paulinus, he fled precipitately from the Forth, put the whole breadth of Bernicia between him and his flock, and found refuge for the rest of his life in the mon astery of Whitby.* ^ The 20th of May is given as the * For Nechtan's Mere and its re- date of the battle by Grub and Bright, suits, see Skene's C. S., i. 265 seq., ii. following Bede. Skene, C. 5., i. 265, 214; Grub, i. 105; Oxeen's Hist, of gives reasons for the later month. Eng. People, i. 62 ; Bright's Early ^ iv. 26. Eitg. Ch., 344 ; Robertson's Scot ^ Bede wrote in 731, which gives Early Kings, i. 12 ; Cos. Innes, exactly forty-six years from the battle Mid. Ages, Pref. xiii. of Nechtan's Mere. vni DEATH OF CUTHBERT I 57 Egfrid was succeeded in Northumbria by his natural brother Aldfrid, who had been living " in the islands of the Scots," which some take for Ireland and others for Iona. He is the first of our literary kings, and showed the bent of his mind by exchanging land with Benedict Biscop for a valuable manuscript which the latter had brought from Rome. Adamnan, from Iona, visited him twice, and on the second occasion presented the scholarly king with a copy of his work On the Holy Places, Aldfrid possessed other qualities besides scholarship, and proved a capable administrator of Northumbria in its now fallen fortunes. Equally fortunate would the kingdom have been in the ministry of a bishop like Cuthbert had his episcopate been prolonged. For the two years that it lasted, he was unwearied in travelling through his diocese from sea to sea, visiting the people, ordaining clergy, and establishing schools. After the Christmas of 686 he retired to his lonely Fame to spend the remainder of his days in contemplation, and to " burn away the thorns of worldly care."^ As he was stepping into the boat, amidst a crowd of the brethren, one of them said to him, " Tell us, lord bishop, when we may hope for your return." His answer was brief, and proved to be true — " When you shall bring my body hither." Within a few months Cuthbert died in Fame. He gave his parting counsels to the brethren in favour of peace and charity among themselves ; and then, with a touch of human nature, he added, " but with those who have broken Catholic unity either by observing Easter out of its time, or by living perversely, hold no communion." It shows the memory of the old sore, not forgotten even at the approach of death. When the time for nocturn prayer had come, he received the communion 1 BeAe's Life of Cuth., 34, 36. 158 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and passed away " into the life of the fathers." His death happened in the morning of Wednesday, 26th March 687. The brethren at Fame gave the appointed signal — lighted torches — to Lindisfarne. Thither the body was brought in a boat, and amidst a great multitude of people and choirs of choristers it was buried at the right side of the altar in the church of St. Peter, Lindisfarne.-' The coffin, which had been placed under the pavement of the church, was raised by the brethren eleven years after wards for the purpose of enshrining the relics in a light chest. This being done, the shrine was deposited above the pavement for the veneration of the faithful. Such seems to have been the general custom in the many instances recorded of saints' relics that were honoured with shrines. It helps to explain how it was possible to carry about Cuthbert's relics all over the country. The stone coffin would have been impossible ; the light shrine made the burden easy. The wanderings of Cuthbert's body for a hundred and twenty years would form a chapter by themselves. The Norsemen's invasion in 875 made the monks remove it from Lindisfarne, and in journeyings oft it was carried from place to place through scenes traversed by the living Cuthbert, until it finally rested, in the year 999, in Durham. Cuthbert's popularity, south and north of the Tweed, has displaced an earlier and equally lovable name, that of the saintly Aidan, the father of the Northumbrian Church and, in a sense, of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. But Aidan, with all his gentleness, was an inflexible Scot, steeped in Celtic traditions, and with no disposition to favour Roman ascendency. Cuthbert, on the other hand, lived to be the strenuous supporter of the Roman mission. In later days, when good men and women were canonised for their holy 1 Bede's Life of Cuth., c. 39. VIII CUTHBERT'S SITRINE 1 59 lives and labours, the Roman Church was in the ascendant, and the work of the Celtic saints, tenacious of their traditions, was held in less esteem. And so Cuthbert, not Aidan, is the patron saint of Durham, " where his cathedral, huge and vast, looks down upon the Wear." These two chapters may seem to belong more to the English than to the Scottish Church, but so far as the history was Christian, it was entirely shaped by Scotic missionaries, and was not without its influence on the northern Church. It may also be added that the geographical area covered by the Lindisfarne missions extended to the Forth, and included a third part of modern Scotland. CHAPTER IX Maelrubha, Comgan, the second Fillan — Abbot Adamnan, Serf, Fergus — Restoration of Candida Casa — King Nectan's expul sion of Columban Clergy from Pictland — Supremacy of Dunkeld — Venerable Bede — Baldred of the Bass — Boniface — Legends of St. Andrews, and the origin of its primacy in Scotland. Church life in Iona during this period, so far as it has been chronicled, is very uneventful. One abbot succeeded another to the number of forty-nine, from the year 563 to 1202,^ but there is little worthy of record in most of their lives. Cumine the Fair, the writer of the first Life of St. Columba, was abbot until 66g. After him came Failbe and then Adamnan, the most distinguished of all the successors of the founder. In Failbe's time northern Britain received from Ireland another notable missionary in the person of Maelrubha, or Malrue. By descent he was of the Irish Picts, and so the better adapted for mission work among the kindred race in Scotland. His mother was the sister of Comgall, the eminent abbot of Bangor, and in that monastery under his uncle's eye Maelrubha was trained. In 671, when in his thirtieth year, he crossed over into Britain, and for fifty years was a missionary in what is now Ross-shire. His name Maelrubha is said to mean " the servant of 1 See Reeves's Adam., Appendix from St. Columba the founder, 563, No. iii. for list of forty-nine abbots to Giollacrist, ^. 1202. chap. IX ST. MAELRUBHA OF APPLECROSS l6l patience "^ and probably he had often occasion to use it. The little island of Cronlin off the coast of Applecross (then Apurcrossan) was to him and his brethren what Iona was to St. Columba. It became the centre of missions to the Picts of the North, to the western district between Loch Carron and Loch Broom, to Easter Ross, and the island of Skye. The reputation of the monastery of St. Maelrubha at Applecross was second only to that of lona.^ It possessed a famous monastic church with a girth or sanctuary six miles in extent. The name of the saint has undergone various changes, such as Maorie, Maree, Marie, etc., and many of the local dedications of churches in his name were in a later age ignorantly assigned to the blessed Virgin. Loch Maree, one of the largest of our Scottish lakes, bears his name, and so does a ruined chapel with its cemetery on one of its islands. There are also traces of his name in more than twenty different dedications, chiefly in the north, a few among the Western Isles, and two, Crail and Largo, in Fifeshire. He lived to be eighty years of age, and died in 722. The Aberdeen Breviary records that he was martyred by the Danes, and tradition points to a place near Conan Bridge as the scene of the martyrdom, but as the Danes did not appear for a century after the saint's death, the tradition may be dismissed. Tighernac records the death of abbot Cumine in 66g, and also the deaths of two saints among the southern Picts — Itharnan of Madderty, in Perthshire, and Caran or Corindu, in the Mearns, where the Carron Water, Stonehaven, probably preserves a name otherwise for gotten. Failbe succeeded Cumine, and during his abbacy, and probably by his influence, Comgan, with his sister 1 M'Lauchlan's Early Scottish Church, p. 237. 2 Burton's History, i. 261. M 1 62 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Kentigerna and her son Fillan, came from Ireland as missionaries to the Picts of the western coast. His mission-field extended from Loch Sunart, opposite Mull, northwards to Loch Alsh. Loch Shiel (Adamnan's " Sale ") has St. Fillan's island with the ruins of an ancient church, cemetery, and bell.-' Comgan's name is also to be found in Turriff, Aber deenshire, of which he is patron saint, and the name of his sister St. Kentigerna is identified with Inch Cailleach, the women's isle, on Loch Lomond. Comgan had another sister Muirenn, who died in 748, and it is a peculiar co incidence that a neighbouring island to Inch Cailleach is still known as Inch Murenn. Some writers have inferred from this that the island owes its name to her and not to St. Mirren of Paisley.^ The arm of St. Fillan is said to have been borne by the abbot of Inchaffray on the field of Bannockburn, and to have inspired king Robert Bruce "with gud esperance of victory." Another relic of the saint his Coygerach or pastoral staff, has been preserved after many wanderings, including a voyage to and from Canada. It now rests, together with the ancient bell of St. Fillan, in the museum of the Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh.' Adamnan became the ninth abbot of Iona, in 679. His reputation rests chiefly on his life of St. Columba. But as a scholar and an administrator of Iona, with its many interests, monastic and missionary, he gave proof of an ability and individuality second only to the founder. He was about fifty-five years of age on entering upon the abbacy, which he held for other twenty -five years. During this period we find him paying repeated visits 1 It is the Shiel up which Prince 2 Reeves's Adam., pp. clviii. and Charles Edward was rowed in 1745 336. before he erected his standard in ^ 'Poxhes's Kalendars of the Saints, Glenfinnan at the head of the ZAT- '> Proceedings oi Soc. AxAiq. Scot. , loch. xii. 123-134 and xxiii. 110-118. IX ST. ADAMNAN OF IONA I 63 both to England and Ireland. On his first visit to king Aldfrid in Northumbria, whom he had known in his exile in Ireland, and calls his pupil, he brought back sixty of the Irish captives carried off by Bert, the general of Egfrid, in the invasion of Meath. His next visit was in 688, and in the meantime he had entertained Arculf, the French bishop, in Iona, and written from his notes the book on the Holy Places, a copy of which he gave to Aldfrid. Cuthbert was just dead, but his reputation as an advocate of the Catholic Easter may not have been without its influence on Adamnan. During his stay with Aldfrid, to whom he had been sent, according to Bede,^ " as ambassador by his nation,'' he conformed to the usages of the Roman mission, and seems to have pre ferred them to his own. Bede greatly admired Adamnan, and says " he was a good and wise man and remarkably learned in the knowledge of the Scriptures." Ceolfrid, the abbot of Jarrow, in his letter to Nectan, king of the Picts, writes with equal praise of " Adamnan, the abbot and renowned priest of the Columbans '' ; ^ and takes the credit of converting him from the Celtic to the Roman traditions while on his visit to the Northumbrian court. Adamnan could not bring the monks of Iona to adopt the Catholic cycle. In Ireland he was more successful ; but even there the monasteries that were " under the dominion of Hii " held out against conformity. In 697 he again visited his native country, accompanied by Brude, son of Derile, king of the Picts. The object of this visit was to exempt Irish women from attending warlike hostings and expeditions. The legislation of Adamnan shows how difficult it was for Christianity to lift Celtic women from their degraded position. They used to fight 1 Hist, v. 15. Columba and Comgall. Reeves's 2 Alcuin, later in the same century, Adam., Axi. ranks him in a Latin epigram with 164 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. in battle, side by side with the men, and though Columba tried to suppress the barbarous custom, it still prevailed a century after his death. At a convention held at Tara for this purpose, in which the abbot of Armagh pre sided, there were present forty -seven chiefs and thirty- nine ecclesiastics, but it is remarkable that the clerics present, with the exception of the two abbots of Armagh and Bangor, were all from the southern districts of Ireland. The law of women's exemption was known as the " Lex innocentium," and the enactments of the con vention touching the levyings of certain tributes were termed Cain Adhamnain or Lex Adamnan. These laws freed women from the services and severities of war ; but the barbarity they prohibited among Scots and Picts of the seventh century was still common among both races at a much later date. Adamnan gave his name also to certain canons, supposed to have been made about this time, regulating the use of food as a matter of conscience.^ Reeves is inclined to think that Adamnan did not return from Ireland. He died in the year 704 on the 23rd September, which is the day of his commemoration both in the Irish and Scottish calendars. Several Irish churches, chiefly in the dioceses of Derry and Raphoe, are dedicated in the name of St. Adamnan. The Scottish dedications are about the same in number as the Irish ; and it is remarkable, as Reeves ^ observes, that in both countries the dedications to St. Columba and St. Adamnan keep very close together, as, for example, Inchcolm and Inchkeith islands in the Forth. At Forglen in Banffshire, one of Adamnan's dedications, Columba's sacred banner, the Brecbannoch, was kept. The name of St. Serf or Servanus, the apostle of Fife, 1 Robertson's Statuta, xv. ; Skene's C, S., ii. 173 ; Reeves's Adam., clvi. 2 Adam., clxvii. IX ST. ADAMNAN AND ST. SERF I 65 is associated with Adamnan and his period. Historians have found considerable difficulty in fixing the dates of St. Serf, and the difficulty has given rise to the suggestion of two Serfs, a couple of centuries apart from each other. Bower, in his continuation of Fordun, and the Lection in the Aberdeen Breviary make Serf the suffragan of Palladius in the fifth century ; and in the Life of Kentigern in the Glasgow Chartulary, Serf is described as living at Culross and instructing young men for the ministry, of whom Kentigern was one. This would make him a century later, but still too early for personal acquaintance with Adamnan. It is not improbable that there were two Serfs, the missionary priest and teacher at Culross, and the later apostle of Fife, who has cast a halo round his islet on Lochleven. In the Life of Servanus which has been preserved, he is brought into close connection with Adamnan on Inchkeith, but there is no mention in it of Palladius or Kentigern. In the Chartulary of St. Andrews, king Brude, who accompanied Adamnan to Ireland, gives the island on Lochleven to St. Servanus and the Keledei hermits dwelling there. It has been suggested as probable that the Keledei were introduced by Adamnan after he accepted the Catholic Easter and was endeavouring to bring over his brethren.^ There is much legendary matter, chiefiy in the shape of fantastic miracles, interwoven with St. Serfs life, which is mainly interesting from its topo graphical allusions. In Dysart, Fifeshire, where his cave is still shown, and which takes its name from Serfs " diseart " or hermitage, the saint was sorely tried with temptations by the devil. Being unsuccessful with the saint, the spirit takes possession of another man, who suffers in consequence from insatiable voracity. Serf exorcises the demon by putting his thumb into the 1 Skene, C, S., ii. 259. 1 66 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. sufferer's mouth. Then we find the missioner among the villages under the Ochils — Tillibothy, Tillicoultry, Alva, and Airthrie. In Airthrie, a thief stole a sheep from the saint and ate it. On being accused, he offered to pledge his innocence by swearing on the head of the saint's staff, whereupon the sheep bleated from his throat and convicted him. This story presents a choice between the sense of humour and the sense of credulity in the chronicler. Another miracle with a more edifying moral is told of Serf while in Dunning. The natives were troubled with a deadly dragon which assailed both man and beast. Serf was brave enough, armed with his own saintly panoply and his staff, to attack and slay the dragon. And the spot bears the name of the incident, " vallis draconis," the dragon's den, to this day. Some germs of truth were doubtless at the bottom of most of these legendary miracles, even the most extravagant of them ; but the later accretions envelop the simple form and often make it gross. St. Serfs combats with the devil and the dragon may be read as allegorical, whether historical or not ; and even the bleating of the stolen sheep was but a grotesque form of a scriptural truth that " your sin will find you out." Better for edification it would have been if, in mediaeval chronicles, history and allegory had been kept apart. The risk to a critical .reader is that he may be induced to reject the history because of the allegorical envelopments. History also suffers from the want of proportion in the Lives of the holy missionaries who converted or edified Picts and Scots. It is not to be supposed that a handful of legends, true or mixed, represent the whole life-work of a devoted missionary like him who bears in his name, Servanus, that he was the chosen " servant " of God. It is open to read between the lines of a life's long labour spent by hill and dale or IX SEDULIUS AND FERGUS, BISHOPS IN BRITAIN 1 67 lonely cell, where the missioner kept before him the best ideals of Christian duty and devotion. St. Serf is said to have died in his cell at Dunning, and to have been buried at Culross. Besides his church in Lochleven, he had dedications in Dysart, Dunning, and Culross,^ and is commemorated in St. Sair's Fair on one of the Lowland hills in Aberdeenshire. Little is known of the Strathclyde Britons after the death of their bishop Kentigern. They conformed to the Catholic Easter in 704, and we find that they were represented by their bishop Sedulius at a Council in Rome in the year 721. He subscribed its canons as " Sedulius, bishop of Britain of the nation of the Scots." ^ This was shortly after the Britons had gained their independence of the Northumbrians, and as Sedulius must have accepted the Catholic usages with his people, it is probable that he came from South Ireland. The Roman Council was also attended by Fergus, a Pictish bishop of Scotland, who has left deeper traces of his name than Sedulius. He is found evangelising the people, said to be still barbarous, in Caithness, where the churches of Wick and Halkirk bear his dedication. The district of Buchan was his next field, and the village of St. Fergus is his memorial in that quarter. Finally he came to Glammis, where he built a church and died full of years. In this parish there are St. Fergus's cave and well, and local traditions which have lived in Glammis for over a thousand years. His relics were enshrined, after the manner then customary, and his head was taken to the monastery of Scone. In the reign of James IV. there is an entry in the treasurer's accounts for payment of a silver case for the head of St. Fergus.' Both Sedulius and Fergus were contemporaries of St. Serf. 1 Forbes, Kalendars, s.v. ; Skene's ^ Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, ii. 7. C. S., ii. 31, 258 ; Grub, i. 28, 29. ^ Skene's C. S., ii. 232. 1 68 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The see of St. Ninian, Candida Casa or Whithern, was restored about this time. The restoration is one of the latest entries of Bede before closing his history in the year 731. The district was then dependent upon the Northumbrian sovereign, and its bishops were suffragans of York, which was made an archbishopric while Egbert occupied the see. Bede reports ^ that the faithful had so greatly increased in that quarter that the restoration of the see was suggested. This probably indicates a migration of Angles into Galloway. What had been the fortunes of the Church among the Niduarian Picts, after the death of St. Ninian, is left to conjecture. The bishopric must have been for some time in abeyance, but the famous monastic school may have continued, though shorn of its early lustre. Pecthelm was the first of five Anglic bishops who filled Ninian's chair until the year 803. Baldwult was the last bishop of this line, and upon his death Galloway became the battle-ground of Picts and Scots, Britons, Angles, and Danes ; in the end the Angles were dispossessed.^ For a century and a half after the northern Picts had been converted by St. Columba, they lived at peace with the Scots in Argyll. Their common Christianity may be credited with the amicable relations so long subsisting between them. The Picts owed every blessing they had to the Scotic missionaries, who had not only made them Christians at first, but had been civilising them by church and school for some generations. There was not a Pictish boy at this time who knew his letters that had not received his education from the Columban clergy, so thoroughly had the Scotic missionaries done their work.' The action of king Nectan, who succeeded his brother Brude, ^ V. 23. 2 Grub, i. 121 ; Skene, C. S., ii. 225. 3 Skene, C. S., i. 276. IX KING NECTAN AND THE COLUMBAN MONKS 1 69 Adamnan's friend, led, in the year 710, to a rupture of the friendly relations between the Picts and the Columban clergy. Nectan wrote to Ceolfrid, abbot of Jarrow, for information as to the Catholic usages — Easter and the tonsure. The fact that he consulted Jarrow rather than Iona is an indication of his bias touching the questions at issue. He also asked for masons to build a church of stone after the Roman fashion. Pictish and Scotic churches were doubtless still being built of wood, or wood and wattles. Ceolfrid's reply, which was probably written by Bede, is a long and laboured argument in defence of the Continental Easter,^ etc. One thing is notable in the letter, namely, that it is argument from Scripture and Catholic tradition that Ceolfrid uses, and not mere appeals to Roman supremacy, on which he is silent. He refers to his conversation with Adamnan, and adds that the abbot would, but for the opposition of the brethren, have introduced the Catholic cycle in Iona. A council was held of the clergy and chiefs to consider Ceolfrid's letter. It was first read in Bede's Latin and then explained to the people in their own tongue. Whereupon, apparently without discussion, the king accepted Ceolfrid's counsel. Less considerate than king Oswy was at Whitby, Nectan made no pretence of consulting either clergy or laity. " I knew indeed before," said the king, " that this was the true celebration of Easter ; but now I see so fully the reason of it, that it seems as if hitherto I had known but little. And therefore I publicly profess and declare to you who are present that it is my will to observe for ever this time of Easter with my whole nation, and I also decree that this tonsure, which we have now heard to be most reasonable, shall be received by all the clergy of my kingdom." The Western cycle for Easter was accordingly 1 Robertson's Statuta, i. xvi. ; Burton's Hist, i. 273. 170 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. ordered to be transcribed and observed throughout the Pictish kingdom, and the clergy and monks to receive the coronal tonsure. The Columban monks were no more disposed to submit to the summary decree of Nectan than their brethren were to submit at Whitby. The spirit of Colman, of the British bishops who withstood Augustine, of Columbanus who resisted Galilean bishops and Roman pontiffs, was not extinct in their successors. A few years' grace was allowed for compliance, but in the year 717 the law was enforced, and the great body of the Columban monks were expelled from the Pictish provinces and sent across Drumalban.^ This was the first blow to the pre-eminence of Iona in North Britain. Hereafter its supremacy was limited to Dalriada. Important mission centres, such as Abernethy, Dunkeld, and St. Andrews, passed from beneath its rule. Since Adamnan's death there had been a schism in Iona over Easter and the tonsure ; and rival abbots, favouring or opposing the Catholic use, had been elected. But even Iona had to yield to the influence of reason and argument. A priest named Egbert, one of the many Anglic and Saxon students whom the fame of the Irish monasteries had drawn to Armagh, Durrow, and Bangor, visited Iona in 716, and what the brethren would not yield, even to an abbot like Adamnan, they yielded to the Englishman. Egbert remained at Iona till his death on Easter Day, 24th April 729, just after he had celebrated his Easter Eucharist. Bede commends him warmly for his good offices, and remarks upon the coincidence of his death at the Easter-tide.^ ' Rohextsoxi's statuta, i. xvi.,quot- Nectano rege" ; Grub, i. 116; Skene, ing the Irish Annals of Tighernac, C. S., ii. 177. under the year 717, " expulsio familise ^ pust., v. 9, 10, 22. Ice (Iona) trans dorsum Britannise a IX CLOSING DAYS OF VENERABLE BEDE I 7 I Bede's own honoured life was now drawing to its close. He had been taken in his boyhood to the monastery of Wearmouth to be trained under Benedict Biscop, and about a year after he migrated to the younger monastery of Jarrow, founded by Ceolfrid. There he spent the rest of his years. " I spent my whole life in the same monastery," he says, " and while attentive to the rule of my order (Benedictine) and the service of the church, my constant pleasure lay in learning or teaching or writing.'' He is the first great English scholar, and Burke calls him " the father of English learning." No less than forty-five works, embracing the science, literature, and theology of his day, were written by him in his unwearied industry. His Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation has been of invaluable service to a long line of students from his day downwards. It throws light on many a dubious passage of Church history on both sides of the Border. And its value is most felt when we miss his guidance in the later years of the eighth century. His history is brought down to 731. He died on Ascension Day, the 27th May 735, at the age of sixty-two, in his beloved monastery of Jarrow, where he had spent continuously nearly fifty-four years of his life. As scholar, theologian, and historian, he is the father of English Hterature, and none will grudge him his honoured title of " Venerable." ^ In 734, the year before he died, Bede penned a memor able letter to Egbert, the youthful bishop, and afterwards the first archbishop of York, lamenting the decay of discipline and morals in the Northumbrian monasteries. The evils plainly indicated by Bede were similar to those which afterwards brought shame and ruin upon the mediaeval monasteries. The remarkable thing is 1 '&x\^'Cs Early Eng. C/^., 335 ; Forbes's Kalendars of Saints, pp. Green's Hist. Eng. People, i. 64; 273, 274. 172 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. that they should have appeared so soon after the fervour and purity which the Scotic mission had kindled in Northumbria. It is not without significance that the abuses had crept in after the withdrawal of the Scotic clergy, and when the monasteries had been for some time in the hands of the Roman mission. Another saint of this period with a very different history takes us to the northern extremity of the see of Lindisfarne — the solitary Bass Rock that guards the Forth. " St. Baldred of the Bass " has, linked his name with that bold bleak islet. " Amid the roaring of the waves and the screams of the sea-birds, the saint sang praises to God and practised austerities which this age can hardly realise." ^ This age is less in sympathy with his austerities than with his missionary work in East Lothian. He was a true evangelist in his day, as well as a hermit, and taught other hearts to know and sing God's praises in these parts. His mission work in the Lothians has led his name to be associated erroneously with the life and times of St. Kentigern. The Martyrology of Aberdeen makes him a suffragan of the bishop, and Bower, in his continuation of Fordun, repeats the mistake. Kentigern is credited with missionary work among the Angles of the Forth, and Baldred's name became intertwined with the bishop's. They both evangelised the same district, though their lives were a century and a half apart. Simeon of Durham, a better authority, assigns 756 as the year of Baldred's death. Three parishes in East Lothian — Aldhame, Tyninghame, and Prestoune (Skene gives Lyntoun as the third parish), claimed a connection with the saint, and, after his death, contended for the possession of his body. The dispute was settled in a way not unusual in legendary tales, by the production of 1 Bp. Forbes's Kalendars of the Saints, sub voce. IX SS. BALDRED, BONIFACE, ETC. I 73 three bodies, one for each parish. Various topographical traditions perpetuate his name in the several parishes, his cave and well and pool, and above all the picturesque Bass, which he made his hermitage.^ To the reign of king Nectan, after the expulsion of the Columban clergy, belongs the missionary Boniface. The legends of his life are disfigured by more than the usual amount of unhistoric matter. He is said to have come from Rome (and we shall presently see what that means) with six other bishops in his train — Benedictus, Servandus, Pensandus, Benevolus, Madianus, and Prin- cipuus, seven presbyters, seven deacons, etc., and a multi tude of holy men and women. They sail up the Forth and proceed to Restinoth, where they meet king Nectan and his army. The king and his nobles and officers are baptized by Boniface and his bishops, and the place of baptism is marked by the dedication of a church to the Holy Trinity. The usual work of a missionary bishop continues until Boniface's death at the age of eighty-four. Another form of the legend gives him the additional name of Albanus Kiritinus, and records that he founded a church in Gowrie (Perthshire), and, after preaching sixty years to Picts and Scots, died and was buried in St. Peter's Church, Rosmarkyn. Boniface was no doubt a reality, as were also some of his company ; and their mission points ^ to the expulsion of the Iona monks, and the introduction in their place of a body of secular clergy who had conformed to the Catholic usages. This explains the early part of the legend about his coming from Rome. Boniface was a bishop from the Southern Irish Church that had long accepted the Western cycle for Easter. In 697 he signed his name as Cuiritan, bishop, in the synod held by Adamnan in Ireland, for the exemption of women from 1 Skene, C. S., ii. 223. ^ ^id, ii. 231. 174 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. military service. The fruits of the mission among the Picts remained in the dedication of churches at Scone to the Holy Trinity and in fourteen other places in the name of St. Peter. Madianus, one of Boniface's company, is preserved in St. Madoes, in the Carse of Gowrie, and Pensandus in the parish of Kilspindy. Rosmarky, where Boniface was buried, founded a century before by St. Moluog of Lismore, was dedicated in the names of St. Peter and Bonifacius. In the next reign, that of Angus, or Hungus, we shall see how St. Peter, at this time the popular if not the patron saint of Pictland, came to be displaced by St. Andrew. Nectan was evidently a religious as well as an in telligent ruler, and the part he played in the Easter controversy is proof of it. A little more favour might have been extended to the Scotic clergy in consideration of the benefits which for more than a century the Columban Church had conferred on the Pictish nation. Nectan is credited with re-establishing the monastery of Abernethy ; and in 724, according to Tighernac, he assumed for a short time the monastic habit. He prob ably retired to the church which he had built, after the Roman manner, by the masons sent him from Jarrow. He died in 731, and from the remains of a burying-ground in Iona called Cill-ma-Neachtan, it has been conjectured that he made up the quarrel with the Iona monks, and was buried there. Nectan was succeeded by Angus, son of Fergus, called Hungus by the chroniclers, one of the ablest of the Pictish kings. His ability was too often exercised at the expense of his neighbours, and the Anglo-Saxon chroniclers give him in consequence a very bad character. His long reign of thirty years was marked by frequent wars with the Dalriadic Scots, with the Britons, and with the Anglians of Northumbria. He was IX LEGENDS OF ST. ANDREWS I 75 ambitious to recover the Lothians, and led his forces with this object across the Forth. He met the Northumbrian army under Athelstane, in East Lothian, and gained a victory at a place called, in memory of the battle, Athelstaneford. There are two legends connected with the battle, and they help to explain how St. Andrew came to be the patron saint of Scotland, and the city of St. Andrews to receive its name, and ultimately its dignity as the ecclesiastical metropolis. The legends were long associated with the fourth century, the date when St. Andrew's relics were said to have been removed from Patras, in Greece, where he suffered martyrdom. What may be substantially true in them belongs to a later period in Scottish history. In the year 710, king Nectan placed his kingdom under the patronage of St. Peter, and the dedication of churches under his name became common after that date. How St. Peter came to be superseded by his brother St. Andrew in Scotland the two legends help to explain. The older of these is based on a document of the twelfth century,^ the later and more elaborate is from the now lost Register of St. Andrews. In the earlier legend we are told of the life and work of St. Andrew among the Scythians (the supposed ancestors of our own Picts), of his martyrdom at Patras, and the preservation of his relics there till the age of Constantine and his sons, when they were translated to Constantinople. The next stage in the legend is the story of Ungus, king of the Picts, being surrounded with his army in the Merse by a hostile people, and of the appearance of St. Andrew exhibiting his cross in the air, promising him protection on condition of his dedicating the tenth of his kingdom 1 Skene's Chr, of the Picts and Scots, p. 138; and Pinkerton's Enquiry, i. 498, etc. 176 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. to God and St. Andrew. Then we have another vision to the custodians of the relics of the apostle, ordering them to be conveyed to the king's mount, that is king Ungus's mount, Rigimund, This was accordingly done by Regulus, abbot and monk, and his companions. They were met by the king, who gave the lands and city to God and St. Andrew to be " the head and mother of all the churches in the kingdom of the Picts." The second legend repeats the first with elaboration.^ But there are several notable differences between them. Regulus is now a bishop and his monks are called clergy. The Pictish king is Hungus, and the enemy threatening him are the Saxons under king Athelstane, encamped by the Tyne in East Lothian, at a place since called Athelstaneford. St. Andrew appears the night before the battle, in a vision to Hungus, promises him victory, tells him that his relics are to be brought to his kingdom, and that the place of their deposit will become venerated for ever. Hungus and his men vow obedience to God and veneration to St. Andrew on the condition of victory. The Saxons are routed and Athelstane slain. The blessed bishop Regulus is commanded by an angel to bear away the relics of St. Andrew towards the north ; and, after many perils by water, the bishop and his com pany arrive, on the Eve of St. Michael, in the land of the Picts (in other words, Fifeshire) at a place once called Muckros, but now Kylrimont. There he erects a cross brought from Patras, carries the sacred relics through Pictland, meets the three sons of Hungus, then his queen, and finally Hungus himself, who pays honour to the relics. Various churches in different parts of the country are dedicated, and in the end king Hungus and the holy men return to Kylrimont, where they make a circuit round 1 See Chr. of the Picts and Scots, p. 183 ; Pinkerton's Enq., i. 457-462. IX LEGENDS OF ST. ANDREWS I 77 the place, and dedicate more churches and oratories to God and St. Andrew. Hungus gives the place, with many gifts and privileges, to the Church, and bishop Regulus then chants the Alleluia that God may protect that place in honour of the apostle. What may be the substratum of truth underlying these legends Dr. Skene ^ has laboured with much ingenuity and singular success to show. The earlier Hungus he believes to be the subject of both legends. In the first legend the monastic, and in the second, the secular order of clergy is represented. The monastic Regulus is found in the Irish Riagail of Mucinis, the swine's island, in Loch Derg ; and he is identified with the historic Regulus of the Columban period who came to St. Andrews, the first name of w^hich was Muicross — the swine's promontory. Regulus has therefore no connection with the relics of St. Andrew and the other events in the legends. These events are to be found in the eighth and not in the sixth century, in the reign of Hungus, 731-761, whose wars in the Merse correspond with the legendary narrative. And now arises the question — whence came the relics ? They came from the church of St. Andrew, Hexham. It was a far cry to Greece ; it is not so far to Hexham. The church there was dedicated to St. Andrew by Wilfrid in 674, and the relics of the apostle were brought thither by his successor, bishop Acca, the friend of Bede, whose episcopate lasted from 709 to 732. The church at Hexham had two chapels, dedicated, the one to St. Mary, the other to St. Michael. In the second legend we find the same combination at St. Andrews, where among other dedications there were also two chapels, to St. Mary and St. Michael. And, further to confirm the identification, we learn from Simeon of Durham that Acca was driven 1 Celt. Scot, ii. pp. 266, etc. N 178 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. from the see of Hexham in 732, and the report was spread in that age that he had gone to found a bishop's see among the Picts. It is doubtful where that see was, but it is a historical fact that a bishopric was founded in St. Andrews by a Pictish king between the years 736 and 761, and that the relics of St. Andrew were com monly reported to have been brought to it at that time.^ This is the probable origin of the name and city of St. Andrews before it came to be the ecclesiastical metropolis of Scotland. The tradition is of ancient date, and from very early times the veneration of the Scots for St. Andrew has been national. Amid all changes, civil and ecclesiastical, they have clung to the tradition as tenaciously as if it had been an article of the Apostles' Creed. On several occasions it found something like national expression. In a parliament held at Arbroath Abbey in 1320, to defend the regal position of Robert the Bruce, the Scottish barons framed a manifesto to the pope (Boniface VIII.), in the preamble of which they asserted that our Lord had brought the Scottish nation, " who were settled in the uttermost borders of the earth, almost first to the most holy faith, and wished to con firm them in the faith by no other than the first apostle Andrew, whom they wished to be always over them as their patron " ; and they further remind his holiness that his predecessors in the papal see " did with many great and singular favours and privileges, fence and secure this kingdom and people, as being the peculiar charge and care of the brother of St. Peter." ^ In 1 3 1 8, when the stately cathedral of St. Andrews, so long in building, was consecrated in the presence of king Robert and many of the bishops and barons, the king offered, among other ^ Skene's C. S., ii. 261-275. 2 Chron. Picts and Scots, 292; Burton, Hist Scot, ii. 284. IX TOWER OF ST. REGULUS IN ST. ANDREWS I 79 gifts, a hundred marks yearly in gratitude "for the mighty victory vouchsafed to the Scots at Bannockburn by St. Andrew, the guardian of their realm." ^ The Romanesque church and tower of St. Regulus, still standing in St. Andrews, that unique city of ruins, helped to keep alive the popular tradition. In a non- critical age they were attributed to the mythical Regulus of the fourth century. More recent authorities abridged their antiquity to the period of Hungus, who founded the see. " The common herd of Scottish antiquaries," says Dr. Joseph Robertson with some severity,^ " assign them to the seventh or eighth century." Upon better grounds both of structural design and historic evidence he identifies them with the small basilica erected by bishop Robert of St. Andrews between 1127 and 1144. In this opinion he has been confirmed by Sir Gilbert Scott and Dr. Joseph Anderson.' 1 Jos. Robertson's Scot. Abbeys ^ See Anderson's Scotland in and Cath., p. 47. Early Christian Times, ist series 2 Scot. Abbeys and Cath., p. 34. p. 33. CHAPTER X Iona ravaged by the Danes — Parishes and Dioceses — Union of Scotic and Pictish kingdoms — Supremacy of Dunkeld — Round Tovirers of Abernethy and Brechin — Adrian — Monan — " The Scottish Church " first named — Iona — Supremacy of the Scots — Book of Deer — Scarcity of old MSS. There is little of historic interest in the annals of Iona during the eighth century. The Easter cycle bred dissen sions and rival abbots for some time ; and when the dissensions ceased, the power and prestige of Iona were on the wane. The northern monastery of Applecross, its only rival in the west, lost its abbot Maelrubha, after a long rule, in the year 722. His successor Failbe was drowned in 737, with twenty -two of the brethren, " in the deep sea." They were probably on a voyage to Ireland when the accident occurred. Inter course was frequent between Ireland and the Western Isles. It was much easier for them to reach Ireland than to reach Glasgow ; yet the sea had its dangers to the voyagers in the frail crafts of those days, as we are reminded by another accident recorded in the annals of Tighernac for the year 749 — " the drowning of the family of Iona." Entries less painful appear from time to time recalling the fame of the island for sanctity, as when we read of Niall Frosach, king of Ireland, resigning his kingdom and becoming a monk in Iona until his death in 780, and of Artgail, king of Connaught, chap. X DEVASTATIONS OF IONA BY DANES 1 8 I who followed his example and died there in 791. Iona received living kings for discipline as well as dead kings for burial. At the close of the century, 795, we meet with the first of the ominous entries, — " the devastation of Iona," which tells of the presence of the piratical Danes. Two years before, the Saxon chronicler records how " the ravaging of heathen men lamentably destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne." The ruthless robbers had followed up their invasion of the east coast by a sweep round the Western Isles, plundering churches and monasteries on their way. In the same summer that they attacked Iona, we are told of " the burning of Rathlin by ' the Gentiles,' and its shrines violated and spoiled." In 806 Iona had a second visit, with still more disastrous effects, when sixty-eight of the brethren were murdered. Again in 825 the attack was renewed and made memorable by the martyrdom of Blaithmac, who, according to Dr. Reeves,^ seems to have been the superior of the monastery.^ The Danes made their attack upon the church in the early morning, while Blaithmac was celebrating the Eucharist (probably there fore on a Sunday, as there is no evidence of a daily celebration in Iona), and demanded to be shown the place of St. Columba's relics. Blaithmac had previously counselled the brethren who were not prepared for death to save themselves by fiight. He refused to discover the relics, and was thereupon slain by the Danes, along with some of the brethren who stood by him. One result of these piratical attacks upon Iona was the removal of St. Columba's relics to Ireland, from which 1 Life of Adam., Ixxxii. and clxxiv. so that Blaithmac may have been "- Reeves, Adam., p. 337, gives prior or deputy but could not have Diarmit as abbot from 815 to 831, been abbot. I 82 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. they were again brought back to Iona, and from Iona to Dunkeld. Other accounts relate that they finally fell into the hands of the Norsemen in Ireland, and there were not a few who believed that they still rested in lona.^ The see of Lindisfarne was filled in 828 by Eccred, who, among his other benefactions to the see, presented it with the town and church of Jedburgh. Grub ^ regards this as " the first indication we have of anything resembling the establishment of a parish within the Hmits of modern Scot land." He adds that " parochial divisions were probably by this time common in the Northumbrian kingdom." Metropolitan and diocesan divisions had been established by archbishop Theodore in the province of Canterbury ; parochial divisions were of slower growth, though they formed part of his comprehensive scheme of church organ isation. The want of territorial dioceses in Ireland and North Britain, and of limits to the districts and number of bishops, led to the English Church protecting herself by canonical legislation. In the synod of Calcuith held in 816, and presided over by Wilfrid, archbishop of Canter bury, a canon was passed forbidding any of the nation of the Scots from celebrating or ministering in the Anglican Church. What may seem still more singular, a similar canon was passed at Chalons in France, three years before, against the orders conferred by the bishops of the Scots. The same reason governed the exceptional legislation in both countries. The bishops among the Scots, both in Ireland and Britain, were many ; they were often raised to the episcopate as a mark of ecclesiastical distinction, in 1 The account of Blaithmac's Lake of Constance, originally founded martyrdom was written in Latin by Columbanus. Strabus died about verse a few years afterwards by 849. For references see Reeves as Walafridus Strabus, the superior of above, and Grub, i. 126. the monastery of Reichenau on the 2 j^ jj^. X UNION OF SCOTIC AND PICTISH KINGDOMS 1 83 the same way, and quite as freely, as honorary canonries are now conferred. They had no proper pastoral duties assigned to them, and no provision to maintain them. The result was that some of them became itinerant bishops, wandering over England and the Continent and conferring orders, probably without much discrimination, and even, as has been said, for the sake of a bare living. The English and French bishops evidently thought that the best way of checking so manifest an abuse was to inhibit canonically and without distinction all priests of Scotic ordination. This attitude of self-defence has been mis understood, and interpreted as evidence of a difference in doctrine or in polity between the Celtic and the other Churches. The difference beyond the lines indicated is purely imaginary. For better and for worse the Western Churches held together in faith, in worship, and in govern ment until the sixteenth century. The ninth century is memorable for the union of the Scotic and Pictish kingdoms. The results were as im portant in their day as the union between Scotland and England. For some generations after the conversion of the Picts by the Scotic clergy the two races lived amicably together under the pacific influence of their common re ligion. That concord was rudely broken, and for many years before the union there were frequent wars and in vasions of each other's territory. It was the same with their relations to the Britons and Northumbrians. The land had no rest from internecine strife, now one race and now another being the aggressor. To add to the miseries of the age, the country was invaded, and for two centuries harried, first by the Danes and later by the Norwegians. The common terms Norsemen, or northern men, and Vikings, or men of the bays, included all the piratical hordes who infested the eastern seaboard, seized upon the 184 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Orkneys and Hebrides, attacked the Britons of Strathclyde, and captured its capital Dunbarton. Both Picts and Britons were much weakened by the repeated attacks of the Norsemen, and to this may partly be attributed their com parative feebleness in later history, until both were finally absorbed in the kingdom of the Scots. The Norsemen were still pagans, though not far off from the day of their conversion, and war was the common business of their life. It was otherwise with the races in possession of the country, but their Christianity seems to have had little influence in restraining the lust for war. Christians fought as fiercely against Christians as the heathen Norsemen fought against all and sundry. The same reflection is just as true of the nineteenth century as of the ninth, with probably less extenuation for the present age. A thousand years have gone with all their record of blood, but the Millennium has not come.^ Kenneth, son of Alpin, known in history as Kenneth MacAlpin, succeeded his father in the kingdom of the Dalriadic Scots in 836. In 843 he became king of both Picts and Scots. On the father's side he was descended from king Aidan of the Scots, inaugurated by St. Columba. In right of the maternal ancestry of his father, Kenneth claimed the Pictish throne, and thus happily united both peoples under one sovereign. For the next two centuries Picts and Scots were ruled by the MacAlpin dynasty. In the annals of that age they are described as " king of the Picts," but after the tenth century the name of Pict makes way for Scot. Kenneth ruled over the north country from the Kyles of Sutherland to the Forth. The old kingdom of Cumbria or Strathclyde still maintained a struggling and precarious independence ; and the country 1 Pinkerton, Enq., ii. 133 ; Cos. Innes, Mid. Ages, pref. xv. ; Ibid., Sketches Early Scot Hist, p. 9 ; Skene's C. S., i. 15. X SUPREMACY OF DUNKELD 185 from the Forth to the Tweed continued to form part of Northumbria. Kenneth fixed his residence at the old Pictish capital of Forteviot in Strathearn ; and this had its effect upon the supremacy of Iona. The metropolis of the church soon moved eastward with that of the state, and in 849 Dunkeld superseded Iona as the Annoid or mother-church of the united kingdom. The invasion of the Norsemen had something to do with the decline of Iona. They plundered and burned the monastery no less than six times, and on some of those occasions put the defenceless monks to the sword. But even supposing the invaders had never set foot on Iona, its day of power would have gone. An ocean island could no more con tinue the centre of ecclesiastical life in Scotland than Lindisfarne, its eastern daughter, could continue the metropolis of the Northumbrian church. As the see of Lindisfarne was eventually transferred first to Chester-le- Street and then to Durham, so the pre-eminence of Iona passed to Dunkeld, and from Dunkeld it went still farther east to St. Andrews. Dunkeld had been a Christian foundation from the days of the first Columban monks, and some say it was founded by St. Columba himself. We read in the chronicle of the Picts and Scots ^ that Constantin, the Pictish king, refounded or restored its monastery between the years 810 and 820. To the monastic church of Dunkeld Kenneth transferred from Iona the relics of St. Columba. This formed a bond of union for many years between Iona and Dunkeld. When diocesan episcopacy was established, Iona, while ruling its own monasteries, was still affiliated to Dunkeld ; and even after Argyll had been separated from the diocese of Dunkeld, the old tie was not broken. Not until Iona itself became the see city of the Isles was the severance 1 Pp. 138, 183, 201. I 86 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. made complete between it and Dunkeld. But Iona still lived in the odour of sanctity, and the kings of the united Picts and Scots continued to be buried there. Kenneth, surnamed "the Hardy," was an energetic ruler, and possibly from some traditional claim on the country south of the Forth he led his combined Picts and Scots six times into Northumbria, burning Dunbar and Melrose in one of his raids. The Britons of Strathclyde about the same time sacked and burned Dunblane. And meanwhile the Norsemen were attacking the fianks of both, penetrating as far as Dunkeld, supposed to be secluded and safe from their ravages. Kenneth is credited in tradition with removing the Lia Fail or Stone of Destiny from Iona to Scone, and with compiling a code of laws for his kingdom. The MacAlpine Laws, so called, are regarded by our best authorities as spurious.^ The Lia Fail is believed by some to be the veritable stone upon which the Irish kings were crowned at Tara — that it came with the Scots to Iona, that it went with the Scots to Scone after they took possession of the Pictish kingdom, that Edward I. carried it off to England, and finally that the Scots followed it to Westminster. The last two events are historical ; the previous migrations want proof ^ Donald succeeded his brother Kenneth, by the Tanist law of succession, in 859. Nothing is recorded of his short reign excepting the holding of a council at Forteviot in which the laws of Aodh of Kintyre were confirmed. After him Constantin, the son of Kenneth, became king in 863. He is called Constantin the First, of the united Scoto - Pictish kingdom. A previous 1 See Grub, i. 164. identify the Scottish Lia Fail with 2 Dr. M'Lauchlan, Early Scot. Tara, nor does Dr. Petrie, in his Ch., p. 285, expresses the probabil- "Essay on Tara," whom he quotes. iVj/ of the stone having been brought Grub, i. 163, thinks it may have from Tara. Robertson, Scotland come from Iona to Scone. under Early Kings, i. 36, does not X THE PRIMUS BISHOP OF FORTRENN I 87 Constantin, who refounded the church of Dunkeld, was king of the Picts, and after this ancestor Kenneth prob ably named his son ; but the name is Roman, and recalls the days of the empire in Britain. In the Annals of Ulster for 865 there is recorded the death of Tuathal, son of Artgus, the first bishop {primus episcopus) of Fortrenn and abbot of Dunkeld. By primus episcopus Dr. Skene ^ understands first bishop in order of time, not of dignity. Other writers interpret the phrase to mean a primacy vested in Dunkeld in succession to Iona. The abbot-bishop would thus be co-arb or heir to St. Columba, in a church possessing part of his relics. As bishop of Fortrenn, which meant the kingdom of the Southern Picts, he would be the recognised head of the Pictish Church. Another entry in the Ulster Annals for 872 mentions the death of Flaitbertach, superior {princeps) of Dunkeld. This title leaves it doubtful whether he was abbot of the monastic church or the superior of the clergy as their bishop. Later entries in the same annals record the deaths of other abbots of Dunkeld. Some of them must have been militant in their day, wearing the corselet under their surplice, or more probably lay abbots who never wore a surplice at all. Two of them are recorded as having fallen in battle. Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, and continuator of Fordun's Scotichronicon^ assigns to Abernethy at this period the position of ecclesiastical supremacy. He says : " In the church of Abernethy there had been three elections of bishops, when there was but one sole bishop in Scotland ; and it was then the principal royal and episcopal seat, for some time, of the whole kingdom of the Picts." Bower's statements have generally to be taken with caution, and later historians dispute, not the election of bishops, but the 1 C. S., ii. 308. ^ iv. 12. 1 88 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. political pre-eminence here assigned to Abernethy. It was one of the oldest religious foundations in Pictland, associated with the name and times of St. Bridget, but it was never the capital of Pictland, as Forteviot occupied that position before Scone. That Abernethy was one of the earHest and most important of the religious foundations among the Southern Picts, we have ample proof. It had a royal founder, and more than one Pictish king bestowed his benefactions upon it. It was further favoured by the ecclesiastical policy of the MacAlpin dynasty, who reversed the edict of the Pictish Nectan against the Scotic clergy, and invited them into the country from which their fathers had been expelled. And thus Abernethy, founded by Irish missionaries, and dedicated to St. Bride, became again the centre of Scoto-Irish influence. Cellach, abbot of St. Bride's monastery of Kildare, and also abbot of Iona (its abbacy latterly was often combined with an Irish monastery), took refuge in the kingdom of the Picts and died, it is conjectured, in Abernethy. It is to this period of the Irish mission that we owe the building of the round tower of Abernethy, which is believed to be much earlier in date than the one in Brechin. Both towers are of distinctly Irish origin. Seventy-six towers of the same type as those of Abernethy and Brechin are found in Ireland, and there are notices of twenty-tvvo others which do not now exist. A very early age was at one time assigned to them, but archaeologists are now agreed that they were built from the ninth century to the beginning of the twelfth. Their object was to provide, in a lawless age, a refuge for the clergy, and safe keeping for the valuable articles, such as relics, books, croziers, bells, vestments, etc., which had accumulated in the Church's hands. Abernethy and Brechin were both monastic churches, and their round towers were doubtless X ROUND TOWERS OF ABERNETHY AND BRECHIN 1 89 often of essential service as an asylum for the ecclesiastics when the Norsemen were on the war-path. They are, besides, the embodiment in stone of the early and close connection which subsisted so long between the Irish and Scottish branches of the Church. Had there been no such connection we should have had no round towers. The one at Abernethy is in date among the earliest — probably of the ninth century. The Brechin tower is said by Dr. Petrie, in his " Essay on the Round Towers," to have been built between 977 and 994. The reason assigned for this date is that, in the Pictish Chronicle, Kenneth, son of Malcolm, who reigned from 977 to 995, is said to have given the great city {magna civitas) of Brechin to the Lord. This would indicate that Brechin was then a very considerable monastic church, and the inference is drawn that the round tower was erected in Kenneth's reign as a protection of the clergy from the plundering Norsemen. There is a third round tower of smaller dimensions attached to the west end of the church in Egilsay, Orkney. Abernethy and Brechin appear, from their structure, to have been always isolated. Brechin is the larger and more complete of the two, and measures 106 feet in height ; Abernethy is 7 2 feet. ^ To the reign of Constantin belongs the legend of St. Adrian recorded in the Aberdeen Breviary and by Winton in his Chronicle, Adrian was a bishop, according to the legend, who came from Hungary with six thousand six hundred and six clerics and laics. Among these are given the names of Glodianus, Glayus, Monanus, Sto- brandus, all of them written in a Latin form. They are said to have done missionary work among the Picts, and then to have retired to the Isle of May, where many of them were martyred by the Danes. In place of emigrants 1 Skene's C. S., ii. 309 ; Anderson's Scot, in Early Christ. Times, p. 35 seq. 190 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. from Hungary, escaping pagan persecution at home — a story which resembles the mythical eastern origin of St. Boniface and St. Serf — they are believed to have been a mixed company of Scots and Angles, taking advantage of the open door which the accession of the MacAlpin dynasty offered to the clergy. The sediment of truth to be found at the bottom of this legend is, that they spread themselves over Fife, and that some of them latterly retired to the Isle of May, where they were surprised and slain by the Danes. The name of one of them, Monanus, has-been identified with St. Monan ; but if so, as Skene observes, it was not the living St. Mohan who came with them but the relics of the dead St. Moinenn, bishop of Clonfert in Ireland. ^ The probability is that there were two saints of this name, both of them Irish, and that the earlier St. Monan was the missionary who converted the Picts in Fife, and gave his name to the church and village of St. Monans. Various traditions in the east of Fife are associated with St. Adrian, supposed to be the Celtic Odran Latinised, such as his oratory-cave at Caipley, opposite the Isle of May, on the walls of which are incised several small crosses. Constantin's reign (863-877) was one long struggle with the invading Norsemen, who were no sooner expelled from one place than they appeared in another. For two years these " Gentiles " wasted the country, occupying it "from the Kalends of January till the feast of St. Patrick," until they were attacked and their leader slain by Constantin. The king's own life closed appropriately in a battle with the Norsemen at Inverdoset in the north east of Fife. The Register of St. Andrews, and Winton, the prior -chronicler of Lochleven, gave currency to a darker tradition touching the end of Constantin, — that he was captured and immured in the Black Cave near 1 Skene, C. S.,\\. 311 seq. X THE TITLE OF "THE SCOTTISH CHURCH " I9I Crail, where he died a lingering and cruel death. The term " Scotti " or Scots is now applied in the Pictish Chronicle for the first time to the inhabitants of Pictavia, with special reference to the province of Fife.^ Aodh or Hugh, the surviving son of Kenneth, succeeded, but his claim was disputed by Cyric or Grig, a chieftain of the Garioch, Aberdeenshire.^ A battle in Strathallan left Grig the victor, and he thereupon associated with him in the government Eocha of Strathclyde, a son of the British prince Run, and grandson of Kenneth. Grig's object in this alliance may have been to propitiate the southern race while still holding the reins of government in his own hands. He is better remembered for his benefactions to the Church. " This is he who first gave liberty to THE SCOTTISH CHURCH, which had been, until now, under servitude, according to the law and custom of the Picts." Such is the entry in the Chronicle of the Picts and Scots,' and also in the Register of St. Andrews, touching king Grig. It is noteworthy that this is the first appearance in history of the title " The Scottish Church'.' The servitude of the Church under the Picts refers to the exaction of taxes and tributes and secular services for the lands which she held. These exactions occasionally included the expenses of hostings, the enter taining of the king and his followers, or of the temporal superior, the construction of bridges, and the fortification of citadels. The Anglic Church had been freed from similar services by king Ethelwulf, and it was no doubt part of the policy of king Grig to strengthen his hold on the throne by winning over the Scottish clergy to his 1 Skene, C. S., i. 328; Robertson's 3 p. ijj. j. c. Robertson, Hist. Early Kings Scot, i. p. 48. of the Christian Ch., ii. 194, on 2 Skene, C. S., i. 330, says that his church lands being exempt from all name Curig, commonly written Grig, taxes except the "threefold necessity," is British, and that he was probably trinodia necessitas. a Briton. 192 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. side.^ Such services were exacted in England in the eighth and ninth centuries, as shown by charters of their monasteries. The Book of Deer has entries, in the spaces between the Gospels, of their freedom from secular burdens. The Irish Church was subject to these burdens for its lands until they were forbidden by the synod of Cashel in the twelfth century. The old relation between the Church and the tribe often tempted the secular chiefs, when in any strait, to treat the church lands as if they were still tribal and subject to exactions for secular purposes. Charters conveying lands to churches after wards contained clauses specially exempting them from any kind of tribute or service. Synods of the Church endeavoured, by canon law, to protect ecclesiastical pro perties from similar " servitude." " What king Grig did," says Dr. Skene,^ " was probably to issue a decree, similar to that of the synod of Cashel at a later period, ' that all church lands and possessions belonging to them be wholly free from exaction on the part of all secular persons, and that neither kings nor mormaers nor toiseachs are to exact, as has been customary among the Picts, victuals and hospitality in lands belonging the Church, or presume any longer to extort them by force.' " ' On the death of Eocha, Donald, his cousin, the son of Constantin, shared with Grig the government of the country. A victory over the Norsemen at Collin, on the banks of the Tay, led to the removal of the capital from Forteviot. It had been burnt by the invaders, and, for 1 Jos. Robertson, Statuta, i. xix., the clergy and monks among the says, "I owe to the learned ingenuity English." 2 q_ ^^ ;;_ ^23. of W. Forbes Skene the suggestion 3 Rohexisoxi, Scotlaiul under Early that the servitude may have been the Kings, i. 50, interprets the gift of exaction of some such secular services Grig to the Scottish Church as a trans- from the clergy and monks among ference of the supposed primacy from the Picts as we know to have been Dunkeld to St. Andrews — a very im- exacted about the same time from probable " liberation of the Church. " X KING GRIG AND ST. CIRICUS 1 93 greater security. Scone was fixed upon as " the Royal City." Thus, the new name of " Scottish Church," and the new capital of Scone, appear about the same time in history. They both fall within the reign of Grig, whose name has come down to us with a fabulous glory con ferred upon him by later chroniclers as the conqueror of England and Ireland. The king's name has become curiously mixed up in history with that of St. Ciricus, a martyr of Tarsus, who has been introduced into the British calendar and honoured with several dedications in Wales. But it cannot be the Asiatic Ciricus who has left his name in Ecclesgrig, the church of Grig, in the Mearns, though it was dedicated to St. Ciricus, and the parish still bears the name of St. Cyrus.^ King Grig died in 896, and Donald, who reigned alone for the next four years, is supposed to have been killed at Dunottar in the year 900.^ There is little to record of Iona during the ninth century except the recurring invasions of the Danes, who paid periodical visits to the lonely island while thread ing their way between the Hebrides and Ireland. In the Annals of Ulster for 878 there is the entry that "the shrine of Columba with his relics was carried to Ireland for protection from the foreigners." The shrine seems to have had many removals to and fro. Of abbot Flann, who succeeded Feradach in 880, it is recorded that he died in peace, as if a peaceable death was now an exception to the ordinary lot of Iona abbots. Malbride, who succeeded Flann, was also abbot of Armagh and Raphoe, which clearly points to the decline of Iona from its proud position of supremacy in the Celtic Church. This abbot is said to have been " Head of the piety of all Ireland, and of the greater part of Europe." ^ The position of 1 Skene's C. S., i. 333. Ulster, 899; Fordun, iv. 20. 2 Innes, App. iii. 5 ; Annals of ^ Reeves's Adam., clxxv. O 194 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Iona is now no more than an appendage to one or other of the great Irish monasteries. The social and political changes in North Britain partly account for the fallen fortunes of the great monastery. The cruel depreda tions of Danes and Norsemen also contributed largely to its decay. It survived for fully another century, and lived, as other institutions have lived, on its past fame. The ascendency acquired by the Scots, first over the Picts and then over the Britons, has been a difficulty to historians. The Scots were mere adventurers at the begin ning of the sixth century, and at the end of that century possessed no more territory than is comprised in the modern county of Argyll. And yet in the middle of the ninth they are virtually masters of the whole of Pictland, and destined before long to absorb the ancient Cumbria and to rule Scotland from the Pentland Firth to the Tweed. Christianity was no doubt the greatest factor in this conquest, and its history has so far been traced in these pages. But Christianity vitalised means civilisation, and it was to their civilisation, attendant upon their religion, that the Scots owed their singular ascendency in North Britain. Dr. Burton ^ has emphasised " the high standard of civilisation which separated the Scots of Ireland and Dalriada from the other nations inhabiting the British Isles. It was as yet a waxing civilisation, bringing with it continual increase of political influence. We are accustomed to speak of the Roman civilisation . . . and the Norman . . . and of the later Saxon. But all associations of recent times are so inconsistent with the notion of deriving civilisation from the Celts of Ireland as to bring it into the region of the paradoxical. We have no conspicuous memorials of such a social 1 Hist., I. 294. X CELTIC CIVILISATION BOOK OF DEER 1 95 condition, such as the great buildings left by the Romans and the Normans. Celtic civilisation took another and subtler, perhaps a feebler shape." That shape was in dress, decoration, ornamentation of things both sacred and secular, — a good deal of what may be called elegant luxury. To this Celtic taste are due the manuscripts beautifully written and illuminated, adorned and encased in costly bindings. The Scots at this age were honoured on the Continent for their proficiency both in arts and letters. Before the Anglo-Saxon literature had begun with Bede, it had long flourished among the Celtic Scots who first carried the spell of its humanising influences to Northumbria. To these influences were largely due the paramount ascendency they acquired in the country which they made their own in name and fact — Scotland. In the ninth century was written the Book of Deer, discovered in Cambridge in 1 860. The oldest existing book known to have been written in Scotland is Adamnan's Life of Columba, transcribed in Iona by Dorbene, before the year 713. Next in the order of importance and of age is the recovered Book of Deer. St. Columba and his com panion Drostan founded a monastic church there of the type common in that age. The Book of Deer is a small octavo of eighty-six parchment folios, closely written on both sides, containing a copy of the Gospels, once the possession of the monastery. The first three Gospels are fragmentary ; St. John's is given in full. The Latin version used is the same as that of the Scoto-Irish Books of Armagh, Durrow, and Kells, and the Lindisfarne and Durham Gospels. The book also contains the Apostles' Creed and the fragment of an office for the visitation of the sick, written like the rest in Latin, but with a Gaelic rubric — " at this place thou wilt give the sacrifice to him." 196 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The office is believed to have been written somewhat later than the Gospels. It agrees in character with two similar offices in the Book of Dimma and the Book of Moling, which contain early copies of the Gospels. The creed and the office are written in the blank spaces be tween the Gospels. These spaces also contain six memo randa written in Gaelic, of grants of land, etc., made to the monastery, with the names of the donors. The entries were made subsequent to the transcription of the Gospels, and include a charter in Latin by king David I., confirming the rights and privileges of the monastery. Whether the Book of Deer was written in Deer or in Iona, by Pict or by Scot, is not known. Nor can we trace its later history from Deer to England. In 1696 it was in the possession of John Moore, successively bishop of Norwich and Ely, until 1 7 14. At his death his library was bought by king George I. and presented to the University of Cambridge. There the Book of Deer lay unknown until i860, when it was discovered by Mr. Bradshaw the librarian.^ The discovery of this ancient book suggests the question, why have so few of the Celtic books of the Columban age been preserved ? Several of those that were written by the Gaelic scribes, the companions or successors of Columbanus, exist in the libraries of the Continent. How does it happen that so few of them have been found in Scotland ? There are various reasons to account for this. The principal library was no doubt in Iona, and the monastery was burned by the Norsemen no less than six times v/ithin a couple of centuries. The attitude taken by queen Margaret and her successors to 1 It was edited for the Spalding Book of Deer see Dr. Stuart's preface Club by the late Dr. John Stuart in and Anderson's Scotland in Early 1869, with a valuable introduction, Christian Times, i. 130 seq, plates, etc. For a description of the X SCARCITY OF ANCIENT CELTIC MSS. 1 97 the Columban clergy, and to the Gaelic language, has been suggested as an influence unfavourable to the pre servation of the Celtic literature. The ransacking of our cathedral and monastic libraries by Edward I., for chartularies and other documents to enable him to support his claim to be lord paramount of Scotland, has also been made to account for the loss of many valuable records. But, more than all, the systematic destruction of ecclesi astical books and manuscripts by the reformers in the sixteenth century accounts for the dearth of our early national literature, both civil and ecclesiastical. There were libraries at such places as Abernethy, Dunkeld, Brechin, Lochleven, St. Andrews, Scone, Dunfermline, and no doubt in each of them there were chronicles, registers, and other documents of priceless value ; but they were ruthlessly committed to the flames or scattered to the winds. Had they been preserved, we should have possessed a literature, both in Latin and Gaelic, carrying us back to the old Scotic and Pictish days, filling up many a present blank, and throwing light on many a disputed passage in our national history. " The rascal multitude," as Knox called the rabble of his party, are blamed for robbing us of all that, and leaving us poorer in the historic wealth of the past than any other country in Christendom. But there were other robbers than the rabble. The latter are responsible for the iconoclasm that did so much, but not everything, to ruin our cathedrals, abbeys, and even our parish churches. They are less responsible for the destruction of the contents of cathedral and monastic libraries. These libraries contained the charters of all the church lands, tithes, and rights possessed by the bishops and by the cathedrals and monasteries. The unprincipled noblemen who seized the church lands, under the pretence of reforming religion, had a strong 198 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, x personal interest in the destruction of the libraries and their contents. Burnt papers tell no tales. The titled robbers of our church lands, even more than the untitled mobs, were guilty of the literary arson that deprived the country of much of its written monumenta. CHAPTER XI First Church Council, Scone — Supremacy of St. Andrews — Primus bishop of Alban — King Constantin abbot — Culdees of Lochleven — Bishop Fothadh — Lay abbots — Last attack of Iona by Danes — "The great city" of Brechin — Cadroe — Royal pilgrims to Rome — Declension of Columban Church. Donald, the son of Constantin I. (889-900), who divided the government with king Grig, outlived him by four years, and died at the close of the century. The kingdom was now known as the kingdom of Alban, and its kings were no longer called kings of the Picts but kings of Alban.^ At the period of Donald's accession, the Orkneys became colonised by the Nor wegians, who then spread over the Hebrides and took possession of Caithness and Sutherland (Suderland), which meant the southern land from the Norwegian aspect. Besides the Norwegians the Danes were also striving for a foothold in Alban. Leaving Ireland in a fleet of ships, the Danes under Sitriuc invaded Alban on the east coast and were attacked by the Scots. The Scots paid for their victory by the death of their king, who was slain at Dun-Fother, identified by Skene ^ with Dunottar in- the Mearns.' At the beginning of the tenth century Constantin II. (900-943) began his long reign. Church affairs of this age are very much shrouded in darkness. The tenth 1 Skene, C. S., i. $$5. p. I93> give Forres as the place 2 Ibid., i. 338. of king Donald's death. 3 Some writers, quoted in note 2, 200 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. century saw the continuation of the war and strife of the ninth ; and a state of perpetual warfare is not favourable either to church life or learning. There are few literary remains of the tenth century, the chroniclers having little to record but battles and bloodshed, the death of one king and the succession of another. Danes and Norsemen con tinued their depredations, and sacked the monasteries and villages of the country. And the kings of Alban waged the hereditary warfare with the Anglo-Saxons, who were now led by the redoubtable Athelstane. In the third year of Constantin's reign the Norsemen rifled Dunkeld and continued their devastation through Alban for a whole year until they were routed in Strathearn and their leader Imhair slain by the men of Fortrenn. On this, as on similar occasions, the men of Alban carried the crozier of St. Columba as their standard, and it was in consequence revered as the Cathbuaidh or Battle victory. In the year 906 was held what has been called the first Church council in Scotland, at the Moote-hill, near Scone, known afterwards as the Hill of Belief There Constantin and bishop Kellach, with nobles and clergy, met and " solemnly vowed to protect the laws and discipline of the faith, and the rights of the churches and of the Gospel, on a footing of equality with the Scots.' The latter clause points to a closer ecclesiastical alliance between Picts and Scots, something like a corporate union of both races in one national Church. The position assumed by bishop Kellach would seem to indicate that he was now the recognised head of the Scottish Church, and that what is called the primacy had been transferred to St. Andrews. The supremacy of Dunkeld and Abernethy passed to St. Andrews, and its bishops had come to be recognised as the bishops of Alban. Two lists of bishops have been preserved, the one by Bower, abbot of Inch- XI CONSTANTIN II. AND THE CHURCH 20I colm, the other by Winton, prior of Lochleven ; and Kellach appears in both as the first bishop of St. Andrews. The territorial title of the bishop, as will be afterwards seen, was considerably antedated. This con ference or council is the first record in our annals of Scone as the scene of a national assembly, and its work may be con sidered as settling the constitution of the Scottish Church for years to come under its primus bishop of Alban.^ Constantin II., like his predecessor of the same name, was eminently a friend and benefactor of the Church. Our eyes have been long accustomed to look on David and his saintly mother as the first of the Church's regal benefactors. Both the Scottish and the Celtic Church, its predecessor, had royal friends and founders worthy of comparison with the munificent patrons of the early mediaeval Church. Constantin was as patriotic and brave as he was undoubtedly religious. His reign pre sented many opportunities for his valour and prowess, though he was not always successful. In his battles with the Norsemen he was generally victorious ; but in the famous battle of Brunanburgh, Yorkshire, fought in the year 937, he met with a severe defeat at the hands of Athelstane, the Anglo-Saxon king. Constantin had formed a confederacy with the Cumbrians and Danes, and the result was the complete overthrow of the allies, with such a slaughter, it is said, as had never before been seen in England. Constantin's son was among the many that fell on the battlefield. An important event in Constantin's reign was the ^ T. Innes {Crit Ess., p. 588) the concurrence of the bishops, but makes it the second of our national nothing is known of these laws. E. councils, and in a chronological list W. Robertson, Early Kings, i. 53, of councils he gives the first at Scone calls the council at Scone A.D. 906 c. 850, in the reign of Kenneth " the earliest ecclesiastical council re- MacAlpin. Fordun (iv. 8) speaks corded in the annals of Scotland." of the leges MacAIpinee, made with 202 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. placing of his brother Donald on the throne of Strathclyde. Henceforth a branch of the MacAlpin dynasty supplied a prince for its throne until it became merged in the kingdom of Scotland.^ In the previous century, 878, there had been a large migration of the Britons to North Wales, where they settled among their kinsfolk and became the possessors of lands which are said to be still inherited by their descendants at the present day. This migration sensibly weakened the old kingdom by the Clyde. For another hundred years it had but a struggling and nominal independence. Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lanca shire had been gradually severed from the northern division of Cumbria, though the English Edmund, after clearing the district of the Danes, handed it over again to Malcolm I. in 945, on condition of his being his faithful ally by land and sea. Malcolm seems to have been remiss in fulfilling his part of the covenant, and it was not renewed with his successors. What are now called the English Lakes presented a favourable refuge to the Norse Vikings, or men of the bays, who have left their name in several of our towns ending in Wick. They were expelled from these quarters, but the whole district of Southern Cumbria remained in an unsettled condition until after the Norman Conquest. The county of Cumberland retains the name of the kingdom that once extended from Dunbarton to Wales, and the two islets in the Clyde, known as the Cumbraes, are also nominal vestiges of an ancient connection with the kingdom of Cumbria.^ Tighernac, in chronicling the death of Malcolm the son of Donald, king of Cumbria, in 997, calls him king of the North Britons, Cumbria being then called North Briton.' 1 Robertson's Early Scot., i. 68. and first examined in that region. 2 The name is also preserved in the 3 Jos. Robertson's Statuta, i. xvii. ; geological term " Cumbrian " applied see also for Cumbria, Robertson's to the strata extensively developed Scot, Early Kings, i. 70. XI CONSTANTIN II., ABBOT OF ST. ANDREWS 203 Constantin, " the hoary warrior, assumed the staff in his decrepit old age and served the Lord,"^ which means that he abdicated his throne and retired to the monastery of St. Andrews, of which he was made abbot. The St. Andrews Register says that, " having resigned the kingdom according to God's will, he became abbot of the Culdees in St. Andrews."^ This was in the year 943. Once again, six years afterwards, he is said to have assumed the sword for a short period against Northumbria. He died in 952, and was buried, not at Iona, but in his own monastery at St. Andrews. He was contemporary with king Alfred in England, and showed himself one of the best and bravest of our Scottish kings. The Culdee monastery over which he presided in his old age is one of the earliest instances in Scotland of these peculiar foundations. They have been the subject of much controversy, and notice will be taken in a later chapter of their constitution and history. By the law of alternate succession Malcolm I. (943- 954), son of Donald, followed Constantin on the throne. It was he who received the English Cumberland from king Edmund, and Galloway was probably recovered at the same time by the Britons. It had long occupied an anomalous position and had more than once changed masters. The original population was Pictish, the Nid uarian Picts ; but both the Britons and the Angles sub dued it, and had partially settled in it ; and Danes and Scots overran it and made it a common battle-ground of the contending races. It was a sad fate for "the promontory of learning," and the famous church of Ninian that had been blessed to so many Christian scholars both in Britain and Ireland. The date of bishop Kellach's death is not given, but 1 Colbertine MS. ^ Skene, C. S., ii. 327. 204 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. he was succeeded by Fothadh, second bishop of Alban, who lived through all Malcolm's reign. According to the Register of St. Andrews, he made an arrangement with the Culdees of Lochleven, by which they gave up the island to the bishop on condition of receiving from him the necessaries of life. This kind of conveyance, very common in the middle ages, was known as precaria, and was meant to secure the protection of the community. The grant on this occasion was made by Ronan — " monk and abbot, a man of admirable sanctity." The bishop gave his benediction to all who should observe the con vention and friendship between him and the Culdees, and his malediction on all bishops who should infringe it.-' It is not easily seen how other bishops could interfere between the Lochleven Culdees and their near neighbour the bishop in St. Andrews, who had become their patron ; but clearly there were other bishops in the country who are duly warned by Fothadh, styled the " summus episcopus." King Malcolm was slain in Moray in 954, and buried in lona.^ Three kings — Indulf, Duff, and Colin — in the usual alternate succession, reigned for the next seventeen years (954-971). Thus, Indulf was the son of Constan tin, Duff was the son of Malcolm, and Colin was the son of Indulf. The advantage of this Tanistic succession was that it usually secured for the throne a king in the full maturity of manhood. It had also its disadvantage, for it occasionally exposed the country to the miseries of a disputed succession. Indulfs reign is notable for the capture of Edinburgh from the Northumbrians, the first step towards the gradual extension of the Scottish kingdom from the Forth to the Tweed. Since the flight of bishop 1 Register of St. Andrews, p. and Grub, i. 175. 113, quoted by Skene, C. S., ii. 327, 2 innes, Crit Ess., 787. XI FOTHADH, CHIEF BISHOP OF THE SCOTS 205 Trumwin from Abercorn, the see of Lindisfarne had extended virtually to the Forth. It became now bounded by the Pentland Hills, and fifty years later Simeon of Durham ^ laments its contraction within still narrower limits.^ Fothadh was bishop of Alban at the accession of Indulf, but he was driven from his see by the king, about 9 5 4, as narrated by Fordun and Winton, neither of whom, however, gives any reason for the bishop's expulsion.' The name of Fothadh was inscribed on the silver case of a copy of the Gospels which remained at St. Andrews till the time of Fordun and Winton. The inscription gives his name and title as " Fothet Scottis summus episcopus," — chief bishop of the Scots. * In the Annals of the Four Masters ^ we find his death recorded — " Fothadh, son of Bran, scribe and bishop of Insi- Alban, died." As he survived his expulsion eight years, his death must have occurred in 962. No appointment was made to the bishopric until his death, and this fact, coupled with his being described as bishop of Alban when he died, has led to the conjecture that he was restored to the see. He was succeeded by Maelbrigid, who held office till 970. Indulfs successor was Duff, but Colin contested the throne, contrary to the recognised law of succession. The result was a feud and a battle at Drum-crub, supposed to be Crieff, in which Duff was victorious. Among the slain was Dunchad, abbot of Dunkeld. The abbacy was prob ably now in the hands of a layman, and the spiritual duties of the office discharged by a prior. This fate befell many of the abbeys of later times. From the lay-abbot of Dunkeld of an after-day the line of Stuart kings is descended. Duff was not so successful in his next contest 1 De Gestis, 854, and p. 139. 179; Pinkerton, Enq., i. 464. 2 Robertson's Early Scot, i. 76. * Grub, i. 175. 3 Scotichron., vi. 24; Winton, i. ^ Reeves, Adam., p. 242. 206 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. with his rival. He fell in a fray at Forres, a district fatal to many of his race, and his murdered body is said to have been hidden under the bridge of Kinloss, tradition adding that the sun refused to shine until his dishonoured remains received Christian burial in Iona. If the sacred island had now a lesser glory from the living, it was still regarded as the fitting receptacle of the dead. Colin reigned four uneventful years, and fell with his brother Eocha in a battle with the Britons of Strathclyde.-' There is little of any moment at this period to record about Iona. An entry in the Annals of Ulster for the year 966 records that " Finghion, Anchorite, bishop of lae (Iona), died." The Western Isles, including the Isle of Man, were the subject of a constant struggle between the Danes and Norwegians. Of the two races, both still pagan, the Danes were by far the more cruel and destruc tive to the monasteries, and Iona had special reason to dread them. On Christmas Eve, 986, they made a fierce attack on the island and plundered the monastery church, after slaying the abbot and fifteen of the monks. The Danes suffered for this cruelty in the following year, when they were assailed by Sigurd, earl of Orkney, and 360 of them slain. The Danes pillaged Iona no more and the West ern Isles were left, for a time, in the peaceable possession of the Norwegians, and governed by their earl in Orkney. A stronger sovereign ascended the throne in the person of Kenneth II. (971-995), another son of Malcolm I. and brother of king Duff. He followed up the successes of his predecessor Indulf, and ravaged the English borders as far as Stanmore and Cleveland. Turning his attention to opposition at home, he reduced the Mormaer of Angus into submission. The last heir of this line transmitted his rights to his daughter Finella, and she in turn transferred 1 Robertson's Early Kings Scot, i. 77. XI KENNETH II. AND THE CITY OF BRECHIN 207 them to her only son. By the order of Kenneth this son was condemned and executed at Dunsinnan, a transaction for which the king paid dearly. The annexing of this province to the crown is supposed by Robertson ¦' to have extended the jurisdiction of the bishop of St. Andrews in this district as the " bishop of the Scots." It was certainly comprised in the diocese afterwards, under the deaneries of Gowrie, Angus, and Mearns ; and it is possible that this action of the king may have laid the foundation of the jurisdiction of St. Andrews within the Mormaery of Angus. The last entry in the Pictish Chronicle, which is supposed to have been written in Kenneth's reign by a monk in Brechin, records the gift of that city by Kenneth to the Church — " This is he who gave the great city of Brechin to the Lord." ^ " The great city," civitas, here points to an ecclesiastical corporation of some eminence in Brechin at the time when the writer, probably a con temporary resident in Brechin, was recording the gift. The city, ecclesiastically, was of Irish origin, as may be inferred from its round tower, a feature characteristic of early Irish architecture. The irregular and unsystematic lines which afterwards divided the diocese of Brechin from that of St. Andrews suggest that the former now included the localities peopled in the main by the native Pictish race, while the latter, which shut Brechin off from the sea board at all points except Dundee, was the diocese of the Scots more recently settled in that quarter.' Kenneth met his death in the same district of the Mearns where his father and grandfather had been fated to find theirs. Of the two branches of Kenneth MacAlpin's descendants that gave alternately kings to Alban, the 1 Early Kings Scot. , i. 88. 788 ; Pinkerton's E^iq. , i. 497 ; Skene, 2 "Hie est qui tribuit magnam C. S., i. 369. civitatem Brechne Domino," Chron- ' Skene, C.i'.,ii. 331,332; Ander- icle of the Picts ; Innes, Crit. Ess., son, Scot, in Early Ch. Tivies, i. 52. 208 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. senior house, of which Kenneth II. was the representative, was always associated with the province north of the Tay, and fatal it was to many of them. Kenneth's father, Malcolm, was slain by the men of the Mearns at Fetteresso ; and his grandfather, Donald, fell by the same agency at Dunottar, now the neighbouring parish. Kenneth's own death was accomplished by the revenge of Finella for her only son, whom he had executed. The king is said to have been murdered by treachery at her house of Fetter- cairn in the Mearns. He had reduced both Angus and the Mearns into a dependency of the crown ; and it has been supposed that he was, at the time of his death, exacting from the province the usual tributes of cain and cuairt, a certain tax and suitable provision for the king and his followers.^ The topography of the district per petuates Finella's name in a picturesque glen still known as " Den Finella," about eight miles north of Montrose. There was born about the year 900 a Scottish saint, Cadroe, whose father Faiteach and mother Bania were both related to the royal families. In the life of Cadroe, written in the eleventh century, he is said to have been a native of " Scotia," at a time when that name had been transferred to Scotland. His parents, being childless, went to the tomb of St. Columba in Iona, and their prayers and fasting were rewarded by the birth of a child, whom they named Cadroe and dedicated to God. He was first edu cated by his uncle Beanus,^ an aged priest, and then sent to the famous school at Armagh, the abbot of Armagh then holding the abbacy of Iona. On his return Cadroe scattered the seeds of wisdom throughout the whole of 1 Chronicle of the Picts and Scots., 2 Skene, C. S., ii. 326, identifies pp. 175, 289 ; Robertson's Early Beanus with the St. Bean in whose Kings Scot. , i. 88 ; Skene, C. S. , i. name the church of Kinkell in Strath- 380 ; M'Lauchlan's Early Scot, Ch. , earn was dedicated. 306. XI THE SCOTTISH ST. C.VDROE 2O9 Scotland ; for, to quote from the Life, though the Scots have " had many teachers they have not had many fathers. He here trained them in the knowledge of the arts ; and so, because he instructed many with his lips, he had no associates ; for, from the time of his arrival none of the wise men had crossed the sea, but still remained in Ireland. The old man (his uncle) rejoiced to possess the youth who had not his equal in anything that he tried." Unlike some modern Scots educated in and out of Scotland, Cadroe returned to his native country as a teacher, and devoted himself specially to the training of young Scotsmen preparing for the ministry of their native Church. And then, like other modern Scots, he sought fresh fields in foreign service. Various attempts made by his royal relations to keep him at home were unsuccessful. He had seen a vision, as other Scots have since seen, calling him southward ; but he did not rest in England. King Constantin escorted him to Cumbria, and Dunwallan (or Donald) its king, who also was Cadroe's relative, went with him as far as Leeds, his frontier town. Other princes accompanied him to London, until finally Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, escorted him to the sea-coast and saw him out of the country. In justice to his memory be it written that he was seeking neither the patronage of the world nor the promotion of the Church. He was a simple monk and no more, albeit of royal stock, bent upon serving Christ in a foreign land, where many of his Celtic race had served Christ nobly before him. The story of St. Columbanus and St. Gall is not well remembered now ; it was better known in Cadroe's day, and no doubt fired the enthusiasm of many a young Celt, Irish and Scottish, to be a follower of them as they were of Christ. An Irish brother Mac- callin, like-hearted, went with Cadroe, and they both found their first home in St. Fursey's monastery at P 2 ID HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Peronne. Afterwards they joined the Benedictine order, and Cadroe died abbot of a monastery near Metz, where he was buried, at the age of seventy years.^ Of the Dunwallan, or Donald, mentioned above as king of Strathclyde, the Welsh Chronicle relates that he went in 975 on a pilgrimage to Rome.^ In the next century other royal pilgrims, the Scots king, Macbeth, and the English king, Canute the Dane, followed his example and made their visit to the Eternal City. They both returned, but there is no record of Donald's return to his Cumbrian kingdom. There were several kings or kinglets of his name rulers of Cumbria. The last king of the old British stock that boasted of having Roman blood in their veins, was a Donald ; and the first of the MacAlpin dynasty to fill the Alclyde throne was also Donald, a brother of king Constantin. The effect of this blood- relation between the kings of Alban and Strathclyde was to incorporate the latter in the kingdom of Scotland. The assassination of Kenneth II. at Fettercairn led to the succession of Constantin III. (995-997), son of king Colin. The reign of the son was, like that of the father, short and troubled. Within two years of his accession he was slain, as we are told by Tighernac, in a battle fought between the men of Alban in the year 997. The site of this battle was the banks of the Almond, but the chroniclers are not agreed whether it was the Almond in Perthshire, where it joins the Tay, or the Almond in West Lothian.' Another short reign of seven years, that of Kenneth III. (997-1005), the son of king Duff, carries us into the next century. The new king was connected ^ Grub, i. 179; M'Lauchlan's 124; Skene, C. S., i. 370. Early Scot. Ch., 380 ; Skene, C. S., 3 Robertson's Early Kings Scot, ii. pp. 318, 325 ; Vita B. Cadroe, i. 91 ; Skene's C. S., i. 381 ; For- Colgan ed. dun's Chron., ii. 168 ; Chron. Picts 2 Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 77, and Scots, pp. 175, 289. XI DECADENCE OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH 2 I I by descent, like all the senior branch of the MacAlpin dynasty, with the district of Angus. Ethelred, king of Eng land, tried unsuccessfully to wrest from him the Cumbrian kingdom of Strathclyde, which again stretched far into modern England, but was still regarded as a depend ency of Scotland. This was in the year looo, and five years afterwards we read in the Ulster Annals of " a battle among the men of Alban themselves." There was a war of succession, similar to the civil war which had made Kenneth king, between the two branches of the MacAlpin race that had given kings to the throne since the union of Picts and Scots. On this occasion Kenneth was slain by his rival and cousin, Malcolm, son of Kenneth II. , at Monzievaird in Strathearn. The men of Moerne (Mearns), who appear to have occupied an important position in the population of the kingdom of Alban throughout the entire history of her kings, fought on Malcolm's side in the battle which placed him on the throne. The violent deaths of so many of the kings, chiefly in battle, are evidence of the critical and unsettled condition of the country throughout these centuries, and of how little avail was their professed Christianity to restrain the crime and miseries of war.^ They are evidence, on the civil side of history, of the declension of the ancient Columban Church. Evidence is not wanting on the ecclesiastical side that the Church had now entered upon a period of moral decay that made reformation imperative. That reformation came in this century from the Anglo-Saxons, who repaid to Scotland the debt that they owed for the conversion of their race. It is a common mistake, and fruitful of many misconceptions in our history, that the national religion underwent only one Reformation, usually emphasised with a capital letter. From time to time as the leaven of the 1 Innes, App. v. ; Winton, vi. lo; Annals of Ulster, 1004. 2 I 2 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. world came into the Church and corrupted her life, she stood in need of renewal. These renewals were true reformations of her spiritual character. The reformation, commonly so called, in the sixteenth century, partook more of the nature, for good and ill, of an ecclesiastical revolution that shook the Church to her foundations. Church life at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century was stagnant or retrograde. There are few signs of the spiritual energy of a church vitalised and active. We read for the first time of a new office and title in Iona, that of " Arcinneach," sometimes called " Erenach," and said to denote superiority.^ But the new office is no indication of a new life. It was essentially a lay office, though found combined with the titles of bishop, abbot, and priest.^ The Erenach was steward of the temporalities of the abbey, looking after its lands and farms, receiving its rents and revenues, and probably administering its charities. When the office of abbot was held by an anchorite, some such officer was necessary.' The name first appeared in the Irish Annals of the ninth century, and is of more frequent occurrence afterwards. The first Erenach in Iona died in 978, and his appearance occurs after the death of an anchorite bishop who was for some time abbot. The inference is that during the government of this recluse the property of the abbey had been badly administered. Mughron was abbot of Iona till the year 980, when he was succeeded by Maelciarain. In the last year of Mughron's rule, Anlaf, king of the Danes in Dublin, came as a penitent pilgrim to Iona and died there. The Danes, however, were as a race not yet converted to Christianity, and Anlaf owed his change of creed, while 1 M.'hauchla.n's Early Scot, Ch., p. 311. 2 Skene, C. S., ii. 330. 3 Reeves, Adam., cxxiii. XI PAGANISM OF THE SCANDINAVIANS 2 I 3 king of Northumbria, to his marriage with king Con stantin's daughter. In 986 abbot Maelciarain "suffered red martyrdom from the Danes at Dublin," and on Christmas Eve of that year, as already mentioned, they made their last attack upon Iona, when the abbot and several of the clergy were slain. A place is still shown in Iona called " the White Bay of the Monks," as the scene of their suffering. There is one more record at this period of the transference of St. Columba's relics to Ireland. His shrine is said to have found its final rest in Downpatrick along with the relics of St. Patrick and St. Bridget. It may well afford matter for reflection that these Scandinavians were suffered to remain heathen to the very close of the tenth century. Had there been in Scotland men of the type of St. Columba, Aidan, or Cuthbert, or in England missionaries like Wilfrid or Willi brord, these fierce but brave Norsemen would long before have been brought under the influence of the Christian religion. It would have been as easy for the missionary to have crossed the North Sea with the message of the Gospel to the Norsemen as it was for them to leave their bays and rove about, the scourge of the sea and the terror of the land. An Irish Columban with his twelve disciples would have converted them as surely as he con verted their forefathers in race and creed that worshipped Odin and Thor by the Lake of Constance. Had the British Churches done so for the Scandinavians, they would have been spared those merciless raids that destroyed church and monastery, east and west, and gave the land no rest for two hundred years. That it was not done, and not even attempted, is a reflection upon the Christianity of our islands, and a sure evidence of the decay of the missionary spirit, following upon the decay of vital religion in the Church both of Britain and of Ireland. CHAPTER XII Scotia applied to North Britain — Causes of the Church's Degeneracy — -Secularisationof Church Property — Supposititious Episcopal See at Mortlach — Tribal versus Diocesan Bishops — King Macbeth a Church Benefactor — Bishop Fothadh, the last of the bishops " of Alban." In the long reign of Malcolm II. (1005-1034) the country receives for the first time the name of Scotia. The Scot tish kings, since the union of Picts and Scots, had now been a century and a half in possession of the Pictish throne. For the first fifty years of that period they were still called kings of the Picts ; for the rest of the period they were known as kings of Alban. The change from Alban to Scotia shows that the two races were being amalgamated, but under the influence of the dominant race of the Scots. Malcolm, the last king of the MacAlpin dynasty, was to bequeath the new name of Scotia to a new line of kings. He began his reign by the oft-repeated attempt to wrest Bernicia from the kings of England. The old kingdom of Northumbria, once so potent in the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy, and associated with the Celtic Church and Lindisfaf ne, had now dwindled to an earldom. Malcolm's attack on Bernicia was resisted by Uchtred, the young son of the earl of Northumbria, and son-in-law of Aldun, bishop of Durham, who seems to have already possessed, as governor of the district, the germ of that civil authority which the prince-bishops of Durham exer- CHAP. XII OLAF, FIRST CHRISTIAN KING OF NORWAY 2 I 5 cised in later ages. The result of the battle of Durham, which Malcolm had besieged, was the entire defeat of the Scots. Malcolm saved his life with difficulty ; the next Scottish king of his name who made a similar venture in that quarter was not so fortunate. Malcolm was not more successful in his next effort to wrest the country north of the Spey from the grasp of Sigurd, the powerful earl of Orkney. The Norwegians had colonised the Orkneys for many years ; they had crossed the Pentland Firth and taken possession of Caith ness and Sutherland, and more recently had seized the fruitful province of Moray. Sigurd was supported by the influence of Olaf Tryggvesson, the first Christian king of Norway. That influence was gained by a peculiar incident which savours more of Mohammedan propagandism than of Christian conversion. Olaf was returning in the year 997 from a Viking expedition to the Hebrides, and passing by the Orkneys, he came upon earl Sigurd, as he lay with a single ship under the isle of Hoy. He made Sigurd his prisoner, and the condition of his freedom was his accept ance of the Christian faith and baptism, and the proclama tion of Christianity in the Orkneys. To ensure fulfilment of the pledge, he took Sigurd's son Hungus with him to Norway, where he lived with king Olaf till his death. Olaf had promised Sigurd that he should " hold in full liberty as his subject, and' with the dignity of an earl, all the dominions which he had had before." Malcolm, when aware of the powerful backing of Sigurd, thought it more prudent to offer him his daughter in marriage than to offer him battle. Of this marriage was born Thorfin, who became, on his father's death, five years afterwards, earl of Caithness and Sutheriand, and was invested as such by his grandfather king Malcolm. Malcolm's daughter was married to Sigurd in 1 008. An 2l6 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. elder daughter had previously married Crinan, lay abbot of Dunkeld. From this Crinan descended a new line of kings that governed Scotland till the advent of the Stuart dynasty; and through them again the line was transmitted, on the female side, to the present sovereign of the United Kingdom. The degeneracy of the Church of this period has been attributed to the secularising of her great offices, and to the incessant invasions and harassing depredations of the Norsemen.-' It is doubtful how far the spiritual degeneracy was owing to the sacrilege of the Norsemen ; and as to the marriage of the clergy, while such cases as the lay abbot of Dunkeld were gross perversions of the monastic ideal and ruinous to the Church, the secular clergy were not at this time forbidden to marry. In the next century, when the Scottish Church came for the first time under the Roman obedience, her secular clergy would be subject to the canons of the second Lateran Council (A.D. 1 139), which forbade their marriage.^ It is more than probable that the secularising of spiritual offices was an effect of the actual declension of the Church as well as a further aggravation of the evil. The Irish Annals from the ninth to the eleventh century give numerous instances of hereditary succession to abbacies and other spiritual offices. They became nothing better than an appanage of powerful families, who were always ready with a son or relative to take up the Church's properties, come of the offices and duties what might. The great St. Bernard, in his life of St. Malachy of Armagh, writes in scathing terms of the corruptions and scandals within the Irish Church from this misappropriation. He mentions " the scandalous custom introduced by the 1 Skene, C. S., i. 391. in marriage to the son of the earl of 2 We have just seen that the Northumbria. bishop of Durham gave his daughter XII SECULARISATION OF SCOTTISH CHURCH 2 I 7 diabolical ambition of certain of the nobles, who allowed no one to be promoted to a bishopric except such as were of their own tribe and family." And this had gone on, he says, in the Irish Church for many generations. ^ The same tale comes from Wales, as reported by Giraldus Cambrensis in his Itinerary of Wales," where lay abbots appropriated the church lands and left to the clergy nothing but " the altars with their tenths and oblations." Simeon of Durham, in the preface to his history of the church of Durham, speaks of similar abuses existing in England. It is the same cry from west to east. The lay abbot of Dunkeld was not singular in his sacrilegious usurpa tion of church titles and estates, though he was probably one of the greatest usurpers of that age, for to the abbacy of Dunkeld he added that of Dull, the abbey founded by Adamnan in Atholl. The Church's foes were those of her own household, and her worst foes then and afterwards were the nobles of the land. Their ancestors were in some instances the pious founders of abbeys and churches ; the children figure too often in history as their robbers and desecrators. Uchtred, the son of the earl of Northumbria, who defeated Malcolm at Durham, was himself defeated and slain in 1016 by Canute the Dane, who became next year king of England. Malcolm thought the opportunity fitting for striking another blow for Northumbria, and with the assistance of the Cumbrians he fought successfully, in 1018, the battle of Carham, two miles above Coldstream, — a victory which virtually extended his kingdom south wards to the Tweed. The sub-king of Cumbria was slain in the same year, and Malcolm placed over it his grandson Duncan, a step which prepared the way for its annexation to the Scottish kingdom. - Life of St. Malachy quoted by Skene, C. S., ii. 340. 2 Skene, C. S,, ii. 339. 2l8 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Near the end of his reign Malcolm met at the frontiers of his kingdom the renowned Canute, after his return from Rome, and now king of England, Denmark, and Norway. What led to Canute's expedition cannot be determined from the brief notice in the Saxon Chronicle, which records that Malcolm " bowed to Canute's power, and became his man, retaining his allegiance for a very short time." It had no ulterior effect upon the political relations of the two kingdoms. One of Malcolm's last acts was to secure the throne for his own immediate descendants. By the law of alternate succession, the Tanist or heir -apparent was the descendant of Malcolm's predecessor Kenneth. That heir, the grandson of Kenneth, was removed by violence to make way for Malcolm's own grandson, " the gracious Duncan," the son of Crinan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and lord of Atholl. The chronicler Marianus Scotus, a Donegal Irishman, was born in Malcolm's reign, and supplies us with con temporary information. He is the first writer to apply the term " Scotia " as a territorial designation of the kingdom, from which we gather that the name was now transferred from Ireland, the old Scotia, to the kingdom of the Scots in Britain. Marianus mentions king Malcolm's death, which took place, he says, on 25 th November 1034. Later chronicles record that he was killed by treachery at Glammis, but the better opinion is that he died a natural death.^ Malcolm II. was the last and probably the greatest of the kings of the MacAlpin line. By his energy in the field and his political wisdom in council, he both ex tended and consolidated his kingdom, and left its terri torial boundaries almost as they are to-day. That he was not more scrupulous than other men of his age is 1 Skene, C. S., i, 398. XII MALCOLM II. AND FOUNDATION OF MORTLACH 2 I 9 true ; but it was still a rude and rough age, and it is disappointing to find how little operative the Christian Church was in mitigating its asperities or mollifying its manners. Malcolm has been credited with founding an episcopal see at Mortlach, which is supposed to have been afterwards transferred to Aberdeen. Its dedication to St. Maluoc (or Moluog), the founder of the churches of Lismore and Rosemarky in the sixth century, rather suggests a Columban foundation.-' It has been suggested that the foundation of Malcolm III. was credited to Malcolm II. by Fordun, who is the first to mention it, at an interval of nearly five hundred years.^ Fordun says that Malcolm II. founded and endowed the see of Mortlach in gratitude for a victory he had obtained over the Norse men in that quarter. Malcolm may have " given Mortlach to the Lord," in other words founded a Columban monastery there in imitation of the policy of his father Kenneth at Brechin. In a chronicle of the twelfth century ' Malcolm II. is said, after the battle of Carham, " to have distributed many oblations to the churches as well as to the clergy." The king was evidently a good friend and frequent bene factor of the Church during his long reign. He is credited by Skene* with restoring to the abbot of Iona the title of Co-arb of Columcille. The title was in abeyance during the abbacies of Ferdomnach and Maelmuire, who were the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth abbots, and ruled from 1007 to 1009. These abbots are called co-arbs of Kells, and that title is resumed in the next century.*^ Every abbot of Iona was presumed to be the co-arb or successor of St. 1 There is no evidence but doubtedly spurious. Skene, C. S., Fordun's of an episcopal see at ii. 379i 3^°- Mortlach at any time. The five ''¦ Scotichron., iv. 44. This is the documents upon which the tradition opinion of Grub, i. 182. rests were declared by the late ^ Chron. Picts and Scots, -p. 131. Cosmo Innes in his preface to the * C. S., ii. 336. Chartulary of Aberdeen to be un- ^ Reeves, Adam., pp. 340, 341. 2 20 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Columba, but the saint's successors had now ceased to influence the current of ecclesiastical life in Scotland. Dr. Reeves says of the last entry about Iona in the Irish Annals of 1203 : "The passage here cited is the parting mention of Hy (Iona) in the Irish Annals, and as it closes a long list of notices running through nearly seven centuries, it leaves the island as it found it, in the hands of Irish ecclesiastics, an important outpost of the Irish Church." ^ Kellach, the bishop of Alban, held office for twenty- five years and died about 995. He was succeeded by a second Malbride whom Fordun and Winton call Malise. The next bishop was Maolmuire, or Malmore (disciple of Mary). Dr. M'Lauchlan^ observes that these two names belonged to contemporary abbots of Iona, and have been transferred without any authority to supposititious bishops of Alban or St. Andrews. There is certainly some doubt as to the precise dates at which the two bishops held office, but there is no doubt, if the ordinary chronicles are to be trusted, that they were " bishops of the Scots."' There is a principle involved in the question of the episcopate, but none whatever as to the particular period when bishops ceased to be tribal and became territorial or diocesan. The writer quoted above makes a strong fight against anything like a diocesan " bishop of St. Andrews " at this time, and so far he is right. The Register of the priory of St. Andrews gives the bishops of this period the territorial title of St. Andrews, but this was probably anticipating the usage of later years. The bishop was now known by the name of ard-episcop or high bishop of Alban, and sometimes as bishop of the Scots, or chief bishop {summus episcopus). The title of the bishops varied and their spheres of labour fluctuated w-ith tribal 1 Reeves, Adam., p. 343. ^ Early Scot. Ch., p. 381. ^ See Grub, i. 181, for authorities. xu SHAKESPEARE'S "HOARY DUNCAN" AND MACBETH 22 1 and similar changes, but amidst all the changes the character of the episcopal office remained the same, and the power of ordination continued to distinguish the first from the second order of the clergy. With the death of Malcolm II. the direct male line of Kenneth MacAlpin came to an end. Of his two daughters, the elder, as already related, was married to Crinan, lay abbot of Dunkeld, and the younger to Sigurd, the earl of Orkney. Duncan I. (1034-1040), son of Crinan, succeeded his grandfather, and began the line of Atholl. After the first years of his reign he was seized with the hereditary ambition to cripple or conquer Northumbria, and made the customary raid into that province. He laid siege to Durham, but its defenders served Duncan as they had served his grandfather, and for a second time the ghastly heads of the fallen Scots were impaled on spikes round the city walls. Not more successful was he in the dispute with his cousin Thorfin in the north. Thorfin claimed Caithness as the gift of his grandfather, and Duncan sought to limit him to the isles of Orkney. A war between the cousins was the result, and Duncan got the worst of it both on sea and land. The last pitched battle was at Burghead. Thorfin was victorious and pillaged the country as far south as Fife. Duncan retreated to a place near Elgin, known as Bothgowanan, " the bothy of the smith," where he was treacherously slain. Marianus Scotus says he was killed by his general Macbeth, and Tighernac, the annalist, also contemporary, adds that Duncan died while still young. Both statements may be credited, and they give a very different notion of the king from the halo of romance which Shakespeare's genius has thrown around " the meek and hoary Duncan." Macbeth (1040- 1 05 8), known as the usurper, succeeded. He was Mormaer of Moray and professed to claim the 22 2 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. throne through his wife Gruoch and her son Lulach. He proved an excellent king, able in the administration of the state, and by no means an irreligious man. He had probably as good a claim to the throne as Duncan, and that he murdered his rival was reckoned no disqualification for the throne in those days. We find Macbeth and his wife under the style of " king and queen of the Scots," granting the lands of Kyrkness to the Culdees of Lochleven from motives of piety and for the benefit of their prayers. Macbeth also gave the lands of Bolgyne to the same Culdees or " hermits " of Lochleven.^ In the year 1045, Crinan, the lay abbot, roused a section of the men of Alban in favour of Duncan's son Malcolm. In a battle with Macbeth, Crinan met his defeat and death. The kingdom was now sufficiently tranquil to permit Macbeth to visit Rome, which he did in 1050, and distinguished himself by his charity to the poor of the city. Some writers have represented his abundant alms to the Romans as the fruits of penance for the murder of King Duncan.^ The cause of Malcolm was afterwards supported by Siward, the Anglo -Danish earl of Northumbria, who defeated Macbeth in 1054 at Dunsinane. Four years afterwards, Macbeth fell in another battle at Lumphanan on Deeside. The death of Lulach his step-son in the same year opened the throne to Malcolm. He is known as Ceanmore or Canmore, " the great head," and was the second king of the Atholl line. During the reigns of Duncan and Macbeth, Maldwin was bishop of Alban, and filled the see from 1028 till 1055. Bower calls him son of Gillandris (the servant of Andrew). In the Register of St. Andrews Priory' he 1 Register of St. Andrews, p. 114; him " the devout and charitable Mac- Skene's C. S., i. 406. beth.'' 1 Grub, i. 185. ^ Forbes, Life of St. Ninian, p. ^ p. 11 6. 264, where the bishop, A. P. F. calls XII FOTHADH, THE LAST TRIBAL BISHOP 223 appears as Maldunus, bishop of St. Andrews, granting the church of Markinch with all its land in single-minded devotion to God, St. Serf, and the Culdees of Lochleven. Tighernac records his death in the year 1055 in these terms, " Maeldwin, son of Gillaodran, bishop of Alban, the giver of orders of the clergy to the Gael, died in Christ." Tuthald or Tuadal succeeded him and held the bishopric four years. He made a similar grant'- of the church of Scoonie, Fifeshire, to the same Culdees for the benefit of their prayers. This was the beginning of an evil custom which did much injury afterwards to the mediaeval Church. In 1059 another Fothadh became bishop, and his tenure of the bishopric extended through the whole reign of Malcolm Canmore. He was also a benefactor of the favoured Culdees of Lochleven, and granted them the church of Auchterderrane. The Irish annalists call him " Fothudh Archiepiscopus Alban." There was of course no archbishop, properly so called, in Scotland until the close of the fifteenth century, but the title is suggestive of other bishops in the country contemporary with, if not subordinate to Fothadh.^ He was the last of the bishops of Alban, his successor Turgot introducing a new line of Saxon bishops from the south, who became territorial bishops of St. Andrews. 1 Reg. Pr. St. Andrews, p. 116. ^ Burton, Hist, i. 396. CHAPTER XIII MALCOLM III. "CANMORE," IO58-IO93 Influx of Enghsh Settlers — Marriage of Malcolm to Princess Margaret — Influence of the Queen's life — Duthac of Tain — Iona restored — Decadence of Scottish Church — Conferences of Queen Margaret with Scottish Clergy — Points discussed in Conference — Reformation of Church — Claims of See of York over Scottish Church — Malcolm's Enghsh wars — Death of Malcolm and of Margaret. Malcolm III. or Canmore (1058-1093) was a prince of more ability than his unfortunate father Duncan, and redeemed the credit of the Atholl line from the incapacity or misfortune of the first sovereign of the house. He was crowned at Scone, according to Fordun,-' in the presence of his nobles, on the feast of St. Mark. It is the first case of a Scottish " coronation " that we know. The northern province of Moray had long owned but a nominal allegiance to the crown, and Malcolm reduced and in corporated it as part of the Scottish kingdom. The rulers or Mormaers of Moray are called " kings " by the Irish annalistst^ Malcolm's subjection of the province did not eradicate the spirit of independence in the men of Moray. It is probably at this period of the king's history that the endowment of Mortlach as a monastery is to be dated, 1 Scotichron., v. 9. gave place to earl, as Toiseach, the '^ Mormaer is the Gaelic for the next in rank to Mormaer, came to be big chief, and the title afterwards thane or baron. CHAP. XIII ROYAL SAXON REFUGEES IN SCOTLAND 225 which Fordun, as we have seen, describes as the founda tion of a bishopric. On the death of Thorfin, Malcolm's authority extended to the Pentland Firth. Thorfin's young widow Ingebiorge became his first wife. Malcolm's reign is remarkable for the great influx of English settlers into the south of Scotland, and this had an important and permanent influence upon the ecclesias tical history of the country. Scotland had been a harbour of refuge, for some years before the Norman conquest, to many whom political intrigues and the chances of war had driven across the Border. The conquest of England by William the Norman sent more of the Saxons to seek an asylum in Scotland, and a severe famine in Northumbria increased the number of involuntary im migrants. It has been computed that the English people in the south of Scotland at this period outnumbered the native population. Chief among the refugees was Edgar the Atheling, nephew of Edward the Confessor and heir of the Saxon line, with his mother Agatha and two sisters, Margaret and Christina. Malcolm was then living at Dunfermline, which is described as being well adapted by natural surroundings for a royal residence. St. Margaret's Hope bears the name of the landing-place of the royal refugees, and St. Margaret's Stone on the wayside is said to mark the spot where Malcolm first met his future wife in the summer of 1068. He gave them a hospitable welcome, and made them guests in his palace. Malcolm's first wife is supposed to have died after giving birth to a son, Duncan, who succeeded him on the throne. In the spring of 1069 Malcolm and Margaret were married in Dunfermline by Fothadh the bishop, and they are said to have there built a church dedicated to the Holy Trinity in memory of their marriage. Margaret was at first much averse to marriage ; the misfortunes of her Q 2 26 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. family disposing her to the seclusion of the cloister, to which her sister subsequently retired. Her married life was singulariy happy, and fraught with many blessings to her adopted country. Turgot, her confessor, prior of Durham, and afterwards bishop of St. Andrews, wrote her biography, and has given us many traits of a truly noble princess. As queen, and wife, and mother, her conduct was beyond praise, and her saintly character has called forth the eulogies of many historians. She was one of those personages, so rare in our annals, who have remodelled the institutions of the country and changed the current of its history. The Church was the first to benefit by her action, but the civilising influences of her daily life, in the rough court of a Scottish king of that age, soon affected a wider circle. Malcolm was devoted to his wife, and to retain his favour it was necessary for his subjects to stand well in the eyes of the queen. No rude word was spoken in her presence, and her industry as well as her piety influenced the ladies of her court, and made them as indefatigable as herself in labours of love for the Church and the poor. The making of vestments and furnishings for the Church and garments for the poor formed part of their daily occupation. Margaret was what in modern language would be called " an exotic," but the transplanting to our hardier soil and bleaker skies did not weaken the womanly virtues of the Saxon princess. She brought with her the grace and refinement of the southern home where she had been reared, and Scotland was the richer and better for her personal influence. There were sensible Scots in those days who regarded her mission as the partial repayment of the debt which Margaret's ancestors owed to the missionary Scots that evangelised the Saxon tribes of England. In no other light need it be regarded now. Some may think, and some historians XIII INFLUENCE OF QUEEN MARGARET'S LIFE 2 27 have written, that the debt was not paid in kind, gospel for gospel, but that is a subject on which historians, like others, are certain to differ. Dr. Skene ^ observes that " there is perhaps no more beautiful character recorded in history than that of Margaret. For purity of motives, for an earnest desire to benefit the people among whom her lot was cast, for a deep sense of religion and great personal piety, for the unselfish performance of whatever duty lay before her, and for entire self-abnegation, she is unsurpassed, and the chroniclers of her time all bear testimony to her exalted character." Of her influence over her husband Turgot speaks in high terms. " I confess," he says, " I was astonished at the great miracle of God's mercy when I perceived in the king such a steady earnestness in his devotion ; and I wondered how it was that there could exist in the heart of a man living in the world such an entire sorrow for sin." Malcolm had a frank and generous disposition beneath a rough exterior, and though as ignorant of letters as most of his contemporaries, he used to handle with great reverence the devotional books which were the favourite study of his wife. He would take them up and kiss them, and occasionally carry them off to have them emblazoned with gold and jewels, in his respect for the books, and still more for their reader. When the queen in her lavish generosity exhausted her own resources in alms-giving, she would have recourse to her husband's ; and his only reproof, on making the discovery, would be to seize her hand and playfully call her a little thief Every morning the poor of the district came to the palace door, and king and queen used to wash their feet and supply them with food and clothing. We read also of her earnest devotions, of prolonged prayer and fasting — a ' as., ii. 344. 22 8 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. discipline so severe that it weakened her health and eventually hastened her death. Contrasting with this personal discipline was the queen's taste for the elegancies of social life, and for the etiquette and ceremonial which she thought befitting a court. With this object she is said to have made a display of gold and silver dishes which astonished the guests at the royal table. A writer who considers this love of ostentation as the foible of the amiable queen, pays a high tribute all the same to her refining influence. " In short," he says,-' " to the influence of Margaret may be attributed the foundation of that change which gradually converted the king of Scotland from a rude and simple chieftain, surrounded by congenial and semi-barbarous followers, into a feudal monarch in the midst of a knightly and chivalrous court." Not less successful was Margaret in her influence over her children. She was a strict disciplinarian, and insisted upon their being corrected, and if necessary punished, for their faults. Their religious education she kept largely in her own hands, esteeming it a very sacred trust. " O my children," she would often say to them, " fear the Lord, for they that fear Him shall lack nothing ; and love the Lord, for His love will never fail you, and will give you prosperity in this life and eternal happiness with all His Saints in the life which is to come." Amid the pressure of many duties she never failed daily to pray for them as well as to instruct them. The saintly mother in the midst of her children in the royal school at Dunfermline makes a pleasing family picture in that far-off eleventh century. And the teacher had her reward. She impressed upon them the moral disposition and qualities of her own good heart, and that singular purity of life for which her children were distinguished. Three of her sons succeeded 1 Robertson, Early Kings, i. 150. XIII QUEEN MARGARET'S RELIGIOUS BENEFACTIONS 229 their father on the throne ; and so long as they reigned, the mother's influence ruled. From the day of her marriage with king Malcolm, in 1069, to the death of David her youngest son in 1 153, we have the remarkable phenomenon of one devout mind moulding by its influence the policy of Church and State for more than eighty years. Six sons and two daughters were the offspring of the marriage. The eldest son, Edward, fell with his father in a war on the English Border. Ethelred became lay abbot of Dunkeld and earl of Fife. Edmund, the weak ling of the family, died a penitent monk in an English monastery. The other three sons, Edgar, Alexander, and David, were successively kings of Scotland. None of the sons' names was Scottish — all the six were Saxon, except Alexander, called after the reigning pope. Editha, the elder daughter, married Henry I. of England, and chang ing her name to Matilda, in compliment to her husband's mother, was venerated by the English people as " the good queen Maud." Her younger sister, Mary, was married to the count of Boulogne, and had a daughter Matilda, who became wife of Stephen, king of England. Little is said in Turgot's life of any extension of the Church by new religious foundations. Margaret's aims seem rather to have been to revive personal religion and to strengthen the existing institutions of the Celtic Church by assimilating them as far as she could to Anglican models. Dunfermline, St. Andrews, the Culdees of Loch leven, and Iona, all benefited from the queen's bounty. In Dunfermline she may be considered as the foundress of the abbey, to which she brought Benedictine monks from Canterbury. She decorated the church which she built there with many ornaments, and presented for the service of the altar vessels of solid gold. Frequent use, as we have seen, was made of the cross in the old Celtic 230 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Church both as an act of faith and as a symbol in Christian worship. Margaret introduced the crucifix, and presented one to the church in Dunfermline richly orna mented with gold and silver, intermixed with precious stones. She made a similar gift to St. Andrews as the mark of her piety and devotion ; and the beautiful crucifix was still to be seen there in Turgot's day.-' The ancient city benefited in other ways by the queen's favour. Before Margaret's time St. Andrews was popular as a place of pilgrimage. The influx of devotees " with palmer's staff and hat with scallop shell," increased in the days of the good queen. For their convenience she stationed boats on the Forth at a place appropriately named Queensferry, and made houses of rest on both sides of the water. St. Ninian's at Whithern, and the isle of Iona, were still favourite resorts of the devout. After these came St. Andrews, and somewhat later the popular shrine of St. Duthac, in Tain. Following these was the place of St. Magnus's burial in Birsa, one of the Orkneys, which also became popular. St. Serf's monastery in Lochleven does not seem to have attracted pilgrims, near as it was to St. Andrews ; but it was not overlooked by king Malcolm, who followed the example of his pre decessors, and, with his queen, added to the endowments of the Culdees in Lochleven by presenting them with the town {villa) of Ballechristin.^ The villa probably included the gift of the church, as on other like occasions. St. Margaret was partial to the anchorites, of whom, according to Turgot,' " there were many at this time in the kingdom of the Scots, who, in different places, enclosed in separate cells, lived in the flesh, but not according to the flesh, in great straitness of life, and even on earth lived the life of ' Vita St. Marg., c. iv. 2 Reg_ pj._ §[_ Andrews, p. 115. ' Life, c. ix. XIII MARGARET AND THE CULDEES OF LOCHLEVEN 2 3 I angels. In them the queen did her best to love and venerate Christ, and used frequently to visit and converse with them and commend herself to their prayers ; and, as she could not induce them to accept any earthly gift from her, she earnestly requested them to prescribe for her some work of charity or of mercy. Whatever was their desire she devoutly fulfilled, — either in recovering the poor from their poverty or relieving the afflicted from the miseries which oppressed them." It is probable ^ that among those anchorites who commended themselves to queen Margaret's favour were the Culdees of Lochleven. They were near enough to Dunfermline to be easy of access to the queen ; but they must have degenerated much from their anchorite fervour when David her son had to supplant or suppress them. Before passing from the Culdees of Lochleven, notice may be taken of a gift of Ethelred, Margaret's second son, to the same community.^ He appears in the record as lay abbot of Dunkeld grant ing the lands of Admore to these Culdees, and he makes the gift with more affection, seeing the lands had been given by his parents to himself in his boyhood. The deed of grant was apparently made at Abernethy, and is witnessed by the names of two of his brothers, Alexander and David, and also by two witnesses who were sons of priests of Abernethy, by three other priests, two of whom were Culdees, and lastly by the rector of the schools of Abernethy. Here we find a secular married clergy exist ing side by side with Culdee priests, and a new name for an old functionary, the rector of the schools, the same as the Ferleighinn, or lector of the Irish churches. Iona also received the friendly aid of Margaret in the day of its decline. The Western Isles, after the death, in 1057, of Thorfin, earl of Orkney, had fallen into the 1 Skene, C. S,, ii. 351. ^ Reg. Pr. St. Andrews, p. 115. 232 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. hands of an Irish chief named Diarmed. During his rule till 1072 the old connection with Ireland was renewed, and we meet for the first time with St. Duthac, an Irish man who has left his name in Loch Duich, and particularly in Tain, of which he is patron saint. In the Annals of Ulster, recording his death in 1065, he is called Dubhtach of Alban, the chief anmchara or soul friend of Erin and Alban. After Diarmed's death, the Isles fell into the hands of king Malcolm, and the ruined mon astery, which was the outward symbol of the Church's decay, attracted the attention of Margaret. Ordericus Vitalis 1 tells us that she repaired the monastery, filled it with monks, and provided it with an endowment. What queen Margaret restored was not St. Columba's wooden monastery, but the later stone monastery left in a ruinous state since the last attack of the Danes in 986. Not much, if anything, of the queen's restoration is now to be seen in Iona, the existing ruins being the remains of a later age. St. Margaret introduced to Iona Benedictine monks and nuns, about ten years after the reforming conferences she held with the native clergy. Turgot, her chaplain and biographer, was himself a Benedictine of Durham ; and the introduction of that order into both Dunfermline and Iona was due to his influence and to that of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was Margaret's spiritual adviser. Lanfranc is said to have sent three of the Canterbury clergy to give counsel to the queen on her resolution to reform the Celtic Church.^ This was the greatest task of her life ; and that it was accomplished by a woman says much for Margaret's discretion and personal influence. 1 B. viii. c. 22, quoted by Skene, original in the Salacronica, pp. 222, C. S., ii. 353. 223, in the Scots Eccles. Journal, vol. 2 See letter from Lanfranc to the i. p. 120. queen of Scots translated from the XIII NECESSITY OF CHURCH REFORM 233 Five hundred years separated Malcolm Canmore from his name-father, St. Columba.^ They were centuries of recurring disorder in which the conflicting races often measured their brute force with each other, and settled on fields of battle the survival of the fittest. The number of kings — Britons, Picts, Scots, and Danes — who met with a violent death is evidence of the disturbed condition of the country. It is easy to imagine the baneful effect of this perpetual strife upon the spiritual life of a Church in many respects still missionary. Besides, even if an age of prolonged peace and order had followed the advent of the Columban Church, it is questionable how much of the original impulse of the sixth and seventh centuries would have survived in the eleventh. No religious revival has had vitality sufficient without renewal to propel its influence unimpaired through five centuries. As a matter of fact, the burning zeal of the early Celtic Church was exhausted and spent. Everything that we read of its history in its last days tells of a secularised priesthood, of relaxed discipline, of a loss of the first love. The spirit had again to give the breath of life to the dry bones before the Church could stand upon her feet. It was not a battle of ritual, Celtic versus Anglican, though some of the points discussed hinged upon decency and order. The main issue went deeper, and touched the springs of the Church's spiritual life. Turgot says that Margaret held many conferences with the clergy, and like another Helena, convinced them from the Scriptures, while the king, standing by, acted as her interpreter. Bede, as a biographer, would have enlarged upon the beautiful sight of Malcolm acting as interpreter between queen and clergy, as he did in the similar case of king Oswald interpreting St. Aidan's Celtic speech to the Northumbrians. Margaret is 1 Malcolm is the Gaelic for the follower of Colm. 2 34 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. said to have been well read in theology and a daily student of the Bible, and her appeal to that sacred authority antici pates a different reformation scene, five hundred years later, when another Scottish queen, not Margaret but Mary, had the words of the Bible often flung in her face. Of the several subjects discussed, and in a measure settled by the Conference, five are recorded by Turgot. Margaret began by pointing out that they who agreed with the Catholic Church in worshipping one God, in one faith, should not differ in regard to certain new and strange practices. And first she explained that the Scottish clergy did not observe a Lent fast of forty days, but commenced it on the Monday following the proper day. Ash Wednesday, leaving only thirty-six days for the fast. They replied that Christ fasted six weeks ; and so did they. She then dwelt on the argument from the practice of the Catholic Church, and they yielded to her argument. It is obvious that neither could claim to follow strictly our Lord's example, for His fast was a continuous fast of forty days inclusive of the Sabbaths. The Christian Church has always regarded Sunday as a Feast, the day of the Resurrection, and so to be excluded from the enumera tion of the forty days of Lent, which must consequently commence so much earlier. Neither queen nor clergy seem to have been aware that the antiquated usage of Scotland was a survival of the earlier rule of Western Christendom. Ash Wednesday and the three following days were introduced either by pope Gregory the Great (590-604) or Gregory II. (715-731). In Ireland, up to the tenth century, Lent began on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday ; and the Church of Milan still retains the ancient practice which queen Margaret found in the isolated Church of Scotland.^ 1 In the translator's note appended to Bellesheim's History, i. 247, it is XIII ROYAL CONFERENCE WITH SCOTTISH CLERGY 235 The Scottish custom as to the Lenten Fast might have been easily defended from historic precedents. Not so the more serious charge which came next, that " they refrained from partaking of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ on Easter Day, according to the usage of the holy and apostolic Church." The answer is indicative of an amount of ignorance and superstition, prevalent still among the least instructed of our lay people, but surprising when found among ecclesiastics of any age. When the queen asked for an explanation of the strange neglect, they answered her thus : " The Apostle teaches that those who eat and drink unworthily, eat and drink judgment to themselves ; and as we feel that we are sinners, we are afraid to partake of that sacrament lest we eat and drink judgment to ourselves." The queen replies with an argument for the necessity of reception which is forcible in itself, but has no special reference to Easter. Turgot tells us it was conclusive, and that the clergy afterwards conformed to the requirements of the Church in the matter of Easter communion. Dr. Grub ^ rightly points out that Turgot's narrative leaves something unexplained, for the objections of the Celtic clergy to Easter communion would apply to com municating at any time. And so it has been understood by some subsequent writers, such as Lord Hailes,^ who takes it as proof that " the clergy of Scotland had ceased to celebrate the communion of the Lord's Supper." There is no sufficient ground for the conclusion of Hailes, who probably did not distinguish between the sacrifice added, ' ' For the same reason the Latin Church is not known. It was Greeks, who never fast either on probably subsequent to the time of Saturdays or Sundays, begin the St. Gregory the Great, who speaks in Lenten fast on the Monday before one of his homilies of the thirty-six Sexagesima. At what date the fasting days of Lent. " obligation of beginning Lent on Ash ^ Hist, i. 196. Wednesday became universal in the ^ Annals, i. 45. 236 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISPI CHURCH chap. and the communion in the Eucharist. And the very next charge against the clergy is proof that their celebra tions had not ceased. Dr. Jos. Robertson ^ remarks that " obviously nothing more is implied than that from a superstitious regard for the sanctity of Easter, it was the practice not to partake of the Eucharist on that day." He refers to a well-known custom among the Presbyterian Highlanders at the present day, who refuse to com municate from similar prejudices which they regard as scrupulous humility. The inference that there is now no commemoration of the Lord's Supper among the Gaelic people would be very erroneous. The next point also touched the Eucharist. The Celtic clergy in some places were said to celebrate accord ing to a " barbarous rite." ^ Turgot professes his ignorance as to what made the ritual " barbarous," but the general opinion is that it was the use of a Celtic liturgy.' This practice would find little favour with Turgot himself, a Saxon Benedictine, and as little doubtless with queen Margaret. But whatever " the barbarous rite " may have been, it was not entirely suppressed, for the Culdees continued to celebrate " more suo " to the days of king David I., and probably to the end of the Culdee chapter. The fourth subject was the better observance of the Lord's Day. The Celtic Church, as was seen from the life of St. Columba, rightly regarded the seventh day as the Sabbath, and showed their regard by abstaining on it from all servile labour. This tradition of the Irish Church was preserved among the Scots in Britain, but in 1 Stat, xxiii. ^ Bellesheim, i. 249, admits that 2 The words of Turgot in his Life ' ' the allusion is not improbably to of St. Margaret, n. 16, a.xe "Fteterea. the use of the native language in in aliquibus locis Scottorum quidam the celebration." See also Bishop fuerunt, qui contra totius ecclesise Forbes in Kalendars of Saints, sub consuetudinem, nescio quo ritu bar- voce St. Margaret, and Skene, C. S., baro, Missas celebrare consueverant." ii. 349, who take the same view. XIII FIVE SUBJECTS DISCUSSED IN CONFERENCE 237 St. Margaret's time they made up for the rest on the Sabbath by working on the Sunday. This, the queen pointed out, was unlawful according to the teaching of the Catholic Church. " Let us keep," she said, " the Lord's Day in reverence, on account of the Resurrection of the Saviour from the dead on that day ; and let us do no servile work on that day, on which, as we know, we were redeemed from the slavery of the devil." It is not said that the Celtic clergy offered any defence for what the queen rightly regarded as the desecration of the Lord's Day. Turgot reports that they were unable to oppose anything to the arguments they had heard, and ever afterwards observed the day with due reverence, no one being allowed to carry burdens, or to compel others to do so, on that day. It may be observed before passing from the subject, that in this kingdom we are drifting back to the Celtic idea of the seventh day, Jewish as it may be, and are coming more to regard it as a Sabbath or rest for working men and scholars, for all toilers old and young. The latter have gained it entirely, and the former partially, as their weekly holiday. History has a habit of repeating itself ; and the hope may be expressed that the Lord's Day may never cease to be in our land the weekly Holy-day. The last question was that of marriage within the for bidden degrees. It was then customary among the Scots for a man to marry his stepmother, or his brother's widow. Such marriages, Margaret said, were detestable and to " be avoided like death." And the Conference agreed to suppress them. But the Scots were not peculiar in this respect. Bede shows how common the same custom was in England at the beginning of the seventh century ; and Giraldus Cambrensis ^ accuses the Irish Church of the 1 Topograph. Hibern., iii. 19. 238 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. ninth century of the very same practice, of men marrying the widows of their brothers. Turgot is silent as to a still more odious practice that prevailed among the Scots at this time — that of deserting and even selling their wives. So aggravated had this scandal become that pope Gregory VII. (107 3- 1 086) called upon Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, to suppress it by all means.^ " Many other customs," says Turgot,^ " which were contrary to the rule of faith and the observance of the Church, she persuaded the council to condemn, and to banish from the borders of her kingdom." We can only surmise what these evil customs were, but it is remarkable that nothing is said of the marriage of the clergy — " clerical concubinage," as Bellesheim prefers to call it — which we know to have been still common among the secular priest hood both of Britain and Ireland. And nothing is said of another custom which in Margaret's eyes must have seemed a blemish and a sore in the Celtic Church — the occupation of high offices in the Church by laymen, their appropriation of spiritual benefices, and making their properties hereditary in their families. If the royal reformer had laid the axe at the root of this abuse she would have merited still more the gratitude of posterity. " But possibly," as Dr. Skene remarks, " she was restrained by the knowledge that the royal house into which she had married, owed its origin to the lay abbots of one of the principal monasteries, and was largely endowed with the possessions of the Church ; and if in the council her eye lighted upon her young son Ethelred, who, even in boy hood, was lay abbot of Dunkeld, her utterances on that subject could hardly be otherwise than checked." ' It is generally admitted that reformation of the Celtic 1 Robertson's Stat, i. xxiv. 2 yita St Marg., c. viii. ^ Skene, C. S., ii. 350. *•> XIII THE REFORMING POLICY OF QUEEN MARGARET 239 Church was urgently needed. Turgot evidently discloses but part of the truth touching the prevalent abuses, and his record leaves the impression that they were not all corrected and reformed. Had the reformation struck deeper, the reforming policy of Margaret would have con ferred still greater blessings on the Church. Dr. Jos. Robertson, whose book on the Statutes of the Scottish Church (quoted as " Statuta ") has thrown so much fresh light on our church history from this period to the Reforma tion, says of Turgot's Life of St, Margaret — " It will be at least admitted that the prior of Durham has left a much more favourable account of the Scottish Church than the abbot of Clairvaux (St. Bernard) gave of the Irish Church half a century afterwards. Nor should it be forgotten that Turgot is silent as to abuses among the Scots of which we hear from others." ¦' The evidence makes it clear that the Celtic Church in both islands had long been in a state of spiritual declension, a state fruitful of flagrant abuses. St. Margaret's Anglican preposses sions have shut the eyes of some of our historians to the evidence of corruptions and abuses which she strove to reform. This class of writers first identify the Celtic Church with the Culdees, who were a very late growth in its history ; and then they labour to make the Culdees, who were a body of anchorite monks in their origin, appear as the representatives of a simple scriptural religion with which Queen Margaret and her Anglican friends had no sympathy. Both positions are entirely without support from contemporary history, as will be seen in a later chapter on the origin and institutions of the Culdees. The aim of the queen's ecclesiastical policy was no doubt to bring the Scottish Church into conformity with the EngHsh. And this she sought, not from mere 1 Robertson's Statuta, i. xxiv. note. 240 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. personal dislike of the Celtic clergy, but from the conviction that the tribal or clan system, upon which the Celtic Church was moulded, had outlived its day, and that the Church itself had now fallen into decrepitude. She had taken a Scot for her husband, and made his court not only her home, but the sphere of her life's work ; and there is no sufficient reason for accusing her of antipathy to men or things merely because they were Scottish. It was natural that she should turn her eyes to England, where the Church was now strong and aggressive under leaders like Lanfranc. There was evidently a Celtic party in Scotland opposed both to the civil and the ecclesiastical reforms of king Malcolm and his queen. The royal policy favoured the southern Saxons, who were increasing in numbers and influence, and the attempt to put the king's brother Donald Ban on the throne, upon Malcolm's death, proceeded to some extent from hostility to this Saxon predominance. The reformation of the Church was also calculated to make opponents of ultra -Scots, who preferred the older system with all its faults ; but it is doubtful whether Margaret's partiality to the Anglican system was as objectionable to the Scots of her own time as it is to certain Scots in ours. Her success in the reforming con ference shows it was not so. Yet she made no secret of her southern sympathies. Not only had she the arch bishop of Canterbury for her spiritual adviser, but she sought out the church in Scotland which was dedicated to one of his canonised predecessors, St. Laurence, in order to pay it special honour. The queen's visit to Laurencekirk in the Mearns ^ was attended by a curious incident. It seems the local tradition regarded it as unlawful for a woman to enter the church. And when 1 See the Acta Sanctorum for Feb., and quoted by Robertson, Stat, i. xxi. XIII THE SCOTTISH CHURCH AND THE SEE OF YORK 24 1 the queen presented herself at Laurencekirk bearing certain offerings for the altar, the canons forbade her to enter the church. She persisted, however, on the plea that she meant to honour the shrine of the saint, but when she had reached the vestibule she was seized with violent bodily pains and exclaimed, " Carry me hence immediately, for I am dying." In answer to the prayers of the clergy she was restored to health, and left a silver cross and chalice, with other gifts, in memory of St. Laurence. The original story probably owes something to the clerical embellishment of a later day. The king and queen of the Scots are said to have gone so far in their partiality for English institutions as to subject the Scottish Church to the supremacy of the see of York. The claim was based upon the commission of Gregory the Great to Augustine to create two archi episcopal sees in Britain with twelve suffragans under each. The Scottish Church, which had hitherto owed nothing to the see of Rome, and had held little communication with it, was not likely to regard lightly any attempt to dispose of its national independence without its being consulted. The claim had remained a dead letter for five hundred years, — until the council of Windsor, in 1072 — when it was revived by the two English primates, and a compact made between them by which York was to claim jurisdiction over all Scotland. No representa tives from Scotland were present at Windsor ; and the statement of an English chronicler of the fourteenth century, that its decrees were ratified by the Scottish sovereigns and the bishop of St. Andrews, remains without confirmation.-' The claim of the see of York to ecclesiastical supremacy over the Scottish Church was similar to the claim of civil supremacy over Scotland 1 Robertson's Statuta, i. xxv. ; Grub, i. 197. R 242 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. made by successive English sovereigns. In the days of the heptarchy the archbishop of York was metropolitan from the Humber to the Forth, as the district between the Forth and Tweed was then part of the kingdom of Northumbria and included in the see of Lindisfarne. This afforded a pretext for ambitious prelates of York to claim metropolitan authority not only to the Forth but to the Orkney Islands. The fact also that Scotland, in spite of several attempts, the earliest of them by David I., to obtain a metropolitan, only succeeded in acquiring this rank for St. Andrews near the close of the fifteenth century, helped to keep alive the claims of York and to embroil the Churches in controversy. In a similar way, as the Scottish kings had lands and estates in England, and were required by the feudal system to pay homage for them to the English sovereign as overlord, this acknowledgment was wrested by feudal lawyers to mean homage for the kingdom of Scotland as a dependency of the English crown. Scottish kings in succession made a successful stand both for our civil and ecclesiastical independence. The reign of Malcolm Canmore marks a transition in the history of Scotland. The changes introduced affected both Church and State, and worked a silent revolution in the language, the laws, and the manners of the people. The influx of Saxons, begun before Malcolm's marriage with Margaret, continued to increase ; and not only Saxons but Normans, dissatisfied with the stern rule of the Conqueror, crossed the Border and became subjects of Malcolm. Both Saxons and Normans formed an upper class among the Celtic population, and being men of a strong hand, despising manual labour but ready with the sword and the bow, the natives gradually gave way before them or took service under them. Before many years XIII SOCIAL CHANGES UNDER MALCOLM CANMORE 243 they managed to get possession of large tracts of land from the Tweed to Sutherland, to the dispossession in many cases of the old Gaelic population. This was not an unmixed advantage. Admitting the ameliorating influences of a resident upper class of higher social culture and education, still the price paid was too dear when the cost was the expulsion of the natives from their own soil, or their degradation to the condition of serfs under feudal lords.^ The commercial intercourse with foreign nations, begun in this reign, was in every way advantageous to the interests of the people. Hitherto they had held little com munication with any other nations except England and Ireland, and that was not always of a commercial kind. From the latter country had come successive missionaries to Christianise them ; from the former, successive armies to conquer them. Intercourse was now invited from foreign countries ; and soon merchants from the seaboard of the Continent — French and Flemings — came and found a ready market for their goods. The comforts and even luxuries of civilised life began to spread among the Scots from the court to the cottage. Malcolm had several wars with the two English kings, William the Conqueror and his son Rufus. On one of these occasions, August 1072, the Conqueror marched an army into Scotland and penetrated as far as Abernethy ; but in place of a battle, the two kings made a treaty, Malcolm receiving twelve English manors from William and an annual payment of twelve marks of gold, and giv ing in return his eldest son Duncan as a hostage to the English king.^ On his way to meet William II. at Gloucester, Malcolm was present at the foundation, on the I Ith August 1093, of Durham Cathedral, which this year ^ Cos. Innes, Early Scot. Hist, p. 9. 2 Robertson's Early Kings Scot, i. 136. 244 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. (1893) celebrates its eighth centenary. William Rufus when sick was penitent, and wished brotherly intercourse with Malcolm ; but Rufus recovered, as Malcolm found him in Gloucester, was imperious and exacting. He asked Malcolm to do homage for his kingdom as a vassal of England, which he promptly refused. The result was a rupture between the sovereigns. Malcolm returned home, and in the autumn of 1093 marched at the head of an army, much against the advice of his queen, to revenge the insult of Rufus. He met De Mowbray, the earl of Northumbria, near Alnwick, and in the battle which followed Malcolm fell by the treachery of Morel of Bamborough, his professed friend. Edward, the eldest son of Margaret, and acknowledged as his father's heir, was also mortally wounded, and died in a few days in Jedwood forest, at a place long known as " Edward's Isle.'' The king's body was found by some peasants on the battle field, and borne on a cart to Tynemouth, where it was buried in an obscure tomb. Simeon, the historian of Durham, tells how this fate befell Malcolm for his cruelty to Northumbria, and especially to Tynemouth, some years before. About twenty years afterwards Malcolm's body was removed by his son Alexander and laid beside the remains of his saintly queen in Dunfermline. Edgar brought back to Edinburgh Castle, where Margaret was living, the tidings of the double disaster. She had been in infirm health for some time previous, and seldom able to leave her bed. Knowing her end to be near, she received the Holy Sacrament under both kinds, as was still the custom of the Catholic Church. She then requested to see the crucifix known as the Black Rood, which she much venerated. Holding it in her hands, suffering and praying, she repeated the 51st Psalm. Edgar returned from the battlefield to find his mother on XIII DEATHS OF MALCOLM AND ST. MARGARET 245 her deathbed. His silence confirmed her w^orst fears. " How fares it," she asked, " with your father and brother ? " He could only say, " They are well." " I know it, my son, I know it ; by this holy cross, and by the love you bear your mother, I adjure you to tell me the truth." He told her all. Raising her hands to heaven, she blessed God — " Praise and thanksgiving be to Thee, Lord Almighty, whose will it is that I should suffer this deep anguish at my departing, that so, as I trust, I may in some measure be cleansed from the stains of my sins.'' As she was dying she repeated the prayer in the Liturgy which was then said after the reception of the Eucharist — " O Lord Jesu Christ, who by the will of the Father, and through the Holy Spirit, by thy death hast given life unto the world, deliver me." As she uttered the last words death released her from her sorrows.-' She died on i6th November 1093, in the forty-seventh year of her age and the twenty- second of her wedded life. Her body was taken by her son Ethelred to Dunfermline for burial. The popular belief in her saintliness led to her being canonised on the 19th June 1250. On that occasion her relics, with those of her husband, were translated with much ceremony to the choir of the Abbey Church of Dunfermline, and placed under the high altar in a silver shrine adorned with many precious stones.^ 1 Turgot's Vita St, Marg., iv. XII. to the i oth of June, to give Ato 32 ; Grub, i. 201. to King James's infant son, who was 2 The day of commemoration was, born on that day. Burton, Hist. in 1688, changed by pope Innocent Scot, vii. 282. CHAPTER XIV DONALD BAN AND DUNCAN, IO93-IO97 EDGAR, 1 097- II 07 ALEXANDER I., IIO7-II24 Invasion by King Magnus of Norway, his visit to Iona — Edgar's religious foundations — Martyrdom of St. Magnus of Orkney — Churches of Egilsay and Orphir — Foundation of Scone Monastery — Turgot, bishop of St. Andrews — Claims of York — Election of Eadmer to St. Andrews, and disputes arising therefrom — Robert, bishop of St. Andrews — Alexander's gifts to the Church and his religious foundations, e.g. Inchcolm — Diocesan sees of Moray and Dunkeld founded by the king — David, Prince of Cumbria, founds Benedictine House at Selkirk and restores see of Glasgow. Edward had been chosen by his father as successor, to the exclusion of his half-brother Duncan. The death of Edward led to the usual troubles of a disputed succession. Jealousy of the Saxon intrusion induced the Scottish faction to place Malcolm's brother, Donald Ban, or the Fair, on the throne (1093). Duncan was supported by English and Norman auxiliaries, and expelled his uncle. His success, however, was short-lived, as he perished by treachery at Mondynes on the banks of the Bervie river, in the Mearns, where a rude stone marks the place of his death. The two Duncans, the only Scottish kings of that name, both perished in the same way by the treachery of friends.^ Donald then resumed the government, and it is 1 Boece and his copyists, Buchanan as the place of Duncan's death. See and others, give erroneously Monteith Pinkerton's Enquiry, i. xiv. CHAP. XIV KING MAGNUS OF NORWAY IN IONA 247 supposed that the throne was shared by Edmund, Mal colm's least worthy son. Meanwhile Edgar Atheling was busy raising men in England to support the claims of his nephew Edgar. In the war that ensued Donald was defeated and treated with a cruelty which must even at that time have seemed barbarous. His eyes were put out, and he was loaded with chains and doomed to spend the rest of his days a prisoner in Rescobie, Forfarshire. Edmund became a monk in the Cluniac monastery of Montague, Somersetshire, and is said to have died in the odour of sanctity. Both kings, Donald and Duncan, appear in the list of royal benefactors to Lochleven. Duncan also made gifts to the churches of Dunfermline and Durham, and his charter conveying the lands to Durham is reputed to be the oldest of our existing Scottish charters.-' Ethelred was now most probably dead, and Malcolm's fourth son, Edgar, became king, 1 097-1 107. He was the first of the Scottish kings who bore a Saxon name. ^ At the beginning of his reign the Hebrides were harried by Magnus Barefoot, king of Norway. It is said ' that Mal colm, shortly before his death, had ceded the Western Isles to Magnus ; but, if so, it is difficult to account for the rapine and slaughter, the burning of crops and houses, that everywhere followed his track.* The only island that escaped his fury was Iona, and its immunity may be ascribed to a latent sense of veneration which Magnus, a professed Christian, felt for the shrine of St. Columba. It has been suggested by a writer not prone to be fanciful that the Norse king was awed by a vision as he opened 1 Grub, i. 205. much later period." Edgar was not 2 Todd, in his Life of St. Patrick, the first, as we have seen, to be called p. 41, says, " Edgar assumed the title king of Scotia. king of Scotland or Scotia, but Ire- ^ Skene, C. S., ii. 353. land still retained the name till a * Robertson's .£¦«;-// /^wzfj, i. 165. 248 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap.' the saint's oratory. ^ The Norse saga thus relates the visit : " King Magnus came with his army to the Holy Island, that is, to Iona, and gave quarter and peace to all men that were there, and to the property of every one. It has been said that king Magnus opened the smaller church of Kollum-Killa, but did not go into it. He immediately locked the door and said that no man should be so bold as to go in there, and that church has never been opened since." ^ The date of the saga is 1221, and the building referred to was probably the small oratory which held the shrine of St. Columba. In the close of this century, 1099, died Donnchad, the last of the old abbots of Iona, just five hundred years from the death of the first abbot. Fothadh, the last of the native bishops of Alban, styled " archbishop of Alban" in the Ulster Annals, died in 1093. The see remained vacant fourteen years, when it was filled by Turgot, the chaplain and biographer of St. Margaret. Edgar was true to his surname " the peaceable," and his reign, except for the expedition of king Magnus, took the colour of his own gentle character. Ailred of Rievaux writes of him as a sweet-tempered, amiable man, re sembling his maternal ancestor Edward the Confessor. His brothers, Alexander and David, were men of more force of character, who resumed and completed the ecclesiastical reforms inaugurated by their mother. Edgar made the usual donations to Lochleven and Dunfermline. He en couraged trade with the Continent, and was able to make the Irish king Murketagh a present of a camel. Continu ing his liberality to the Church, he refounded the priory of Coldingham, which had been destroyed by the Danes, and handed it over to the monks of Durham, after endowing it " with the whole town of Swintun, to be held for ever free 1 Roheitso-n's Early Kings, i. 1 66. 2 Magnus's Saga quoted by Skene, C, S,, ii. 354. XIV MARTYRDOM OF ST. MAGNUS 249 and quit of all claim, and to be disposed of at the will of the monks of St. Cuthbert." This may have been partly in compliment to Turgot, the friend of his early life, who was now prior of Durham. The king's example was followed in the same district of Berwickshire by a subject named Thor the Long, to whom Edgar had given the waste land of Ednam. Thor had cultivated it, built a manor house upon it and also a church, dedicated to St. Cuthbert, and endowed with " one plough." This is the earliest formation of anything like a parish church in Scotland, if we may except Jedburgh, and in subsequent documents it is termed the mother church of Ednam. In the reign of Edgar has to be recorded the martyr dom of Magnus, the patron saint of Orkney. The double group of isles, Orkney and Shetland, known in church history as the diocese of the Orcades, were among the earliest possessions of the Scandinavians in what is now Scotland. They were the last which they relin quished, and then only in pledge for the dowry of Margaret, wife of James III. The conversion of the islanders was due to the early Columban monks, but Christianity had a chequered career in these islands. The repeated invasions of the heathen Norsemen, and their subsequent settlement, destroyed both the religion and the learning of the islanders. The Columban monks are said to have renewed their efforts for the conversion of the conquerors, but probably with little success until Norway itself became Christian at the close of the tenth century. We have already recorded the summary con version of Sigurd, the earl of Orkney, at the command of king Olaf of Norway, and the relation of Sigurd's son Thorfin to Malcolm II. Thorfin left two sons, Paul and Erlend, who were taken as prisoners to Norway by Magnus Barefoot. Paul had a son named Haco, and 250 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Erlend two sons, Magnus and Erlend. In a quarrel about their possessions in Orkney and Caithness Haco murdered his cousin Magnus.^ They had met in the isle of Egilsay after Easter to settle their dispute amicably. Haco came with a large number of armed men to dictate terms to his cousin. Magnus, when he discovered the breach of faith, forbade his men to risk their lives for him. " If peace," he said, " cannot be established between me and my cousin, God's will be done. I would rather suffer from others' wrong and falsehood than myself be guilty of these crimes." He spent the night in prayer in the church, and next morning received the sacrament. When the cousins met, Haco insisted upon Magnus going on a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem to make expiation for the sins of them both. Upon Magnus's refusal, the order was given for his execution. He knelt down and prayed for forgiveness for himself and his murderers ; then addressing the executioner, he said — " Stand before me and strike with your might that your sword may cleave my brain ; it were unseemly that an earl should die like a thief." Signing himself with the cross, he bent his head, and fell at the second blow. The body was first buried in Egilsay, and afterwards removed by his mother, Thora, to Christ Church at Birsa. Thither pilgrims flocked to his shrine from Scotland and Scandinavia. The i6th of April is given as the day of his death, when his festival was afterwards held, but the year is variously assigned to 1 104 and 11 10, and some put it stiH later.^ ^ Thorfin Paul Friend I I Haco Magnus and Erlend 2 Vita Magni, Pinkerton ed., pp. 387, 435 ; Grub, i. 250; Robertson's Scottish Abbeys, p. 39. XIV THE CHURCHES OF EGILSAY AND ORPHIR 25 I Egilsay, the island of St. Magnus's martyrdom, possesses an architectural as well as a historical me morial. There stands, though now in ruins, the little towered church, unique in its character, in which the martyr may have spent his last night in prayer.'- It has a round tower like Abernethy and Brechin, not separated from the church as these towers are, but annexed to the west end, and forming a structural part of the building, which in all probability was the work of Irish missionaries. Haco is said to have repented of his crime, and to have made the pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem which he strangely urged on his cousin. His son Paul was expelled from Orkney, and Ronald, the nephew of Magnus, succeeded to the earldom. Magnus was honoured as a saint and martyr, and his relics were translated to Kirkwall, where the stately cathedral which bears his name was begun by earl Ronald in 1 137. An interesting suggestion is made by Dr. Anderson ^ that even Haco, in his penitent days, became a church- builder. " It is equally curious," he says, " that we must look to Orkney for the only specimen in Scotland of a circular church — that at Orphir, now only a mere frag ment. This interesting ruin has been adduced as an example of the development of a church from the early dry-built circular or bee-hive dwellings of the native in habitants ; but it is on record that the Norwegian earl Hakon (Haco), who had his residence at Orphir, made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem in expiation of the murder of St. Magnus ; and as the church is plainly one of the well-known twelfth - century imitations of the church Of 1 If the date usually assigned to church there was built before St. the round towers of Abernethy and Magnus's time. Brechin applies to Egilsay, the ^ Scot Early Christ. Times, p. 29. 252 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the Holy Sepulchre, it was more likely to have been erected by him than by any one previous to his time." Earl Ronald, the founder of St. Magnus's Cathedral, made the usual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and was treacherously murdered on his return, about the year 11 58. Uncle and nephew, Magnus and Ronald, were both venerated by the Norsemen as saints. King Edgar died, early in life, on the 8th of January 1 107. His last act was to confer the princedom of Cumbria upon his youngest brother David, an arrange ment in which Alexander seems to have acquiesced. Alexander I. (11 07-1 124) differed widely in character from his gentle and somewhat lethargic predecessor. He showed himself possessed of the best qualities of both his parents — the high courage and military bearing of his father, the devotional instincts and ecclesiastical leanings of his mother. He had, besides, a will of his own, and the way in which he exercised it earned for him the name of the Fierce. Early in his reign he had occasion to make proof of his qualities. The men of the Mearns and of Moray swooped down upon him in his favourite residence at Invergowrie, hoping to surprise him, as they had his half-brother Duncan. Alexander was ready for them, and attacked them with such vigour that the con spirators fled beyond the Moray Firth, while Alexander pursued them in hot haste to the opposite shores of Ross, inflicting such ample punishment that they troubled him no more. The monastery of Scone is supposed to have been founded at this time by Alexander as a thank-offering for the victory. Alexander married Sybilla, a natural daughter of Henry I. of England, and about her character historians have differed.^ There was no offspring of the marriage. 1 See Robertson's Early Kings, i. 183. XIV TURGOT, BISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS 253 The king continued the ecclesiastical reformations begun by his mother, and his brother David was equally active in Cumbria. There had been no appointment to the see of St. Andrews since the death of bishop Fothadh in 1 093. Fordun gives the names of four bishops-elect after Fothadh — Gregory, Cathrey, Edmar, and Godric, — but Winton, who was a canon of St. Andrews, knows nothing of them. Alexander made choice of Turgot, probably from early friendship, as well as from a desire to strengthen the Saxon influence in the Church, as had been the policy of his mother. Dr. Grub ^ attributes the selection of Turgot to a want of learning and accomplishments in the Scottish Church, a statement which may be as true, or otherwise, of the eleventh century as it is said to be of the nineteenth. His opinion, however, has not gone unchallenged. " This is not consistent," writes Dr. M'Lauchlan,^ " with what we know of such men as Dicuil, Marianus Scotus, and Cadroe, who, though Scots, were quite abreast of the literature of their day ; nor does it consist with what we learn of the library at Loch Leven in the days of David I., which could not be very much inferior to that of Durham." The two former of these scholars, it should be added, were Irish Scots, and Cadroe had received his education in Ireland. But, fallen as the Scottish Church was from her flrst Celtic estate, it would require more evidence than we possess to warrant the statement that among all her clergy, secular and monastic, there was none with learning and accomplishments sufficient for the bishopric of St. Andrews. Certainly, the first two attempts to fill the see with English men were so little successful that one may hazard the opinion that better men for the office might have been found at home. Not only bishops but priests were brought from Ensland to serve the new churches erected during these 1 Hist, i. 206. " Early Scot Ch., p. 391. 254 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. reigns, especially in the more southern parts of Scotland. And it is a remarkable fact, which the plea of ignorance in one generation of Celtic clergy will by no means ex plain, that of the fifteen prelates elected to the see of St. Andrews during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, not one of them all was a Scot. Monks, priors, abbots, earls' sons — Saxons or Normans all of them — came in succession from England to fill the chief see in Scotland. And not that see only but other Scottish sees, as far north as Moray, were more than once filled by priests from across the Border.^Turgot, the bishop-elect, had been for some time prior of Durham, but, like some other ecclesiastics, he had had a rough voyage before casting anchor in the haven of the priory. He had been a prisoner in Lincoln Castle, a fugitive with the king of Norway, a shipwrecked passenger with the loss of all his earthly goods ; and finally, he was driven by compunction for a somewhat worldly life to seek peace within the cloister. He had risen by stepping- stones of his own dead self to a better life, and we owe to him the biography of St. Margaret, whose wise counsellor he had been for some years. Eadmer, the historian, a name to be met again presently in connection with the see of St. Andrews, records that Alexander elected Turgot with the consent of the clergy and people. How much their consent meant, under a ruler like Alexander, is doubtful ; but it is worthy of notice that, in the double voice of clergy and laity, the election of the first Saxon bishop of St. Andrews was so far according to ancient precedent. Turgot was elected in the first year of Alexander's reign, but his consecration was delayed, owing ..to the interposition of the primate of York, who raised the old 1 See Robertson's Scot. Abbeys, p. 31. XIV KING ALEXANDER AND BISHOP TURGOT 255 claim of supremacy over the Scottish Church. To evade the difficulty the bishop of Durham proposed that he, with the bishops of Scotland and Orkney, should con secrate Turgot. The primate of York, who had not yet received consecration, would not entertain the proposal. Alexander, backed as he was by the support of both clergy and people, was just the man to cross swords with the ambitious prelate. To admit the ecclesiastical supremacy of York was, he knew, to open the door to the civil supremacy of England ; and he set his foot firmly upon both. A compromise was at last effected, and Turgot was consecrated at York on Sunday, the ist of August 1 109, by the bishop of London, Thomas, the archbishop of York, being consecrated at the same time.' The rights of both churches, York and St. Andrews, were reserved for future consideration." Turgot did not find the bishopric of St. Andrews a bed of roses, and his episcopate was as brief as it was unsuccessful. The king and the bishop did not agree, the difference probably arising out of the question of remodelling the church. Turgot's policy is supposed to have been too ultra- Anglican for the Scottish king, who was a high-spirited man, bent upon preserving the independence of both church and kingdom. The bishop requested leave to proceed to Rome for advice, but Alexander was too sagacious to consent. Wearied with disappointment, Turgot retired to Durham, where he fell ill and died in August 1 1 15.' 1 Some writers state that Turgot Mailros, p. 65. The Chronicle of was consecrated by the archbishop of Melrose begins the Scottish history York. with the marriage of Malcolm and 3 Simeon of Durham, de Gestis, Margaret in 1067. What precedes 1 109; Grub, i. 178; Robertson's is the English history where Bede Early Kings,!. 178. left off. See Innes, Ci-it. Ess., p. 3 Eadmer, p. 90 ; Simeon of 232. Durham, p. 208 ; Chronica de 256 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Alexander was resolved, on the next appointment of a bishop, to keep clear of York. Accordingly he wrote a letter to Ralph, archbishop of Canterbury, in which he states, or is made to state, for the letter is believed to be more the composition of Eadmer than of Alexander, that the bishops of St. Andrews used to be consecrated by the pope or by the archbishop of Canterbury. No archbishop of Canterbury had consecrated any bishop for Scotland of whom we have record, and the reference to papal consecrations prior to this date is equally imaginary. The compact, referred to in the letter, between the two English primates at the council of Windsor, 1072, subordinating Scotland to the see of York, was never acquiesced in by the Scottish Church.^ If the letter was really Alexander's it must have been a regal device to get rid of the pretensions of York, but it only landed him in fresh difficulties with Canterbury. Nothing came of the application for five years, at the expiry of which Alexander again wrote to archbishop Ralph and requested that Eadmer, a monk of Canterbury, should be sent to fill the vacant see. Eadmer came to St. Andrews at midsummer 11 20, and was " elected by the clergy and people with the king's consent." ^ The bishop-elect had been for many years the personal friend of Anselm, and had shared the vicissitudes of that great prelate. He had high ideas of the episcopal office, and not less of the prerogative of Canterbury, which was only second in his eyes to the see of Rome. In consonance with his opinions he declined to accept the royal in vestiture, by ring and pastoral staff, at the hands of the king. " Spiritual independence " was the watchword of 1 Robertson's Statuta, i. x. See Eadmer, pp. 97, 98 ; Hailes, 2 The words are " Eligente eum Annals, i. p. 63 note. clero et populo, et concedente Rege." XIV EADMER AND THE SEE OF ST. ANDREWS 257 Eadmer. It embodies a principle which has played many parts in Scotland from that day to this. The scene at St. Andrews in the twelfth century was in some outward respects very unlike a disputed presentation to a Presbyterian parish in the nineteenth, but the moving spirit in ancient Saxon and modern Scot is the same — the Church's jealousy of Caesar. Eadmer v^^as so far reconciled that a friendly com promise was effected in the matter of investiture. The ring he received from the king, but the crosier laid upon the altar he took with his own hands, as he says, in the presence of two bishops.-' The place of his consecra tion raised a fresh difficulty. Alexander would have no dealings with York, and when Eadmer suggested Canterbury, the king was equally opposed to that quarter. " Not for all Scotland," said Eadmer, with some temper, " will I renounce being a monk of Canterbury." " In that case,'' said the king, " I have gained nothing by applying to Canterbury for a bishop." Friends interposed with advice, among them bishop John, recently elected to Glasgow, and they assured him that there was no choice between submission and resignation.^ Eadmer would take no advice. He resigned the ring to Alexander, returned the crosier to the altar of St. Andrews, and retired to Canterbury. The monk blamed the king, and the king the monk, for the misunderstanding. Eadmer had the reputation of great learning, and was a voluminous writer on many subjects, including the history from which much of his own career is gathered ; but he had little of the practical wisdom and tact requisite for the responsible office to which he had been called. He became precentor in Canterbury, and died in 1 1 24. 1 Eadmer, Hist, Nov. 97. 2 Wharton's Anglia Sacra, ii. 234-236. S 258 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Alexander sought his next bishop in Scotland. He and his wife Sybilla had founded a monastery for canons- regular of the order of St. Augustine at Scone in the year 1 1 15. The canons were brought from St. Oswald's, near Pontefract, and the first prior was Robert, an Englishman. The king's choice for St. Andrews fell upon Robert, and he was duly elected bishop in 1 1 24, but the king did not live to see his consecration. Alexander was a most liberal benefactor of the Church. " No one," says Fordun,^ " was more devoted to the clergy, more bountiful to strangers, more severe to evil-doers, more kind and courteous to the good." He gave the island in Loch Tay on which his queen had built a priory, and where she was buried in 1 122, to the new foundation at Scone. He increased the possessions of the see of St. Andrews by the grant of the land known as the Boar's Chase {cursus apri) in its neighbour hood. This has been regarded not as a gift but as a restoration to the Church of lands that had been alienated to the royal family in their capacity of co-arbs of the old monastery in St. Andrews, which once boasted a king for its abbot.^ Alexander was the first king to introduce north of the Forth the practice of confirming grants by charter in place of the old symbolic forms of delivery ; but on this occasion all the ancient formalities were observed. The king's " comely steed of Araby " was led up to the high altar, and his Turkish armour, his shield, and his lance of silver were formally presented to the Church — all of which strikes a modern reader as a piece of barbaric splendour for which even a lawyer's com plicated deed of grant would be a welcome substitute.' The king also further enriched his mother's foundation at 1 Scotichron., v. 40. 2 ggg Robertson's Early Kings, i. 185. 2 Pinkerton's Enq., i. 464. XIV ECCLESIASTICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ALEXANDER L 259 Dunfermline and his brother's at Coldingham. Taking refuge with his friends on the isle of Inchcolm, in the Forth, during a storm which lasted three days, Alexander found a solitary monk of the order of St. Columba subsisting on shellfish and the milk of one cow. In gratitude for his deliverance and for the modest hospitality of the monk, the king founded in 1 1 2 3 the monastery of Inchcolm for canons-regular, which Boece calls " a car buncle among precious stones,'' renewing the ancient and venerable dedication it bore to St. Colm or Columba.^ Walter Bower, continuator of Fordun's history, Scoti- chronicon, died here as abbot in li^ii^g. Durham, now the see of old Northumbria, also received special favours from Malcolm Canmore and his family. When Turgot laid the foundations of the church in 1093 the father was present, and when the new church received the relics of St. Cuthbert in 1104, Alexander, his son, witnessed the solemn rites. Greatest of all the king's ecclesiastical foundations were the two sees of Moray and Dunkeld, the one for the Celtic portion of his kingdom beyond the Spey, and the other for the western district on both sides of Drumalban. Little is known of the state of religion, immediately preceding this century, in the northern province, except what may be gathered from the dedication of its churches. Three of these between the Spey and the Findhorn — Brenach or Birnie, Spynie, and Kenedor — have a prominent place in connection with the new see.^ The first bishop of Moray was Gregory, and Cormac 1 Reeves's Adam., Ixvii. water in the rock bear his name. 2 Kenedor is also associated with lie is said in the Aberdeen Breviary the missionary life of St. Gervadius, to have preached the word of life in a native of Ireland, who was in Scotland, aided by many fellow- Moravia about the year 934. He soldiers of Christ. — Skene, C. S., ii. built an oratory or cell in Kenedor. 369. A cave near Elgin, and a spring of 26o HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. became the first diocesan bishop of the revived ' see of Dunkeld. Their names occur for the first time as witnesses of the Charter of Scone in 1 1 1 5 ; and they are supposed to be the Scottish bishops referred to by the bishop of Durham in his proposal to consecrate Turgot.^ The date usually given for the erection of both sees is 1107.^ The province of Moray, prior to this period, had been notorious chiefly for the political feuds of its mormaers, for its wars of independence, and for the killing of kings ; Dunkeld, from the days of St. Columba, had had a more peaceful and illustrious history. It was the seat of a great abbey, and the throne of the Celtic supremacy when that honour parted from Iona. But the supremacy had now gone by way of Abernethy to St. Andrews, and the wealthy abbey had long been in the hands of lay abbots. The last of them was Ethelred, Malcolm Canmore's son ; and on his death the property reverted to the crown. Its possessions enabled Alexander to re-found the bishopric with its cathedral and chapter in ampler form. The great lay abbacies of Dull and Glendochart, the former founded by Adamnan, and the latter by St. Fillan, were also comprised in the diocese. Many churches and parishes in other districts, such as Fife, Fothrif, Angus, and even Buchan, were assigned to Dunkeld. From a charter of king David I., we find also the re-consecration of the monastery church at Deer, which once bore the double dedication of St. Columba and St. Drostan. It now appears as the church of St. Peter ; and the lands thereof, " free from all exactions, are granted to Cormac, bishop of Dunkeld." The see 1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, the old bishoprics in Scotland, viz. ii. 171. Glasgow, Moray, Aberdeen, Brechin, 2 Skene, C. S., ii. 370. There all of which have been. printed. are only four chartularies extant of XIV RESTORATION OF SEE OF GLASGOW 26 1 included at its restoration the diocese of Argyll, which was dismembered from Dunkeld about the year 1 200.^ During Alexander's reign, David, as prince of Cumbria, was equally zealous in church restoration in the south and west of Scotland. In 1 1 1 3 he brought Benedictine monks from Tiron in France, and settled them in Selkirk. Thence they were transferred in 1 1 2 8 to Kelso, which stood in the first rank of our Scottish abbeys, both for the magnificence of its buildings and its corporate wealth." In the year 1 1 14 David accomplished a greater work - — the restoration of the see of Glasgow. Little is known of the Church in Cumbria in the days after St. Kentigern. These days were fruitful of feud and war, which tended to dismember the little kingdom and to barbarise the people. We have found Sedulius, bishop of the Britons, in the eighth century, but other certain episcopal figure we find none. There are traditions of two prelates, Magsuen and John, in the eleventh century, recorded by Stubbs, a Yorkshire man, who says the bishops were suffragans of York, and consecrated by its primate.' There are traditions of the Cumbrians themselves, who were equally certain that their bishops were consecrated by the bishops of St. Andrews ; or by the Welsh prelates, which is more probable. In the " inquisition," made by order of David, after he restored the see, as to the lands and churches of the ancient bishopric, " the five wise seniors of Cumbria " reported that Kentigern had had many successors in office, and that the endowments given by princes and nobles, largely in the south of Scotland, had been seized by laymen amid the confusion of the times.* 1 Grub, i. 218, 219 ; Skene, C. S., de Kelso, pp. 3 seq. ii. 368 seq, ^ Stubbs, Decern Scriptores, p. 2 Chron. of Melrose, p. 64; 1700. Fordun's Scotichron., v. 36 ; Liber * The inquisition made by prince 262 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. David appointed his tutor John, who afterwards became his chancellor, to the see of Glasgow in 1 1 1 4, and in the following year he was consecrated in Rome by pope Paschal II. There was the old difficulty with Thurstan, primate of York, who claimed the bishop of Glasgow as his suffragan. After a long contest Thurstan suspended bishop John in 1122. He seems never to have taken kindly to the work of his diocese, doubtless a very difficult work — the restoration of the old paths. His suspension afforded him an excuse for gratifying his pro pensity for foreign travel, and he set out for the Holy Land. Next year by the pope's orders he returned to Glasgow. He was then sent by the king as envoy to Rome to obtain the pall for the bishop of St. Andrews as primate and metropolitan. The influence of Thurstan was strong at the papal court, and the request was refused. Scotland had to wait for a metropolitan till the close of the fifteenth century. Bishop John returned to Glasgow, but we find him again absent, residing in the monastery of Tiron in France, from which he was once more recalled to the irksome duties of his office. He is said to have been the builder of the first Glasgow Cathedral, but he was not present at its dedication, the 17th July 1136.^ The determined absentee died at Tiron in 1147. The bishopric, as reconstituted after the information derived from David's " inquisition," ex- David in 1 1 16 is the oldest existing "after applying the tests of the record of the church of Glasgow, and severest criticism, it is scarcely possible there is no document more interest- now to doubt its authenticity. " Cosmo ing in the ecclesiastical antiquities of Innes, Sketches Early Scot. Hist, pp, the country. Its genuineness has been 6 and 30, and Reg. Episc. Glasg. , p. doubted by writers like Sir Jas. 4 ; Stubbs, Decem Scriptores, pp, Daliymple, who disliked it as "a 1743, 1746; Keith's Cat, p. 230 piece of episcopacy"; but our best Grub, i. 222; Skene, C. S., ii, authorities on chartularies agree with 375. Mr. i Cosmo Innes, who edited the ^ See Reg. Episc. Gl., in which Glasgow Chartulary, and says that his name does not occur. XIV DEATH OF ALEXANDER I. 263 tended from the Lennox, inclusive, to the Solway Firth, and from the boundary of Lothian on the east to the river Urr on the west. It also included Teviotdale, which had once been part of the diocese of Durham, as successor of Lindisfarne, and was now reclaimed by Glasgow.^ Alexander died 25th April 11 24, whilst still in the vigour of manhood. His body was buried in Dunfermline. Alexander was the first to bring Scotland into line with the feudal states of Western Europe, and to convert the old tribal episcopacy of the Church into the diocesan, just as he converted the tribal officials into feudal proprietors of the land. What Alexander began David continued and extended. 1 Skene, C. S., ii. 375. CHAPTER XV DAVID I., II 24-11 5 3 David's education and character — Rebellion of Mormaer of Moray — The impostor and bishop, Wimund — Battle of the Standard — Papal legates and councils — Bishop Robert's work at St. Andrews — Culdees of St. Andrews and Lochleven — Library of the latter — Foundation of new sees of Ross, Aberdeen, Caithness, Dunblane, and Brechin — The Scottish cathedrals — Cathedral chapters, their constitution and influence — Arch deaconries and rural deaneries. David I. (11 24-11 5 3) became king on the death of his brother Alexander. His elder sister had been married to Henry I. of England, and much of David's early life was spent at the English court, with the result, as Malmes bury puts it, of " rubbing off the Scottish rust." His southern residence certainly made him more English in tastes, and less in touch with his subjects, than his brother had been. While Alexander surrounded himself with Gaelic mormaers, now styled earls, of Moray, Fife, Atholl, and Strathearn, David's principal friends were Normans with the names of Moreville, Somerville, Lindsay, Bruce, and Fitz-Alan the steward — the last two being ancestors of our Scottish kings. David, while in England, married Matilda, the widow of Simon de St. Liz, a rich heiress through whom he received the earldom or honour of Huntingdon. The only offspring of the marriage was a son Henry, born about ten years before his father's accession to the throne. chap. XV DAVID'S KINGLY CAPACITY 265 David's long reign was marked by almost unbroken peace at home, by a continuance of national prosperity, and by an activity in church restoration, which make it eventful in our ecclesiastical annals. But for the wars of the English succession, into which the king was drawn by family ties, Scotland would have progressed still more under the government of a ruler eminently wise and politic, and a man of rare devotion and zeal. David was all but canonised by the Church, and in popular estimation he was held to be worthy of it. His personal piety and his zeal in church restoration have, however, tended to obscure other features in his character equally remarkable. He was a capable statesman not less than a zealous churchman — in heredity the child of Malcolm as well as of St. Margaret. The sagacity and courage of the father were united in David to the religious instincts of the mother. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who knew him only by reputation, is as warm in his praise as St. Ailred of Rievaux, his attached friend and chronicler. King David's prolonged visits to England bred dis affection among his northern subjects and encouraged the mormaer of Moray and his men of the north, animated by hatred of the Saxons, to make a descent upon the Lowlands. They were promptly met and defeated at Strackathro in Forfarshire by Edward, the constable of Scotland, the first to bear that title in our history. Four years afterwards, in 11 34, the mormaer himself, Malcolm MacHeth, a rival to the throne as the descendant of Kenneth MacDuff, was betrayed by his own partisans and given up to king David. Malcolm was sent as a prisoner to Roxburgh Castle, from which he was liberated by his namesake, Malcolm the Maiden. His extensive domains in Moray were parcelled out among southern 266 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. knights and native Scots upon whose fidelity David could rely. About the time that Malcolm was imprisoned in Roxburgh, there appeared an extraordinary impostor named Wimund, who pretended to be his son. At first a monk in Furness Abbey, he was transferred to the new priory of Rushen, in Man, and so ingratiated himself with the Manxmen that he became bishop of Man and of Sodor. The patronage of the see was vested at the time in Furness Abbey, so that the monks thereof shared in the discredit of their nominee. Wimund persuaded the islesmen to join him in a series of marauding expeditions on the Scottish coast, with the object of asserting his fictitious patrimonial rights, and with the hope of unlimited plunder. He wasted the seaboard of Scotland with fire and sword for some years, and defied the agility of the pursuers sent by David. Only once did he confess to have met his match in the person of a brother prelate who refused his exactions on the plea that one bishop should not pay tribute to another. Instead of tribute he hurled a battleaxe at his head, which left its mark on Wimund. The erratic bishop is said to have cost David more trouble than any other enemy of his reign. Only by the bribe of Furness Abbey was Wimund propitiated to become a man of peace ; but his rule as abbot was so tyrannical that the exasperated monks expelled him. The people are also said to have shown him no mercy ; and so, maimed and sightless, he ended his days in Biland Abbey. His career forms a curious episode in church history, and none the less so that the subject of it was a professed monk, abbot, and bishop. David's military expeditions into England in support of his niece, the empress Matilda, were not always attended with success, and in the battle of the Standard, fought in XV CHURCH COUNCILS UNDER PAPAL LEGATES 267 1 138, near Northallerton, his army met with a crushing defeat. On this occasion the Galloway Picts — the only remnant now of the Picts by name — appear for the last time in history, discrediting the Scottish army by their barbarity, which spared neither women nor children. David and his beaten troops retired to Carlisle, and within a month after the battle he was visited by the papal legate, Alberic, bishop of Ostia, the friend of St. Bernard. A council was summoned which lasted three days. An earlier council was held in 1 126 at Roxburgh by John of Crema, cardinal-legate from pope Honorius II. This was the first provincial council, so far as is known, held under legatine authority in Scotland. ' The pope had written to king David intimating the mission of the legate, and requesting the bishops to meet him in council for the settlement of the standing dispute between them and the archbishop of York. The council is supposed to have been the result of David's efforts in the previous year to procure from the pope the erection of St. Andrews into an archbishopric. This was defeated by Thurstan, the powerful primate of York. There is no record of what happened at Roxburgh ; but it was probably to evade the difficulty he could not overcome that the pope, in the next year (i 127), made the archbishop of Canterbury legate of England and Scotland, and addressed letters to the clergy of both countries requiring them to meet the southern primate in synod at his summons. William of Canterbury was evidently too prudent a prelate to issue any summons to the Scottish clergy. The next legate, as has been said, found David in military occupation of Carlisle. Several of his nobles and bishops were present, but not bishop John of Glasgow, who 1 Innes, Crit. Ess., p. 589, gives it as the fourth of the national councils of the Scottish Church. 268 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. was still at Tiron. He had quitted his see without leave, and without provision for his flock, and the council ordered letters to be sent, both from the king and the legate, charging him to return upon pain of deposition. The king was specially irritated by the conduct of the fugitive bishop, his own nominee. It is supposed that the dis memberment of Carlisle from the diocese of Glasgow, which at one time extended to the south of Cumberland, was one cause of John's abandoning Glasgow. In 1132 Henry I. erected Carlisle into a bishop's see, with Cumber land and Westmoreland for its diocese. The old Roman city had been included in the see of Lindisfarne while the saintly Cuthbert was its bishop. Since then the district, which in its earliest history had been part of the kingdom of Cumbria and of the bishopric of the Britons, had been subject to various changes both political and ecclesiastical. The Scottish Church had, in 11 30, been all but singular in favouring the anti -pope Anacletus, but his death, now announced by the legate, ended the schism, and the Church in council at CarHsle submitted unani mously to pope Innocent II. The legate was distressed with what he had witnessed of the misery and sufferings of the people caused by the war, and on his knees en treated David to make peace with Stephen, king of England. David would only consent to a truce, but he pledged his word that the Galwegian Picts should surrender the women made prisoners in the war, and that henceforth they should spare churches and the lives of all who from age, sex, or infirmity were incapable of resistance. The barbarities of this war weighed heavily on David's mind, and he was with difficulty dissuaded by his subjects from going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The consecration of Robert, prior of Scone, nominated by Alexander for the see of St. Andrews, took place in XV ROBERT, BISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS, AND CULDEES 269 1 1 28. The consecrating prelate was Thurstan of York, the rights of both sees being reserved, as in the case of Turgot. Robert was energetic as a bishop in ' furthering the interests, spiritual and temporal, of his see. He gave liberally of his own substance for the support of the Church, and did his best, with the king's help, to recover her pro perty from the hands of lay usurpers. The little chapel of St. Rule, with its prominent square tower, still a land mark in St. Andrews, was built by bishop Robert.-' He also founded a monastery for the same religious order to which he himself belonged — canons-regular ; and brought from his own monastery of St. Oswald's, near Pontefract, a namesake Robert to be the first superior. St. Andrews had long been the seat of a Celtic monastery. This was now superseded by the priory, which, though never more than a priory in name, took precedence of all the abbeys in Scotland. Its canons formed the chapter of the see, and had, among other privileges, the right of electing the bishop. The Culdees of St. Andrews had the option of entering the monastery or of retaining their life interests as they were ; but on their decease canons were to be chosen in their place, and the possessions of the Culdees to become the property of the priory. Though this arrangement was sanctioned by king David, it was long inoperative, and the Culdees continued to lead a precarious existence apart, stubbornly contending, on each vacancy of the see, for their right to elect the bishop. It is one of the many myths exploded in our time that the Culdees were anti-Catholic in doctrine and anti-episcopal in church government. Their claim of right, often renewed, to elect the bishop of St. Andrews, tells a different tale.^ 1 Jos. Robertson, Scot Abbeys, 48-50, 180; Skene, C. S., ii. 384, etc., p. 45. 385- 2 Reg. Priory St. Andrews, pp. 270 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The same policy was pursued by the king and bishop with the Culdees in St. Serf's monastery in Lochleven, — the oldest Culdee establishment in Scotland. Its abbot, Ronan, had conveyed to bishop Fothadh the property of the abbey on condition of protection and maintenance. Bishop Robert now transferred it to the priory of St. Andrews with all its possessions, together with its little library, of which we have the following catalogue : — a Ritual, an Antiphonary, a Missal, Origen's Origo Mundi, the Sentences of St. Bernard, a Treatise on the Sacra ments, a portion of the Vulgate, the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, a book of the Epistles and Gospels, a work by Prosper of Aquitaine, the three books of Solomon, Glosses on Solomon's Song, Interpretations of Words, a Collection of Religious Maxims, Expositions of Genesis, Excerpts of Ecclesiastical Rules ; — in all, seven teen volumes. The library was probably more extensive, as the Lochleven Culdees had been frequently favoured with royal gifts. The titles of some of the books are the best corrective of the notion that the Culdees differed in any respect either as to faith or worship from the Catholic Church of their time. They were allowed to remain in Lochleven on the condition of becoming canons-regular of the rule of St. Augustine ; otherwise they were to be ejected. The apparently harsh treatment was owing, as history confirms, to the relaxed discipline and the spiritual declension of the Culdee order.^ David's work by which he is best remembered was the founding of new bishoprics and monasteries. As to these, Ailred of Rievaux, his contemporary, tells us that " he seemed not undeservedly loved both by God and men. He was plainly beloved of God, for at the very 1 Reg. Priory St. Andrews, pp. 43, 188, 189; Skene's C. S., ii. pp. 365 seq. and 384. XV KING DAVIDS BISHOPRICS AND MONASTERIES 27 1 outset of his reign he diligently practised the things which belong to God in erecting churches and founding monasteries, which he endowed with possessions and covered with honours. For whereas he had found in the whole kingdom of Scotland three or four bishops only, the other churches without a shepherd or bishop, going to wrack and ruin in respect both of morals and substance ; what with ancient ones which he restored, and new ones which he founded, he left nine at his death. He left also monasteries of the Cluniac, Cistercian, Tironian orders (who were Benedictine), and the Arovensian, Premonstratensian, and Belvacensian (who were canons- regular of Aroise, Premontre, and Beauvais), not few in number or small in size, but full of brethren." •' The dioceses which David found at his accession were St. Andrews, Moray, and Dunkeld ; the fourth was Glasgow, which Ailred adds with some hesitation from the claim of York to regard it as a suffragan. For the same reason Galloway, which had now been restored for the second time, was considered to belong ecclesiastically to England. The greater part of the new sees were founded in the early years of the king's reign. Among the first of the new bishoprics was Rosemarky or Ross. A charter granted by David to the monks of Dunfermline, about the year 1128, is witnessed by Robert bishop of St. Andrews, John bishop of Glasgow, Cormac bishop of Dunkeld, Gregory bishop of Moray, and by Macbeth bishop of Rosmarkyn, or Rosemarky. This is the first appearance of bishop Macbeth's name in a charter, and the foundation of the see dates approxi mately from about this period.^ The ancient church at Rosemarky was Columban, founded, as we have seen, in the sixth century by Lugadius or Moluoc, abbot and 1 Pinkerton's ed. Vit Sanct, p. 442. 2 Reg. of Dunf., p. 3. 272 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. bishop of Lismore. It was restored in the eighth century by Boniface, and dedicated in the name of St. Peter. It had been, like some other seats of the Scottish sees, in the possession of Culdees, who now made way for the regular cathedral chapter with its dean and canons. The cathedral was not built till the beginning of the fourteenth century. The only remnants of the building are the south aisle, and part of the chapter-house, both now in ruins.' The next bishopric was Aberdeen, embracing the district between the Dee and the Spey. A charter by the mormaer or earl of Buchan to the monastic church of Deer is witnessed in the earlier years of David's reign by Nectan, bishop of Aberdeen ; and this is the first notice of that see. Fordun's account of an earlier founda tion of the see at Mortlach, and of its transference to Aberdeen, is now regarded as fictitious.^ The first authentic writ in the Chartulary of Aberdeen is a bull by pope Adrian IV., in 1 1 5 7, confirming to Edward, bishop of Aberdeen, " the church of Aberdeen, the church of St. Machar, with the town of Old Aberdeen, and other lands in which are included the monastery of Cloveth, and the town and monastery of Murthillach " (Mortlach). There is no allusion here to Mortlach having been once a bishopric ; and the description of it as a monastery indicates that it was an old Columban church. The see of Caithness comprised the counties of that name and of Sutherland. Civilly it was still, and for a few years longer, under the rule of the Norwegian earl of Orkney. The first bishop was Andrew, a monk of Dun fermline ; and king David made provision for the see by a gift of the Church of Holy Trinity, Dunkeld, and pos- ^ Keith's Cat, p. 184. and the Preface to the Chartulary 2 See Skene, C. S., ii. 378, 379, of Aberdeen, by Cosmo Innes. XV ST. GILBERT, BISHOP OF CAITHNESS 273 sessions in six other parishes. Bishop Andrew was a witness to so many charters in different parts of Scotland that he must have been a frequent absentee from his diocese. His immediate successors, John and Adam, lived more in the diocese, and claimed subsidies from the people for their support, but with indifferent success. The tragic fate of both bishops is an indication of the " black barbar ism" of the north. They tore out the tongue and eyes of the second bishop, and burned or boiled the third in his own kitchen at Halkirk. The appointment to the see, in 1223, of Gilbert de Moravia, archdeacon of Moray, marked a turn in the tide of the northern see. He belonged to the powerful family De Moravia, now rising into influence in the north. Hugh'de Moravia, its chief, had acquired in 1 1 96 the vast territory of the " southern land " of Caith ness, which now gives the title of duke to his lineal descendant. Gilbert the bishop, under the protection of the strong arm, did great things for Caithness. There was as yet no cathedral in Dornoch, but a humble church dedicated in the name of St. Bar, or Finbar. Gilbert's deed establishing a full cathedral chapter of ten canons, with the dean, the chief of ten, at its head, proceeds on the narrative that " in the time of his predecessors there was but a single priest ministering in the cathedral, both on account of the poverty of the place and by reason of fre quent hostilities ; and that he desired to extend the worship of God in that church, and resolved to build a cathedral church at his owh expense, to dedicate it to the Virgin Mary, and, in proportion to his limited means, to make it conventual." ^ The bishop not only built the cathedral at his own cost, but is said in the Aberdeen Breviary to have built it with his own hands. Gilbert had a genius for architecture, and built or repaired many 1 The original deed of grant is in Dunrobin Castle. Skene, C. S., ii. 384. 2 74 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. castles in the north. He ruled his church in peace for more than twenty years, and not long after his death was canonised, — the last of the Scots deemed worthy of that honour. Within a century from his time the cathedral which he built was known in the north as St. Gilbert's. It shared the fate of most of our Scottish cathedrals, and what was once the pride of Dornoch now stands as a spectre in ruins. The dioceses of Dunblane and Brechin were probably formed, at the close of David's reign, out of the old Pictish bishopric of Abernethy. It was in Strathearn and in the northern parts of Angus and the Mearns that the Pictish population lingered longest, distinct from the Scots. The bishopric of Dunblane, sometimes called Strathearn from its connection with the earldom of that name, represents the Pictish settlement in that district, as Brechin does in the more northern. Both the new dioceses were small, and Brechin was even less in the mediaeval than in the modern division of territory. The two dioceses are men tioned in a bull of pope Adrian IV. as already existing in 1 1 55, the second year after king David's death. The bull is addressed to the bishops of Glasgow, Whithern, St. Andrews, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Brechin, Aberdeen, Moray, Ross, and Caithness, directing them to submit to the archbishop of York, — a command which none of them obeyed except the bishop of Whithern, or Candida Casa. The spiritual independence of the Scottish Church was after wards recognised by more than one pope. In a bull of Clement HI., dated 1188, and addressed to king William the Lion, the Church of Scotland is declared to be " the daughter of Rome by special grace, and immediately subject to her." In this bull nine bishoprics are named, Whithern being omitted as subject to York. This accounts for ten of the thirteen sees into which Scotland XV COMPLETION OF DIOCESAN BISHOPRICS 275 was divided down to the Reformation. Of the other three dioceses, Orkney was at first subject to the primate of Hamburg, and afterwards to Drontheim, which was made a metropolitan see in 1148. The Isles meant ecclesiasti cally the Sodor or southern isles, south of Ardnamurchan, in contrast with Orkney and Shetland, the northern isles. It embraced the Isle of Man, — hence the now anomalous title of an English bishop of Sodor and Man, long after Sodor has parted company with Man. The see of the Isles, as part of the Norwegian possessions, was also at this time under the metropolitan of Drontheim. Lismore or Argyll was separated from Dunkeld about the year 1200.1 The diocesan system of the Scottish Church was fully established and almost completed in David's reign, largely by his generosity. The supervision of the bishop came now to be exercised from a fixed centre over a defined district of the country, and not, as under the tribal epis copate, from a centre always shifting with the migrations of the tribe. Cathedrals soon followed in the several sees, though they were seldom the erection in their entirety of any one episcopate. The building begun by one bishop was enlarged by others, most of them adding something to its completion and adornment. What Gilbert of Moray did for Dornoch, his near kinsman, probably his nephew, Andrew de Moravia, about the year 1224, did for Elgin. Like the cathedrals of St. Andrews and Glasgow, that of Elgin had the misfortune to be burned down more than once. As finally completed, it was the most elegant and, for workmanship,- the most elaborate of our northern cathedrals. In style it was Early English with a mixture of transitional, and its most conspicuous feature was the ' The author is largely indebted formation as to the founding of the to Dr. Skene, C. S., vol. ii. for in- Scottish sees. 276 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. beautiful tower which gave it the name of " the Lantern of the North." In St. Andrews, bishop Arnold, who succeeded Robert, laid the foundation, in 11 62, in the presence of king Mal colm, of the grandest of all the Scottish cathedrals.^ Five of bishop Arnold's successors are mentioned as " building bishops," each of them forwarding " the work of the new church of St. Andrews to its consummation." It was completed in 13 18, and consecrated by bishop Lamberton in presence of king Robert Bruce, seven bishops, fifteen abbots, and most of the barons whom war and revolution had spared. The king made an offering of a hundred marks yearly to the cathedral in token of his gratitude " for the mighty victory vouchsafed to the Scots at Bannockburn by St. Andrew, the guardian of their realm." The granite cathedral of St. Machar in Aberdeen was founded by its bishop, Hugh de Benham, about 1260. It was added to from time to time by his successors, down to the episcopate of Aberdeen's best and greatest bishop, William Elphinstone, who was busy with the erection of a new choir at his death in 15 14. His successor, bishop Dunbar, built the western towers and added to the south transept. The smaller cathedral of Brechin was built on a very old foundation of the Irish Church, beside the round tower, about the middle of the fourteenth century. " The great city of Brechin " had more features of interest in its long history than in its modest cathedral. Dunkeld has a still more remote antiquity as a Columban founda- ^ Dr. Joseph Robertson, Scottish — Winchester, length 545 feet ; Ely, Abbeys and Cathedrals, p. 40, note, 535; York, 524 ; Canterbury, 513; gives the length of the chief Scottish St. Paul's, 510; Lincoln, 482; cathedrals — St. Andrews, 358 feet ; Peterborough, 476 ; Salisbury, 474 ; Glasgow, 283; Elgin, 282; Kirk- Durham, 461. Of the Scottish abbey wall, 218; Aberdeen, about 200; churches the length of Dunfermline Fortrose, about 120; Iona, 115; is given at 275 ; Arbroath, 271 ; and Lismore, 56. He contrasts with Jedburgh, 215 feet. these the largest of English cathedrals XV CATHEDRALS OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH 277 tion, honoured with the relics of the patron saint, with its abbacy and temporary supremacy in the Scoto-Celtic Church. Its cathedral, unique in its situation on the banks of the Tay, was the work of several bishops in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Its greatest benefactor was bishop Lauder, who finished the nave in 1465 and otherwise enriched the building. Dunblane was another old foundation of the Celtic Church. It owed its dedica tion to the royal St. Blaan, bishop of Kingarth in Bute. The bishopric was restored by king David after a vacancy of more than a hundred years, during which the most of its revenues had been usurped by laymen. When bishop Clement was appointed to the see in 1233, the church was in a ruinous condition. He went to Rome with a pitiable, and some think exaggerated, tale of its desolation — the see vacant, he said, for many years, laymen in posses sion of its property, and the revenues not fit to support him for six months, a roofless church, with no canons, and only a rustic chaplain celebrating divine service. The bishop succeeded in erecting the still existing cathedral, forming a chapter, and enriching the see with lands and other endowments. The Romanesque tower, with its upper section of later style, is the oldest part of the struc ture. Dunblane was less mutilated than others of the Scottish cathedrals, and is now happily restored. There is not so much architectural history in the building as in most of our cathedrals, owing to its moderate size and to the energy of bishop Clement. Whithern, associated with St. Ninian and his Candida Casa, which gave its name for many years to the see of Galloway, had a cathedral of small dimensions built in the end of the twelfth century. Its style, like other buildings of this age, was chiefly First Pointed Gothic. Decay and neglect have probably done more than fanatical zeal to make the stately buildings a 278 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. ruinous heap. In Iona the Benedictine abbey church of the thirteenth century served as a cathedral when the diocese of the Isles was separated from Man and came under the jurisdiction of the Scottish Church. It was built in cruciform shape, and its ruins are now the most conspicuous object on the island. Lismore, the second site of the Argyll see, on the island of that name, had the smallest of our Scottish cathedrals, perhaps the humblest in Britain. It is less than sixty feet in length by thirty in breadth ; without aisles, and apparently without nave and transept. The cathedral of Ross at Fortrose, dedi cated to St. Peter and St. Boniface, was the finest of the few northern cathedrals of the decorated style. St. Magnus's Cathedral in Kirkwall, built in the twelfth century, and designed by the Norwegian Kol, is said to contain " the greatest amount of Norman work of any building in Scotland, and is nowhere equalled by any interior in Scotland." The first cathedral in Glasgow was dedicated in 1 136. Forty years afterwards it was wasted by fire, and bishop Jocelyn then began the magnificent building which is still the chief ornament in stone of the city of Glasgow. The life of St. Kentigern, by brother Jocelyn of Furness, was written to promote the re-building. Further to raise money, a guild of St. Kentigern was formed, indulgences offered, collectors appointed, and offerings solicited in all the parish churches of the kingdom. The crypt was begun in ii8r,and consecrated by Jocelyn in 1197, in the first week of July. Each anniversary of the dedication was followed by a;great fair of eight days' duration. The Glasgow Fair holidays have now been observed for seven hundred years by twenty generations of citizens, few of them probably aware of their origin and of the memorable prelate who was the builder of their matchless crypt and XV GLASGOW CATHEDRAL 279 the founder of their fair. The choir of the cathedral was finished in 1258. A wooden steeple followed, but it was destroyed by lightning. The present spire, which is of stone, and is the least worthy part of the structure, was begun by one bishop (Lauder), and finished by another (Cameron), in the first half of the fifteenth century. The nave had been in progress probably from the middle of the thirteenth century, under successive building bishops, down to 1480, when it was completed. Black ader, the first archbishop (1484-1508), built the rood- loft and began the south transept, but got no farther than the undercroft, which is now called his crypt. They said of St. Mungo's Cathedral, as the type of an endless task, what used to be said of the patron's life, " it is like St. Mungo's work ; it is never finished." The clang of the Reformation made the adage prophetic. Nothing has since been added to the framework of the building, but it is much in Scotland that it was saved from the hands of spoilers who, on more than one occasion, threatened its destruction as " a monument of idolatry." Its windows have been filled, crypt, nave, and choir, with stained glass of various designs and merits, chiefly at the expense of Glasgow citizens.^ The style of the cathedral is First Pointed, which prevailed from about iiSoto 1286. This was the great age of church building in Scotland. Some examples of the earlier Norman or Romanesque, with its massive pillars, semicircular arch, zigzag ornament, and un- buttressed walls, are found in the oldest of our ecclesi astical buildings. The nave of Dunfermline, and the eariier portions of St. Magnus's (Kirkwall), of St. Andrews, Kelso, Jedburgh, Arbroath, and several others, are partially 1 A fuller account has been given cathedrals, because, happily, we still of Glasgow than of the other Scottish have it with us as it was built. 280 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Romanesque in style. And so is the Httle chapel known as St. Margaret's, in Edinburgh Castle ; the chancel of Leuchars, with much external ornament ; and the little parish church, still entire, of Dalmeny. To the First Pointed mainly we owe, besides Glasgow, the cathedrals of St. Andrews, Dornoch, Elgin, Brechin, Dunblane, and Whithern, and about twenty of our chief abbeys or conventual churches. The Middle Pointed or Decorated lasted for another century during the reigns of the first three English Edwards and the three Roberts of Scotland. In this style were built the cathedrals of Aberdeen, Fortrose, Lismore, and some portions of Dunkeld and Iona. Additions and extensions of the earlier cathedrals were also of this order. To the same style we owe several of the larger abbeys, as Melrose and Sweetheart. Among collegiate chapels are Rosslyn and a few parochial churches, such as St. Vigeans, Arbroath. The Scottish cathedrals, even the three largest — St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Elgin — contrast indifferently with the dimensions of the great English cathedrals ; but the Scottish abbeys and their conventual churches would have compared favourably with the best English examples. The Third Pointed or Perpendicular style hardly obtained a footing in Scotland ; but in place of it we have traces of the French Flamboyant in some of our later churches, as Holyrood and Linlithgow, due to the larger intercourse with the French nation in the fifteenth century. To the same influence we owe the polygonal apse in Scottish churches, which is common in France and Germany, but very rare in England. Diocesan bishops and cathedrals led to the foundation of cathedral chapters. Constitutionally they were the bishops' councillors in the administration of the cathedral and in the government of the diocese ; and the election XV CATHEDRAL CHAPTERS, ARCHDEACONRIES, ETC. 28 1 of the bishop was generally in their hands. Practically, this right was latterly denied them, sometimes by the king, and more frequently by the papal court which often set aside the nominee of the chapter and appointed another. In St. Andrews the canons -regular of St. Augustine formed the chapter ; in Galloway, the prior and Premonstratensian canons of Whithern. In Brechin and Dunkeld the Culdees were the chapter until they were superseded ; and it has been already remarked how persistent the Culdees of St. Andrews were in claiming a share in the election of the bishop. In the other dioceses secular canons formed the chapter ; and their influence was more prominent than that of the parish priests, whose rights, except in the see of Argyll, were not recognised in episcopal elections. In Caithness the bishop held the chief place in his chapter at Dornoch ; whereas in Moray he occupied the place of an ordinary canon, subordinate to the dean.i The constitution of Moray was borrowed from Lincoln, and so, it is said, was the plan of its cathedral in Elgin. The chapter of Sarum formed a model to Glasgow and Dunkeld, and probably to other Scottish dioceses. In all of them the Sarum use for the divine office became more or less " use and wont." The two larger dioceses of St. Andrews and Glasgow were each divided into two archdeaconries ; in the former, St. Andrews and Lothian ; in the latter, Glasgow and Teviotdale. Most of the dioceses were also sub divided into rural deaneries. In St. Andrews there were eight deaneries — Fife, Fothrif, Gowrie, Angus, Mearns, Linlithgow, Lothian, and the Merse ; Glasgow had nine — Lanark, Rutherglen, Lennox, Kyle and Cunningham, Carrick, Peebles, Teviotdale, Nithsdale, and Annandale. 1 Cos. Innes, Sketches of Early other Scottish bishops sat as simple Church History, p. 8 1, says that canons in their own chapter. 282 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Aberdeen had three rural deaneries — Mar, Buchan, and Garioch, in the thirteenth century ; two more, Boyne and Aberdeen, were formed in the fifteenth ; and another, Formartine, before the Reformation. Moray had four — Elgin, Inverness, Strathspey, and Strathbogie ; and there was the same number in Dunkeld — Atholl, Angus, Strathearn, and Breadalbane ; Galloway contained three — Dennes, Fames, and Rinnes. The remaining dioceses, Dunblane, Brechin, Ross, and Caithness, do not appear to have had rural deaneries. The civilising influences of a cathedral city in the middle ages can with difficulty be estimated in our day, but they are well exemplified in the establishment of the most northern cathedral on the mainland — Dornoch, in the wilds of Caithness. We have in the charter of good bishop Gilbert, who founded and built much of the cathedral, a narrative of the formation of his chapter over which he presided. We have also in history evidences of the barbarous condition of the Norse population before he settled among them, and of the change he effected during his episcopate. His cathedral was no less the ensign of civilisation than of religion, and it was the centre of a circle of humanising influences extending from Dornoch through the desert of Reay to the cliffs of Cape Wrath. Parishes with churches and clergy arose contemporarily with the rising walls of the mother church. The dean, precentor, chancellor, arch deacon, treasurer, and the canons had all parochial charges whose names are still identified in different parts of the diocese. The dean resided half the year, the other canons three months, in the cathedral city, while the rest of the year was spent in their several parishes, a priest-vicar or a deacon being in charge of the parish in their absence. Due maintenance, not XV INFLUENCES OF CATHEDRAL INSTITUTIONS 283 sumptuous, but sufficient for that day, was provided for all, down to the deacon-vicar who began his apprentice ship in parish work. A croft and toft were also provided in Dornoch for each of the canons in residence. The cathedral ideal was beneficial to both priests and people. The clergy were withdrawn for a brief time from the cares of a solitary parish into the cathedral society of little Dornoch. They returned not only refreshed in spirit but possessed of the latest information touching Church and State, to disseminate it among their country flocks in a day when letters were rare and newspapers unknown. The best evidence of the religious success of bishop Gilbert and his cathedral is to be found in the fact that he died, after an episcopate of twenty and odd years, beloved by his people and canonised as a saint and benefactor, in a diocese where his two predecessors had been maimed or murdered. Similar benefits followed the institution of cathedrals elsewhere in Scotland. The influence of a dignified body of cultured clergy radiated from the cathedral to the extremity of the diocese. Comfortable in worldly circum stances from endowments of lands and tithes, they cul tivated learning and disseminated the fruits of it among the rural population, preaching peace and in most cases practising it in days of lawless strife. This fair ideal, which was a realised fact blessed to many generations, suffered a grievous eclipse, as did other religious institu tions of the country, secular and monastic, from the overgrown wealth of church corporations. Cathedrals became enriched, not only by the successive gifts of pious donors, but by ways less legitimate and politic. Parish churches with their endowments were seized or allocated from time to time to the several cathedrals, and a poor stipendiary vicar took the place of the well-educated and 284 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xv influential rector of the parish. Much of the vicar's time was spent in petty wrangling with parishioners about his dues, and in squeezing out of the patrons — cathe dral chapters or monastic corporations — some additional pittance to a generally inadequate stipend. What with allocations of this kind to bishops for their " mensals," to cathedral chapters, abbeys, and priories, more than two- thirds of the parish churches of Scotland were for many years before the Reformation in the hands of these corporations, and the duties of the parish entrusted to a poor vicar. Take, for one example out of many, the parish of Dunbarton, where the bequest of king Robert Bruce, completed by his son David II., and confirmed by the bishop of Glasgow and the papal court, assigned the living of the parish to the abbey of Kilwinning, and left in the town from the years 1329 to 1560 a succession of underpaid vicars with probably as little learning and influence as professional wealth. These abuses, as has been often said in their palliation, were only the accidents of the system and not of its substance. But the accidents covered so wide an area, and penetrated so deeply into the system, that they ate the heart out of the substance and brought about the inevitable revolution. CHAPTER XVI DAVID'S REIGN CONTINUED, II24-I153 Monasteries founded by the king and his subjects — Description of different orders of monks and friars and their services to the religion, education, and civilisation of Scotland — Death of David's only son, prince Henry — Closing years and death of king David — First connection of the Scottish with the Roman Church through legates. Besides the new bishoprics, Ailred mentions king David's monastic foundations, of which there were several in different parts of Scotland. While prince of Cumbria, he had introduced the Benedictine order at Selkirk, and founded the priory which became the abbey of Jedburgh for canons-regular from Beauvais. In 1128 the Bene dictines were removed from Selkirk to Kelso, which became one of the wealthiest of the Scottish abbeys. The priory of Lesmahago (Ecclesia Mahuti), founded by the king about the middle of his reign, was a cell of Kelso. The Book of Deer contains a Latin charter granted by king David to that old Columban monastery guaranteeing to the clerics of Deer exemption from all lay interference and exactions. Both Deer and Turriff preserved their Celtic character unimpaired to the reign of David. In 1 2 19, William, earl of Buchan, founded the Cistercian abbey of Deer, which brought to a close its Celtic history. The abbey of Holyrood was founded and endowed by David in the year 1 1 28 for canons-regular of St. Augustine. 2 86 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. For nearly fifty years the monks found shelter within Edinburgh Castle; and not untfl 1174, when the castle was in the hands of an EngHsh garrison, did they migrate to the site which abbey and palace have long made historical. The dedication is from the " Black Rood of Scotland," which queen Margaret brought with her and kissed with her dying lips, and which stood beside the deathbed of king David. The Rood, together with the Lia Fail, or fated stone of Scone, were carried to England by Edward I.^ David also remodelled the church of Dunfermline, and placed in it Benedictine monks from Canterbury. He introduced monks of the same order into the priory which he founded at Urquhart in Moray, making it a cell of Dunfermline. In the same district, farther west and near the mouth of the Findhorn, he founded the monastery of Kinloss for Cistercians, his favourite order, and brought to it monks from Melrose. Ailred's abbey of Rievaux in the North Riding had sup plied the monks for David's new foundation at Melrose. Melrose has a highly venerable history, the lamp of the Anglo-Saxon Lothian in the days of Aidan and Bede, the home of Eata, Boisil, and Cuthbert. That was " auld Mailros," not the Melrose of David's Cistercians. "The light of (old) Melrose had long been quenched, when in the middle of the twelfth century St. David bestowed the territory on a colony of white robed Cistercians from Rievaux. The site of the ancient shrine on a lovely bank, almost encircled by the Tweed, was still marked by a chapel which bore the name of St. Cuthbert, and was the frequent resort of pilgrims. But the new monks chose their dwelling some little distance above, on the plain 1 This is on the authority of in the battle of Neville's Cross, and Joseph Robertson, Scottish Abbeys, afterwards exhibited as an object of etc., p. 42. Other writers say the veneration in Durham Cathedral. Rood was captured by the English XVI KING DAVID'S MONASTIC FOUNDATIONS 287 between the river and the skirts of ' Eildon's triple height.' They dug the foundations of their church in the spring of 1 1 36, and it was consecrated before the summer of 1 146 was at an end." This fabric was laid in ruins by the English during the wars of succession. The rebuilding of it occupied the thoughts of king Robert Bruce on his deathbed, and was the subject of a letter written not many days before he died. His heart, " brought back from the Andalusian battlefield, was by Randolph entombed at Melrose ' with great worship.' " ¦' Four years after the rise of new Melrose, David founded the Cistercian abbey of Newbattle.^ Another Cistercian house, Holmcultram Abbey in Cumberland, .was founded by prince Henry and colonised by monks from Melrose. The abbey of Cambus- kenneth, near Stirling, was founded by king David before the year 1 147 for canons-regular, and dedicated in the name of St. Mary. It was the scene of more than one memorable meeting in the history of Scotland. The square tower is now the only remnant of the monastery buildings. The body of James III., murdered after the battle of Sauchie-burn in the neighbourhood of Stirling, was buried here. At Dryburgh, on the banks of the Tweed, David erected in 11 50 the Premonstratensian abbey of St. Mary, bringing the canons from Alnwick. Sir Walter Scott, whose writings give a halo of romance to the four Border abbeys, chose his grave beneath the shadow of Dryburgh's ruins. In David's reign, Fergus, lord of Galloway, was the founder of several monastic houses in that district. Of these, there was the abbey of Soulseat for Premon- stratensians, the first of that order to be brought into 1 Jos. Robertson's Scot. Abbeys, their full extent, and the ground plan p. 73. reproduced on the surface by marked 2 The foundations of the abbey lines. church were in 1892 discovered to 2 88 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Scotland. The canons came from the parent monastery of Premontr6 in France, and its superior took precedence of the other abbots of this order in Scotland. Two other abbeys of the same order are credited to Fergus, viz. the abbey of Tungland, and the abbey of Holywood or Sacrum Nemus, within a few miles of Dumfries. The latter was also styled Dercongal, according to Dr. Reeves^ after St. Comgall the friend of St. Columba. The Cistercian abbey of Dundrennan in Galloway, dedicated, as all the Cistercian houses were, in the name of St. Mary, is ascribed by general tradition to the same Fergus. Hugh de Moreville, one of king David's Norman barons, who held the new dignity of constable of Scotland, was also a pious founder. He shares with the king the credit of Dryburgh Abbey, and he was the sole founder of the Benedictine abbey of Kilwinning in 1 140. It was dedicated in the name of St. Mary and the Irish St. Winnin, and the first monks came from Kelso. The abbey buildings and dependent churches suffered greatly from Edward the First's army during the wars of independ ence ; and king Robert Bruce, whose ancestral estates were in Ayrshire, came to the relief of the monks of Kilwinning by bestowing upon them, among other like gifts, the parish church of what he calls " our own town of Dunbarton." ^ Convents or nunneries were common both in the Celtic and Saxon Churches. St. Bridget's houses were numerous in Ireland, and monasteries for women doubtless existed in the Columban Church, though little is known of them. The names of St. Ebba at Coldingham, and of St. Hilda at Hartlepool and Whitby, recall the double ,J- See Reeves, Adam., p. 226. It 2 Theiner, Monumenta, pp. 247, is also called Dercongal in Theiner's 253. papal letters. XVI SUMMARY OF MONASTIC HOUSES 289 monasteries among the Angles which were founded during the ascendency of the Scotic Church in Northumbria. In the restoration of the religious orders in David's reign convents sprang up in several places. The king himself founded a house for Cistercian nuns at Berwick upon Tweed, which was richly endowed and had dependent cells at Gullane and Haddington in East Lothian, and at Strafontane in Lammermoor. Later years added to the number of Scottish convents.^ The introduction of the military orders is also credited to king David. The Knights of St. John, Hospitallers, had an establishment at Torphichen near Bathgate, and the Knights Templar their chief house at the Temple, Mid lothian. On the suppression of the latter order, in 1 3 1 2, their property was assigned to the Hospitallers. A third military order, St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, that had houses in Harehope and in Linlithgow, is also ascribed to David.^ The religious activity of this age is indicated by the numerous foundations, secular and regular, that were made. From 1 1 GO to 1 1 5 3 we find twelve bishoprics restored or founded. In the same period were founded five abbeys and four priories of Augustinian monks ; three abbeys and one priory of Premonstratenses ; two abbeys and one priory of Tironenses ; four abbeys of Cistercians, besides Holmcultram in Cumberland ; several houses of Knights Templar and of the Knights of St. John ; five or six convents of nuns, following the rule of St. Augustine, or of St. Benedict, or the latter order revised by the Cistercians. 1 The word convent, when mon- chartularies and in the contemporary asticism was a living institution, chronicles kept by the monks — the applied to all religious houses whether chartularies, e.g., of Dunfermline, of men or women. It is now gener- Scone, Kelso, Dryburgh, the Book of ally used of the latter. Kelso, the Chronicles of Melrose and 2 The authorities for the founda- Holyrood. Fordun's Scotichronicon, tion of the different religious orders Spottiswoode's Religious Houses, in and the establishment of their monas- Keith's Catalogue, pp. 382 to 480, teries are to be found in their several Russel's ed. 1824. 290 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The order of Cluny, which was a reform of the Benedictines, and the order of Vallis Caulium, which was a reform of the Cistercians, were both brought into Scot land after the time of king David. The Carthusians from Grenoble were another offshoot of the Benedictines, and had by repute the severest discipline of any order. They were never popular in Britain, and had only one house in Scotland, the Charter - house in Perth, founded by James I. In it the royal founder was buried after his brutal murder in the Blackfriars' monastery of that town. The various orders of friars were of later origin, the Dom inicans and Franciscans, or Black and Grey friars, being introduced in the next century by Alexander II. These monasteries were no new feature in the religious life of Scotland. The Celtic Church was as thoroughly monastic as it was missionary. But there were differences between Celtic and mediaeval monasticism. In the former the monk was in most cases the missionary. He issued from the humble monastery in company with one or more brethren, on his journey to evangelise a particular district, to convert the people to the faith, or to edify those already converted. The later monasticism appeared amidst a people professedly Christian. The monks enclosed them selves within their walls for the cultivation of their own spiritual life ; and yet indirectly they were no mean factors in the religion of the Scottish people. Their stately abbeys and priories of hewn stone, contrasting with the wooden walls or wattles of the Celtic monastery, marked a different ideal. And hence, the distinction that now arose of secular and regular among the clerical orders. The seculars were the parish clergy doing the work which monks had done in the first ages of the faith, while the regulars lived, within the lines of the monastery, by the regula or rule of some particular order. Various religious XVI AUSTIN CANONS-REGULAR, AND BENEDICTINES 29 I orders sprang up from time to time as the older order was supposed to be suffering from " the leaven of the world," and to need regeneration. If the multiplication of these orders be a witness to the decay of discipline, they are no less a witness to the intense desire of the age to be thorough. Institutions are not reformed but by men in earnest. The treasure is divine, but it is in earthen vessels, and it may happen in any age that the vessel will impart something of its own flavour to the treasure. The Regulars were divided into two chief orders : those under the rule of St. Augustine, the great African bishop, and those under the rule of St. Benedict. From these there sprang at intervals several orders following the one or other rule with increased strictness. St. Augustine laid down no definite rule for the clergy, but had in his writings indicated their general mode of life. Rules were made and modified from time to time, enjoining poverty, hours of prayer and of study, and a common collegiate life for the brotherhood. They were known as canons- regular of St. Augustine, and formed a class midway between the monks and the secular clergy. More than twenty abbeys and priories belonged to this order in Scotland. The best-known are Scone, Inchcolm, St. Andrews Priory, Holyrood, Cambuskenneth, and Jed burgh. There were also Loch Tay Priory, a cell of Scone ; Lochleven and Monymusk Priories, which were both cells of St. Andrews ; the priories of Portmoak (in Kinross) ; the Isle of May, transferred to Pittenweem ; Inchmahome, on the Lake of Menteith ; St. Mary's Isle, Galloway, which was a cell of Holyrood ; and the abbeys of Inchaffray and Abernethy in Perthshire. The Pre monstratenses, so called from the parent monastery of Premontrd in France, bore the same relation to the Austin canons that the Cluniacs and Cistercians did to 292 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the Benedictines, that is, they were reformed canons- regular. Their habit was entirely white, hence their title " Candidus Ordo." They had si.x houses in Scotland — Soulseat near Stranraer, Holywood or Dercongal near Dumfries, Whithern Priory, and Tungland, all the four in Galloway, besides Dryburgh, and Feme in Ross. They were brought into Scotland in the reign of king David by Fergus, lord of Galloway ; and most of their monasteries were in that district. The Trinity or Red Friars, the out come of popular enthusiasm for the crusades, were formed for the redemption of Christians made captives by the Turks, and are classified under Augustinians. They had thirteen houses, chiefly in the old Scottish towns, called hospitals or ministries, and their superior was known as minister. Their habit was also white with a red and blue cross on their scapular. The canons of St. Anthony had in Scotland only one monastery, which was at Leith. Their houses were also hospitals in name, and their chief was called preceptor. The Benedictines proper, or black monks, whose parent house was on the Loire in France, had three monasteries — Dunfermline Abbey, Coldingham Priory, and Urquhart Priory in Moray. Of reformed Benedictines there were first the Cluniacs, so called from their monastery in Bur gundy. Their four Scottish monasteries were Paisley and its dependent cell at Feale in Kyle, Crossraguel in Carrick, and Iona. For a time the parent monastery forbade sub ordinate houses to take the name of abbey, but Paisley Priory, early in its history, secured for itself the title and privileges of an abbey. The Tironenses were another revised Benedictine order, springing from the parent house at Tiron in the diocese of Chartres. Their six houses were Kelso and its cell at Lesmahagow, Arbroath and its cell at Fyvie, Kilwinning, and Lindores. The Cistercians XVI DIFFERENT ORDERS OF BENEDICTINES 293 or white monks were the most popular of the Scottish monastic orders. They had their name from Citeaux in Chalons, and were a reform of the Cluniacs, as these were of the earlier Benedictines. They were restricted by their first rules not only to great simplicity of life and habit, but to severe plainness in their conventual buildings, in cluding the abbey church. But the bare severity of their first estate, which has earned for them the name of the Puritans of Catholicism, soon gave way under the influences of art, learning, and wealth, and the Cistercian abbeys became second to none for beauty of architecture. They chose the level meadow by wood and water, and there built the beautiful minsters whose ruins still bear witness to the old monks' taste and skill. Their monastic churches were always dedicated in the name of St. Mary, and yet are said, unlike similar churches, to have had no lady chapel. They are sometimes called Bernardines, from St. Bernard, who was head of the order, first at Citeaux, and then at Clairvaux in Burgundy. They owned twelve Scottish houses in places that came to be known chiefly from the old abbeys which first gave them fame. Melrose, Newbattle, Dundrennan, two miles from Kirkcudbright, Kinloss in Moray, Coupar- Angus, Glenluce ( 'Vallis lucis) in Galloway, Sadale in Cantyre, Culross, Deer, Balmerino in Fife, Mauchline, a cell of Melrose, and Sweetheart or New Abbey, seven miles from Dumfries on the Galloway side, — the last of the Scottish abbeys that was built. There was yet another order — Vallis Caulium — reformed Cistercians, whose chief monastery of that name, Val des Choux, was also in Burgundy. They were brought to Scotland in 1230 by William Malvoisin, the Norman bishop of St. Andrews, and their monasteries, three in number, were the beautiful Pluscardine in Moray, Beauly in Ross, Ardchattan in Lorn — all of them priories. 294 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. These various orders were also known as the Rented Religious, because of their being endowed with lands, tithes, and churches allocated to them, in contrast with the mendicant or begging friars, who had at first no endow ments but lived on the strictly voluntary principle. Of these latter, the revivalists of their day, were the Domini cans, Franciscans, and Carmelites, known popularly as the Black, Grey, and White friars. Their houses were all in towns, as it was among the people and for the people they professed to Hve and preach. In many of the old Scottish towns we have still the nomenclature of Blackfriars, Grey- friars, and more rarely Whitefriars church of street, re calling to mind a bygone chapter of our history. It will have been observed that the earHest religious houses in Scotland had their parent monasteries in France. The fact is an indication of the intimate ecclesiastical connection of Britain with France during the middle age. And the connection was not formed then for the first time. Our island is indebted to ancient Gaul for the first mis sionaries that crossed the Channel with the message of the Gospel. And we see in other ages, downward from St. Ninian, who brought masons from St. Martin of Tours to build his stone church at Whithern, the influence of the Galilean Church upon the British. It was probably never so prominent as during the later monastic age, and was developed mutually in other ways, literary and political, as the history of the Scots in France shows. But France received as well as gave, if not from Scotland certainly from Ireland, in the devoted men who followed each other for several generations, from St. Columbanus onwards, and built up the Catholic Church in France as well as in other countries of the Continent. Admitting the declension of the monasteries in later days, the candid student cannot shut his eyes to the XVI DEVOTIONAL & EDUCATIONAL WORK OF MONKS 295 fact that they were living centres of religion, devotional and practical, for many generations. There was the frequent celebration of the Holy Eucharist in which were pleaded the merits of Christ for a redeemed world, and through which the offerers presented themselves a living sacrifice in daily oblation. There was the unceasing round of prayer and praise in the seven stated hours of day and night, — continual intercession for all estates of men, so that the lamp of devotion never went out. Their worship was offered in stately sanctuaries, often planned and built by themselves, accompanied by gorgeous and solemn rites befitting a service deemed to be divine. The ruling motive was " above all, the zeal for religion, and their strong desire to render its rites magnificent, and to set forth in a worthy manner the worship of the Deity." ^ The monasteries were also schools, and for many years the only educational institutions in the country. The monks of Kelso received an endowment in land in the thirteenth century from a widow in the Merse for teach ing her son among the other scholars in the monastery school. They had also schools in Roxburgh as early as the reign of William the Lion ; and Dunfermline Abbey established schools in Perth and Stirling about the same time. Schools were also founded in Aberdeen, Berwick, and Ayr, where the scholars were instructed by the monks. In all the cathedral cities, and in many of the smaller towns, there were schools for teaching Latin and music ; and " the sang scule " in some of the old burghs paved the way for the grammar school.^ The " sang scule " of Aberdeen existed as early as 1370, and its reputation attracted eminent teachers from the Continent' The art 1 Cos. Innes, Pref. Chart. Kelso, ^ Eyre - Todd, Mediceval Scot p. xliv. Poetry, p. 82. 2 Ibid., Mid. Ages, 135. 296 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and literature of the age found a home in the monastery ; and we are indebted to the monks for multiplying copies both of sacred and classical authors before printing was invented. In its library the monks were always busy in the copying of the Holy Scriptures and Liturgies, illuminating their pages with a skill and taste that even modern art might envy. In the workshop, architecture, sculpture, painting, glass staining, and metal work were studied by the monks, under competent instructors of their own order. Under the Benedictine rule " every monk was compelled to learn some trade ; and many of them became the ablest artists, writers, architects, gold smiths, blacksmiths, sculptors, and agriculturists in the kingdom." ¦' The monks were also the historians of their age, each house honestly chronicling the events affecting its temporal and spiritual interests, probably without much thought of the light and criticism of an after day. " The chief sources of parochial history in Scotland," writes Professor Cosmo Innes,^ " are the chartularies or registers of the religious houses and bishoprics. . . . The monks had soon acquired such a large proportion of the parish churches — their transactions with neighbours involved the interest of so many more ; ' above all, they were so careful recorders, that the muniment book of a great abbey is gener ally the best guide to the parish antiquities of its district." The abbots also did an important work in the making and administering of the laws, civil and ecclesiastical. The chief of them enjoyed the privileges of mitre and crosier, and had a seat in the national parliament along with the bishops, barons, and latterly the burghers of the realm. Abbots and priors also sat in the provincial councils of the Church, and had their share in synodical 1 Slaaxi's Sculptured Stones of Scotland, ii. 16. 2 Sketches of Early Scot. Hist, p. 20. XVI THE MONKS AS LEGISLATORS, ENVOYS, ETC. 297 legislation. The chief religious houses had, in addition, their rights of regality, and administered justice not only to their own tenants but to all traders and merchants within the bounds of their regality. And in an age when even noblemen were in many cases unlettered, the weightiest interests of the State devolved upon leading ecclesiastics not because they were given to intermeddle with politics, but because they were the only persons in that day fit for the duties. In this way many of the abbots in the middle age served their sovereign and country on embassies to England, France, and Rome. The right of girth or sanctuary attached to some of the monasteries gave them a further privilege and responsibility. Criminals, not guilty of malice aforethought, debtors, and slaves found a refuge within the radius of the girth, which in some cases ex tended five or six miles. The monastery had to supply the refugees with food and lodging, and they were safe under its protection. Statutes were framed from time to time in the Scottish Parliament to prevent the abuse of the privilege and to compel the reputed criminal to " thole an assize." In turbulent days, when the poor man had few rights, and was often the subject of oppression, the monastery girth was a protection of the weak from the rough violence of the strong. The ancient right lingered in the traditions of the country after the abolition of the monasteries, and the debtors' refuge in Holyrood sanctuary was its last survival. The services which the monasteries rendered as land owners in the cultivation of waste lands, the improvement of agriculture, and the extension of both the home and foreign trade of the country, are perhaps better known than some other aspects of their history. That kings and barons endowed them so liberally with lands, in days when they were more addicted to enlarge their estates than to 298 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. diminish them, is evidence of their conviction that the religious houses would prove faithful trustees of the pro perty gifted to them in the interests of religion, learning, and charity. Portions of the lands were kept by the monks in their own hands and farmed by themselves ; other portions were leased to tenants. The grange was the home-steading of the abbey, where were kept the cattle, the implements of husbandry, and the stores of the yearly produce ; and the name still survives even in dis tricts where the existence of a monastery is only known to the antiquary.^ The tenants of the monasteries were not bound like the vassals of the lay lords to render military service ; and in the frequent wars which specially affected the peasantry of Scotland the monastic tenants were suffered to till their lands in peace. Nor were they mere tenants at will ; for the monks gave them leases of the land, probably the first leases on record, and lifted them from a position of dependent serfdom to that of independent husbandmen. If the tenant were too poor to stock his farm, the monastery was ready to provide both cattle and seed upon easy terms of repayment. Villages grew up around the walls of the abbey, inhabited by peasantry who had each a croft and toft, with rights of pasture for their cattle on the common lands 0/ the monastery. For these they rendered a small rent in money, sometimes a pepper-corn rent of one to ! six shillings a- year, and per sonal services in harvest and sheep-shearing, in carting peat -fuel to the abbey, or the abbot's wool to the nearest harbour or market.^ The monastery dependants t An example of this is found in Also the parish of Grange in Banff- the parish of Kineff in Kincardine- shire, v?here the monks of Kinloss shire, where there was a Celtic mon- had a farm. astery, dedicated in the name of St. ^ Tne wool of the monks of New- Arnold, one of the many names for battle had long the reputation of Adamnan, and where an adjacent being the best in the market, and farm is still known as "the Grange." commanded the highest price. The XVI THE MONKS AS LANDLORDS 299 were of different grades, and with varied rights and interests in the land. The serfs or carls worked on the home farm, and lived with their wives and families in the grange, under the superintendence of a lay-brother. The cottars, whose social scale was higher than a modern cottar, lived in the hamlet, each family possessing a cottage and from one to nine acres of land. The husbandmen were of a higher class with small arms of from twenty to thirty acres. Above them was the yeoman, or bonnet laird, who held his lands by hereditary right as a liege-vassal of the abbey ; and, highest of all, was the great church vassal, who held a place second only to the baronage and freeholders of the crown.-' The monks brought much of the waste lands of the country under cultivation by ploughing, cropping, and planting. To their labour was due the fertility and much of the sylvan beauty which some writers have made their reproach, as if they had been idle squatters on the fields of other men's industry. Their chief cereal crop was oats, which supplied bread to the poorer classes, and barley from which the common ale was brewed. It was the national beverage, and the only one known to the peasantry, who were a sober and temperate class of men. Wheaten bread was rare, and seen chiefly on the tables of the wealthy, except on holidays, as was the case in Scotland until comparatively recent times. The chief wealth of the monastery stood in sheep and cattle, of which they had always a large stock on their pasture lands. The wool supplied the material for the rough dress of the peasantry, and the skins were tanned for domestic purposes, the sur- abbey, though not among the rights of way for cartage over all the wealthiest, had possessions in all the intervening lands between Monkland three Lothians, and in the counties and Newbattle. Cos. Innes, Sketches, of Lanark, Peebles, and Stirling. pp. 130-144. Its lands in Lanarkshire still retain 1 Cos. Innes, Mid. Ages, pp. the name of Monkland, and it had 138-141. 300 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. plus wool and hides being shipped for markets in England or Flanders. Horses were also bred and reared on the monastery demesnes, some abbeys, like Melrose, possessing many hundreds of them. Swine were kept in the forests and fed on the rougher pasturage. The abbey retainers had each their commonty for rearing them, and their flesh supplied them with their chief animal food. Dairy produce, poultry, and the domestication of bees formed part of the monastery farming. Horticulture received special attention, and the monks were the first gardeners of their age, cultivating both fruits and flowers, and especially their favourite rose. The monks of Lindores, favoured by soil and climate, are said to have raised the finest pears and grapes in the country. Coal-mining was another industry, and the first to attempt it were the monks of Newbattle. The monks of Dunfermline worked the neighbouring coal-fields in Pinkie, Inveresk, and Tranent; and about the year 1210 king William confirmed a grant to them of the colliery of Carriden near Blackness. The same monastery carried on mining operations for lead on its estates in Clydesdale. " These things are incon sistent with any general opinion of vice, sloth, or irreligion in the monasteries ; and, in truth, such imputations were not cast upon them for a long time afterwards. We may be satisfied that the monastery was fit for its time. It kept alive the flickering light of literature. It gathered together and protected the spirits too delicate for a rough season. It reared up a barrier against oppression, and taught the strong to respect the meek and gentle. The monastery was the sphere of mind when all around was material and gross." ^ The reputation of the monasteries for hospitality and charity is well known. These they dispensed with generous 1 Cos. Innes, Mid. Ages, p. 137. XVI INJURIOUS EFFECT OF MONASTIC SYSTEM 3OI hand to rich and poor. We read of Arbroath and New- battle entertaining from time to time kings, bishops, and barons with their numerous retainers. It was the business of the almoner to seek out both the sick and poor of the district, and to minister the charity of the house to them. " The good Sir James Douglas " gave lands to the monks of Newbattle, and one of the conditions of the grant was the maintenance of a certain number of poor folks. At the close of David's reign, during a famine on the Borders, some four thousand famished peasantry encamped in tents close by Melrose, and were supported by the charity of the abbey during the rule of Waltheof, the abbot, David's stepson. In days before the State intervened to support the poor by local taxation, the Church was their principal almoner, and none were better friends to the poor than the religious houses. There was one serious blot on this fair picture — a blot that broadened with the ages, and blurred all the landscape, — the depressing effect of the monastic system upon the parochial clergy. In the reign of William the Lion thirty- three parish churches were given to Arbroath Abbey, and the number was afterwards increased. We read of as many as fifty, and even eighty, livings being in the posses sion of the larger monasteries. They held the lands and received the principal tithes, but deputed the spiritual duties to an underling of the monastery, or more generally to a stipendiary vicar, upon an average salary of ten marks, or seven pounds, a year, which would be equal to about seventy pounds in our day. More than two-thirds of all the parish churches in Scotland fell sooner or later into the hands of the monastic houses. They were pampered by this superfluous wealth, while hundreds of parishes were impoverished both in temporals and spirituals. One who has earned a right by his laborious industry on our old 302 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. chartularies to speak with authority on the Scottish monas teries, and who always wrote with a generous appreciation of their good services to the country, has said with regard to this misappropriation : " Even the advantages conferred by them were of small account in contrast with the mis chief of humbling the parish clergy. The little viflage church preserving the memory of some early teacher of the faith, with its modest parsonage, where were wont to be found the consolations of religion, refuge, and help for the needy, encouragement for all in the road to heaven, was left in the hands of a stipendiary vicar, an underling of the great monastery, ground down to the lowest stipend that would support life, whose little soul was buried in his cloister, or showed its living activity only in disputing about his needful support with his masters at the abbey, while his ' hungry sheep looked up and were not fed.' The Church which ignorantly, or for its own purposes, sanc tioned that misappropriation, paid in time the full penalty. When the storm came the secular clergy were degraded and powerless ; the regulars, eating the bread of the parish ministers, themselves idle or secularised, could not be defended." ^ David's only son Henry died in the summer of 1 152, and the father outlived him but a year. The loss of his son was the greatest grief of his life. The prince's char acter was worthy of his ancestry, and his death was regarded as a national loss. Ailred of Rievaux, who was the com panion of his youth, and his friend for life, writes in the warmest terms of the prince as " mild and pious, of a gentle spirit and most loving heart, worthy in all things to be born of such a father. With him I lived from my childhood, and I grew up a boy, the companion of his boyhood. I was the intimate friend of his youth, and 1 Cos. Innes, Sketches, p. 19. XVI DEATHS OF PRINCE PIENRY AND KING DAVID 303 when I left him in body to serve my Saviour, I was ever with him in mind and in affection." The prince had other qualities which commended him to a wider circle ; for no knight fought more bravely by his father's side than the pride and heir of his house. He had an illness in early manhood from which he is said to have recovered through the prayers of St. Malachy of Armagh, who was on a visit to Scotland. Malachy died at Clairvaux, and St. Bernard wrote his " Life," and incidentally mentions the Scots prince : " This is that Henry who still lives, the only son of king David, a wise and valiant knight, and following his father's footsteps in his zeal for justice and love of the truth." Henry was married to Ada, daughter of the earl of Surrey, by whom he had a family of three sons and three daughters. Malcolm, the eldest, was surnamed the Maiden, and William, the second son, is known by the opposite name, the Lion, from being, it is said, the first of our kings to adopt the lion rampant upon his seal. David, the youngest son, long enjoyed the honour of Huntingdon. Of the three daughters, Ada became wife to the count of Holland ; Margaret was married first to the duke of Brittany, and afterwards to the earl of Hereford ; and Matilda died unmarried. David, to secure the succession of his grandson Malcolm, a youth of eleven years, which was something of an experi ment in king-making among the Scots, caused the earl of Fife, as head of " the seven earls," to conduct the heir through the kingdom. At the same time David himself took his second grandson, William, to Newcastle to receive the homage of the Northumbrian barons as their earl. After Easter of the following year the king retired to CarHsle, where he was seized with his last illness. The few remaining days of his life he devoted with renewed diligence to works of charity, to prayer, and to Communion. 304 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. He repeated portions of the psalter with great fervour, saying seven times over the words of the hundred and nineteenth psalm, " I have done justice and judgment ; leave me not to mine oppressors." He asked, as his mother had done, for the Black Rood to be brought to him, and received it with much reverence. On the morning of the Sunday before the Ascension, the 24th May 1 153, he was taken to his rest. He was buried in Dunfermline beside the graves of his father and mother. Though not formally canonised by the Church, king David's memory was venerated by succeeding generations of the Scots as the best and worthiest of their kings. Ailred says in his Eulogium that the king " was the com forter of the sorrowing, the father of the orphan, the ready judge of the widow. I have seen him," he continues, " with my own eyes, when ready to go out hunting, and with his foot on the stirrup, at the prayer of a poor peti tioner leave his horse, return into the hall, and give up his purpose for the day, and kindly and patiently hear the cause.'' David's liberal benefactions to the Church have been censured on the ground of their impoverishing the State. A successor, James I. (of Scotland, not of England, as some mistake) is credited with the complaint that David was " a sore saint for the Crown." None of his successors was less likely than James I. to have impeached David's liberality, for none of them all resembled him more in personal generosity and in devotion to the Church. The king's policy has been challenged by writers of a later age, but the people of that day, and generations after, had no cause to regret his line of action. In an unsettled period the ecclesiastical foundations introduced the elements of permanence of tenure and security of property. In a material point of view, what the king lost in personal XVI SCOTTISH CHURCH UNDER TLIE ROMAN SEE 305 revenue the country gained by a diffusion of its wealth over a wider area.^ David's reign marks a new departure of another kind fraught with more serious consequences to the Scottish Church. For the first time in our history we read of a papal legate in Scotland. The gradual assimilation of the Scottish to the English Church begun by queen Margaret, and promoted by her sons, necessarily involved a nearer relation to the Roman see. The English Church, though less indebted to Rome than to Iona and Lindis farne for the Christianising of the Anglo-Saxons, had now been in close relationship with Rome for more than five hundred years. The Scottish Church had hitherto owed little directly to Rome — nothing probably since the mission of St. Ninian, who, after all, only returned to evangelise the Church of his baptism and of his own people. After his day communion between Italy and Scotland was rare. But Rome in St. Ninian's day was the Rome of Jerome and Augustine, when papal supremacy was unknown or only in its germ ; and even Rome in the time of king David was free from many accretions and corruptions which were of later growth in the mediaeval Church. But, for better and for worse, the history of the Scottish Church for the next four hundred years now becomes intimately bound up with Rome. It is the history of the Catholic Church of Scotland brought for the first time under obedi ence to the Roman see. Nor were the positions of the Scottish and English Churches parallel. England was strong through the generally united action of the sovereign, the church, and the people, — strong enough to resist, and, when necessary, to bid defiance to papal threats and tyranny. And even under a weak monarch like king John, the English bishops and barons were able to vindi- 1 See Cos. Innes, Mid. Ages, pp. 113, 114. , X 306 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xvi cate in the Great Charter the freedom and independence of the Anglican communion, and to assert its rights and liberties against Roman usurpation. In Scotland it was otherwise. The monarchy was not so strong, seldom strong enough to bridle the chronic turbulence of the barons, or to correct, when necessary, the growing abuses in the Church. Only on rare occasions, under kings like William the Lion, Alexander II., and Robert the Bruce, had Scotland the courage to defy papal excommunication and interdict. The hereditary feud with England also weakened the Scottish executive in its resistance to ex ternal pressure. It threw Scotland politically into the arms of France, and ecclesiastically into the fold of Rome. To escape the home supremacy of York the Scottish Church welcomed the foreign supremacy of Rome. The reigning pontiffs were not loath to accept the situation, and early conferred upon Scotland the special grace of being the favoured daughter of Rome. To this unique position some of our historians ascribe the deeper degener acy of the Scottish Church in the last century of papal supremacy, when faith and morals reached their lowest ebb. CHAPTER XVII THE CULDEES THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY The Culdees are first mentioned in Scottish history in the eighth century. No reference to their existence in Scotland at an earlier date is anywhere to be found. This may be accepted as one indisputable fact in the controversy that has been raised about the Culdees. That controversy is largely due to the untrustworthy history of Hector Boece, a writer of the sixteenth century. His ambition was to make a long pedigree for the Scottish race, to prove that they were a polished, not a barbarous, people in the earliest ages, and that their first kings were models for James V., in whose minority he wrote. The civil history of Boece with its forty mythical kings has long been discredited and discarded, but his ecclesiastical history, equally fallacious, is for polemical purposes still set up as an authority. Boece was not aware that there were no Scots settled in North Britain until the sixth century, and that his supposititious Culdee ministry among them was a historical anachronism. His Culdees play the same mythical part in church history that his early kings do in civil history. Without any authority he makes the Culdees the ministers of a Scottish Church from the years A.D. 200 to 430, at which latter date Palladius was sent as the first bishop " to the Scots believing in Christ." The next assumption was that the first Christian Scots were 308 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. without bishops for these two hundred years, and that they were governed by presbyter Culdees. These early Culdees were purely the invention of Boece, and the Scots of that age, as is now well known, were Irish. George Buchanan and other writers of his school adopted Boece's fictions for the support they seemed to afford to their novel scheme of Presbyterial government. And thus, much of the later ecclesiastical history of Scotland came to be coloured by this spurious tradition.-' Other writers have laboured to find a place for the Culdees in the early Columban Church. So successful have they been in instilling this notion, that the popular belief in Scotland at the present day is that St. Columba himself was a Culdee, and that the Columban Church was the palmy age of the Culdees, who are supposed to have had a purer faith and simpler worship than obtained elsewhere in Christendom at that time. What the early Columban Church was like may be seen from Adamnan, and something has been said of it in these pages ; but it is certain that for nearly two centuries after the arrival ¦of St. Columba the Culdees had no known existence in Scotland, nor probably anywhere else. Dr. Skene, who is an acknowledged authority on the Celtic Church, says,^ " It is not till after the expulsion of the Columban monks from the kingdom of the Picts, in the beginning of the eighth century, that the name of Culdee appears. To Adamnan, to Eddi (the friend and biographer of Wilfrid), and to Bede it was totally unknown. They knew of no body of clergy who bore this name, and in the whole range of ecclesiastical history there is nothing more entirely destitute of authority than the application of this name to the Columban monks of the sixth and seventh centuries, 1 See Reeves, Culdees, p. 9; Skene, C. S., ii. 226; Innes, Crit. Ess., p. 214. 2 C. S., ii. 226. XVII HISTORY AND ETYMOLOGY OF " CULDEES " 309 or more utterly baseless than the fabric which has been raised upon that assumption. Like many of our popular notions, it originated with Hector Boece ; and, at a time when the influence of his fabulous history was paramount in Scotland, it became associated with an ecclesiastical controversy which powerfully engaged the sympathies of the Scottish people : and this gave it a force and vitality which renders it difficult for the popular mind to regard the history of the early Scottish Church through any other medium." Other recognised authorities, such as Dr. Reeves in his Culdees of the British Islands, place it beyond dispute that they made their first appearance in the eighth century. The etymology of their name has been as great a difficulty as their history. It has been variously assigned to a Greek, a Latin, and a Gaelic origin ; and of Gaelic, more than one form is given by Celtic scholars.^ They are generally agreed that the name is a derivative of the Irish Ceile Dd ; but they are not so well agreed as to whether the " Ceile " means socius, a companion, or servus, a servant. Dr. Reeves takes the latter view, and concludes that Culdee was the ordinary term for a monk ; Dr. Skene differs on the grounds that no example can be produced in which Servus Dei is used for Ceile Dei, and that Ceile Dei is applied to a distinct class not at any time numerous in Ireland, while Servus Dei is a general term applicable to " Religious " of all classes, and includes the secular canons as well as the monks.^ Professor M'Kinnon ' writes that " Ceile D6 was the phrase adopted in the Scotic Church as the proper Gaelic rendering of the Latin Servus Dei. In process of time, and under the influence 1 See M'Lauchlan, Early Scot. ^ Gaelic Chair Edinburgh Univer- Ch., pp. 175, 176. sity. Fourth "Letter on Columban 2 Reeves, Culdees, pp. I - 5 ; Church," in Scotsman, January 1889. Skene, C. S., ii. 251. 3IO HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. perhaps of a false etymology, the phrase was variously written Calledeus, Keledeus, Colideus, finally settling down into Culdee. The meaning of the phrase would seem to have been quite as elastic as the form." Dr. Joseph Robertson ^ says that Cultores Dei, like Servus Dei, had a general as well as a technical meaning, and that it is not easy to distinguish in which sense it is used. " In considering the name Culdee," he adds, " two things should be kept in view, first, that it was less a technical or proper designation than a loose popular term, as appears from the way in which it is so often used ; and second, that in Scotland, at least, the name seems to have been given by the common people to priests of all kinds without discrimination." The technical meaning was used as a proper designation of the Culdees in their earlier history ; in later times the word acquired a looser sense and a wider application, dependent on the change in the Culdees themselves. What is certain is that the name Culdee originated in Ireland, and was first applied to an ascetic order that had no connection with any Columban community. The probability is that in days when the discipline of the Columban monks became relaxed, the Culdees owed their name and origin to a reaction from the lowered tone of the monastic life. They devoted themselves at first to the service of God in the solitude of separate cells, as the highest form of the religious life. In process of time they were formed into communities of anchorites or hermits under a ruler who was known as the Ken or head of the Culdees. As an order, they were a development of the regular, not of the secular clergy, and might be called monks, but only in the same sense in which anchorites and hermits were so called. Their 1 statuta Ecc. Scot, i. ccxii. seq. XVII SETTLEMENTS OF TIIE CULDEES 3 I I first appearance in- Scotland was in the eastern districts, after the Columban monks had been expelled from these parts by king Nectan, and when secular clergy were being introduced. Two separate agencies were thus at work, from the eighth century onwards, in altering the constitution of the Scottish Church- — namely, the formation of a secular order of clergy, and the appearance of the Culdees as an outgrowth of the monastic Church itself. The Culdee houses in Scotland of which any record is left were not more in number than eleven or twelve, and five of them — St. Andrews, Dunkeld, Brechin, Fortrose, and Dornoch, became the seats of Scottish bishoprics. There are no traces of them south of the Forth ; in none of the old monastic centres in that quarter, such as Melrose, do they seem to have made a settlement. After the experience of two or three centuries the same fate overtook the Culdees that had befallen the Columban monks. The Culdees in turn became relaxed in discipline, worldly in life and manners, marrying and transmitting the Church's property and offices to a hereditary clerical caste, the worst possible form of a Christian ministry. Their chiefs became lay abbots, who alienated the posses sions of their monasteries, and did nothing for the benefit of the order beyond appropriating the once honoured name of abbot. The Culdees were not a peculiar institution of Scot land more than any other order or agency of the Catholic Church. It is a fond delusion cherished by some writers that early Christian Scotland was different from other countries in Christendom, and nourished a faith and worship peculiar to itself. Culdees existed in Ireland, in Britain, north and south, and on the Continent, at the same time. The name Deicolas was given on the Continent to those who adopted what they considered 3 I 2 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the higher form of religious life, the special cultus or worship of God and the Father. In England we find the name inverted from Deicolae to Colidei, and applied to the Cathedral clergy of York in 946 ; and sixty years later the clergy of Canterbury are described in a charter as Cultores clerici or cleric God-worshippers. In an earlier age the Saxons gave the name of Gode-frihte, or God fearing, to anchorite monks as the equivalent of Deicolae. In lieu of these terms the Irish anchorites received the name of Ceile De, which is the correlative of Deicola, as the Irish Celechrist is of Christicola. The Irish Ceile De are marked by the same characteristics as the Deicolae of the Continent. Both were anchorites, and led the same kind of ascetic life. Reeves and Skene are of opinion that the Irish Culdees came under the canonical ¦rules formed by Chrodegang of Metz in the eighth century. We read in the Irish Annals of a Cele De coming over the sea from the Continent in the year 811, with a written precept, supposed to be the canonical rule, which he urged upon the Irish anchorites. Angus the Hagiologist, author of the metrical calendar called the Felire, and best known as .^Engus the Cele De, founded a " desert " or hermitage called after him Disert ^ngus, now Disert Enos. The same is recorded of other Irish Culdees. Yet the number of their settlements in Ireland does not seem to have been large, as Reeves only enumerates nine. Armagh was one of their strongholds. They are found there as early as 921, and they continued their connection with the primatial see and its cathedral down to the Reformation. The first settlement of Culdees in Scotland was at Lochleven, where St. Serf is said to have introduced them in the eighth century. " Brude, son of Dergard, king of the Picts, gives the isle of Lochleven to God, XVII CULDEES IN LOCHLEVEN, ST. ANDREWS, ETC. 313 and St. Serf, and to the Keledei hermits dwelling there, who are serving, or shall serve, God in that island." ¦' Reference has already been made to the compact between Fothadh, bishop of the Scots at St. Andrews, and abbot Ronan, head of the Culdees in Lochleven. They were the recipients of many gifts of land and other favours from successive kings, including Malcolm Canmore and queen Margaret, until they were finally absorbed in the canons-regular of St. Andrews. Dunkeld was another early seat of the Culdees. Constantin, king of the Picts (790 to 820), who refounded Dunkeld, placed there " religious men who are popularly called Keledei, otherwise Colidei, that is God-worshippers, who accord ing to the rite of the Oriental Church had wives, from whom, however, they withdrew while ministering, as was afterwards the custom in the church of St. Regulus, now St. Andrews." ^ The Culdees in Dunkeld were superseded by the bishop and chapter on the foundation of the bishopric by Alexander I., c. 1 1 07, and the first bishop was for a time abbot of the monastery. In the fuller of the two legends touching the origin of St. Andrews the Culdees have a place. There were then two churches in St. Andrews. The larger contained " the altar of the blessed apostle St. Andrew," and the revenues of the church were apportioned among seven recipients — the bishop, the hospital, and five laymen or lay rectors, who were married and had portions inherited by their families. The only burden attaching to the laymen was the duty of providing food and lodging for pilgrims, when they outnumbered the Hmited accom modation of the hospital. There was no provision for 1 Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 201 ; 2 Canon Mylne's Lives of the Reg. Pr. St. Andrews, pp. 113- Bishops of Dunkeld, -p. n,. 118; Reeves, Culdees, -p-p, 125, 126. 314 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. service in the church, except on the rare occasions when it was visited by the king or the bishop. The smaller church belonged to a body of thirteen Keledei, probably a prior or provost and twelve brethren, who lived apart, not in community, possessed wives and private property, and transmitted their ecclesiastical dues to their families. In this church the Culdees performed divine service according to their own rite, and also provided from their body an anmchara — soul friend, or confessor. The former church represented a community which had once consisted of secular canons whose office and revenues, excepting those of the bishop and the hospital, had now been usurped by laymen, while the clerical duties were unperformed. The latter church represented what had originally been a society of anchorites or hermits, who now presented all the features of secular canons as they became modified in Ireland on the introduction of the canonical rule. The state of the Culdee church in St. Andrews is an exact reproduction of what it was in Armagh at the same period.-' In the year 1144, Robert, bishop of St. Andrews, founded in that city a priory of canons -regular, and both king David and the bishop tried, but tried in vain, to absorb the Culdees in the priory. Three years afterwards pope Eugenius III. deprived them of their right of electing the bishop, a right which they claimed without effect for two centuries more. In 1220 they appear under the name of the provost and Keledei of the church of St. Mary, which was their usual dedication. In 1332 the Culdees of St. Andrews appear for the last time in the old dispute about the election of a bishop. After this date, instead of Culdees by name, we read of the provostry of the 1 Chron. Picts aizd Scots, p. l88; Reeves, Culdees, pp. io6, 107; Skene's C. S., ii. 356 seq. XVII CULDEES IN BRECHIN AND MUTHILL 315 church of St. Mary of the Rock, and of the provostry of Kirkheugh, the kirk on the cliff by the sea, and their society consists of a provost and ten prebendaries. In Brechin, when Kenneth M'Alpin (971-995) gave that " great city to the Lord," he added a Culdee college to the original Irish foundation. The charter granted by David to the monks of Deer is witnessed by " Leot, abbot of Brechin." A later charter by the same king is witnessed by Samson, bishop of Brechin, and the probability is, upon other evidence, that in this case, as in Dunkeld, the abbot had become bishop. The charter of another bishop, named Turpin, is witnessed by " Bricius, prior of the Keledei of Brechin." The abbacy by this time had become secularised and was now held by a lay abbot, while the prior discharged the religious duties. This was the fate of other Culdee houses, such as Abernethy, where the same misappropriation took place. The Culdees of Brechin formed the cathedral chapter until they were gradually superseded by canons- regular. In 1 2 18 they are distinguished from the chapter, and in 1248 they have entirely disappeared. There were no Culdees in Dunblane, but they had a monastery in Muthill, one of the principal seats of the earls of Strathearn. It is not known when they were introduced here. The first notice of the Muthill Culdees is in 1 178, and the last is in 12 14, when they disappear from the records. Muthill then became the seat of the dean of Dunblane, who had already taken precedence of the prior of the Keledei. In Monymusk, Aberdeen shire, there was a Culdee house as early as 1 170, of which the bishop of St. Andrews was termed the founder. It was a cell of St. Andrews, and the church of the Keledei there was also dedicated to St. Mary. By the year 1245 the usual conversion was made into canons- 3 1 6 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. regular, and they are then described as " the prior and convent of Munimusc of the order of St. Augustine." The connection between St. Andrews and Monymusk subsisted for many years afterwards. Abernethy, an old Pictish seat, and one of the earHest missions of the Celtic Church, had a community of Culdees and a church with the customary dedication of St. Mary. Their property, including lands and tithes which dated from the time of St. Bridget, fell into lay hands ; and in 1272 the Culdees became canons-regular.^ In Iona there were anchorites who held a recognised place in the community in the tenth century. In the next century they are found emerging under a Cenn na Cele De or head of the Culdees, one of the four chiefs of the community by whom the abbot of Iona was then elected. The same transformation of anchorites into Culdees occurred in the famous monastery of Clonmacnois on the banks of the Shannon, and was no doubt due to the same formative influence. In the Annals of Ulster for the year 1164 we read that the chiefs of "the family of la" (Iona), 'namely, the Sacart mor or great priest, the Ferleighinn or lector, the Disertach or head of the hermits, and the Cenn or head of the Culdees, went on a deputation to Derry to offer the abbacy of Iona to the abbot of Derry. " From this we learn," says Dr. Reeves, " that the Cele De of Hy were only a section of the clerical community, whose superior was styled ' head ' not ' prior,' and took a low rank among the notables of the place. He probably held a position similar to that of precentor elsewhere, and his subordinates were most likely the clerical body who performed the ordinary services of 1 It is stated by several writers is a mistake, as the written evidence that the Culdee churches were always shows. dedicated to the Holy Trinity. This XVII CULDEES IN IONA, ETC. 3 1 7 the church." ^ There is not a trace of Culdees in all the west of Scotland, highland or island, except in Iona, and that, as we have seen, was in the eleventh century. Had the popular notion of a Columban origin for the Culdees been correct, it is in the west they would have been found, and at a much earlier date than their first appearance in Iona. In Deer and in Turriff, two of the earliest Columban foundations, which retained their Celtic character unimpaired to the reign of king David, there were no Culdees. The places in Scotland where they are known to have had settlements are Lochleven, Abernethy, St. Andrews, Dunkeld, Brechin, Rosemarky, Dornoch, Monymusk, Muthill, Monifieth, and Iona. Jocelyn, in his life of Kentigern, represents the disciples of the bishop as possessing no earthly goods, after the pattern of the primitive Church, but living in small dwellings apart {casulis), whence they were called solitary clergy {clerici singulares) and in common speech Culdees {calledei). Jocelyn is guilty of an anachronism in assign ing the Culdees to the age of Kentigern, but his words show what the men of his day supposed the Culdees to have been.^ If there were Culdees at any time in Glasgow, it must have been when Sedulius was bishop of the Britons of Strathclyde in the eighth century. There are several letters and bulls from the papal court, published in Theiner's Vetera Monumenta, touching the disputes of the Culdees in the thirteenth century. On 7th August 1220 the legate James, who was in this country on other business, was commissioned to inquire into a dispute as to property between the priory of St. Andrews and " certain clerics there who are commonly called Culdees." The bishop of St. Andrews, the energetic Norman, William Malvoisin, took the side of 1 Reeves, Culdees, p. 81. 2 Skene, C. S., ii. 260. 3l8 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the Culdees in the quarrel, and excommunicated his opponents for contumacy. A second papal letter of the same month gives to the bishop of Dunkeld (Hugh de Sigillo) and others, power to examine into the merits of the case and to annul the sentences if necessary.^ In 1 2 5 i the process of denuding the Culdees of St. Andrews was still active. A prebendal stall, held by " Gilbert the Culdee," was vacant, and the Culdees took forcible possession of it and were excommunicated for contumacy. Richard Verment, a Culdee, prosecuted the case in Rome, but was induced to resign the stall, which was then conferred on the prior and chapter. The papal rescript recalls the decrees of eight preceding popes, and affirms that the prebends and lands of the Culdees had been converted into the property of the canons-regular.^ On a vacancy in the see of St. Andrews in 1254 "the procurator of the provost and chapter of the Culdees of the church of St. Mary in that city '' opposed the election of the dean of Dunkeld to the see of St. Andrews, and was supported in his opposition by Abel, its archdeacon. On this occasion the papal court took the side of the Culdees, probably because it was the side of Abel, who defended his case in person at Rome and was rewarded with the bishopric, which he held only a few months.' On the vacancy in the following year, a protest from the chapter against admitting the Culdees to the election is sustained by the pope. The chapter had received under protest the votes of " two of the Culdees of the church of St. Mary, Kilrymont, who call themselves canons, on the previous election of David de Bernham to the see, and they had admitted them again without prejudice to their own rights on the election of Gameline in this year, 1255."* The 1 Theiner's Monumenta, pp. i6, 17. 2 /ii^_^ p_ c^. 3 Ibid., p. 59. 4 //,i^'^ p_ g>,_ XVII CULDEES OF ST. ANDREWS 319 last time that the Culdees of St. Andrews are mentioned is in the year 1322. That they were able to resist so many successive kings, popes, and bishops, shows how firmly rooted they must have been, at least in St. Andrews. There appears to have been no great difficulty in recovering the lands held by them and misappropriated to the aggrandisement of their families " by carnal succession." " It was a harder matter," says Dr. Jos. Robertson,^ " to deal with the Culdee canon clerics themselves. They refused to be reformed, and they were too strong to be dispossessed. But a priory of Austin canons-regular was artfully planted beside them, so near as to be within hearing of their chants, within a stone- throw of their altars ; and they pined and withered beneath its shade. The bishop, whose chapter they had been, deserted and depressed them, transferring his patronage and his presence to their rivals, within whose precinct he hastened to build a new cathedral, the little Romanesque church and tower which have received the name of St. Rule. It was not twenty years old before the rapidly-growing prosperity of the bishopric and priory demanded a more spacious temple, and king Malcolm the Maiden witnessed, in 1160, the foundation of that now ruined cathedral which Bruce saw consecrated in 1318. . . . Meanwhile the fortunes of the Culdee canon clerics had been waning fast. Their sacred family, the little priestly caste, which had possessed the church as an inheritance, died out or disappeared. Their successors gradually lost all voice in the election of the bishop. They lost their cure of souls ; they lost their charge of the hospital for the sick and poor, the pilgrim and the stranger. Their claim to be regarded as regular clergy was renounced or abandoned, and they silently subsided 1 Statuta Ecc, Scot, ccxxii. seq. 320 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. into a chapter of secular priests. Their name of Culdee began to be set aside as unmeaning or uncouth, and, before a Steward came to the throne, it seems to have been heard of no more. But however diminished in number or impaired in wealth, their benefices still remained. If no longer cathedral nor conventual, nor even parochial, their ancient church of St. Mary of the Crag, our Lady College of the Heugh, where a Scotic king had ruled as abbot, was yet venerated for its sanctity by the people, was yet the chapel royal of Scotland." The church seems to have been held in such veneration to the last that the reformers, represented by the superintendent of Fife, the minister, elders, and deacons of St. Andrews, thought it necessary to take the unusual step, in April 1561, of proclaiming it formally desecrated or secularised, as " ane prophane hous and sa to be halden in time coming." ^ It will now be apparent how little credit is due to the supposititious origin of the Culdees, and to the popular tradition that they existed in the earliest ages of Scottish Christianity, preserving for long years their original purity of life and their primitive simplicity of doctrine and dis cipline. Some writers ^ have represented them as con tending against episcopacy and holding a church polity akin to Presbyterian parity, repudiating Roman errors and superstitions, some of which were of later introduction than the day of the Culdees' power, — in short, making them the progenitors of Protestantism in the far-off Celtic Church. No more absurd distortion of facts has appeared in the shape of sober history. This is now honestly admitted by Presbyterian writers. Dr. Cunningham ' says, ^ See note in Robertson's Statuta, Account of the Ancient Culdees, pp. i. ccxxiv. 198-200. 2 See Dr. Jamieson's Historical 3 Church Hist, of Scot, i. 93. XVII CHARACTER OF THE CULDEES 32 I " Some writers have attempted to prove that the Culdees repudiated auricular confession, the worship of saints and images, the doctrines of purgatory, and the real presence in the sacrament of the Supper ; and have delighted to pourtray them as free from almost all the errors and superstitions of the Roman Church, the holy children in the midst of Babylon. An impartial examination of the history of the Culdees shows this to be a fond delusion, and it is a pity it should be longer indulged in, as neither Presbyterianism nor Protestantism can gain anything by it." It is a pity that in an earlier passage of the doctor's learned history he should have encouraged " the fond delusion " by representing that the Culdees were contem porary with St. Columba, if not earlier. ¦' It is difficult to understand the predilection of some Scottish writers for the Culdees, a class of " religious " almost as severely ascetic in their origin as Eastern anchorites, who de veloped into a community barely distinguishable from the early monks, who in their best days left no evidence of literary tastes and pursuits, beyond the modest library at Lochleven, who were never at any time of their history, so far as is known, missionary and aggressive, as the Celtic monks had been in the propagation of the Christian religion, and who became in the end the most secularised of ecclesiastical castes. They produced nothing to match the Book of Deer, or the Life of Columba by Adamnan ; nothing like the Books of Kells or of Durrow in Ireland, or the Lindisfarne Gospels in Northumbria, or the valuable MSS. which the Celtic scribes on the Continent left behind them. There is not a vestige of any known Culdee literature ; and the ages when their influence should have been active in the Scottish Church, the eighth to the eleventh centuries, are the darkest periods in our ecclesiasti- 1 See Hist Scot, by Dr. Cunningham, i. pp. 62, 63. Y 322 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xvii cal history. They lived also at a time when the missionary fire burnt low in the Celtic Church, and they certainly did little to enkindle the flame or cast the fire abroad. The religious fervour of St. Serf and his " Culdee hermits," who took up their abode in Lochleven, no doubt represents a different, as it is also an earlier, type of the devotional life from that of the degenerate Culdees of king David's reign, but their contemporary history is singularly barren and uninteresting. Their closing years are chiefly remark able for the many disputes about lands and property of various kinds, and the chronic quarrel with the chapter of St. Andrews about their right to share in the election of its bishop. On the whole, they seem questionable material for any section of Protestants to convert and magnify into evangelical heroes. Such as they were, they repre sented the final decay of the once glorious Celtic Church, its latest and by no means its best product. CHAPTER XVIII MALCOLM IV., II 53-1165 ; AND WILLIAM THE LION, I 165-I214 Early Revolts — Election of Waltheof to see of St Andrews — His Refusal — Later Monasteries — Malcolm solicits metropoUtan powers for St Andrews — Bishop of Moray becomes the first Scottish legate — Arnold and Richard bishops of St. Andrews — Capture of king William — Treaty of Falaise — Claims of York and Canterbury over the Scottish Church — Her independence recognised — Third Lateran Council — Arbroath Abbey founded by king William — His dispute in the election to St. Andrews — Papal interdict of Scotland — Provincial councils — More religious houses — Bishops of Glasgow and other Scottish bishops — Origin of free burghs. David was followed on the throne by his grandson Mal colm IV. (1153-1165), surnamed " the Maiden." He was only in his twelfth year when crowned at Scone in the spring of 1153, the first instance of a boy king in Scot land. It is an evidence of the hold which the hereditary principle had taken among the Scots that Malcolm was accepted as king in his minority without opposition. His brief reign made no deep mark on the history of the country. He had the religious zeal of his family, and added to the monastic foundations of the Church. Politi cally he was not successful in his dealings with his cousin Henry II. of England. Henry, when knighted by king David, had sworn to yield the territory between the Tweed and the Tyne to the Scots. ^ At a meeting of the 1 Robertson's Scotland under Early Kings, i. 352, 353. 324 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. sovereigns at Chester in 1157, Malcolm was induced to resign his claims to that district and also to give up the city of Carlisle, which David held at the time of his death, getting in exchange the earldom of Huntingdon. He accompanied Henry on his continental wars, and received from him the honour of knighthood. At home the young king was successful in quelling two successive revolts — in Galloway and Argyll. Fergus, lord of Galloway, who exercised a semi-independent rule and was the founder of several monasteries in his lordship, pushed his independence so far that Malcolm took action and humbled him, compelling him to end his days as a canon in Holyrood. Somerled, lord of the Isles, raised a revolt in the west and led a small army as far as Renfrew, where he was defeated and slain by Malcolm in 1164. It is probable that both rebellions were prompted by the idea of the king's boyish incapacity ; the results proved that the military instincts of the race of Canmore were not extinct. In 1 1 59 Robert, bishop of St. Andrews, died after an episcopate of thirty-five years, and the choice of the canons fell on Waltheof, abbot of Melrose. Waltheof was the younger son of Simon, earl of Northampton, and of Matilda, who in her widowhood became the wife of king David. After the second marriage of his mother Waltheof resided in the Scottish court and was much in the company of his step-father. His mind was early bent on a " religious " life, and he became a canon-regular at St. Oswald's, near Pontefract, and was afterwards made prior of Kirkham. It is said that he would have been Thurstan's successor in the see of York but for the opposition of king Stephen, who dreaded the growing influence of the northern court. Waltheof himself had no such ambition, and as a proof of his devotion to the XVIII ST. WALTHEOF, ABBOT OF MELROSE 325 monastic life he entered the severer Cistercian order, first at Wardon and then at Rievaux. In 1148 he was chosen abbot of Melrose and held the office till his death in August 11 59. In that year he was elected to St. Andrews and declined the bishopric. " I have put off my coat,'' he said, " how shall I put it on ? I have washed my feet, how shall I soil them again with the dust of worldly cares ? " Ailred of Rievaux was present at Melrose when the clergy and nobles came to solicit Waltheof's acceptance of St. Andrews, and as Ailred had himself declined an offer of the episcopate, his example may have contributed to Waltheof's resolution, although his advice was the other way. Declining health, as is suggested by his death shortly afterwards, probably influenced Waltheof's decision. He pointed to a spot near the chapter-house which he had marked for his grave, and added, " That is my resting-place, and here will I dwell as long as the Lord permits." Jocelyn of Furness, the biographer of St. Patrick and St. Kenti gern, wrote his life, and after the manner of monkish biographers invests it with a halo of miracles. Melrose became as famous from the relics of St. Waltheof as Durham was from St. Cuthbert's, or Canterbury from St. Alphege's. Under Waltheof's advice David had founded the abbey of Kinloss, and his son Henry that of Holm cultram. At his instance also Malcolm IV. founded the abbey of Coupar-Angus, and his mother, Ada, a convent at Haddington for nuns. All these foundations were Cistercian, and afford proof of Waltheof's devotion to the order he had made his own. His abundant charity has been mentioned, and, leaving the miracles out of the question, there can be no doubt of the devoted and saintly character of his life. 326 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Other religious foundations of Malcolm's reign were a Cistercian nunnery at Manuel near Linlithgow, and a hospital at Soltra, on the borders of Lothian and Lauder dale, " for pilgrims, travellers, and poor folk." The hospital had the privilege of girth or sanctuary, the limits of it being marked by a chain and cross, still commemor ated in Chain-cross Hill. At Eccles and at Coldstream Cistercian convents were founded by Cospatrick, earl of March, and at St. Bathans, a cell of Berwick, by Ada, countess of Dunbar. The convent at North Berwick is probably of the same period, and the earls of Fife were its patrons and chief benefactors. The Cistercian abbey of Sandale or Saddell in Cantyre was founded by Reginald, son of Somerled, lord of the Isles ; and the Benedictine nunnery of Lincluden was founded by Uchtred or Urquhart, son of Fergus, lord of Galloway, the other disturber of Malcolm's reign. The convent, beautifully situated at the junction of the Nith and the Cluden, within a mile of Dumfries, sheltered the wife and son of Henry VI. of England during the Wars of the Roses. It was converted into a collegiate church by the earl of Douglas, and was provided with a provost, twelve canons, and twenty-four bedesmen.^ The principal monastic foundation of this reign was Paisley for Cluniac monks, the first of that order in Scotland. The founder was Walter Fitz-Alan, high steward of Scotland and ancestor of the Stuart line of kings. Their property was in Strath Gryfe in the neighbourhood of Paisley. The first monks came from Wenlock in Shropshire about the year 1163. The 1 Maxwell, a Dumfries man, cession from Dumfries to the college shortly after the Reformation took church of Lincluden and caused a with him on a Christmas Day a mass to be said. Spottiswoode's company described as "lewd and History, ii. p. 337. dissolute persons," and went in pro- XVIII PAISLEY PRIORY AND ABBEY 327 priory church was dedicated in the names of St. James and St. Mirren, the latter being the local saint of Paisley, whose name recalls the Celtic age of the Church and the Irish evangelist who sowed the first seed of the Gospel by the Cart and the Gryfe. It was the custom of the Cluniacs (reformed Benedictines) to restrict the title of abbey to the parent house; but in 1245 Paisley Priory became an abbey with the usual rights and privileges. It was the head of the Cluniac order in Scotland, which had other three houses, and ranked among the five most opulent of the Scottish abbeys. The other four which exceeded it in wealth were St. Andrews Priory, Arbroath, Dunfermline, and Kelso Abbeys ; and they were all royal foundations.^ On the 23rd January 1226 the monastery of Paisley with all its possessions was taken under the special protection of the apostolic see. Twenty churches are named in the papal bull as then affiliated by grants to the priory, besides much property of various kinds, and rights on both sides of the Clyde such as lands, fishings, mills, money, chalders of wheat, woods, pastures, tithes, and a salt-mine — all enumerated in the bull.^ Thereafter, depredators and intruders had to settle not only with the prior of Paisley but with the pope of Rome. Similar protection had already been granted to the bishops of St. Andrews (19th December 1 21 8) for the properties of that see, located in nearly thirty different districts, chiefiy within, but some of them outside, the diocese.' In 1 1 59, during the vacancy of St. Andrews, Malcolm made a renewed effort to obtain from the pope metro politan powers for that see. Eight years before, the Irish 1 Chalmers, Caledonia, iii. 822. and Ellon — all in Aberdeenshire 2 Theiner's Monumenta, p. 23. — with their church lands and ap- 3 Ibid., p. 8. Munemusch (Mony- pertinents, belonged to the see of musk), Culsamuel (Culsamond), St. Andrews. 328 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Church had been favoured with no less than four palls, constituting four metropolitans in Ireland, twice the number that were in England ; and Malcolm, no doubt, thought Scotland was entitled to at least one. With this object, William, bishop of Moray, and Nicholas, the king's chamber lain, were despatched to Rome. The pope, Alexander III., professed himself anxious for the reform of the Scottish Church, but he was not prepared to accede to the petition of the envoys. He conferred, however, upon the bishop of Moray, as a solatium, what no Scottish prelate had received before, the office of legate in Scotland with the customary powers of legislation and discipline. His holiness qualified the honour by adding that if the bishop of Moray were elected to St. Andrews, he should exercise his legatine powers over all Scotland ; but if not elected, they should be transferred to the holder of that see. After the refusal of the see by Waltheof, the chapter elected Arnold, abbot of Kelso, and he was consecrated in November 11 60, in the little church of St. Rule, by the bishop of Moray as legate of the apostolic see, in the presence of king Malcolm and many of the nobles and clergy. The legatine office was immediately withdrawn from the bishop of Moray and conferred on the bishop of St. Andrews, and no sooner conferred than it was again as suddenly withdrawn, owing probably to the influence of York. If either of the legates, during his brief tenure of office, held any council, no record of it exists.-' The office of legate was an adaptation from the civil government of the Roman empire. The legate of the mediaeval Church was either legatus natus, or legatus missus. The former was resident in the country where he exercised his legatine faculties and generally held 1 Robertson's Stattita, p. xxix. XVIII DIFFERENT RANKS OF LEGATES 329 primatial rank, such as Canterbury and York ; the latter was specially commissioned for a particular purpose, and, if legate d latere, he was invested with plenipotentiary power over the church to which he was sent, including the resident legate natus. With less ample authority, the legate missus was known as the apostolic nuncio. Legates were in profession, more rarely in practice, the welcome mediators in strife ; and history shows that their presence was the frequent occasion of friction between the papal court and national churches. Sometimes they were no more than deacons, or even sub-deacons, of the pope's household, and seldom were they received with a good grace in this country. They were quartered upon the bishops or the abbeys, and are accused of a partiality for sumptuous fare which taxed the resources of their hosts. With better reason they are charged with re peatedly draining the church of money to replenish the Roman exchequer. Bishop Arnold laid the foundation of the cathedral of St. Andrews, but saw little of the work done, as he died in September 1162. He was succeeded by Richard, the king's chaplain, who was consecrated in St. Andrews on Palm Sunday 1165 by the Scottish prelates. The delay in his consecration was due, as is supposed, to the inter vention of York. Roger, its then archbishop, who had been the rival of the great Thomas a Becket, was invested with legatine authority over Scotland, and he summoned the Scottish clergy to meet him at Norham. None of them obeyed the citation ; but Ingelram, archdeacon and bishop-elect of Glasgow, Solomon, dean of Glasgow, and Walter, prior of Kelso, appeared as deputies to disclaim his legatine authority, as surreptitiously acquired, and to appeal to Rome. Nothing is known of the fate of the appeal, but Ingelram was afterwards consecrated by the 330 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. pope to the see of Glasgow, in spite of the opposition of the envoys of York.^ WiUiam the Lion (i 165-12 14) succeeded his brother Malcolm, and was crowned at Scone on Christmas Eve 1 165, by Richard, bishop of St. Andrews. His reign was a long one, nearly fifty years, and was marked by several events important in church history. Dissatisfied with his brother's surrender of Northumberland to king Henry, William led an army into England to enforce his claims, and was surprised in a mist near Alnwick and made prisoner. He was taken to Falaise in Normandy, where the English king then was, and concussed into signing " the Treaty of Falaise," December 1 1 74, which was destructive of the independence of the Scottish crown, and humiliating to the Scots. Five of the chief castles of Scotland — Edinburgh, Stirling, Jedburgh, Roxburgh, and Berwick — were to be garrisoned by English troops.^ The year after, in August 1 175, the king and clergy of Scotland swore fealty to the English king in York Minster ; but through " dexterous diplomacy " the Scottish prelates out witted the EngHsh by an ambiguous clause which made them recognise only such supremacy of the English Church over the Scottish " as in right it ought to have, and such as in times past the Scottish Church was wont to give." " A memorable clause," says Hailes, " drawn up with so much skill as to leave entire the question of the inde pendence of the Scottish Church. Henry and his ministers could never have overlooked such studied ambiguity of expression. The clause does honour to the Scottish clergy, who in that evil day stood firm to their privileges, and left the question of the independence of the national 1 Grub, i. 287. migrate from the castle eastward to 2 During the occupancy of Edin- a site which they made historic as burgh Castle by an English garrison, Holyrood. the Austin canons were obliged to XVIII COUNCIL OF NORTHAMPTON & CANON GILBERT 33 I Church to be agitated on a more fit occasion and in better times." ' The question again came up for discussion in the Council of Northampton in 1 1 "jd, presided over by Cardinal Petraleoni, legate A latere. The kings of England and Scotland were present, and the archbishops of Canterbury and York, with the Scottish bishops of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Dunkeld, Galloway, Moray, and Caithness, and several abbots and priors. King Henry demanded the compliance of the Scottish prelates with the treaty of Falaise, but they answered that neither they nor their predecessors had ever been subject to the English Church, and ought not to be. Roger, archbishop of York, con tended that the bishops of Glasgow and Galloway had always been subject to York, and Jocelyn, bishop of Glasgow, replied, " The church of Glasgow is the peculiar daughter of the Church of Rome, free from all obedience to any bishop or archbishop ; and if the church of York had at any time dominion over the church of Glasgow, it had now lost all right to that dominion." Canterbury then asserted a rival claim to that of York for supremacy over the Scottish Church ; and the competing claims of the English primates helped to save its independence. The result was that the Scottish bishops returned to their dioceses without yielding any obedience to either primate.^ A Scottish priest named Gilbert, canon of Moray, some times mistaken for bishop Gilbert of Caithness, receives credit from Fordun for a vigorous speech in the council on behalf of the independence of his native Church ; but 1 Hailes, Annals, i. 118, ed. The claim of Glasgow as Rome's 1776. favoured daughter was also recog- 2 Cf. Hoveden's Chronicle, i. nised by popes Lucius III. in 1181, 82, 91, 92. The title here claimed Urban III. in 1186, Gregory IX. for Glasgow by its bishop was recog- in 1231, and Innocent IV. in 1245. nised in a letter from pope Alexander Brother Jocelyn, in his Life of Kenti- III. to bishop Jocelyn, dated April gern, claims the honour as coeval with 19th, 1 178. Reg. Glasgow, i. 42. that saint. 332 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. it has been questioned whether the speech was Gilbert's or Fordun's.i Gilbert adroitly turned the tables on the English ecclesiastics by reminding them that they owed the conversion of their country and their episcopate to the Scotic missionaries of Northumbria. " And not to afflict you longer with words," he added, " although the whole of the clergy should agree to it, I dissent from the subjection of the Scottish Church, and stand up for its liberties, and appeal to the apostolic see to which alone it is subject. If it were necessary for me to die for it, I would bend my head to the stroke, nor do I think that longer controversy should be maintained with those prelates, since it is more honest to refuse what is vainly sought than to enter into a discussion about it, and there is less deception when an instant refusal is given.'' Some of the English are said to have applauded the speaker, and others to have flouted him as a frothy Scot. The archbishop of York patted him on the head and said naively, " That arrow did not come from your own quiver." A letter is extant purport ing to have been written by king William to the pope, admitting the claim of English supremacy over the Scottish Church, but the authenticity of the letter has, with good reason, been questioned.^ It was quite inconsistent with the stand that William made on other occasions for the independence of the Scottish Church, and with his own claim to override chapters in episcopal elections in his jealous assertion of the rights of the crown. The Scottish clergy twice sent envoys to Rome to protest against the supremacy of York, and in response received, first, a bull from Alexander III. forbidding the ^ See Scotichron., viii. 25, 2.6. it was doubtless extorted from William 2 Bellesheim, History, i. 320, at Northampton, and sent to Rome thinks the authenticity "more than by the English authorities." See questionable." His translator is not also Grub, i. 291 note. so confident, but adds, " if authentic. XVIII COUNCIL IN EDINBURGH UNDER LEGATE VIVIAN 333 Anglican supremacy, and, second, a visit from the cardinal- legate Vivian Tomasi. He landed in Scotland in the winter of 11 76, and sailed from Whithern to Man, and thence to Dublin, where he held a council in which the English sovereignty over Ireland was confirmed. The legate was present at Downpatrick on the translation of the relics of SS. Patrick, Bridget, and Columba. He visited the English court before returning to Scotland, where he held a council in the castle of Edinburgh (Castrum Puellarum). But the main object of his mission was hampered by his oath to the English king that " he would attempt nothing against the interests of England." He suspended the bishop of Galloway, who refused to attend the council on the plea that he owed allegiance to York and not to the Scottish Church. Little more is known of the council than that it renewed many ancient canons and enacted some new ones.^ Some of these new statutes are supposed to have infringed upon the im munities of the Cistercian order, and the pope afterwards ordered the Scottish bishops to cancel them. The monks of Melrose expressed their dissatisfaction with legate Vivian by a caustic entry in their chronicle on his rapacity.^ In the end of 11 78 two more legates visited Scotland with a summons to the Scottish bishops and abbots to attend the third Lateran Council which was held in March 1 1 79. Hoveden ' states that several of them were present at the council, but the only Scottish name on its records is that of Gregory, bishop of Ross, who subscribed the 1 Fordun, Scotichron., viii. 25. — " prepared to catch and not unpre- 2 Chronicle of Melrose, p. 88. pared to snatch." Vivianus . . . Scotiam intravit, con- ^ Chron., ii. 171. culcans et comminuens obvia qusque, ¦* Grub, i. 292; Bellesheim, i. expeditus capere nee impeditus rapere : 324 . 334 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The chief monastic foundation of William's reign was the great Benedictine abbey of Arbroath in 1178, which had the king himself for its founder. Before the end of his reign thirty-three parish churches were bestowed upon it, and possessions from the Forth to the Ness. The barons of Angus contributed to its endowment, and some of their sons ministered at its altars. It was dedicated in memory of St. Thomas a Becket, who had fallen in defence of the Church's rights four years before, and who was now venerated as a martyr. It is supposed that the dedication was due more to William's personal friendship with Becket, when resident at the English court, than to his admira tion of the bold stand made by the prelate against the erastianism of king Henry. The abbey church of Arbroath was consecrated in 1 1 97, and on William's death it received the body of the royal founder for burial. No sooner had the king honoured the fallen prelate by this dedication than he was involved in a contest with the bishop of St. Andrews similar to that of Henry with a Becket. John the Scot, archdeacon of St. Andrews, was chosen bishop of the see by the chapter. He was in every way worthy of the office, a student of Oxford and Paris, and a man of high reputation for learning and piety. But the king had not been consulted, and he swore by the arm of St. James, his favourite oath, that John should never be bishop of St. Andrews. He appointed Hugh his chaplain to the see, and caused him to be consecrated by the Scottish bishops, expelling John from the kingdom and confiscating his goods, and banishing also his uncle, bishop Matthew of Aberdeen. John appealed to the pope and went to Rome to assert his rights. Alexander sent him back to Scotland with Alexis his sub-deacon as legate. In a council held at Holyrood in the summer of 1 1 80, the legate annulled the appointment of Hugh and XVIII PAPAL EXCOMMUNICATION AND INTERDICT 335 confirmed the election of John, who was consecrated at Holyrood by the bishop of Aberdeen on Trinity Sunday. The king instantly banished John a second time, and the legate retaliated by laying the diocese of St. Andrews under interdict ; and when this proved unavailing, the pope ordered Hugh to be excommunicated by the Scottish bishops. The king still refused to yield, and the whole kingdom was laid under interdict and the king himself excommunicated by the archbishop of York, whom the pope had made legate of Scotland.^ The king's conduct, whatever may be said of its imperiousness, betokened an unusual courage, for the pope he was defying was the same that had humbled to the dust the great emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Happily, in the interests of peace, both the pope and the primate of York died a few months afterwards. Scotland was made to feel for the first time, by the terrors of excommunication and interdict, what it was to be under the Roman obedience. Excommunication of private individuals by " bell, book, and candle " was not unknown at this time, but the excommunication of the king and of the chief bishop of the country was a new experience. The method of passing the sentence invested the act with additional terrors. The legate or bishop, attended by several priests, each with a lighted candle, met in church, mass was celebrated, and during the service the sentence was pronounced against the offender amid the clanging of bells and the extinguishing of lights, cast on the ground, with an awful imprecation that the soul of the excommunicated might in like manner be consigned to the limbo of darkness. The interdict was to the country what excommunication was to the individual. It paralysed completely the spiritual ministrations of the ^ Scotichron., vi. '36. 336 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. clergy and the religious life and worship of the people. Churches were closed, sacraments were forbidden, even the viaticum for the dying — the dead were buried like dogs without religious rites, and marriages were celebrated among the graves of the churchyard. The only dispensa tion in this reign of spiritual terror was made in favour of the Cistercian or White monks, who were free to exercise their vocation. On the death of pope Alexander, William sent Jocelyn, bishop of Glasgow, the abbots of Melrose and Kelso, and the prior of Inchcolm, to his successor Lucius III., to obtain a reversal of the sentences against himself and his kingdom. The new pope not only complied with the request but sent the Golden Rose, a special mark of apostolic favour, to the Scottish king.^ Two fresh emissaries, Roland, bishop-elect of Dol, and Silvanius, once abbot of Dundrennan, and now Ailred's successor at Rievaux, were sent by Lucius to settle the dispute, that promised to be interminable, between the rival bishops of St. Andrews. John was to resign St. Andrews and accept Dunkeld, which had become vacant, but the terms were not satisfactory, and both John and Hugh repaired to Italy, and met the pope at Velletri. They both resigned the coveted see, and the pontiff then assigned it to Hugh and confirmed John in the bishopric of Dunkeld. This took place in 11 8 3 ; but fresh complications arose between bishop John and the king, and the two bishops went again to Italy to submit their claims to the new pope, Urban III. The pope issued a commission, with bishop Jocelyn at its head, to investigate the case and summon both of the bishops to Rome. John obeyed and Hugh refused ; 1 The rose, supposed from its Sunday, and then awarded to the colours to represent the Royal Passion, person to be honoured. was carried by the pope on Mid-lent XVIII DISPUTED ELECTION TO SEE OF ST. ANDREWS 337 for which he was suspended, and afterwards excommuni cated. The wearisome dispute continued during the brief pontificates of Urban and Gregory VIII. After the accession of Clement III. that pope wrote letters to bishop Jocelyn and others, including king William, enforcing the removal of bishop Hugh from St. Andrews, and his sus pension from the episcopal office, with the alternative of again laying Scotland under interdict within twenty days. The king was advised to make a compromise which gave the see of Dunkeld to bishop John, with the revenues that he enjoyed before his consecration, on condition of his renouncing all claims upon the see of St. Andrews. To this John consented, knowing, as the English chronicler puts it, the truth of the proverb that " better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house full of sacrifice, with strife." ^ Bishop Hugh went to Rome to be absolved from his contumacy, and fell a victim, in August 1 188, to the pestilence, which carried off all his followers and many of the cardinals and nobles of the city. In the following April the king's kinsman and chancellor, Roger, second son of the earl of Leicester, was elected bishop of St. Andrews, but for some unknown reason he was not consecrated until the first Sunday in Lent 1 198. After the settlement of the dispute about St. Andrews, the king obtained from pope Clement, in 1188, the bull Cum Universi, which declared that the Scottish Church was the special daughter of Rome, and subject, without any intermediary, to the apostolic see — that no one save the pope or his legate a latere should pronounce interdict or excommunication against the realm of Scotland — that no one should hold the office of legate in Scotland except a subject of the kingdom or one specially deputed for that end by the apostolic see from its own body {a latere 1 Hoveden, Chron., ii. 353; Fordun, Scotichron., vi. 35-40. Z 338 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. corporis sui) — and that no disputes arising in Scotland touching Scottish interests should be carried before any judge out of the kingdom, except to Rome on appeal. This bull completely safeguarded the immunities of the Scottish Church as against York and Canterbury. It recognised the independence of the nine Scottish bishoprics by name, leaving Galloway still as the suffragan of York.i This decisive recognition of ecclesiastical independence was followed next year by the restoration of the in dependence of the Scottish kingdom, on the death of Henry of England. His more generous son, the lion- hearted Richard I., needing money for the crusades, agreed to abrogate the Treaty of Falaise for the sum of ten thousand marks. In a charter signed at Canter bury in December 11 89, the spiritual and civil independ ence of Scotland was formally ratified. Hailes remarks upon this that " it must in a great measure be ascribed to the generous policy of Richard that, for more than a century after the memorable year 1 1 8 9, there was no national quarrel nor national war between the two kingdoms." ^ A provincial council was held at Perth, in December 1 20 1, by the cardinal-legate, John of Salerno, at which were present five bishops, seven abbots, one dean, and two archdeacons, not a large representation of the prelatic order. It sat for three days, settled a dispute between the bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow and the abbot of Kelso, and passed several canons, none of which are recorded except one suspending priests who had been 1 The dioceses of Orkney and of dependence of the Scottish Church the Isles were not yet incorporated was renewed by Celestine III. in in the Scottish Church, and Argyll 1192, by Innocent III. in 1208, was not separated from Dunkeld till and by Honorius III. in 1218. about the year 1200. The bull of ^ Amials, i. 133. pope Clement confirming the in- XVIII PROVINCIAL COUNCILS AT PERTH 339 ordained on Sundays.^ The custom was also prevalent, both in the Scottish and Welsh dioceses, of ordaining clerks on the occasion of consecrating churches and altars. Ordinations were hereafter to be confined to the ember seasons, that candidates might be the better prepared by the Church's discipline of prayer and fasting. On the other hand, it is observable that the bishops were in variably consecrated on a Sunday, without any regard to the ember weeks. Another council was held at Perth in 121 2, under the joint legatine authority of William Malvoisin, trans lated from Glasgow to St. Andrews, and Walter, his successor in the see of Glasgow. It was attended not only by prelates, secular and regular, but by laymen whose presence was required by the king according to the custom of the time. The object of the council was to stimulate a crusade for the relief of Jerusalem, but while many of the clergy and monks assumed the cross, the historian records that few of the rich and great volunteered.^ They were probably deterred by the fate that had befallen many of their order who had joined the crusade under prince David, the king's brother, and had perished miserably in the Holy Land. The prince returned and founded the church of St. Mary, Dundee, and the Benedictine abbey of Lindores, about the year 1 178, as a thank-offering. Several religious houses were founded in William's reign. Besides his own great abbey at Arbroath, he was the founder of a house of Trinitarians or Red friars in Aberdeen, and gave them his own residence for a monastery.' The friars soon received in the usual way 1 Fordun's Scotichron., viii. 62 ; ^ Spottiswoode's Rel. Houses, pp. Innes, Crit Ess., p. 589. 395, 396. 2 Fordun's Scotichron., viii. 78. 340 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the gift of a parish .church, " to promote hospitality." ^ The Cistercian abbey of Glenluce was founded by Uchtred, lord of Galloway, or by his son Roland, in 1 1 90 ; if by the latter, he represents the third generation of monastic founders in the same family. The monastery of Inchaffray, Perthshire, for Austin canons-regular, was due to the pious liberality of Gilbert, earl of Strathearn, and his countess Matilda, in 1 198, as a memorial of their eldest son, who was buried there.^ The bishops of Glasgow were the most active ecclesiastics in the reign of king William. Herbert, who died shortly after the king's accession, constituted his cathedral chapter on the model of Salisbury, and adopted the Sarum rite for the Eucharist, as did other deans and chapters. Herbert was succeeded by Ingelram, the sturdy advocate of the Church's independence against the claims of York. Jocelyn, his successor, had been abbot of Melrose, and thither he retired in his old age to die. He was held in high esteem by the papal court, judging from the several commissions of which he was head. He was not less so by the king, being chosen a year before his death to baptize the young prince Alexander. Jbcelyn's name lives as the founder of the noble cathedral which is his lasting monument. It was for him that Jocelyn of Furness, a brother Cistercian and namesake, wrote the life of St. Kentigern, partly to promote the building of the cathedral. Bishop Mal voisin, the fiery Norman who followed him, was the most energetic bishop of his age, chancellor of the kingdom and papal legate ; but he was early translated to St. Andrews. John of Dunkeld has better claims for con- ¦* See Theiner's Monum., p. 68. Inis-Aifrenn. The word has in the 2 The Latin for Inchaffray is Insula river names been corrupted into Peffer Missarum, "the island of masses," and Peffery. See Skene's C. S., ii. and is the equivalent of the Gaelic 405. XVIII LEADING BISHOPS OF THE PERIOD 34 1 sideration than the embittered dispute in which he was involved with the king about the see of St. Andrews, and in which he was primarily right. He was canonically elected by the chapter, and the results of his work as bishop of Dunkeld justified his first election to St. Andrews. Dunkeld being too large a district for one bishop, and the people in Argyll and Lochaber knowing only the Gaelic tongue, with which bishop John was not familiar, he sent his chaplain Harold to Rome to represent the facts to the papal court, and to request a division of his diocese. The pontiff was surprised at the commendable spirit of the bishop, and eulogised him as a rara avis, not seeking power and pelf like too many, but only the welfare of his flock. Harold, who knew Gaelic, was consecrated by the pope as first bishop of Argyll. In the same spirit, bishop John resigned Dunkeld when unequal from old age to dis charge its onerous duties, and became a Cistercian monk in Newbattle.^ Hugh de Sigillo, bishop of Dunkeld from 12 14, earned a good name from his liberality and charity, and was known as " the poor man's bishop." ^ Bricius, bishop of Moray from 1203 to 1222, was busy forming his 1 Fordun's .S'r(7^!t-/^ro«., vi. 40, 41. 1236, Theiner, p. 33, exonerating Argyll was erected into a bishopric the bishop of Sodor from the charge about the year 1200, and had four of Lismore, and the letter of 1248 rural deaneries — Cantyre, Glassary, commanding the bishops of Glasgow Lorn, and Morvern. Its cathedral and Dunblane to consecrate a bishop was at first on the mainland, and for Argyll, which had been vacant then on the island of Lismore. We for seven years, but he makes no learn from Theiner, p. 52, that a reference to the papal letter of 1249, petition was made to the papal court sanctioning the transference of the to remove the see of Argyll from the see from the island, presumably island on account of its being in- Lismore. The last letter says that accessible, and the pope complies the king of Scotland desired the with this petition in 1249. Either transference, and that he had en- this was not done, or our usual dowed the see. authorities are at fault. Skene, C. 6'., 2 Chron. of Melrose, p. 115; ii. 410, quotes the pope's letter of Scotichron., ix. 47. 342 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. cathedral chapter at Spynie, upon the model of Lincoln. It was afterwards transferred to Elgin, but the castle of Spynie, which became a formidable stronghold, continued to be the residence of the bishops of Moray. Bricius had been prior of Lismahagow, and belonged to the house of Douglas, which was then an obscure family in Clydes dale, and is said to have risen into eminence through connection with the bishop.^ His relations with his clergy were not happy, and the accusations they brought against him to the pope present him in a very un favourable light.^ King William died at StirHng, 4th December 12 14, and was buried in the abbey church of Arbroath. He had married, in 11 86, Ermengarde, daughter of a French nobleman, and had an only son, Alexander, who succeeded him. William was a zealous churchman, and liberal in his gifts to the Church, but at no time did he show much consideration for the bishops, or for the rights of chapters ; and he was bold and defiant in his resistance to papal dictation. Pope Innocent III. had counselled him in flowery language, to "take care that he who had presented his morning offering fail not to render his evening sacrifice, but finish a bright day with a clear evening." The free burghs of Scotland had their origin in William's reign. While the king was founding them on his own domains, the bishops obtained privileges of a like character for the burghs that grew up around their cathedrals, as in the case of Glasgow, which obtained a royal charter between the years 11 75 and 1178. The king also granted to its bishop a " toft " in each of his royal burghs of Montrose, Dumfries, Forfar, and Stiriing. 1 Grub, i. 303. Reference is afterwards made to the charges against Bricius. XVIII ORIGIN OF SCOTTISH FREE BURGHS 343 The toft comprised a house, with the occasional addition of a croft of land, and the object of these gifts was to enable the bishops, especially when they were chancellors, or court officials, to accompany the sovereign in his frequent changes of residence.^ 1 Innes, Sketches of Early Scotch History, p. 35. CHAPTER XIX ALEXANDER IL, I214-1249 Scotland interdicted — Three Scottish bishops at fourth Lateran Council — Later accusations against them — Murder of Adam, bishop of Caithness — First provincial council without a legate — Visit of legate Otho — Provincial councils in Edinburgh and Perth — More monastic houses — Dominicans and Franciscans introduced — Bishops Malvoisin and De Bernham of St. Andrews, Gilbert of Caithness, Clement of Dunblane, Bondington of Glasgow, and Andrew of Moray. Alexander II. (12 14-1249) became king at the age of seventeen. He sided with the English barons in their struggle against king John, and was in consequence excommunicated by the papal legate Gualo. In January 1 2 1 7, the pope admonished Alexander to respect the tender age of the English king Henry, who succeeded John in 1 2 1 6 (Alexander himself was barely twenty at this date), to perform the fealty he owed to Henry as his natural lord, and to withdraw from the conspiracy he had formed with king Louis of France. The Scottish king adhered to the alliance with France, and for a whole year, from February 1217 to 1218, the country was laid under interdict in the manner already described, except that on this occasion the legate inhibited the Cistercians from their ministry of mercy, which they had been privileged to exercise during previous interdicts.^ When Louis made 1 Spottiswoode's History, i. 84 ; Theiner's Monumenta, p. 2. Map illustrating STATE OF CHURCH ™ EEIGH- OF HAVID I. ¦^ LcngiXudg "West 4 chap, xix SCOTLAND INTERDICTED 345 peace with England, Scotland was included in the treaty, and the country was relieved from ecclesiastical censures. The prior of Durham and the dean of York then " made a progress from Berwick to Aberdeen," absolving the nation from Gualo's curse, and mulcting the parish priests of much money. The prior of Durham, on his way home, was burned to death while sleeping in the abbey of Lindores, the fire being caused through the drunkenness of his chamberlain. Gualo was also much blamed for his extortions on this occasion, and, on remonstrance made by the Scottish prelates to the pope, his holiness caused the avaricious legate to disgorge half of the gains which he then appropriated for himself.-' In 1221, after the treaty of peace, Alexander married Joan, sister of Henry III. of England. In the year 12 15, Pope Innocent III. summoned the fourth Lateran Council. It was attended by four hundred and twelve bishops, by eight hundred abbots and priors, besides procurators of absent prelates. From Scotland there were present, William Malvoisin, bishop of St. Andrews, Walter, bishop of Glasgow, Bricius, bishop of Moray, and Henry, abbot of Kelso. The other prelates were represented by deputies. The objects of the council were the promotion of a crusade to recover the Holy Land, and the reformation of ecclesiastical discipline. It projected a crusade nearer home, against the Waldensians and Albigensians, for their reputed heresies. Auricular confession was enjoined, and an Easter communion made obligatory on the laity. The doctrine of Tran substantiation, though not in its final form, was adopted, but the cup was not withdrawn from the laity until the Council of Constance in 14 1 5, two hundred years afterwards. 1 Spottiswoode's History, i. 86. 346 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The three Scottish bishops who attended the council appear afterwards in Theiner's papal letters. A com mission was appointed in 1217 to inquire into charges brought against Malvoisin of St. Andrews at the instance of Eustatius, one of its canons, who had gone to Rome, probably as the mouthpiece of the chapter, or a section of it. The bishop was accused of having, on consecrating the bishop of Caithness, discharged him from taking the oath of fealty to the pope ; of having confirmed the elections of Abraham to the see of Dunblane, and of Hugh to that of Brechin, and consecrated them without the dispensation required from the holy see on account of their both being the sons of priests ; of having com mitted to prison (every bishop had his diocesan prison for the benefit of clergy) a recalcitrant member of the chapter of St. Andrews for contumacy ; of having ab solved the Culdees from the sentence of excommunica tion passed against them by the papal see on appeal, and of having excommunicated members of his cathedral chapter who had appealed to Rome. He is further charged with simony " by which he is known to be in many ways entangled," and with translating himself from Glasgow to St. Andrews and entering upon his duties there before his postulation was confirmed by the Roman see. He contemned, the pope adds in his brief, the apostolic letters addressed to himself and to others, " so that no one, as is publicly avowed in the kingdom of Scotland, dare to do anything against him." His com panions at the Lateran Council, the bishops of Glasgow and Moray, had reasoned with him in vain. So says the pope, but we shall see there were good reasons why the intrepid bishop should pay little heed to such counsellors. Altogether, the bold and defiant attitude assumed against the papacy by the most able and energetic bishop of that XIX ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS 347 age, from his position the natural leader of the Scottish Church, is a remarkable feature. The charge of simony may be dismissed, from the known character of the bishop, even if we did not know that the whole proceed ings against him were quashed next year at the desire of the papal court.^ The bishop retaliated upon the commission in his usual way by excommunicating the members of it, and the pope was evidently glad to make peace with the protestant prelate of St. Andrews. William was in his native Normandy during these proceedings, and did not return until 1218. Bricius of Moray had been excommunicated by the pope for the prominent part that he played in fomenting the war between Scotland and England. The conduct was characteristic of the first representative of the house of Douglas. But the bishop had submitted to the rod of discipline in Rome, and the papal court, by letter of November 1218, with a profusion of fine language, pardoned the militant bishop, and ordered the clergy and laity of Moray to render him their wonted obedience.^ Within three months the pope issued a commission of inquiry into the bishop's conduct in answer to serious charges brought against him by the archdeacon and the chancellor of Moray. They accuse the bishop of ex acting an eighth and sometimes even a third of their revenues, in the name of procurations, although he did not visit their churches ; of demanding and extorting money from candidates for holy orders ; of aggravating the wrong by frequent collections, and then squandering and dissipating the ill-gotten gains among young women {mulierculis) with whom he lived in concubinage ; and further of dissolving legal marriages and tolerating illicit connections, in both cases for bribes of money. From 1 See Theiner's Monumenta, pp. 3 and 9. ^ Ibid., p. 6. 348 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. all of which, said the accusers, he laboured under such public infamy as to become a savour of death to his people, while at the same time he was utterly regardless of the remonstrances which the accusers had made against his conduct. Three Scottish abbots (Coupar- Angus, Scone, and Dunfermline) formed the commission, but what became of it is not known.^ Bricius died in 1222. If, and so far as, the accusations were true, the morals of the bishop were infamous ; if baseless slanders, which is highly improbable, the morals of the accusers were not commendable.^ It presents a picture only too familiar in Scotland as the bonds of the papacy tightened on the Church before the final deliverance, but one does not expect to meet with it so early. Nor does it stand alone at this time. Walter, bishop of Glasgow, the third episcopal representative from Scotland at the Lateran Council, is accused of the gravest charges of simony, avarice, and immorality by canon William, a member of the Glasgow chapter ; and a commission of inquiry is ordered by the pope, 7th December 1219. The charges are stated in order for the commission ; (i) that when chaplain to the king, Walter gave to Philip of Valo, the king's chamberlain, a hundred marks, and promised a larger sum to the queen, if the king would give him the bishopric of Glasgow, which was accordingly done without any canonical election of the chapter ; (2) he gave to Radulph Malvoisin {Malovicino, a probable relative of St. Andrews), canon of Glasgow, forty marks to resign his prebend to him, which he then conferred upon his own chaplain, from whom he immediately exacted ten marks ; (3) neglected the duties 1 Theiner's Mon., p. 9. to a commission at home, and the 2 It must be remembered that accusers had to substantiate their accusations made at Rome against charges before this court of inquiry. the clergy were generally remitted XIX ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BISHOP OF GLASGOW 349 of his office and extorted superfluous procurations ; (4) exacted from each church in his diocese four solidi in the name of synodals (synodical charges), contrary to statutes ; (5) neglected both clergy and laity, and did not correct their faults, but mulcted them of money in the name of penalties to satisfy his avarice ; (6) when appeals were made to the apostolic see, he not only contempt uously deferred them, but excommunicated the appellants ; (7) in the room of deceased canons in the cathedral church he appointed his own nephews and relations, both illiterate and unworthy of the office ; (8) appointed pupils and minors to parochial cures ; (9) publicly retained certain families in his household, the wives of other men, not without grave scandal to the Church. And the result, as the complainer states, was that Glasgow, once famous for learned men and goodly possessions, was now destitute of men of counsel, all owing to the bishop's avarice and turpitude. The pope feelingly laments that he has " no knowledge of the prudent men in that province " (Scotland), and he asks Pandulph, the bishop-elect of Norwich and papal legate, to get a commission of the prudentes, but that this step is " not to derogate from the independence of the Scottish realm in spiritual things which has been already conceded." ^ The admission of Roman ignorance of the Scottish Church, and the inability of the papacy " to compass the care of all the churches," is made more than once by the apostolic see, and the early growth of corruptions in the Church under the Roman obedience is an evidence of its impotency to restrain or correct them. In an age of railways, postal despatch, and telegraphs, it might have been otherwise ; in the medieval age, the want of autonomy and corrective 1 Theiner's Mon., p. 12, and for the independence of Scot. Ch., see Letter of Honorius, iii., Theiner, p. 8. 350 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. powers of discipline within each national church led to the inevitable revolt of the sixteenth century. When the privilege was given to Scotland at the close of the fifteenth century the moral cancer was too deeply rooted to be cured. Besides, the papacy was not always clean handed in dealing with moral scandals in distant provinces, and the avarice and rapacity of its legates only aggravated the evil and embittered the clergy without reforming them. To use a favourite papal simile, Rome did not handle " the scythe of apostolic discipline" half so energetically as she did the rake of ingathering into her exchequer.^ Walter is still bishop of Glasgow in 1221, and exercis ing discipline on the canons of Jedburgh (Gedeworde) and certain other " religious " of his diocese who disregarded his excommunications, and continued their celebrations not withstanding — a grave offence in mediaeval times. The bishop of Carlisle is authorised in the same year by the papal court to deal with the Jedburgh chapter for appoint ing men under age to certain cures while the rectors were still living, and to cancel the appointments if they were contrary to the Lateran canons. This looks like superseding the authority of the bishop of Glasgow in his own diocese.^ The Lateran Council had decreed that each ecclesiastic should pay a twentieth part of his income for three years in support of the fifth crusade, and a legate came to Scotland to collect it. In 122 i a provincial council was held at Perth under legate James, Penitentiary of the pope, which lasted four days. Little is known of it beyond a representation made to the pope that the marriage of 1 For a confirmation of what is Papal Penitentiary in the Thirteenth here stated . as'' to the venality of the Century," edited by Dr. H. C. Lea, papal see at this period, the reader is Philadelphia, 1892. referred to "A Formulary of the ^ Theiner, p. 18. XIX PROVINCIAL COUNCILS UNDER A "CON.SERVATOR" 35 I Alan, the lord of Galloway and constable of Scotland, was within the forbidden degrees.^ In September 1222 occurred the murder already mentioned of Adam, bishop of Caithness, which was pro voked by his too rigorous exaction of tithes. The usage of Caithness was a span of butter to the bishop for every score of cows. Adam exacted the span for every fifteen, then for every twelve, and, finally, a span for every ten. But here the rough Norsemen's patience ended, and a mob attacked the bishop in his house at Halkirk in Thorsdale, and murdered him and his adviser Serlo, a monk of New- battle.^ The pope appointed, in January 1223, a com mission of four bishops to proceed against the murderers, while praising the deceased bishop as a martyr in defence of the Church's rights, and complimenting the king as " the very athlete of God," in the vengeance he had taken on the savage Norsemen of Caithness.^ No fewer than four hundred men are said to have fallen in the king's retaliation. In 1225 the Scottish Church met in provincial council for the first time without the presence of a legate. The privilege was granted in a bull of Honorius III. Com plaints had been made to the pope by the Scottish bishops that canons of the general councils were not promulgated in Scotland, and that discipline suffered from their want of authority to convene a provincial council. This power was given in the bull without stating the times of meeting or mode of procedure, but the bishops agreed to meet annually and to summon all bishops, abbots, and conventual priors to the councils. Afterwards cathedral chapters, collegiate churches, and monasteries were represented by procurators. A conservator was elected by the bishops from their own number who was to 1 Theiner, Mon., p. 20. 2 Innes, Sketches Early Ch. Hist, pp. 77, 78. ' Theiner, p. 21. 352 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. convene the council and hold office for a year, as " con servator statutorum," with power to enforce obedience to the canons enacted under pain of ecclesiastical censure.^ Bellesheim ^ says the conservator possessed quasi- metropolitan authority, and the phrase is perhaps not far from the mark. Dr. Rankin^ sees in the conservator " the remote ancestry " of the annual moderator of the General Assembly. There is one little difference — that he was always a bishop. The truth is that the position of the Scottish conservator was altogether anomalous in the Catholic Church. There was nothing like it in Christendom before, nor is there likely to be again. It was a manifest makeshift to which the Scottish Church was reduced in the game of ecclesiastical battledore and shuttlecock between York and Rome. The rank of the bishop of St. Andrews was indirectly affected by the arrangement, for although precedence was the only pre-eminence he enjoyed among his brother bishops, he had no precedence assigned to him in council beyond being made the first conservator. The mode of procedure at the councils was a sermon by the bishop appointed to preach, a celebration, the calling of the roll, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, " Veni Creator," the appointment of conservator, and the reading of the statutes previously passed. The council was summoned by the writ of the conservator for the time being, and usually sat three days. As years passed, the prelates do not seem to have regarded highly their privilege of annual convoca- 1 Innes, Crit. Ess., p. 592, says, councils." The conservator had, as " I call all these councils national Innes thought, archiepiscopal author- because they were composed of the ity, though he was not a metropolitan. bishops, prelates, proctors of the Grub, i. 310 note, differs from Innes chapters, and of all the clergy of the as to the conservator's powers, and so kingdom ; but they are called by the does Robertson, Statuta, Iii. note. pope and by the bishops themselves ^ Hist., i. 342. provincial councils, and by our 3 Story's Ch. of Scot, ii. 279. parliaments general or provincial XIX ALEXANDER II. AND PAPAL LEGATES 353 tion, judging from the provisions that were made to en force their attendance in person or by proxy.^ The power to convene a provincial council without the summons or presence of a legate did not exclude their unwelcome visits, as the Church both north and south of the Tweed experienced. In September 1237 Alexander met his brother-in-law, king Henry, at York, where certain differences were arranged between them by the mediation of the legate, cardinal-deacon Otho.^ The legate expressed his desire to visit Scotland, but the king assured him that no legate had ever crossed the Tweed in his own or in his predecessors' time, and that his people were so savage and lawless that the legate's life would not be safe amongst them. This incredible story, so inconsistent with facts, is related by Matthew Paris the English chronicler, a monk of St. Albans, who was possessed with a passionate dislike of the papacy.' His object, it has been said, was to commend the independent stand made by the Scottish king against papal encroach ments in contrast with the unbecoming subserviency of the English court. Legates had visited Scotland in the reigns of the king's father and uncle, and of their grand father king David. What is certain is that Alexander resisted successfully the proposed visit of the legate, although he was the bearer of a letter from pope Gregory to himself, in which the pontiff said it would be un dignified to omit Scotland, and a seeming deprivation of the maternal affection and solicitude of Mother Church for the Scottish people.* How much king Alexander valued the pope's professed solicitude is evidenced by his treatment of the legate. 1 SeeRobertson'si'/'afti/a, pp. xlix. dispute between EngUsh and Scottish seq. forfuUaccountof thepapalbulland kings. the privileges of provincial councils. ^ Chron. , i. 70. 2 Theiner, pp. 29, 33, 34, for the * Theiner, p. 34. 2 A 354 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. In the summer of 1238 a provincial council was held at Perth, attended by four bishops — Glasgow, Dunkeld, Aberdeen, and Dunblane — four abbots, an archdeacon, and a dean, and several clerical procurators. The aged bishop Malvoisin of St. Andrews was then lying upon his deathbed. Judgment was given in a dispute between the bishop of Dunblane and the earl of Menteith, and sealed in presence of the council.^ From the year 1230, when the Blackfriars monastery was founded in Perth, the provincial councils were commonly held there. The legate Otho made a second attempt to enter Scotland in the following year. The king at first resisted, but latterly, at the intercession of his nobles, consented to the visit on condition that it should not be regarded as a precedent. The legate held a council at Holyrood in October, where Matthew Paris says he settled ecclesiastical affairs after his own fashion, amassed no small amount of money, and then took his departure suddenly without leave of the king.^ Otho raised on this occasion large sums of money for the crusade on which the papal court had entered with commendable ardour, but the only result of it was to shed the best blood of Europe in vain. Another provincial council was held at Perth in 1242, to consider and redress certain grievances of the clergy. The magnates among the laity, nobles and knights, were withholding the tithes and opposing the privileges of the Church, quartering themselves and their men, horses, and dogs upon the monasteries and their granges, and upon rectories and vicarages, to their impoverishment. The king, accompanied by his barons, attended the council and forbade the interference of the laity with the 1 Liber Insida Missarum, pp. 2 Matthew Paris, i. 195; Robert- xxix-xxxii. son's Stat, Ivii. XIX ADDITIONAL ABBEYS, INTRODUCTION OF FRIARS 355 Church's rights and rents. The royal injunction secured the peace and prosperity of the Church during the king's reign.^ The sovereigns were always represented at the provincial councils by two doctors of civil law to signify the king's wishes as to any legislation affecting both Church and State, and to protect if necessary the rights of the crown. It is not certain whether, beyond this, they had any active voice in the council.^ Several religious foundations date from the reign of Alexander II. Three Cistercian abbeys were founded, viz. Culross, by Malcolm, earl of Fife, in i 2 1 7, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Serf ; Deer, by William, first earl of Buchan, c. 1 2 1 9, both colonised from Kinloss ; Balmerino, by the king and his mother, Ermengarde, in 1229, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Edward the Confessor. Three priories were also founded of the Vallis Caulium order (reformed Cistercians) : Pluscardine, in Moray, by the king ; Beauly, in Ross, by John Bisset ; and Ardchattan, in Lorn, by Duncan Mackoul. The Pre monstratensian abbey of Feme, in Ross, was founded probably by the earl of Ross ; and the Cluniac abbey of Crossraguel, in Carrick, by the earl of Carrick, the monks in the latter case coming from the sister Cluniac abbey in Paisley. The earl of March founded a mon astery in Dunbar for Trinity or Red friars in 1218.^ The Dominicans and Franciscans, Black and Grey friars, were also introduced into Scotland in the reign of Alexander 1 1., and largely it is said by his encourage ment. Bishop Malvoisin of St. Andrews was partial to the friars, and brought some of them from France into his diocese. The king founded monasteries for the 1 It is supposed that Statute 2 ]^obertson's5to<.,hii. andp. 239. No. 104 (see Robertson's Statuta-) ^ See Spottiswoode's Religious was passed at this council ; see after- Houses for these several foundations ; wards, p. 377 note. and Grub, i. pp. 313, 314. 356 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Dominicans at Berwick, Perth, Stirling, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Inverness, and Elgin, and for the Franciscans at Roxburgh and Berwick.^ The example was followed by his subjects, and before the close of the century most of the fifteen Dominican and of the eight Franciscan monasteries that existed in Scotland had found a home in the Scottish burghs. Spottiswoode remarks of the Dominicans that " notwithstanding they professed poverty, yet, when their nests were pulled down, they were found too rich for mendicants." ^ The same was true of the Franciscans. Both orders were at first extremely popular, except with the secular clergy, from their professed poverty and their earnest preaching, but in their relaxed discipline, before the Reformation, the friars were more the butt of satire and scorn than even the degenerate monks. It is the same chequered story from age to age. The Columban monks decay in zeal, and for a time the Culdees revive the dying embers. The Culdees become secularised, and mediaeval monasticism, more ample and systematic, rekindles the fires in sixty different centres over Scotland, centres of civilisation as well as r.'e'd tn?. In time this burning enthusiasm is also sper'm Cai. grow rich and indolent and so mendicant fi latter case"?^ old Scottish burghs, preach in theess certaiirley. Tfemlate the country in their mission of rethe laity, no.for turn become effete and decay. In the lon^id opposing rid was too many for them all. Post - Reformglves and .tjy is no exception to > and 1 The other towns in Scotland keithing. The Observantines, a where Dominicans had convents were reform of the Franciscans, intro- St. Andrews, Ayr, Montrose, Wigton, duced in the fifteenth century, had Dundee, Glasgow, Cupar in Fife, nine houses in Scotland. See afterwards annexed to St. Monans. Spottiswoode's Religious Houses, pp. The Franciscans had convents in 440-450. Dumfries, Dundee, Haddington, 2 Religious Houses, p. 441. Lanark, Kirkcudbright, and Inver- XIX BISHOP DAVID DE BERNHAM OF ST. ANDREWS 357 the recurring flood and ebb in the changing tide of the national religion. An able and energetic bishop of this reign was David de Bernham of St. Andrews. On the death of bishop Malvoisin in 1238, Geoffrey, bishop of Dunkeld, of the order of Red friars, was postulated to the see by the chapter.^ The pope, in February 1239, annulled the election of bishop Geoffrey, and ordered a fresh election ; and in October of that year, while claiming the see of St. Andrews for the Roman curia, accepted De Bernham, who was then but a sub-deacon.^ His vigorous episcopate justified the choice. Within ten years he consecrated, as recorded by himself in the fly-leaf of his pontifical pre served in the National Library at Paris, no fewer than a hundred and forty churches, more than half the whole number in his diocese.^ Some of these are supposed to have been built before his episcopate ; but even so, the record is an indication of the abounding zeal both of the bishop and the people. The bishop was not less active in the government of his diocese. In the spring of 1242 he held a synod of his clergy at Musselburgh, where forty synodal statutes were passed.* In distant Caithness bishop Gilbert did a no less creditable work in his day, founding and building much of the cathedral of Dornoch, as has been already related, covering his diocese with clergy and churches, and earning 1 Lockhart, in his Life of De Bern- of St. Andrews is stated to have been ham, p. 26, mistakes the postulation two hundred and thirty-four. Lock- for unanimous election. "The choice, hart, Life of De Bernham, p. 142. for some reason, was distasteful both * A summary of them is given at to the king and the pope, and De the close of next chapter, together Bernham, the chamberlain of Scot- with the provincial canons of this land, was elected and consecrated in period and the synodal statutes of January 1240. Aberdeen, supposed to have been 2 Theiner, pp. 38, 39. passed about the middle of the 3 In bishop de Bernham's time thirteenth century. the number of churches in the diocese 358 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. by his devoted life the title of saint. Contemporary with him was Clement, bishop of Dunblane, a Dominican friar, who found, on his appointment to the see in 1233, a roofless church with a rustic chaplain, and the possessions of the see usurped by laymen. He left it, on his death, in 1258, with a cathedral and chapter well and sufficiently endowed. Clement went to Rome, and his story already quoted about dilapidated Dunblane is repeated in the papal rescript^ appointing the commission of inquiry in June 1237. If Dunblane was hopeless as the seat of the diocese, the alternative suggested by the pope to the commission was " the monastery of St. John of the canons- regular " at Inchaffray. The see was not transferred from the ancient and historic Dunblane, which is still honoured with Clement's cathedral, now happily restored. The thirteenth century, down to the death of Alexander III. in 1286, was the golden age of church architecture in Scotland^chiefly first pointed in style. In addition to the buildings in the three dioceses named, William de Bondington, bishop of Glasgow (i 233-1 266), continued Jocelyn's work, and did much for the cathedral. Andrew de Moravia, who succeeded bishop Bricius in Moray, obtained papal sanction in 1224 to transfer the see from Spynie to Elgin, and there began the cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the first of three cathedrals to be built in that little city.^ The first wife of Alexander, queen Joan, died in 1238, and in the following year he married Mary, daughter of Ingelram, Lord of Couci. The offspring of the marriage was a son, Alexander, who succeeded his father. In the closing years of his reign the king had trouble with Angus 1 Theiner, p. 35. Bricius. He died in 1222, and his 2 Ibid., p. 22; Bellesheim, i. successor made the change in 1224, 358, says the change of the see of as Theiner shows. Moray to Elgin was made by bishop XIX CLOSING YEARS OF ALEXANDER II. 359 of Argyll, who refused to renounce his allegiance to the king of Norway. Twice Alexander invaded the Western Isles, and on the latter of these occasions he died in the little island of Kerrera, fronting Oban Bay, 8th of July 1 249. His body, by his own desire, was buried in Melrose. Alexander II. left behind him the reputation of a wise and good sovereign, who did much for the independence and prosperity of his kingdom.^ 1 See Matthew Paris, a. contemporary, p. 436 ; and Fordun, Scotichron., vi. 64. CHAPTER XX SIDE-LIGHTS FROM PAPAL LETTERS AND SCOTTISH CANONS DURING THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER IL, I 2 14-1249. Side -LIGHTS from the papal letters are thrown upon many minor but characteristic incidents in the Church's history during the reign of Alexander II. In 12 1 8 a papal letter shows how a Scottish patriot was rewarded by the pope. William de Bosco, chancellor of Scotland, is excommunicated for giving what is called " bad advice " to the Scottish king against the king of England, for which he is summoned to Rome. He pleads bad health and three broken ribs by a fall from his horse ; but he appears by proxy, and is relieved from papal censure with a caution to be more devoted to the holy see. In the same year we find an early instance of a " Scot abroad," by name — Matthew, whom the pope recom mended to the university of Paris for the degree of master of theology, with liberty to teach there in that faculty. Scotland had to wait other two hundred years for her first university, and meanwhile her sons, desirous of increasing their knowledge, travelled to England and the Continent, learning and teaching as opportunity offered. An early case of nepotism occurs in 12 19. In a disputed election to the bishopric of the Isles (and of Man), the power of election belonging to the abbey of chap. XX ECCLESIASTICAL NEPOTISM AND LITIGATION 36 1 Furness, the nominee of the abbey is opposed by the lord {princeps) of the Isles, and other laity, and Reginald, sister's son to Olave, lord of the Isles, is made bishop. The see still included the Isle of Man and the Sudreys, Sodor and Man.i Two litigious soldiers give trouble for some years to Glasgow and Galloway. In 1220 Nicolas, soldier of Galloway, disputes some lands with the abbey of Dun drennan, the dowry of his wife Cecilia being involved in the dispute. From 1220 to 1240 the suit goes before several ecclesiastical commissioners, and for the third time, in 1243, it is remitted by the papal court to the archdeacon and dean of the Lothians, after having been " before divers commissions and divers judges " at St. Andrews, Dryburgh, and York, including a cardinal deacon as auditor. The petitioner Nicolas had made a compromise, but he alleged that it was done through fear of Alan, the lord of Galloway, and he now re-opens the claim to the lands. From the length of the litigation it must have been a lucrative law suit to the ecclesiastical courts.^ The other soldier, who was of Glasgow diocese, took forcible possession in 1229 of lands claimed by Dercongal Abbey (Holywood, near Dumfries), and seriously wounded some of the monks in a scuffle. First the dean and chapter of Glasgow, and then the bishop, had been authorised to deal with the case ; and the bishop is empowered, if necessary, to call in the strong arm of the law in the shape of the lord of Galloway, to dispose of the refractory warrior, who had already been 1 See an interesting note on this letter is dated 9th November 1219. case in Grub, i. 323. The arch- Theiner, p. 11. bishop of Dublin is named in the 2 Alan, surnamed "the great,'' papal commission as being the constable of Scotland, was a devoted metropolitan of the Isles at that time. friend to Dundrennan, and his body Grub suggests that Dublin is a was buried in the abbey church in mistake for Y'ork. It is more likely 1233. Spottiswoode's Religious a mistake for Drontheim. The papal Houses, Keith, p. 417. 362 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. three years under excommunication. The papal letters also afford evidence of serfdom on the monastery lands. When the abbey of Arbroath, in 1220, was taken under the protection of the apostolic see, an inventory was made of all its property, and among lands, goods, and chattels it included also serfs {nee non homines). A large portion of the labouring population on the lands of both laymen and ecclesiastics was at this time, and for many years afterwards, in a condition of serfdom, attached generally to the soil and bought and sold with it, as pertinent to the property. Similar servitude existed over the whole of Europe, and it survived in Scotland until the fifteenth century. A vestige of it continued until the last century among ^the miners, who were transferred on the sale of a coal mine from one owner to another. The serfs on the monastic lands are believed to have been better circum stanced than others, as they were not liable to be tossed from hand to hand in the frequent changes of lordship of the land. The monks were generally benevolent masters.^ We read in Theiner of Irish clergy being boycotted at this time in England. The pope had heard in 1220 that the EngHsh had decreed to admit no Irish clerics, however learned or honourable, to an English benefice. His holiness is amazed at the Anglican audacity, and instructs his legate James to order the abolition of the obnoxious statute. The reasons are not given for this return to the system of protection which was in vogue in England against the itinerant Celtic bishops of the eighth century. In the same year we find a papal dispensation in favour of a pluralist, Thomas of Stirling, the king's chaplain. Scottish kings were wont, ^ For instances of Scottish slavery says "the Church was one great means see Cos. Innes, Mid. Ages, pp. 141 of emancipation " ; cf. Burton, Hist., seq., and ibid., Sketches of Early i. 356 and ii. 72; Buckle, .ffit'rf. Civ., Scot. History, pp. 489 seq. Innes ii. 128. XX DUNFERMLINE ABBEY AND ARGYLL BISHOPRIC 363 as evidence shows, to increase their chaplain's emoluments at the expense of parish churches. The fourth Lateran Council had rightly decreed against pluralism, but what councils built up by canons the popes pulled down by dispensations. The next case, in 1221, presents the maternal care of the papacy in a better light. A poor priest, thinking he had a vocation for monkhood, entered a Cistercian monastery in the south of Scotland as a novice, and within a month he loses his wits and is dismissed as a lunatic. He petitions the pope on the grounds of ill- usage, and the papal court takes the trouble of appointing a commission of inquiry to see justice done to the poor man. In 1226 Dunfermline Abbey receives the livings of two parish churches to enlarge its buildings, increase its clerics, and extend its hospitality ; and in 1 2 3 i , what is called in the papal rescript the abbey of Aberdeen (it was really the Trinitarian convent of Red friars) is presented with a church to encourage its hospitality to strangers of which the pope had heard. In both cases proper provision was to be made for the vicars. In 1235 the bishop of Dunkeld has permission from Rome to endow out of the property of the Church the priory of St. Columba, Dunkeld, to the extent of a hundred marks of silver ; the bishop and clergy of Glasgow are not to be drawn even by apostolic letters forth of Scotland in cases of litigation ; the bishop of Ross is authorised to increase the number of his prebendaries, who were only four, and to raise their stipends, which were miserable, by levying a tax on the diocese. Next year, 1236, the bishop of Moray is to exonerate the bishop of Sodor, now an aged man, from the church of Lismore (Argyll), and to have another bishop appointed to the see, " which had fallen on evil times and been reduced to great poverty." The bishop so appointed was probably William, who was 364 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. drowned in 1241. In 1248 the see had been "destitute of the solace of a pontifex for seven years," which the pope bewails all the more from " the barbarism of the people in Argyll, who had no one to instruct them in sacred things." Times were sadly changed in Argyll from the days of the Columban clergy and their missions. Next year the pope acquiesces in a petition to remove the cathedral from the island — which apparently was not done. The same interchange of complimentary titles — the pontiff a bishop, and the bishop a pontiff — is made on the election in 1236 to the see of Dunkeld. Pope Gregory IX. signs himself simply "episcopus," his usual signature, while he addresses Geoffrey the bishop-elect as " pontifex." Geoffrey was illegitimate, and a papal dispensation from the natal disqualification was necessary. It was often requisite in the case of Scottish bishops {e.g. the next bishop of Brechin in 1246, and of Aberdeen in 1247), and it suggests the probability that some of them were, like good bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen, the sons of priests begotten in concubinage, which the priests are said to have regarded as wedlock, notwithstanding their vows of celibacy. It is at least a charitable view to take of a somewhat doubtful position. We read next of an unjust steward in the person of Patrick, a cleric of the diocese of Glasgow (1237), who was formerly their procurator to the apostolic see. The papal letter indicates that "he had done little faithfully and very much unfaithfully," and was indebted 1 800 marks, besides interest, to the church of Glasgow. His rents and returns are to be sequestrated until full indemnity be made. Scottish crusaders who said " I go and went not " are released from their vow in 1238 by the cardinal-legate Otho. The pope describes the king of Scotland as " a XX A MEDI.«VAL EPISCOPAL ELECTION 365 Catholic prince, consumed with zeal for the Holy Land " ; but the same could not be said of " certain soldiers and others from his kingdom," who pleaded poverty, old age, debility, and the like, and offered subsidies to be released from their vow. An example of a mediaeval episcopal election is given in the case of Ralph de Lambley, abbot of Arbroath, elected to the see of Aberdeen in i 239. The steps taken were — a meeting of the clergy of the city of Aberdeen, at which power was conferred upon four of the capitular clergy and three clerics outside the chapter to elect the bishop. The royal consent was asked and given, the invocation of the Holy Spirit was offered for guidance, and Ralph was chosen as their father and pastor. Stephen and Richard, clerics, procurators for the dean and chapter, report the proceedings in person to the Holy See, with documents from the chapter, and plead that the bishop-elect was unable on account of the long distance to present himself at Rome for confirmation and consecration. The pope thereupon issues a commission to the bishops of Glasgow, Moray, and Caithness to make the usual inquiries as to the mode of election, the merits of the elect, and the motives of the electors ; and, if all is found to have been canonically done, they are to proceed with the consecration. Ralph became bishop and died in 1247. The delay and expense of this process are obvious, for no suitor ever went empty-handed to the papal court. An ambitious abbot presided at this time over Dun fermline Abbey. He was honoured by Innocent IV., at the request of the king, with the use of the pontifical. This included the mitre and ring and other ornaments, and the power of conferring two minor orders — porter and lector. Three years afterwards the ambitious abbot is reprimanded from Rome for exceeding his pontifical powers 366 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. by bestowing the benediction " after the manner of bishops, and even in the presence of a bishop," and by conferring minor orders upon clerics not subject to his jurisdiction — from all of which he is peremptorily forbidden in future. David de Bernham was then bishop of St. Andrews, a vigorous prelate who was not likely to tolerate pseudo- bishops. In the year 1332 we find that this same privi lege of quasi-episcopal benediction was conferred upon future abbots of Dunfermline.^ The Roman see was hard beset in its struggle at home with the emperor Frederick II., whom it calls " an impious man," and abroad with the infidel Moslem. It was pressed for money, and made 1247 memorable as a begging year. Italian priests in Scotland, and wherever located north of the Alps, had their stipends taxed one fourth when the value was a hundred marks or under, and one half when above that sum, to support the papacy in its contest with the emperor. The collection in Scotland was entrusted to a Franciscan friar. Robertson ^ mentions instances of Italian priests in Scotland from Galloway to Moray, and Theiner ^ gives in 1259 the case of an Italian, Peter the cleric, son of count Cabaliaca, seeking to be restored to the ancient church of Kennoway in Fife, of which he had been deprived for espousing the cause of the emperor Frederick. In the same year, 1 247, a special 1 Theiner, p. 251. The first papal symbol, so the apostolic see, the letter to the abbot is a good specimen Mother and Mistress {Mater et Magis- of the inflated language in which the tra] of all Churches, freely adorns Roman scribes occasionally indulged, other churches, as her offspring, with and a translation of it is given here : the insignia of honour, according "As the daughter of Jerusalem should to the merits of each, hoping that so appear fair and comely to the faithful, adorned they may study the more and terrible as an armed camp to the diligently to keep themselves im- infidels, so the Church should be dis- maculate," — therefore we confer upon tinguished by divers degrees of digni- the abbot of Dunfermline the mitre ties as if adorned with necklaces and and ring, etc. clothed with a variety of virtues, and 2 Statuta, i. Ix. thus exhibit her venerableness and 3 Monumenta, p. 80. indicate her plenitude by outward XX PLURALISTS, LENTEN DISPENSATIONS FROM ROME 367 appeal was made to the bishop of Dunblane to collect a twentieth, five per cent, of all the benefices in Scotland, of redemption of vows, of wills and legacies, as a subsidy for the current crusade. This money, up to ;£^3000, was to be paid to two crusaders named. The bishop eulogised in the bull for his fidelity and industry was Clement, the restorer of Dunblane ; and his fame as a successful beggar at home had probably recommended him to the Roman curia for this additional exercise of his gift. A pluralist set to watch pluralists was Abel, canon of Glasgow and king's chaplain. He had received a parish church to support his dignities, besides authority from the pope to add any other benefice or office, even if it had a cure of souls attached. This was euphemistically called a dispensation, in plainer words a violation of the Lateran canons. In the same month that he is himself dispensed from canonical obligation, Abel is made pope's chaplain, and appointed to keep his eye on the Religious in the diocese of St. Andrews, " who held very many churches there and were de facto applying them to their own uses, to the injury of the churches and to the detriment of their own salvation." Abel is to warn them that Rome had its eye on them, and that they were not beyond the reach of the apostolic arm. On the death of De Bernham in 1253, Abel succeeded in getting from the pope the bishopric of St. Andrews, which he held only for a few months. In the same year, 1248, a dispensation of another kind is given to the Scottish king, then in his sixty-first year. He had represented to the pope that the eating of fish continuously through Lent was odious and distasteful to him, and that he was ill nearly all the forty days. He is accordingly dispensed from fasting and allowed to eat " mutton, butter, cheese, or flesh, with the advice of his confessor and doctors." In 1255 Bondington, the aged J 68 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH bishop of Glasgow, is also favoured with a Lenten dis pensation from Rome. So limited, evidently, were the powers of the Scottish Church under the Roman obedience that she could not dispense a petty piece of discipline, such as this, to king or bishop without consulting the papal court.-' Summary OF the Provincial Canons and Synodal Statutes of the Thirteenth Century. — The canons are fifty-five in number. They cannot be earlier than 1237, as several of them are borrowed from the Constitu tions of cardinal Otho, promulgated that year in the Council of London ; and they are not later than the reign of Alexander III., who died 1286. They were found in an old MS. of this reign, supposed to be part of an ancient register of Arbroath Abbey, which was discovered about forty years ago at Ethy in Forfarshire, once a seat of the Beatons, who were abbots of Arbroath. Introductory. — The authority for holding the coun cils, and the adherence of the Scottish Church to the CEcumenical Councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. (i) Procedure of the Council. (2) The appointment of conservator, and his powers to enforce the canons. (3) All prelates firmly to hold the catholic and apostolic faith, and diligently instruct their people of both sexes in the same. (4) Sacraments to be reverently administered in the form handed down from the fathers and Holy Scriptures. (5) Churches to be built of stone — the nave by the parishioners, the chancel by the rectors — the same to be consecrated and furnished with becoming ornaments, books, and vessels. (6) No church or oratory to be built, nor any divine office celebrated therein, without 1 The foregoing quotations from but references may be found by Theiner's Monumenta are marked by either mode. the years instead of by the pages ; XX provincial canons of thirteenth century 369 consent of the diocesan.^ (7) Masses not to be celebrated in private places, whether by regulars or seculars, without the bishop's licence. (8) Each parish church to have its own rector or vicar, who is to exercise the cure of souls in person, or by substitute with the diocesan's permission, and to lead a pure and honest life. (9) Sufficient sustenta- tion of at least ten marks annually, free of deductions, to be provided as stipend to the vicar ; from richer parishes {pinguioribus) a more liberal allowance. (lo) Rectors, vicars, priests, and clerics in holy orders to dress be comingly, and not to wear garments of red, or green, or tartan {virgatis), or garments too short. Clerics to use proper tonsure and be circumspect in demeanour.^ (11) No rector or vicar to enter upon any ecclesiastical possession or duty without consent of the diocesan or his official. (12) Each church to have its manse {mansio) in close proximity, where the bishop or archdeacon may be fittingly entertained ; it must be built within a year of entry at the expense pro rata of the parishioners and the vicar, the latter being responsible for its repairs. (13) No new taxes to be imposed upon churches or vicars, nor old taxes increased ; if so, they shall be null and void according to the Lateran Council. (14) No bishop to ordain clergy of another diocese without letters from its ordinary or his official, and no migratory clergy, or strangers, to be admitted to any ecclesiastical duty without letters dimissory, upon pain of suspension. (15) Priests or clerics entering a rehgious order are to have their Annat {Annuale), the 1 This was for the protection of 2 xhe prohibition of "panni vir- parish churches against the with- gati" has been cited as proof that drawal of ecclesiastical dues from tartan was a Scottish peculiarity in them to private chapels built in the the thirteenth century. It was com- castles of the king and barons. From mon at the time throughout Europe : the wide extent of Scottish parishes see Du Cange, sub voce Virgatus, and compared with English, this canon Robertson's Statuta, in loco. operated injuriously. 2 B 2,70 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. same as in the case of persons dying.^ (i6) Bishops to appoint in the several deaneries (rural) prudent persons as confessors for the vicars and minor clergy, who may not care to confess to the deans : general confessors to be appointed in cathedral churches. (17) Leases of ecclesiastical property to be limited to five years, and to be in writing, a copy being deposited with the bishop or archdeacon. (18) Clerics who retain concubines publicly in their own or other men's houses are to remove them within a month, on the pain of suspension from office and benefice. (The canon complains that incontinency still continues, and is shamelessly common within the borders of the Church.) (19, 20, 21) Rectors and vicars not to alienate or burden church properties and tithes in several ways that are specified. (22) Clerics and monks not to engage in any kind of secular business. (23) Bene ficed clergy not to buy property or build houses for their concubines and their sons — nor to will by testament any thing to such concubines, upon pain of its being forfeited to the use of the church they served, at the option of the bishop. (24) Persons excommunicated by name not to be admitted to any divine office in the churches of Hospitallers and other " religious " indulged by the apostolic see, nor to have any funeral rites on their death. (25) Proper account of goods disponed by will to be rendered to the ordinary. (26) Privileges of sanctuary' to be respected even in the case of notorious criminals, until they are dealt with by the diocesan. (27) No presbyter or vicar to take any cleric, accused of murder or other heinous crime, out of the hands of the civil officers, without the order of the 1 The estate of priests deceased religious state. A statute of the was credited with a year's income bishop and chapter of Moray, A.D. from canonry or benefice, reckoning 1224- 1242, speaks of this usage as from the time of their death. The an approved custom of the Scottish same is here decreed in favour of Church. those passing from the secular to the XX PROVINCIAL CANONS OF thirteenth CENTURY 37 I bishop or other superior. (28) Clerics accused are to be defended by the Church until proved guilty and degraded from orders ; and criminal clerks are to be confined, on bread and water, in the diocesan prison. (29) Secular courts not to be held on the Lord's Day nor on any other festival, nor in churches, cemeteries, etc., dedicated to God. (30, 31, 32) The liberties and privileges of the Church and of the clergy to be preserved inviolate. (33) Questions affecting the persons or property of clergy to be tried in the ecclesiastical, not in the secular courts. (34 to 43) Tithes and first-fruits to be religiously paid on the produce of gardens, cows, sheep, fowls, hay, mills, fishings, wood, wool, butter, eggs, etc. (44) Disturbers of clerics or their procurators in collecting the tithes are to be excom municated. (45) The theft or destruction of tithe crops to be punished by ecclesiastical censures. (46) These decrees to be published in every church of each diocese three times a year. (47) Conspirators against the bishops or other prelates are to be excommunicated as schismatics and infamous. (48) Clerics resisting the lawful mandates of their diocesans to be suspended. (49) The pardoner ' {Questionarius) to be admitted only once a year into the church, and his business explained by the minister thereof The indulgence for aiding the building of Glasgow Cathe dral to be commended to the parishioners of every church from the beginning of Lent to the octave of Easter, every Lord's Day and holy-day, after the gospel of the mass. (50) All subverters of the Church's liberties to be publicly denounced as excommunicate. (51) Sentences of excommunication for criminal offences (enumerated in the canon) to be read four times a year in every 1 These spiritual pedlars, hawking scandals which had to be restrained their indulgences through the country, by statute. See Robertson's Statuta were often the occasion of grave on this canon. 372 history of the SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. church. (52) All disturbers of the peace by wrongful and malicious accusations, which would legally subject the accused, if guilty, to death, exile, or mutilation, to be excommunicated. (53) The person excommunicated by one bishop to be denounced by the other bishops, and if the offender continue obdurate for forty days, his lands to be laid under interdict. (54) A priest sinning with his spiritual daughter to be deemed guilty of incest, the woman to give her property to the poor and remain in a convent till death. A bishop or a presbyter sinning carnally with a penitent is to do penance, the former for fifteen years, the latter for twelve ; and in addition he is to be deposed if the scandal is notorious. (55) Absolution from excom munication not to be extorted by the laity- — the secular power not to relax ecclesiastical sentences, and whosoever, with such an object, seizes upon church property, is to be canonically punished by the diocesan.-* Although the last resort of excommunication may be more freely used in these canons than modern tastes would approve, yet, on the whole, the code provided a wise and wholesome discipline for that age. The chronic cancer of concubinage, resulting from the compulsory celibacy of the clergy, reveals itself in canons of restraint which history shows to have been unequal to meet the evil.^ Again, though tithes may be eminently scriptural, 1 The above summary of the Scot- their date undecided, and the accurate tish canons of this period is translated Ruddiman saw no ground for fixing from Robertson's Statuta, which Hill it more precisely than about the end Burton, Hist, ii. 40, says will now of the reign of Alexander II., who be "the authoritative version." died in 1249." Robertson, Statuta, Ta\\., says as to 2 On clerical unchastity see Bishop their date, "It may be necessary to 'Saxhes's Life of St. Kentigern, note warn the reader that there is no other K, p. 321. Forbes quotes Gieseler authority for ascribing these canons {H. E., vol. iii. p. 203, Edinburgh, to the years 1242 and 1269 than the 1853), who says, speaking of the loose assertion of Hector Boece period between 1073 and 1305, "an writing in the sixteenth century. effort was made at the end of the The sagacious Thomas Innes left eleventh century to restore in the re- XX SYNODAL STATUTES OF ABERDEEN 373 the high-handed enforcement of their payment in kind, through the middle ages, did more than anything else to bring the tithing parson into popular contempt. The principle they inculcated was good, but the practice in actual operation was enough to make a nation of " voluntaries." Besides these fifty -five provincial canons of the Scottish Church adopted partly from general councils and English synods, there are two sets of synodal statutes that belong to this period, those of Aberdeen and St. Andrews, the latter by bishop de Bernham. ¦* Though necessarily somewhat dry reading, the contemporary canons and statutes are valuable materials of ecclesiastical history. They contribute, when fairly handled, to the formation of an honest judgment on the actual condition, social and spiritual, of the Church. The synodal statutes of Aberdeen. — (i) On baptism — - details as to the matter, words, and manner of administer ing the sacrament. Parents may baptize on necessity ; a proper baptistery to be provided of stone or wood in every baptising church, the use of a little salt, of linen for the ears and nostrils, with the spittle, and the exorcisms to be ligious foundations the canonical mode commonly rebuked with solemn of life, even in conformity with one of earnestness, and upbraided with the stricter rules, the so-called Regula biting satire." St. Augustini, but the new regula- ^ Robertson, in his Stattita, con- tions were soon relaxed. The celibacy tinues the enumeration of the statutes, of the clergy, which was now con- Aberdeen, from 56 to 108, and St. stituted an ecclesiastical ordinance of Andrews from 109 to 139. They more general application than before, are abridged here in the local order, could not be fully established till the and so far as they are not a repetition thirteenth century. But it introduced of the provincial canons. He remarks, in its train a greater increase of the Statuta, clxxxiii., that "the line of most shameful licentiousness from the separation between the provincial readiness of the bishops to overlook canons of the Scottish Church and it. Besides that unchastity which the synodal canons (or statutes) of already made many thoughtful minds Aberdeen is sufficiently ascertained mistrustful of celibacy, utter worldli- by a collation of the register of the ness and love of pleasures, avarice bishopric of Aberdeen with the and simony, were the principal faults Lambeth MS." for which the clergy of this time were 374 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. pronounced, three god-parents required. (2) Confirmation — notice of it to be given and the relationship of sponsors both to the child and its parents to be taught. (3) Penance -cautions to the priest on hearing confessions, which are to be made at the beginning of Quadragesima and soon after lapses. Communion at least at Easter enjoined. Persons failing to communicate are to be forbidden access to the church during life and buried without Christian sepulture. (4) The Eucharist to be treated with devout reverence ; when reserved, to be kept in a clean pyx, and renewed every Lord's Day. The bread to be of pure wheat, the wine mixed with a very little water, and the words of the canon to be audibly and distinctly said. (5) On celebration of the mass. Details as to ritual — not to elevate the Host until the words " Hoc est Corpus Meum " are pronounced. Priests forbidden to duplicate unless on Christmas or Easter Day, or from some urgent necessity. (6) Communicating the sick — the priest (or some other) is to carry a lamp, and a bell at the sound of which the faithful are to exercise themselves devotionally ; he is to wear a stole and also a surplice, if the weather permit. (7) Extreme unction to be adminis tered to all above fourteen, but not to be repeated on every sickness from which death is anticipated. (8) Clerical morals and manners to be reformed. No de bauches or drunkenness, and no visiting of taverns unless on a journey. The clergy to expel their concubines to a distance and have no intercourse with them. Their vest ments as " ministers " to be always tidy and clean. The Paschal candle to be renewed every year. (9) Recom mended that a rector resigning or dying leave his robes and books and utensils of the house to his successor. Repairs of the manse to be made good out of his estate. (10) Same objection to new taxes as in canon 13, p. 369. XX SYNODAL STATUTES OF ABERDEEN 375 Presentees to benefices to take oath that there has been no promise or paction between them and the patrons. (11) Marriages to be performed before three or four male witnesses, and after three proclamations in church, but not to be allowed within the fourth degree. (12) Privilege of sanctuary to fugitives, with meat, drink, and bedding from the church.^ (13) Churches and cemeteries to be decently kept and no choruses or indecent plays to be allowed in them. (14) Notorious evil-doers, whose crimes are named, to be excommunicated four times a year. (15) Tithes, enumerated as in the canons, are to be paid. (16) Besides the collects said in the mass, other five to be added in the diocese (of Aberdeen), of which one shall be for peace, and another for the king and queen and their children.^ (17) Presbyters, visiting the sick who may be disposed to make their wills, are diligently to advise them to remember the Catholic Church.^ (18) Lepers to be banished to secluded places.* (19) Perjurers in matrimonial causes to be remitted to the bishop. (20) At funerals, chantings and choruses are forbidden on the plea of being out of sym pathy with the mourners.^ (21) Neither wailings nor plays to be permitted in churches or cemeteries.'' (22) Eucharist not to be refused to parishioners because of 1 That is in places where there 3 The words Priest, Presbyter, was the right of girth or sanctuary, and Minister are all used in the such as Holyrood, Inverleithen in Statuta of the clerical office. Tweeddale, Stow, Tyningham, Les- ^ Inquests were held on leprosy in mahagow, Tain, Dull, Torphichen, Scotland as late as 1560. Applecross, etc. According to an * Tytler, Hist., ii. 254, identifies Irish canon of the eighth century the choro with the bagpipes. right of sanctuary required the sane- ^ Ailred of Rievaux describes a tion of three parties, viz. the king, bull-bait he witnessed on St. Cuthbert's bishop, and people. Day, a.d. 1164, in the churchyard 2 There is nothing said of the of Kirkcudbright. There is in the other three. A reference is made to Chron. de Lanercost, p. 109, the this or to some similar statute, in the story of an obscene pastime in the Act of Parliament at Perth, March churchyard of Inverkeithing, Fife, 1425-1426, commanding " orisons to a.d. 1282. Robertson's .S^a/i/^a. be made for the King, the Queyn, and their childer." 376 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. non-payment of tithes and offerings, as had happened on Easter Day in cases referred to. (23) Persons hindering others from buying the Church's tithes from the rector to be excommunicated. (24) Leases of church property to be made with consent of bishop and in writing. (25) Rectors to be ordained, and the rector of several parish churches to serve one of them and appoint vicars to the others.-' (26) Laity forbidden, under anathema, from holding secular courts in churches or cemeteries, and from standing or sitting among the clergy near the altar at celebrations, excepting the king and magnates who are privileged. (27) Concubines of priests not to be admitted to any service in church, nor by the people into their houses, under anathema. (28) Marriages not to be per formed without proclamation in each parish church. (29) Infants not to sleep with mothers from danger of over laying. (30) Potions to the sick, except by experts, to be forbidden, and so also fortune-telling. (31) Temporary chaplains prohibited from officiating unless with consent of the archdeacon. (32) Details as to tithing of calves, lambs, chickens, and eggs. (33) As to mortuaries, or " corse-presents," the third of the deceased's estate to be claimed for the church, and the "kirk -cow" and the " upmost-cloth " from the bed to be also exacted — even from parents for their dead infants. (34) The Pasch candle and "the Sunday penny" to be exacted from every householder, and each lodger who has anything of his own ; — catechumens to bring the christening candle and the chrism cloth (known in Scotch as the " cude "). (35) Women pregnant to make confession and receive communion at the beginning of the ninth month in the church, but not in their own house. (36) Eucharist for 1 This statute points to cases not fices and deferring or declining ordi- infrequent, of laymen holding bene- nation. XX SYNODAL STATUTES OF ABERDEEN 377 the sick not to be given between vespers and daybreak unless to one taken suddenly ill. (37) The chaplain of the church to have pasture for eight cows and a horse. (38) The laity to be excluded from the choir during mass, but exception made for soldiers, barons, and founders of churches. (39) Every baptizing church to have a parish girth of thirty paces in circuit around the church yard. (40) Benefactions affecting the church or church yard to be paid to the rector. (41) Fines for offences committed on church lands to be paid to ecclesiastics. (42) Tithes of cheese (all the products of butter) to be enjoined that the produce of the cows may be the richer. (43, 44, 45) Tithes of sundry kinds, including the most valuable animal of a person deceased, to be given to the mother church, and the goods of intestates to be disposed of by the prelates secundum Deum. (46, 47, 48) Penance to be imposed to the end of their life upon priests who have sinned with women who are their spiritual daughters by the triple immersion in holy baptism. (49) The laity not to harass ecclesiastics by violent possession and wasting of church properties, under pain of excommunica tion, from which they shall not be absolved except by the conservator of the council after satisfaction given. '^ (50) Clergy in foreign orders, born in any nation beyond Scotland, not to be admitted, even with letters dimissory, to serve in parish churches, but only in chapels to which no cure of souls is attached ; on lengthened service and approved character as chaplains, the statute may be relaxed by the diocesan. (51) Chaplains not to receive more than the annual sum of a hundred solidi for their services. (52) Details as to various objects of tithes, and 1 Robertson remarks that this the complaints of the clergy against statute would seem to have been the lawless violations of their patri- passed in the provincial council of monial rights at the hands of the Perth in 1242, when the king was laity. The Statute is No. 104 in present with his nobility to redress Robertson's Statuta. 378 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. especially as to wool, of which an average is to be taken, as it does not grow equally all the year. (53) Summary of previous canons and statutes, chiefly pertaining to the life and morals of the clergy, who are to pay attention to reading and prayer, to visiting the sick, instructing the people on the Lord's Prayer and creed, not to visit nunneries without good reason, nor attend playhouses, nor play with dice, nor carry arms, — to discourage gambling and to abolish the feast of fools.-' Repetition of previous statutes against clerical concubines, with the addition that the sons of priests are to demit their office.^ The statutes conclude thus : " It belongs to the office of pastor to take diligent heed of the welfare of the church committed to him and to the instruction of the people under him, so that he may give a good account of his flock and of his talent with increase. . . . Hence it is, that of those things which have been decreed by the ancient fathers, some of them we recall to memory for the present, adding others of fresh import, lest we should seem by omission to fail in our duty.'' The statutes bear evidence, from frequent repetition, of having been passed at different synods, and they are drafted with very little skill or system. .No one can read them without a sense of the prevailing clerical vice against which canons and statutes battled in vain for three hundred years. The writer cannot agree with a recent author,^ who says that " although the above canons on clerical immorality were passed, the history of the 1 Robertson, Statuta. It was in from churches which they claimed vain that the feast of fools was for- to hold as of hereditary right, and of bidden. In the shape of the boy which their fathers had been the last bishop it is found in St. Salvator's incumbents. The same evil custom College, St. Andrews, in the fifteenth of clerical heredity prevailed in Eng- century. land in the face of compulsory 2 Ibid. Pope Urban III., A.D. celibacy. 1185-87, empowered the bishop of 3 Dean Luckock, The Ch. in Glasgow to remove the sons of priests Scot, p. 79. XX SYNODAL STATUTES OF ST. ANDREWS 379 times reveals no general laxity, such as became an open scandal two centuries later." Laws are only made for transgressors, and had the transgression not been common and notorious, the Church's statute-book would not have been burdened with the painful and reiterated cry against clerical unchastity. The canons themselves acknowledge the existence of the evil in a shameful form. It is true that clerical morals grew worse and worse down to the Reformation, but the tares which corrupted the wheat in the sixteenth century were sown in the thirteenth. The synodal statutes of St. Andrews, passed under bishop de Bernham, in a synod at Musselburgh in 1242,^ are largely a repetition of the foregoing canons and statutes, though in point of time they probably preceded them. As became the bishop who consecrated a hundred and forty churches in his diocese within ten years, great stress is laid in the opening statutes (i to 3) upon the maintenance of the sacred buildings, on their proper furnishing, and on suitable vessels for the sacraments. There is the proviso that the font is not to be of wood, but of stone. (4) Every church in the diocese is to be visited annually by the archdeacons or the deans, and all defects as to churches, churchyards, books, and ornaments to be laid before the bishop in writing. (10) Deacons not to baptize, except in emergency, when laymen may do the same. Immersion recognised as use and wont. (11) Masses not to be enjoined upon the laity by way of penance, in order to extirpate simoniacal practices, but extreme unction may be lawfully repeated as often as necessary.^ (15) A non-resident parson or vicar to be de- 1 They are numbered in Robert- forbidden to eat flesh, to walk bare- son's Statuta from 109 to 139. footed, or to live again as man 2 This seems in conflict with statute and wife, and so when sick they 7, p. 374 ; the reason being that the refused to be anointed. Robertson, laity ignorantly supposed that after Statuta, sub numero. receiving extreme unction they were o 80 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH prived upon three months' warning. (17) Fugitive monks and canons to be sent back to their monasteries, or to be excommunicated as apostates from their order ; and this statute to be published every Lord's Day in every church, that none may plead ignorance. (23) Priests not to be engaged to serve a church for less time than a year. (29) Rectors not ordained to be forbidden access to their church, and deprived of their benefice. (30) Confessions of women not to be heard between the chancel screen and the altar, but in a place where they are within sight, yet not within hearing of the men. (31) Enjoined that the aforesaid decrees be published in every parish church, and be faithfully observed by all. CHAPTER XXI ALEXANDER IIL, I249-I286 Enshrining the relics of St. Margaret — King's marriage in York Minster — Battle of Largs — Church oppressed by the Regency — Appeals to Parliament — Bishop Gameline of St Andrews — Cardinal-legate Ottoboni suminons Scottish bishops to London — Seventh crusade and Scottish crusaders — Provincial council in Perth — General Council in Lyons — Boiamund adjusts and collects assessments — Progress of the Church — Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow — Sweetheart Abbey founded — Red and White friars — Marriages and deaths in royal family — King's accidental death — Side-lights from Theiner's papal letters — Literary Scotsmen of thirteenth century. Alexander III. (1249- 1286), the only son of the last king, ascended the throne in his eighth year. Henry III. of England immediately wrote to the pope, asking him to forbid the coronation of the Scottish king, and if it were effected, to declare it invalid.^ The pope prudently declined to interfere, and meanwhile the Scottish nobles made haste to have Alexander crowned at Scone, on the 12th July, five days after his father's death. Bernham, bishop of St. Andrews, girded the boy-king with the belt of knighthood, placed him on the sacred chair, and putting the crown on his head, declared him king. After the ceremony an aged Celt, with flowing hair and dressed in a scarlet mantle, saluted 1 Robertson, Early Kings, ii. 53. 382 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the king in Gaelic, rehearsing a long pedigree of his Celtic ancestry.-' In the next year, 1250, there was witnessed at Dunfermline the translation and enshrining, in the " Lady Aisle " of the abbey church, of the remains of the saintly queen Margaret. Tradition tells that when the queen's body was being carried over the grave of her husband, the bearers were arrested in their progress, and the body refused to be borne farther without the royal consort. The remains of Malcolm Canmore were accordingly exhumed at the same time, and enshrined with those of the queen, that in death they might not be divided. The ceremony was witnessed by the young king and his mother, and by many of the bishops and nobles. The abbot of Dunfermline afterwards went to Rome with a petition from the nobles, clergy, and people for Margaret's canonisation, and " it appears probable that her enrol ment in the calendar of the Church took place about this time."^ In a papal bull of 22nd June 1 35 i, addressed to the abbot of Dunfermline, the abbey is called " the monastery of Saint Margaret." ^ The marriage of Alexander to Margaret, daughter of Henry III., was celebrated in York Minster on Christmas Day 1 2 5 1 with much pomp, in presence of the king and queen of England, of Mary de Couci, the queen-mother, and many of the nobility of both kingdoms. The marriage was popular as the pledge of permanent peace between the two countries, which unhappily was not realised in the events. Matthew Paris, the chronicler of the age, writes in ecstasies of the abundance of the feasts at York, mentioning especially the archbishop's own " donation of six hundred oxen, which were all 1 Fordun, Scotichron., a. I, 2; Tytler's Hist., 3rd ed. i. 23. 2 Bellesheim's .ffu^. , i. 363. 3 Theiner, p. 297. XXI BATTLE OF LARGS, ANNEXATION OF SODOR 383 spent upon the first course ; and from this circumstance," he adds, " I leave you to form a parallel judgment of the rest." ^ Henry on this occasion asked Alexander to render him fealty for his kingdom, but the youth, with a precocity beyond his years, is said to have answered that he came to England for a pacific and not for a political purpose, and that he left questions of state to his nobles.^ In 1263 Haco, king of Norway, invaded the west of Scotland with a powerful fleet. It anchored in the Firth of Clyde near the Cumbraes, but a series of equinoctial storms drove many of the ships ashore, and a number of Haco's crews, on landing at Largs on the 2nd October, were defeated by the natives who had gathered to repel them. " It was believed by the Scots that on the eve of the dreaded day at Largs the royal tombs at Dunfermline gave up their dead, and there passed forth through its northern porch, to war against the might of Norway, ' a lofty and blooming matron in royal attire, leading in her right hand a noble knight, refulgent in arms, wearing a crown upon his head, and followed by three heroic warriors like armed and like crowned'.; an illustrious array in which it was easy to recognise ' the protectress of Scotland,' her consort, and her three sons." ^ The fight, though of small dimensions, was disastrous to the Norwegians, and Haco withdrew with his shattered ships to the Orkneys, where he died. The result was the annexation of Man and the Western Isles to the Scottish crown. A treaty between Alexander and Magnus, the son and successor of Haco, was signed in the Blackfriars Monastery, Perth, in 1266, annexing these islands to Scotland. The diocese of Sodor and Man was thus added to the Scottish 1 Matthew Paris, A.D. 1251, 1252, pp. 554, 555. 2 Hailes, i. 163. ^ Robertson's Scot. Abbeys, p. 23. 384 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. sees, but the jurisdiction of Drontheim was meanwhile reserved. During the minority of the king the regency was in the hands of successive noblemen, with, for a time, some of the bishops. The Church suffered from their misgovern- ment, and appealed to the Parliament, which met in Edinburgh in 1250, for protection of her rights and liberties. These were professedly guaranteed by the Estates ; but the bishops had soon occasion to renew their complaints, and the result was an appeal to pope Innocent IV., who appointed a commission, comprising the bishops of Lincoln (the famous Robert Grostete), Worcester, and Lichfield, to inquire into the grievances. They seem to have been similar to the complaints of the previous reign, namely, the difficulty of enforcing ecclesi astical censures, and of preserving the Church's property from lay hands. Nothing is known as to the result of the commission ; and it is probable that the Scottish clergy, however much oppressed, were not disposed to seek re dress from their own laity at the hands of English prelates.' The see of St. Andrews, after being for some months in the hands of Abel, was given to William Gameline in 1255. He was postulated by the prior and chapter, not withstanding the opposition of " brother Lawrence, canon of St. Andrews," doubtless a Culdee. Gameline, being illegitimate, had to receive papal dispensation, as was the case with his predecessor Abel.^ The pope, on confirming the election, compliments him on his probity and learn ing. Fordun compares him to Moses in his resistance of the king.' Gameline was chancellor of Scotland when 1 Grub, i. 328; Robertson's king became Pharaoh, and the bishop Statuta, p. 242. Moses. I wish that the impertinence 2 Theiner, pp. 64, 65. of applying scripture characters had 2 Hailes, in reference to Fordun's been confined to such iUiterate times." comparison, says, "Alexander had Annals, i. 167. disputes with Gameline ; hence the XXI GAMELINE, BISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS 385 postulated to St. Andrews, and in the second year after his consecration the king, prompted by a section of the nobles hostile to the bishop, sent procurators to Rome with certain charges against him, — that while holding office as chancellor he had given no account of much of the income received, and the same had happened later with the funds of the church of St. Andrews — that to procure the bishopric he had written letters to the chapter, professedly from the king, asking them to postulate him to the see, and threatening to expel them from the kingdom if they did not, — with more to the same effect. Gameline went to Rome, and with his procurator pleaded his case. The papal decision was that the bishop should be restored to the temporalities of the church, which the king had seized, and put in peaceable possession of the see, upon which the sentences of excommunication and interdict passed against the king would be withdrawn. So strong was the pope in Gameline's favour that he sent a nuncio to Scotland to, see that his decree was executed, and at the same time to give a hearing to the king.-' That the relations between the king and the bishop were never again very cordial is evidenced by another dispute ten years afterwards. Sir John de Dunmore had been guilty of serious offences against the priory of St. Andrews, and Gameline excommunicated the knight. The king ordered the bishop to absolve him without satisfaction made ; and upon his refusal he confiscated the episcopal revenues. The bishop, nothing daunted, retaliated by excommuni cating all the adherents of Dunmore, the royal family only excepted. The dispute finally terminated in the knight's submission, which saved king and bishop from further estrangement.^ 1 Theiner, pp. 77, 78. 2 Fordun, Scotichron., x. 22 ; Hailes, Annals, i. 178. 2 C 386 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The services of the cardinal-legate Ottoboni, after wards pope Adrian V., who was then in England, had been helpful in settling the dispute, and this made him think the moment opportune for offering a visit to Scotland. The king and clergy opposed it as much from jealousy of England as from dislike of the legate, seeing he had not been specially accredited to Scotland. The object of the visit was presently revealed when the legate made a charge of ten marks on each cathedral and four on each parish church, towards the expenses of his legation. The king, with the advice of his clergy, declined to con tribute, and appealed to Rome, the clergy subscribing two thousand marks, ostensibly to pay the costs of the appeal.^ The legate then summoned the Scottish bishops, with certain abbots and priors, to meet him at a synod to be convened in London. The bishops of Dunkeld and Dunblane, the abbot of Dunfermline, and the prior of Lindores were sent to watch the proceedings in the iterests of the northern Church. Fifty -three canons were promulgated by the synod, but the Scottish prelates absolutely refused to accept them.^ By the advice of the legate, pope Clement IV. demanded of the Scottish clergy a tenth of their benefices for the crusade which had been undertaken by prince Edward of England. Again the Scots refused to contribute, while offering to provide and equip crusaders from their own country. In fulfilment of this pledge, the earls of Atholl and Carrick with many followers joined the seventh crusade. Neither of the earls returned. Atholl fell in a battle before Tunis in 1269, fighting under the banner of St. Louis of France, and Carrick died a year later in Palestine.' The latter left a widow, Marjory, countess of Carrick in her own right, who 1 Hailes, Annals, i. 178. 2 Fordun, Scotichron., a. 24, 25. 2 Hailes, Annals, i. 179. XXI COUNCIL AT LYONS — " BAGIMONT'S ROLL" 387 by her romantic marriage with the son of Bruce, the competitor with Baliol for the crown, became the mother of king Robert the Bruce.^ In 1268 a provincial council was held in Perth to consider the enactments of Ottoboni in the synod of London.^ Nothing is known of the proceedings ex cepting the deserved excommunication of the abbot of Melrose and some of his monks for offences committed against the peace of the Church and realm.' At another meeting held in Perth in 1273, which some call a synod and others a council,* the bull of Gregory X. was read summoning the general council at Lyons for the following year. All the Scottish bishops attended this council except Dunkeld and Moray, who were left at home in the interests of the Church. The prime business of the Lyons council was to raise money for a new crusade, and for this end it was enacted that all ecclesias tical benefices should be taxed to the extent of one tenth for six years. It is remarkable that in all these devices for procuring funds for the crusades it was chiefly the stipends of the clergy, prelates and priests, that were assessed. On this occasion pope Gregory addressed a letter to the Scottish bishops and to the provincials of the Dominicans and Franciscans calling upon them to preach the crusade. A commission was given at the same time to Boiamund de Vicci, canon of Asti, in Piedmont, to collect the subsidy in Scotland. He was long known in this country as Bagimont, with a probable allusion, as is supposed, to his bagging pro pensities. The Scottish prelates received Boiamund at 1 Burton, Hist, ii. 37 ; Robert- Robertson's Statuta, Ixiv. son, Early Kings, ii. 109. ¦* Thos. Innes makes it the six- 2 Thos. Innes, Crit. Ess., p. 593. teenth of the Scottish provincial 3 Fordun, Scotichron., x. 25 ; councils. 388 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. a provincial council in Perth, August 1275. The first difficulty raised was as to the precise value of the different benefices. Hitherto taxes had been levied on the Church by a conventional valuation known as the antiqua taxatio. As this was now considerably under the verus valor, or true value, the nuncio insisted that a fresh roll should be adjusted upon oath. The council demurred, and prevailed upon Boiamund by large pay ments and larger promises to return to Rome and advocate the old valuation with the payment spread over seven years. The pope was unyielding, and Boiamund returned to complete the roll which still retains his name and served as the standard of ecclesiastical taxation until the Reformation. In adjusting the new roll nothing more precise was attempted than a roughly- graduated scale in round sums. The value of benefices by the old valuation in the eleven dioceses (omitting Orkney and the Isles, not yet attached to the Scottish Church) was ;^i 8,660. The tenths actually received for the first three years, according to the true value, were ^^7195, or an average for each year of ^^"2398. This represents an annual revenue of ;^2 3,980, a very small increase upon the ;^i 8,660 of the old valuation. In the archdeaconry of Lothian the tenth on the old valuation was £2%6, and on the new ;if420, which shows a con siderable increase. The benefices in the diocese of St. Andrews are given at ^^8000 per annum, equal to nearly half the value of all the parish livings in Scotland. The diocese of Glasgow came second with half this sum • and the benefices in Caithness and Argyll, as tested by this tenth, amounted to no more than ;^2 8o for each diocese. The tax was highly unpopular, and more difficulty was experienced each successive year in its collection. At the end of the third year excommunication was XXI PEACE AND PROGRESS OF THE CHURCLI 389 threatened for non-payment, and after ten years the pope wrote a letter to the king remonstrating against the opposition of his subjects to the tax.^ In the month of August 1280 a provincial council met in the Blackfriars Church, Perth, but nothing more is known of its proceedings than the excommunication by the bishop of Moray of Sir William Fenton, lord of Beaufort in the Aird. The bishop, in accordance with the canon, called upon his brother prelates to denounce the knight in all the churches of their dioceses, as a man to be shunned by the faithful.^ There is no remarkable feature in the lives of the Scottish bishops during the third Alexander's reign. It was a reign of comparative peace and progress within the Church. Parish churches were still being built, cathedrals extended, and some of their chapters, Glasgow and Aberdeen, re-organised. The see of St. Andrews commanded the ablest of the bishops, and, although not yet properly speaking primatial, it was regarded as the chief see of the Scottish Church. Gameline, who had been troubled by the vexatious regents during the minority of Alexander, and had crossed swords with the king him self in later years, died in April 1271. No appointment was made for two years. During episcopal vacancies the crown appropriated the revenues and the patronage of the see. This offered a temptation to prolong the vacancies, and proved to be a fruitful source of wrangling between Church and pope and king. The chapter of St. Andrews elected, in 1273, William Wishart,' their arch deacon, and chancellor of the kingdom, successor to 1 For authorities, see Theiner's 2 f>eg. Moray, p. 140 ; Innes, Monumenta, pp. 104, 109, 126, 133 ; Crit. Ess., p. 593. Robertson's Statuta, pp. Ixv. seq. ; ^ He belonged to an old family, Innes, Sketches, pp. 24, 27, 28 ; the Wisharts of Pitarrow, in the Hailes, Annals, i. 181. Mearns, within his own diocese. 390 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Gameline. He was bishop - elect of Glasgow when postulated to St. Andrews. In the papal brief dated 15th March 1273 appointing a commission of three Scottish bishops to inquire into Wishart's election, he is styled "William our chaplain," but the pope professes ignorance of his personal qualifications. He was con secrated at Scone in October 1273. Fordun mentions that, besides the three offices named, he was rector of no less than _two- and -twenty parishes. His character is variously regarded by Scottish and English chroniclers, but there can be only one opinion of his scandalous pluralism.^ He died in 1279 and was succeeded next year by William Eraser, dean of Glasgow, and also chancellor of Scotland. Two days after his consecration in Rome by the pope, he is commended in a papal letter, dated 2 1st May 1280, to the prior and chapter of St. Andrews, and to the clergy and people of the city and diocese, as their bishop and pastor. Eraser proved a wise and judicious prelate, and both Church and State were indebted to his sagacity during the troubled years that followed the king's death." On the death of bishop Bondington of Glasgow in 1258 the chapter elected Nicholas de Moffat, archdeacon of Teviotdale, but the pope set him aside and appointed and consecrated John of Cheam, an Englishman and papal chaplain. The king resented this action and sent messengers to Rome asking the pope to revoke the appointment as derogatory to the ancient laws and customs of the country. The pope was firm, and requested Alexander to assign the regalities and tempor alities of the see to bishop John. An Englishman in a 1 Theiner's Monumenta, p. 103 ; Lanercost, pp. 84, 92, 103. Fordun's i'(roft'c^TO72., vi. 43 and X. 28; 2 Theixiex, Monumenta, -p, 124. Winton, i. pp. 390-392 ; Chron. de XXI EPISCOPAL NOMINATIONS — SWEETHEART ABBEY 39 I Scottish bishopric was no novelty, as has been seen, in spite of the king's representation to the contrary, and this Englishman in particular proved more Scottish than the Scots in the small favour he is said to have shown to his clerical countrymen. It is proof of the remarkable change of feeling that had come over Scotland since the days when her chief bishoprics and many of the southern benefices were in the possession of Englishmen.^ The papal court did not manifest the same zeal in sending its favourites to poorer dioceses like Caithness. In 1263, when Caithness was vacant, the chapter elected one of their own number, and the pope handed the case to a commission with power to confirm, or to choose any other person who appeared to them more suitable. His holiness on this occasion complained of being harassed beyond his strength by the multiplicity of his duties.^ Glasgow see was worth .^2000 and Caithness ^^386 a year. In 1274 the king purchased the presentation to the priory of May (St. Ethernan's), the patronage of which had been given by king David to the English monastery at Reading, the foundation of his brother-in-law, Henry Beauclerc. Alexander was uneasy at the presence of a foreign prior on an island that commanded the entrance to the Forth, and which was then frequented by a fishing fleet of different nationalities.^^ A more romantic tale attends the founding of the last abbey in Scotland, in 1275, by Devorgoil, daughter of Alan, lord of Galloway, and widow of John Baliol. She caused her husband's heart to be embalmed and placed in a costly shrine, to which she is said to have paid daily reverence, as she had done to her lord while living. By her will it was placed 1 Theiner, Monumenta, p. 86 ; 2 Theinex's Mon., p. 89; Chron. of Melrose, pp. 184, 185; 3 poj-dun's Scotichron., x. 26; Chron. of Lanercost, p. 65; Scoti- Rohextson's Early Kings, ii. -p. iii. chron., x. II and 24. 392 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. on her breast at death, and buried with her body near the high altar of the abbey church, from which it received the name of Sweetheart Abbey. It was a Cistercian house, and was otherwise known as New Abbey, probably because of the older abbey of Holy- wood or Dercongal in the same neighbourhood. The latter was within two miles of Dumfries, and has entirely disappeared ; Sweetheart, distant about seven miles, is still lovely even in its ruins. A monastery for Trinity or Red friars was founded at Fail in Kyle, about the year 1252. The local superiors of this order were known as " ministers," and the minister of Fail was provincial of all the Trinity friars in Scotland, and as such had a seat in Parliament. The first of the Carmelite or White friars came to Scotland in 1260, and Richard, bishop of Dunkeld, founded a monastery for them at Tullilum, near Perth. The diocesan synods of Dunkeld were sometimes held here on account of the chronic turbulence of the Celtic popula tion in the west of the diocese. Carmelite houses were also established during this reign at Linlithgow and Dunbar. The last ten years of Alexander's life were marked by much domestic affiiction. In 1275 his wife, queen Margaret, died ; and her death was followed five years afterwards by that of David, their younger son. In 1 28 1 Margaret, their only daughter, was married to Eric, the young king of Norway, and in the same year Alexander, the prince of Scotland, wedded a daughter of the count of Flanders. Within two years both son and daughter died. Margaret gave birth to a child, named after herself, and known as the Maiden of Norway. The prince left no issue. Alexander thus found himself childless in the middle age of life. In 1284 he married XXI DEATH AND CHARACTER OF ALEXANDER III. 393 at Jedburgh, loleta, daughter of the count of Dreux. There was no issue of the marriage, and his own death by accident next year brought to an end the dynasty of the old Scottish kings, and plunged Scotland for forty years into a sanguinary struggle to preserve its independence. The king had attended in the month of March a meeting of council in the castle of Edinburgh. In spite of tempestuous weather he insisted upon returning the same evening to his young queen at Kinghorn in Fife. He was warned both at Queensferry and at Inverkeithing of the danger to himself and his three squires from riding in the dark so near to the cliffs. Still he pushed on, and had nearly reached Kinghorn when his horse stumbled at some obstacle, and he was thrown over the precipice. His attendants heard the noise, and on hastening to the spot found the lifeless body of their master. It was the evening of the i6th March 1286.' English writers of that age took no favourable view of the king's character : they seldom did in the case of Scottish sovereigns who showed a becoming spirit of national independence. It was otherwise with the native historians, who gave ex pression to the grief of the nation over the untimely death of its wise and good king. " All the days of Alexander," says Fordun, " the Church of Christ flourished, and her priests were honoured with the reverence which was their due. Vice decayed, craft and treachery dis appeared, and wrongdoing ceased throughout the land, while virtue, truth, and justice everywhere prevailed. The king was true of heart, devout in mind, prudent, temperate, and brave ; in his nature affectionate, and in all his dealings just and equitable." ^ Not less favourable is 1 Chron. de Lanercost, 1284-85. recently marked by a monument, The chronicler was contemporai-y, which stands within a few yards of and gives full information. The the railway line. place of the king's death has been 2 Scotichron., x. 41. 394 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the testimony of Winton, who has recorded a little monody, the earliest specimen of Scottish poetry, in which touching expression is given to the national sorrow : — " Quhen Aly sandy r owre king wes dede That Scotland led in in liiive [love] and le [law] Away wes sons [abundance] off ale and brede. Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and gle. Our gold was changyd in-to leyd. — Cryst, borne in-to Vyrgynyte Succour Scotland and remede That stad [placed] is in perplexyte " i The eulogies may be overstrained, but there is good evidence for believing that the civilisation of Scotland stood higher at the end of Alexander's reign than in any subsequent period down to the union of the crowns. The prolonged war which followed the king's death, though as justifiable in its origin as it was successful in its object, was none the less disastrous to the best interests, civil and religious, of the Scottish people. Church and State alike suffered; the progress of the country was not only arrested, but its civilisation thrown back for generations. Lawlessness and disorder increased among the nobles, and the condition of the peasantry was truly miserable. The Church received a blow through the perjury of its leading ecclesiastics and the deterioration of clerical morals and ecclesiastical discipline from which it is doubtful if it ever recovered.^ In Theiner's Monumenta during this reign there is further evidence of Italian priests holding benefices in Scotland. The pope recommends two of them in 1254 for benefices, and is precise as to their value. The t Early Scot. Poetry, p; 162, ed. Early Kings, ii. 120-126; Burton, by Eyre-Todd. Hist. Scot, ii. 105 -iii; Innes, 2 See in confirmation of this Grub, Sketches, 157-158; Tytler, i. 66- Eccles. Hist, i. 342 ; Robertson's 69. XXI ITALIAN CLERICS WITH SCOTTISH BENEFICES 395 one favourite, who was the son of a nobleman, is to have a benefice worth forty marks, and the other, John de Civitella, sub -deacon and pontifical chaplain, is to be provided with a living of fifty marks. There is a dean of Glasgow with the apparently Italian name of Moromari ; and in 1264, Peter, a canon of St. Peter's, Rome, is intruded by the pope among the prebendaries of Glasgow. The bishop gave him a parish in place of a prebend, and on Peter's appeal to Rome, the bishop is ordered to provide him with a prebendal stall on condition of his resigning the living.^ There is evidence also of the bankruptcy of Dryburgh Abbey (which is erroneously said to be in the diocese of St. Andrews) from the commission of inquiry appointed in 1255 by the papal court. The creditors were in London, Glasgow, and St. Andrews, and the divers compositions paid to them are blamed for ruin ing the monastery. The commission is authorised to take full charge of all rentals, to allow the monks a sufficient maintenance, to pay the creditors with the residue, and to impose a salutary penance upon the debtors.^ In the same year the bishop of Moray is confirmed in the possession of two churches in his diocese for his official expenses. Churches bestowed for this purpose were known as " mensal," literally for the maintenance of the bishop's table, assuming that he was given to hospi tality. The duties of the parish were in all such cases assigned to a vicar with a small fraction of the stipend, usually ten marks per annum, and sometimes as low as six. Another and more obvious method, which would not have impoverished the parish churches, would have been the better endowment of the bishoprics. But it cost less to rob the parish priests in order to supplement the bishops. They did the same thing to make cathedrals 1 Theiner, Mon., pp. 64, 72, 80, 94. 2 7^/^,^ p, gj. 396 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and monasteries opulent.^ As an instance of this we find next year the bishop of Ross acquiring the tithes of twenty churches in his diocese for the better support of prebendal stalls in his cathedral.^ In the same year, 1256, the pope confirms the donation which Walter, bishop of Glasgow, had made by charter in 1223 of the tithes of six churches in his diocese to the priory of St. Mary, Giseburn, in the diocese of York.' In 1257 the abbey of Arbroath received a church, stipend thirty marks, from a soldier, the patron of the living, in the diocese of Aberdeen. The bishop of that see had not consented to the transference, but the pope, " of his plenitude," makes good the deficiency, and adds in a second letter that neither the bishop's consent nor any others' is at all requisite {minime requisite) when Rome had spoken.* Two years after this gift, Arbroath Abbey was gifted with the church of Haltwhisel, a Durham parish situated in Tyndale, which is described in the papal brief as being in the land of the king of Scotland. The church is said to be given on account of the multitude of guests and of poor that flocked to Arbroath for the solaces of humanity which its monastery afforded. And so the impoverishing of the parish churches of the country went on, from year to year, under the Roman obedience, the mischievous system being officially sanctioned and confirmed by successive popes down to the Reformation, when the day of reckoning came. The abbey of Lindores had certain churches in the 1 Theiner, p. 69. stalls, and are not to be absent beyond 2 Ibid. The "major dean" is to a day without the permission of the be elected according to the constitu- dean or sub-dean. tion of the chapter of Salisbury. All ^ Ibid., p. 72 ; Annan and Kirk- the prebendaries are to be priests, patrick were two of the churches excepting the archdeacon, who may included. The others are not recog- be in deacon's orders. The prebend- jiisable in the Roman spelling. aries are all to wear a black tippet * Ibid., p. 73. {capa 7iigrd) and a surplice in their XXI PROCURATIONS SIX VACANT SEES 397 diocese of Aberdeen which were liable for procurations — that is, charges for episcopal and archidiaconal visitations. The abbey is relieved of these charges by papal rescript of 1256, and the burden, by a not very equitable arrange ment, is thrown upon the vicars. Next year a similar exemption is made of the church of Dundee, which always belonged to Lindores ; and the pope dares the bishop of Brechin to exact his procurations from the abbey. The Cluniac priory on the isle of May was at the same time protected from the bishop of St. Andrews' procurations. Evidence from time to time shows that procurations were the frequent occasion of extortion in the hands of unscrupulous prelates. The pope, following his predecessor's example, judiciously limited procurations in all cases to four marks for each visitation.^ The mortality in this reign among the Scottish bishops was exceptionally large. Within two years, 1272- 1274, half of the dioceses were vacant, and papal com missions were issued to examine into the elections for the sees of Aberdeen, Ross, Dunkeld, St. Andrews, Caithness, and Brechin.^ For the last see, William, dean of Brechin, was elected, and on a visit to Rome for con firmation, in 1274, he died there. William Cumyn, a Dominican friar in Perth, described as a man of rare gifts, was then unanimously elected by the chapter. For the see of Caithness, Nicolas, abbot of Scone, who was ex officio a prebendary of Caithness, was elected, but the pope quashed the election, apparently on the ground of undue influence. At a second election, Archibald, archdeacon of Moray, was chosen. He was in deacon's orders, and had to be ordained to the priesthood at the ember season before consecration. Archibald only held the see four years. In 1279 the election of the dean 1 Theiner, pp. 71, 74. ^ Lbid., pp. 101-106. 398 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. of Caithness as his successor was opposed at Rome on the grounds that he had an illegitimate son over thirty years of age, and was accused of being the father of another ; that he had been too active for his own interests in the election ; that after the election he had caused himself to be carried to the altar, while the canons sang a Te Deum. The dean's attitude in the procession is ex plained by the fact that he was paralysed, and the papal letter cruelly adds that he was also affected with senility and debility. The dean did not become bishop of Caithness.^ Several Scotsmen, eminent in literature, appeared in the thirteenth century. THOMAS Learmont, better known as Thomas the Rhymer, was a native of Ercil- doune, now Earlston, near the Tweed. His life covered the period from 1220 to 1298. He is the first of our Scottish poets, and acquired the popular reputation of being also a prophet. Fordun and Boece credit him with prophesying the accidental death of Alexander III., and the subsequent disastrous wars of succession ending in the triumph of Bruce and the accession of the Stuarts. His chief ballad, " Sir Tristrem," is an Arthurian romance supposed to be based on the actual exploits of a Cymric knight. The poetry is more interesting from its antiquity than from any literary grace or merit. Another and more eminent man, a scholar with a weird reputation, was MICHAEL ScOTT, the wizard, baron of Balwirie, Fife. After the manner of his age, he 1 Theiner, p. 120. As proofs festivals and processions. Ibid., of the maternal care of the papacy, pp. 76 and 141. These trivialities the pope, by letters, gave permis- are cited as evidence of the helpless sion to the monks of Kelso to wear condition of the monasteries that woollen caps on account of the put themselves under the special pro- rigour of the Scottish climate, which tection of the holy see. The diocesan is described as being in the frigid bishop had no authority over them zone ; and a similar permission for and their abbots were powerless to the same reason is given to the order even skull caps for the monks monks of Lindores, to wear caps on in cold weather. XXI LITERARY SCOTSMEN OF THIRTEENTH CENTURY 399 visited the universities of Oxford and the Continent, was the friend of the emperor Frederick 1 1., and of Edward I. of England. He was the author of many philosophic works which popular tradition said were buried with him. The first of our scientific scholars, with a knowledge of natural phenomena, uncommon in that age, Scott had the misfortune to be regarded by the Church . as a heretic, and dreaded by the people as a sorcerer. His old age was spent at home, and he is supposed to have been one of the commissioners that were sent to bring the Maiden of Norway to Scotland. John of Holywood, a canon -regular ¦ of that abbey, whence his Latin name Joannes de Sacrobosco, was a native of Nithsdale. He was said to have been the best mathematician of his day, and became professor of mathematics in the university of Paris. His famous treatise on the sphere was a text-book in the medieval schools down to the Reformation. He died in Paris, and his epitaph was written around a sphere, as a memorial of his greatest work. Another monk, Adam THE Scot, of the same order of Premontr^, also found a home in France, where he devoted himself to the mystic interpretation of Holy Scripture. He wrote a treatise on the Rule of St. Augustine, another on the triple tabernacle of Moses, besides other works in the allegorical style which was popular in that age. A still greater name is that of JOHN DuNS ScOTUS, born at Duns in the Merse. His life is said to date from 1274 to 1308, and in the short space of thirty- four years he filled Europe with his fame as a scholar. He was a friar of the Franciscan order, and in the religious world the leader of the Franciscans, as St. Thomas Aquinas was of the Dominicans. There being still no university in Scotland, he went to Oxford, where 400 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. as many as thirty thousand students are said to have attended his lectures. He afterwards went to Paris and Cologne, teaching divinity and metaphysics, and earning for himself the reputation of being the most accomplished scholar of his day. His name was pre served in the mediaeval school of Scotists, as was that of Thomas Aquinas in the rival school of Thomists. It was the fashion of that age to give scholastic epithets to great men. Aquinas was named the Angelic Doctor, and Scotus the Subtle Doctor, The body of the learned Scot was buried in the Franciscan church at Cologne, and over his tomb the epitaph was written, which told that Scotland gave him birth, England nurture, France education, and Germany a grave. " Scotia me genuit, Anglia suscepit ; Gallia edocuit, Germania tenet." ^ John Bassoll, another Franciscan, was the favourite pupil of Duns Scotus, and followed his master to Paris, where he became professor of philosophy. He studied theology and medicine at Rheims, wrote a commentary on the sentences and treatises on philosophical and medical subjects. He died at Mechlin in 1347. The name of JOHN SuiSSET is honourably coupled with that of Scotus by the Italian scholars Scaliger and Cardan. Cardan, commenting on their attainments, says that " the barbarians were considered not inferior in genius to themselves." ^ Contemporary with Duns Scotus was William Dempster, who, like other Scotsmen of the age, both studied and taught philosophy in Paris. He was a recognised authority in science, and wrote a critical " Examen " on the works of Raymond Lullius. JOHN Blair, a native of Fife, is said to have been educated 1 Burton, Hist., iii. 408; Cunningham, Ch. Hist. Scot., i. 169. 2 Irving's Lives of the Poets, i. 31. XXI LITERARY SCOTSMEN 4OI in Dundee, and to have had for his class-fellow Sir William Wallace. After studying in Paris and joining the Benedictine order, he became, on his return to Scot land in 1297, chaplain to Wallace, and wrote his life about the year 1327, while living as a monk in Dun fermline Abbey .^ The names of these Scots are sufficient to show that Scotland, even when without universities, was not without sons of competent learning, who held an honourable place among the European scholars of the age.^ 1 Bellesheim, Hist, ii. 337. period, see Tytler, ZTw^. Scot, ii. 234- 2 For the learned Scbts of this 246. 2 D CHAPTER XXII PERIOD I286-I329 INFANT QUEEN MARGARET OF NORWAY AND REGENCY, I286-I292; JOHN BALIOL, 1292-I296; REGENCY, I296-I306; ROBERT BRUCE, I306-I329. War of Independence — Treaty of Brigham — Invasions of Edward I. — Edward's claims — The pope's interposition — Vacillation of the pope — Patriotism of Scottish clergy and militant energy of the bishops — Expulsion of Anglican barons and clergy — Papal excommunications of Bruce and interdicts on Scotland — Deterioration of Church discipline — Provincial councils — Succes sions to see of Glasgow — Papal policy and assessments — Con clusion of the war and death of king Robert. Margaret the Maiden of Norway succeeded to a throne which she was not fated to occupy. Parliament confirmed her right of succession and appointed a regency, composed of Eraser, bishop of St. Andrews, and the earls of Fife and Buchan for the northern district ; Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, the Lord Comyn of Badenoch, and James, high steward of Scotland, for the southern half of the kingdom. The regents had to reckon with the military genius and political capacity of Edward I., who was bent upon the union of the crowns by love or war. He proposed the marriage of his son Edward of Carnarvon, the first prince of Wales, with the princess Margaret. As they were by relationship within the forbidden degrees a papal dispensa tion was procured. But the hope that was built upon the CHAP. XXII EFFECTS OF THE WAR OF SUCCESSION 403 life of the fragile maiden was suddenly blighted by her death in the Orkneys on her voyage to Scotland, in September 1290. Her body was buried in Christ Church, Bergen.^ The war of succession which followed the death of the princess belongs to the civil more than to the ecclesiastical side of history. But it left its mark deeply on both. While it established finally and completely the independence of the Scottish kingdom, it damaged, and some think irretrievably, the life of the Scottish Church. The moral declension for which the first James justly rebuked the prelates of his time was largely due to the disorders of the war of independence.^ The leading events of the war will be related so far as they touch the interests of religion and help to make clear the ecclesiastical policy of the time. King Edward sent Beck, the bishop of Durham, with other five English commissioners to a meeting of the Scottish Estates held at Brigham, near Roxburgh, in July 1 2 go. By the treaty of Brigham the complete independ ence of both the Scottish kingdom and the Scottish Church was guaranteed ; so that on Edward I. falls the responsi bility for the long war which outlasted Edward's own life and inflicted the deepest injury upon both kingdoms, sow ing the seeds of international hatred that lasted for genera tions. English historians generally support Edward's claim to be lord paramount of Scotland, but the claim is substantiated by no historical documents, and is con tradicted by the main stream of facts through previous 1 The Kirkwall people believe agree in this opinion. See Dean that her body was buried in St. Stanley and Dean Luckock in their Magnus's Cathedral, and they identi- histories of the Scottish Church, and fied it with the remains of a young for Scotsmen — Hill Burton and female found in 1840 beneath a gray Joseph Robertson, who take the same marble slab. view. 2 English and Scottish historians 404 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. centuries. The one exception is the treaty of Falaise, which was cancelled, and that exception proves the rule of independence. If the Scottish kings had not held estates in England, for which they rendered the customary feudal homage, it is doubtful whether the claim would ever have been seriously raised.-' It may at the same time be frankly admitted that Edward's ideal of union was highly politic, and that it would have been well for both countries had they been united into one kingdom, not only in Edward's day, but from the earliest dawn of history. But it would not have been to the advantage of either country had England now succeeded in conquering and overriding a hostile Scotland — making it a second Ireland much nearer home. Edward had some pretext for interposing in the affairs of Scotland from the appeal that was made to him by the bishop of St. Andrews and a section of the nobility. No fewer than twelve competitors were in the field for the Scottish crown. Of these John Baliol, son of Devorgoil, the foundress of Sweetheart Abbey, and Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, were supposed to have the best claims. Both claimants were descended from David, earl of Huntingdon, brother of king William the Lion. Baliol was the grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of David, and Bruce was the son of Isabel the second daughter. Edward decided in favour of Baliol, who there upon paid him homage in Norham Castle, November 1292. On St. Andrew's Day of the same year Baliol was crowned at Scone. His reign was of short duration — from 1292 to 1296, though usually credited with the years from 1292 to 1305. The deputy king not proving sufficiently compliant, Edward twice invaded Scotland with 1 For later documents forged in England to support this claim, see Burton, Hist, iii. pp. 4-6. XXII INVASIONS OF SCOTLAND BY EDWARD I. 405 large armies and overran the country from Berwick to the Moray Firth. On Good Friday 1296 he sacked Berwick, and it is told how many of its inhabitants — some historians say eight thousand and others seventeen thousand — perished at the hands of his soldiers. Berwick was then the richest merchant city of Scotland, the commercial rival of London. From this disaster it never recovered.'- Edward, Christian prince as he was, thought nothing of stabling his cavalry in the churches of Berwick,^ an outrage upon ecclesiastical decency which, when committed by Oliver Cromwell and the duke of Cumberland, has been justly censured. A few days afterwards, on the 27th April, the Scottish army was defeated by Edward at Dunbar.' In the summer of that year, Baliol, who had alter nate fits of defiance and compliance, was stripped by Edward of his kingly insignia at Brechin and com pelled to abdicate. He was confined with his eldest son Edward for three years in the Tower of London, and upon his liberation he retired to France, where he died in obscurity in 1305. His son lived to be king of Scotland. Edward, on his return from the north of Scotland, passed by Scone and carried off the fated stone, and placed it, with the Scottish sceptre and crown, in Westminster. On the same occasion he is said to have mutilated the charter of Scone Abbey and ransacked the libraries of the cathedrals and monasteries in search of documents to prove his claim to the overlordship of Scotland. Burton throws doubt upon the value of the records abstracted, and adds : — " Of one thing we may feel assured, that 1 Burton, Hist, ii. 94. Cromwell on the very same ground, 2 Fordun, Scotichron., xi. 54, 55. and largely through the same tactical 2 Three hundred and fifty years mistake — precipitately abandoning later, as Tytler, Hist ,i. ii 6, points their coign of vantage on the hill to out, the Scots were defeated by attack the English on the plain. 406 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. nowhere did king Edward find any writings to help him in his claim of feudal superiority ; if he had found any, they would doubtless have been heard of." ^ In the year 1 300 Edward I. agreed to a truce with the Scots at the instance of pope Boniface VIII., who claimed Scotland as a fief of the holy see, reminded Edward of the treaty of Brigham, and exhorted him to liberate the Scots prisoners and to leave Scotland alone. Edward plied the pope with fresh arguments, and it was believed with more substantial considerations, the effect of which was a sudden reversal of the papal policy. The pope now wrote an angry letter to the Scottish bishops, August 1302, throwing upon them the blame of the war, and commanding them to labour for peace. This was accompanied by a special letter to Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, in which he is denounced as the chief abettor of the strife, " a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, obnoxious to God and man." ^ Wishart and the other bishops pursued the even tenor of their way, undismayed by papal invective. The success gained in the battle of Stirling by Sir William Wallace, whose disinterested patriotism and feats of valour have made him the national hero, imposed upon Edward the necessity of a second conquest of Scotland. The victory of Falkirk, gained by the English, wiped out their defeat at Stirling, but the country was not yet conquered. In 1306, the year after Wallace's execu tion, which is the darkest blot upon Edward's clemency, Scotland was again in arms under Robert Bruce, the grandson of Baliol's rival. Lamberton, the bishop of St. Andrews, was Bruce's staunches! supporter, and the two entered into a written bond at Cambuskenneth, each 1 Hist, ii. 139. See also Innes, Crit. Ess., pp. 553-555 ; Tytler, i. 120. 2 Theiner, pp. 170, 171. XXII WARRIOR BISHOPS — LAMBERTON AND WISHART 407 plighting his troth to the other.^ Edward was apprised of it, and Bruce received warning from a friend to quit the English court, where he was then residing. He had a formidable competitor in the Red Comyn, whose family claimed from the same ancestor as Bruce ; and the marriage of Comyn's father with the daughter of Baliol strengthened the son's claim. Bruce met Comyn in the Minorite Church, Dumfries, and charged him with betraying his secrets, probably the bond with the bishop. Hot words led to angry blows, and, in a moment of passion, Bruce stabbed his rival to the heart. The deed of blood involved Bruce in the double crime of murder and sacrilege, for which he was outlawed by Edward and excommunicated by the pope. Irfibrued as his hands were with his rival's blood, still the nation welcomed him in the hope of deliverance from the English yoke. Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, absolved him, provided coronation robes from his own wardrobe, and within six weeks crowned him at Scone, on the 27th March 1306. Both Lamberton and Wishart afterwards fell as prisoners into Edward's hands, and their surplice probably saved them from the halter, a fate which befell at this time several of the Scottish patriots.^ None of them had violated so many solemn oaths to Edward as the two prelates, and their repeated perjury was an ominous sign of the relaxed morals of the age. A third invasion was planned by Edward, but the aged king, broken in health, and borne on a litter at the head of his army, died at Burgh on the Sands, within sight of Scotland, on the 7th July 1307. His son Edward IL, though animated with 1 The original of the bond in allowance for himself of sixpence, of Latin is given by Hailes, Annals, threepence for his serving man, of i. 280, 281. three halfpence for his foot-boy, and 2 "Bishop Lamberton, while a of three halfpence for his chaplain." prisoner in England, had a daily Hailes, Annals, ii. 267. 408 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the same ambition, was, fortunately for Scotland, not endowed with the same capacity, and the victory of Bannockburn, in 1314, secured the final independence of the northern kingdom, and turned the tide of invasion the other way. During the war the bitter hostility evoked against the English nobles and clergy who had settled in Scotland led to their gradual expulsion. In 1296 bishop Eraser pronounced sentence of deprivation against twenty -six English clergy beneficed in his diocese of St. Andrews. An act was passed some years later in the reign of Bruce, expelling them all from Scotland. The act has not been preserved, but it is quoted by the Scots Parliament in 1466, when a similar statute was passed, ordaining "that na Inglis man have na benefice, secular nor religious, within the realm of Scotland after the forme of the Act made thereupon be king Robert de Brois." ¦' Anglican priests, monks, and friars were followed across the Borders by the Anglo-Norman barons who held possessions in both countries, and were compelled, by the vicissitudes of war, to make their choice between two masters. They were the flower of the Scottish baronage, and the country was all the poorer from the loss of their wealth and influence. England had now become the avowed enemy, in later ages " the auld enemy," and Scotland was made to lean for the time to come on an alliance with France. This had its effect upon Scottish architecture, which had hitherto received its stimulus and models from England. While the reigns of the flrst three Edwards were marked by the growth of the middle pointed or decorated Gothic, in which style many of the finest English churches were built, Scotland in the same period added little to its ecclesiastical 1 Acts of Pari. Scot, ii. 86. XXII POPE'S INTERVENTION IN THE WAR 4O9 architecture, and that little, with few exceptions, was comparatively mean in scale. In 1289 Henry le Cheyne, bishop of Aberdeen, was enlarging his cathedral, and received for this purpose papal sanction to claim the first year's rentals of all benefices falling vacant in the diocese during the next three years.-' St. Andrews Cathedral was completed and consecrated in 1 3 1 8 by bishop Lamberton, in the presence of king Robert and his nobles, but the building was mainly the work of previous generations. The size and magnificence of some of the Scottish cathedrals and abbey churches has often raised the question how a country so sparse in population and comparatively poor could have built them. History shows that down to the wars of succession, that is to the end of the thirteenth century, Scotland was not so poor a country as it afterwards became.^ In 1 3 17 pope John XXII. sent from Avignon, where the papal court resided during what has been called " the seventy years' captivity," two cardinal- legates with plenipotentiary powers to make peace between the countries ; which failing, to visit them both with excommunication and interdict. The English bishops were at the same time ordered by the pope to warn their people against " that nefarious persecutor of their king who calls himself the king of Scotland." This was followed in a few days by a papal brief appoint ing the bishops of Norwich and Ely to call Bruce to account for the crimes and miseries, stated at great length, of his invasion of England.' On the other hand, Bruce was actively aided by the Scottish bishops, headed by Lamberton. He and Wishart had been liberated from their English prisons, but Wishart, who became blind in 1 Theiner, p. 146. Cathedrals, pp. 67, 68. 2 Robertson, Scottish Abbeys and 3 Theiner, pp. 188, 191, 194. 4IO HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. his captivity, outlived his release only two years, and died in 1316. Lamberton was again on the war-path, and Edward besought the pope to deprive him of his bishopric and give it to Thomas de Rivers, an English Franciscan, to whom, as Edward alleged, pope Clement V. had promised it. It is creditable to the pope that, little as he may have liked Lamberton's ways, he withstood the solicitations of Edward, and did so upon constitu tional grounds which are fully given.-' The bishops of the Church were not the puppets of kings to be made and unmade at their pleasure, and the pope informs Edward that to comply with his request without due and sufficient cause would be an offence against justice. The two legates sent in March 1 3 1 7 had not ventured to approach Bruce at the end of the year, when another letter from Avignon urged them to proceed against " the Scots rebels, sons of Belial who had cast off both the fear of God and reverence for mother Church." Details of the Scottish barbarities and sacrilege are copiously quoted in these letters, evidently through reports transmitted from England to the papal court. The legates came no farther north than Durham, from which they sent their sealed letters to " the magnificent man, Robert de Brus, governing, it is said, the kingdom of Scotland," by the hands of the bishop of Carlisle and Aymer, arch deacon of Ely.^ With difficulty the nuncios got access to Bruce in the camp at Roxburgh, Sir James Douglas, among others, ushering them into the king's presence. He refused to receive the papal bulls because they were not addressed to him as king of Scotland, and declined 1 Theiner, p. 197. as he often does, verbatim. 2 Grub, i. 140, says "the bishop Corbeil is an obvious mistake for of Corbeil and an ecclesiastic named CarHsle, though it occurs in Theiner Aymer repaired to the king of Scots " ; also, pp. 1 98, 1 99, 203 — Corbaniensis and Bellesheim, ii. 13, repeats Grub, for Carlionensis. XXII PAPAL EXCOMMUNICATION AND INTERDICT 4I I with some temper to discuss the question of a truce with either cardinals or nuncios so long as his regal title was withheld. On Bruce's approaching Berwick to lay siege to the town, Adam of Newton, g^iardian of the Franciscan convent there, along with another friar, was employed to pubHsh the papal truce in the Scots camp. The king would not see him, and the letters were again returned ; but friar Adam was bold enough to proclaim the truce " in the vulgar tongue of the Scots and in the presence of many Scots standing by." He paid for his temerity, if his own report may be trusted. On their return the friars were waylaid and attacked by the Scots, with the connivance of their king, as Adam believed, robbed of the letters, stripped even of their habits, and " savagely despoiled." ^ Bruce and his supporters were then excom municated, and an interdict laid upon all the churches and monasteries of the kingdom. But the Scottish bishops were patriotic, and forbade the publication of the interdict, " turning their backs upon us and the holy Church," as the pope complained. It were wearisome to relate further the tale of Scottish defiance, by king, prelates, and people, of papal censures, as they are given in the correspondence edited by Theiner. Scotland must have been the most interdicted country, and Bruce the most excommunicated man, in Christendom. It all reads like a satire upon the title of " the Scottish Church by special grace the favoured daughter of the Roman see." The meeting of the Scots barons at Arbroath on 6th April 1320, and the remarkable letter they addressed to the pope, had its effect on the curia. The pope then apologetically states why he cannot ascribe the title of king to Bruce ; — " Our affirmation," he says, " would not make you king, if you were not so, nor would the 1 Theiner, p. 199. 412 HISTORY OF TLIE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. omission of it create any prejudice in law, if there were anything of competency in the claim." ^ Within a month, August 1320, the sentence of excommunication against Bruce was suspended, and, with some reluctance, the title of king was accorded.^ Four of the Scottish bishops, " whom we," says the pope, " cannot call our venerable brothers," Lamberton of St. Andrews, St. Clair of Dunkeld, David of Moray, and Henry of Aberdeen, were summoned to appear at Avignon between May and December 1320. Upon their refusal to obey the citation they were excommuni cated for contumacy.' The pope wished to consult with them upon the reformation of the Scottish Church, which, he said, was " much deformed and needed to be reformed." That was no doubt true ; and the pope again reverts, in a letter to Lamberton, to its disorganised condition. What ever may be thought of the patriotic stand of the Scottish bishops, the morals and discipline of the Church were being grievously sacrificed while her rulers were devoting their best energies to purely political ends. Of the four bishops excommunicated, the action of Lamberton had been open and undisguised. Hardly less militant was the attitude of the others. St. Clair, bishop of Dunkeld, had routed a body of English soldiers at Inverkeithing. The earl and the sheriff of Fife had been driven back by the English when the bishop appeared on horseback with his vassals and upbraided his fugitive countrymen for their cowardice. " Our lord the king," said the bishop, " would do well to hack your gilt spurs from your heels. All who love their king and country follow me." Whereupon he advanced at the head of his men, and drove the English back to their ships. This action gave 1 Theiner, p. 207. 2 niii_^ pp_ 209, 3 Ibid., pp. 203, 211. 212. XXII FIVE BISHOPS PATRIOTIC AND MILITANT 413 much satisfaction to king Robert, who ever afterwards called the bishop of Dunkeld his own bishop.^ The bishop of Moray was also active as an adherent of Bruce, and preached through his diocese that to fight for the freedom of their country was as meritorious a service as to fight for the freedom of the Holy Land. Near the close of his episcopate the bishop founded bursaries in the university of Paris for Scottish students, and may thus be regarded as the founder of the Scots college in that city. Maurice, abbot of Inchaffray, who became bishop of Dunblane, is remembered for his services at Bannockburn, where he bore a cross and the relics of St. Fillan, and celebrated mass for the Scots on the morning of the battle. But none of them all exceeded Robert Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, in martial ardour. He supported both Wallace and Bruce, and himself took arms to fight the enemy, converting the timber which Edward I. had given him for the spire of his cathe dral into catapults against the walls of Kirkintilloch Castle, which was then held by the English. Bruce reciprocated warmly Wishart's attachment to him, and wrote feelingly of the imprisonment and chains " of the venerable father, the bishop of Glasgow " ; and yet, as has been observed, while " Bruce was the mirror of chivalry, he felt no horror of the churchman's breaches of promise." ^ During the forty years of anarchy or war that followed the death of Alexander III. the records of the provincial councils are few. There was a meeting of the general council of Scotland, held in July 13 10 at Dundee, where the prelates swore fealty to Robert the Bruce as king. The first provincial council in this reign was in July 1321, at Perth, where the Parliament was also sitting. Nothing of importance is recorded of the council. Another •¦ Grub, i. 346. 2 c. Innes, Sketches, p. 49. 414 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. was held at Scone in March 1325, where the bishop of Glasgow entered a protest, fortified by the seal of the conservator, touching the patronage of a prebend in Glasgow. The Scottish kings, on the collation of bishops, claimed the presentation to all benefices falling vacant between the death of one bishop and the actual entrance of his successor on the see. In 1322 John of Lindsay, prebendary of Glasgow, was elected to the see, and the pope claimed the vacant stall and bestowed it upon Nicolas de Guercino, nephew of the Italian prelate who consecrated Lindsay. King Robert insisted upon his right of presentation, and ordered the bishop to institute Walter of Twynam, his own chaplain. The bishop in the dilemma took a middle course, admitting the king's pre sentee while protesting that the admission should not in any way prejudice the pope. To safeguard his own position the subject was brought before the provincial council.-' The obscurity which has hitherto puzzled historians about the successors of Wishart in the see of Glasgow ^ has been cleared up by Theiner and Robertson. Stephen de Donydouer, canon of Glasgow, elected by the chapter to the see, died in Paris and was not consecrated. On his death the chapter elected another of their canons, John of Lindsay, but the pope set him aside, and appointed in I 3 1 8 John of Eglesclif, a Dominican friar, and papal peni tentiary. As he was commended by the pope to Edward IL, it may be assumed that Bruce had good reasons for the objections he made against the appointment. The bishop was evidently unpopular in Glasgow, from his Anglican sympathies. The pope admits that he had made no progress in the diocese, and it is even doubted whether 1 Robertson, Statuta, Ixxiii.; p. 244; Grub, i. 345 ; Innes, 5.4^fc^«j-, Theiner, p. 226. P- 51- 2 For which see Keith, Catalogue, XXII GLASGOW BISHOPS — PAPAL LETTERS 415 he entered upon his duties. He was soon after translated to Connor, and from Connor to Llandaff. John Lindsay was then appointed in 1322, and was succeeded in 1337 by John Wishart, archdeacon of Glasgow, who held the see only two years and was followed in I 339 by William Rea, precentor of Glasgow. One marked feature about these appointments is that the chapter seldom went outside of itself for a bishop.^ Bishop Lindsay had a somewhat tragical end. He had taken refuge in France for five years after the battle of Dupplin, and was returning to his diocese, " with many noble ladies of Scotland and men-at-arms and much armour and .^30,000 of money, and the instruments of agreement and treaty between France and Scotland." The two ships in which they sailed were captured by the English, and the men-at-arms were all slain or drowned. The bishop is said to have died of grief, but the Chronicle of Lanercost records that he was knocked on the head like the rest, with a lethal weapon.^ There is not much to record in the general survey of ecclesiastical affairs at this time. We read in Theiner of the usual dispensations for marriages within the forbidden degrees, which the papal court for financial reasons kept in its own hands ; the Dominicans in Berwick acquire a house, and the bishops of Brechin and Dunblane receive from the pope the power to dispose of their property by will {licentia testandt) ; the abbey of Lindores has its privileges and its properties, which are many, confirmed by papal bull ; one abbot of Arbroath, Henry by name, is reproved for tyrannising over his monks and perverting the property of the monastery for family purposes, and another abbot, Nicolas, his successor, is thought worthy to be pre- 1 Theiner, pp. 202, 226, 227 ; Robertson's Statuta, Ixxv. 2 Innes, Sketclies, p. 52. 41 6 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. ferred to the see of Dunblane. The rector of Renfrew has a quarrel with the bishop of Glasgow about tithing the fish and goods taken to the Glasgow market. The bishop (Wishart) was said to be unfair in adjusting the tithes, and was threatened with a citation to the apostolic see. The election of David to the see of Moray in 1299 affords a glimpse into the capitular procedure on these occasions. Each member voted, the votes were scrutinised, committed to writing, and published. In this case thirteen voted for David, canon of Moray, four for the dean, three for the chancellor, and one for the archdeacon — in all twenty- one voters. As already remarked in the case of the Glasgow chapter, the electors of Moray looked at home for a bishop. The papal see, while confirming the election, professed there was an irregularity in the procedure ; it frequently did so, but seldom condescended to explain. Sometimes it confirmed, and at other times it nullified, the chapter's election, and appointed its own nominee. The same thing happened in the election this year, 1299, of friar Andrew to Argyll in succession to friar Lawrence. Friars were frequently appointed to Argyll, and the poverty of the see is suggested as the reason of the choice. What might be suitable fare for a mendicant friar in the wilds of Argyll would not suffice for a priest who was perhaps secretary or chancellor of the realm, and looking for his earthly reward to the mitres of Glasgow or St. Andrews. So it was with an Italian priest of this period, " Thomas, cardinal presbyter of Sabina," who was in search of a rich living, and was not particular whether it was in England, Scotland, or Ireland. As he was certain to be non-resi dent, he had no reason to be particular. " He wanted a benefice or benefices," the quotation is from Theiner,^ "with or without cure, regular or secular, by collation, 1 Page 177. XXII DEATH OF ROBERT THE BRUCE 4 1 7 presentation, or by any other disposition, whose rents will equal a thousand marks sterling." Forty or fifty marks were probably about the average stipend of a Scottish rector. In 1 3 1 7 the pope was begging through Christen dom for another crusade. He issued a mandate for one year's value of all livings falling vacant within the next three years in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and he promised king Edward half of the sum collected to lighten his burdens in prosecuting the cause. In the then impoverished condition of Scotland, and from the attitude of its prelates to the papal see, it may be sur mised that half of the Scottish contributions would not have enriched either pope or king. A demand was also made for a tenth of all church livings in both Britain and Ireland, regular and secular, exempt and non-exempt.^ In 1328 peace was concluded between the two kingdoms, and a treaty signed at Northampton in which Edward HI., who was now on the EngHsh throne, acknowledged the independence of Scotland and Bruce's claim to be king. This was followed by a papal brief finally relieving king Robert from all ecclesiastical cen sures.^ The desired consummation had come for which he had fought so long, but it was purchased at the expense of his health. His only son David, though little more than a child, was married at Berwick to the princess Joan, sister of Edward III., but king Robert was too infirm to be present. He is said to have suffered from leprosy, a not uncommon disease in mediaeval Scotland, as our leper hospitals testify. He had tried the waters of Scotland Well in Kinross, but they proved no remedy for the loath some disease. The king died at his castle of Cardross on 1 The authority for the statements menta from the years 1289 to 1317. in this paragraph is Theiner's Monu- 2 Theiner, p. 240. 2 E 41 8 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xxii 7th June 1329, aged fifty-seven years.^ He had vowed that when peace was restored he would assume the cross as a crusader. Unable to fulfil his vow, he requested that his heart should be embalmed and carried by Sir James Douglas for burial in the Holy Sepulchre.^ The body was buried in Dunfermline, and Sir James set out for Palestine, but was slain in a battle with the Moors in Spain. The casket with the heart was brought back and interred in Melrose, a shrine which was dear to the living heart of Bruce. The king was twice married, and had by his first wife a daughter, Marjory, who married Walter, the high steward of Scotland, and became the mother of the first Stuart king, Robert II. The children of the second marriage were David, who succeeded him, and two daughters. No Scotsman, it has been said, can draw the character of Edward I., one of England's greatest kings, and Scot land's greatest scourge ; and no Englishman, for the like reason, can do justice to the merits of king Robert the Bruce. What Scotsmen have thought of him may be read in our standard historians, and need not be repeated here. Notwithstanding the one big blot, the blood that was spilt in Dumfries, Scotsmen still revere the memory of the good king Robert as they revere the memory of no other sovereign. 1 The castle stood on the west destination of the embalmed heart. side of Dunbarton at Dalreoch, the Theiner, p. 251. Randolph had king's field, but there is now no anticipated a like treatment of his vestige of the buildings. own body, and had obtained in the 2 Papal absolution was given in previous year a dispensation from the 1331 on the petition of Randolph, pope to have it opened after his earl of Moray, for eviscerating the death, wishing it to be buried in one body of Bruce contrary to the laws place and his heart in another — the of the Church. The pope's letter places not specified. The pope grants speaks of the king's vow to go with the concession, while quoting the two hundred armed men to fight the constitutions of the Church — those of Saracens, and of his heart having pope Boniface VIII., 1295-1303 — been carried in a war against the which he was violating by his dis- Saracens in Granada. It does not pensation. Theiner, p. 249. suggest that the Holy Land was the CHAPTER XXIII DAVID IL, I 329-1 332 ; EDWARD BALIOL, 1332-I34I ; DAVID IL, I 341-137 I Ceremony of anointing at coronation — Persecuting oath imposed by the papacy on Scottish kings — David's flight to France, and later, his captivity in England^— Papal marriage dispensations and their moral — Injurious effects of the wars on the Church — Successions to the Scottish sees — Papal nuncios — Peter's pence — Strange heresies in Ireland — Circumlocution and costs of episcopal elections at Rome — Usurpation of the chapters' rights by the papacy — Provincial council — King David's gifts to the Church — Collegiate churches. David II. was only eight years old at his father's death. His long reign, divided by Edward Baliol, brought neither honour nor prosperity to Scotland. It is also singularly barren of events affecting the Church. David's minority was a misfortune at the critical time when he succeeded to the throne, but even in his maturer years he gave no- proof of having inherited any of his father's qualities. He was crowned at Scone in l 3 3 i , and the coronation was accompanied by the new ceremony of anointing, which had hitherto not been a privilege of the Scottish kings. It was granted by the pope at the special request of king Robert, in a buH dated 13th June 1329.^ The privilege came too late for Bruce himself, who died a week before the bull passed the seals at Avignon. The favour was qualified by one questionable condition — that king Robert 1 Theiner, p. 244 ; Innes, Crit. Ess., p. 267 ; Robertson's Statuta, xlvii. ; Fordun, Scotichron., xiii. 21. 42 O HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and his successors should, on being anointed, take a solemn oath to exterminate from the kingdom, in the name of the Roman Church, every heretic denounced bond fide by the Church. This persecuting oath was taken by every successive Scottish sovereign down to the Reforma tion ; and not only so, it was bad enough and bitter enough to be adopted by the Protestants in 1567, and its terms were ratified by the Parliament that established the Protestant religion. William III. was the first sovereign who made conscientious objection to it. He declared, when he was called upon to take the oath at Whitehall, that he would never consent to the persecution of any of his subjects on the grounds of their religion. It was only after explanations which ingeniously explained it away that he accepted the oath.-' The country had to pay its price for the honour of the anointing. The pope sends to David, in October 1329, an acknowledgment for 12,000 golden florins, paid in two instalments, and said to have been due by his father to the apostolic see.^ The regency was in the capable hands of Randolph, earl of Moray, but his death in 1332 threw the country into confusion. The Scottish barons were always ready for sedition in the absence of a strong hand. A section of them favoured Baliol's eldest son Edward, and their cause was crowned with success in the battle of Dupplin, 1332. Edward Baliol was shortly afterwards crowned at Scone, and king David took refuge in France until 1341. A few years after David's return, his leanings to France involved him in a war with Edward III. of England, and he was made prisoner in the battle of Neville's Cross, near Durham, in 1346. With much triumph Edward led his royal captive to the Tower of London. He was not 1 Macaulay's Hist, of Eng., u. xiii. 2 Theiner, p. 247. xxiii DEATH AND CHARACTER OF DAVID II. 42 I liberated till 1357, and the remaining years of his life were mainly spent in a series of dishonourable intrigues with Edward III. for surrendering the independence of the kingdom which had cost the country so much to defend. After the death of his first wife Joan, he was unfortunate in the choice of his second, a widow, Margaret Logie, whom he married in 1362. She not only ruled the king, but attempted to rule the bishops, and made herself specially obnoxious to William Rea, bishop of Glasgow. Church benefices were exacted for her favourites, and she even averred that the king had made her a grant of the bishopric of Glasgow.-' Few had a good word to say for her, and she was divorced in 1370. She appealed to the pope, and went in person to plead her cause at Avignon, where she succeeded in impressing the court in her favour. David sent am bassadors, Walter Wardlaw, bishop of Glasgow, and the dean of Aberdeen, to Avignon, in January 1371, and the papal court in reply referred to " queen Margaret's desire to recover her lands, and the expenses she had incurred at the apostolic see," and elsewhere. The pope speaks also of the queen's perils in travel, and suggests that it was not becoming the royal dignity, nor her womanly estate, that she should be travelling unprotected through Italy.^ Her death probably saved the country from the interdict that was threatened. David also died soon afterwards, in February i 3 7 1 , and was buried in Holyrood. He was morally the worst, and politically the weakest, sovereign that had sat on the throne of Malcolm Canmore. There are, however, several in dications in his closing years of something like penitence for a wasted life. During the long reign of David II., many papal 1 Innes, Sketches, p. 53. 2 Theiner, p. 341. 42 2 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. bulls and briefs came to Scotland from Avignon. Such of them as affect the Church are here quoted from Theiner in the order of their date. When Edward I. marched his invading army through Ayrshire, much injury was done by the " malignants," as the English were called, to Kilwinning Abbey and its dependent churches. The civil disorder also afforded opportunity to laymen at home to rob the monastery of its property, with the result that the monks were reduced to poverty, and even it is said to want. Conservators were appointed in 1 332, to recover the lands and tithes from the spoilers. King Robert came early to the relief of Kilwinning, from having the family estates in Carrick, inherited from his mother. He presented to the abbey three parish churches, of which St. Mary's, Dun barton, was one. The earl of Menteith also gave them a church in Knapdale. The king dates one of his presentations at Arbroath, 1 3 2 i , no doubt while Hving in the abbey ; and Robert Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, confirms another in less comfortable quarters — his prison in London, 13 12. It was not till the beginning of David's reign that the presentations were completed.-' In the course of this reign there are no fewer than eight- and-twenty marriage dispensations recorded in Theiner. Most of them were marriages of the nobility or their relatives. The marriages had generally been made, children pro created, and then the Church found that the parties were within the forbidden degrees,^ and must therefore apply to the papal court for dispensation, in order to 1 Theiner, pp. 247, 248, 249, brother and sister were in the first 252, 253, 255, 257. degree, a cousin-german in the second, 2 Note on Degrees of Propinquity. the children of a cousin-german in " By the canon law, the degrees of the third, and the grandchildren of forbidden relationship were computed the cousin-german in the fourth." downwards, but in one line. A Note quoted by Burton, .STm/., ii. 347. XXIII PAPAL DISPENSATIONS OF MARRIAGE 423 legitimise their children. The pleas entered for dis pensation have a uniform complexion. The parties always professed ignorance of any relationship when they married ; or they had married to appease family strifes ; or there were no suitable persons of their own rank in the then social condition of Scotland with whom they might marry, except within the forbidden degrees. The immorality of a man before his marriage with a woman related in the fourth degree to the wife he after wards married was made a ground of compulsory dis pensation. And a widower or widow, whose previous spouse was in any degree related to the second, was put in the same position. Sometimes the dispensation was accompanied by a penance ; never, it is certain, was it given without a price. The son of the earl of Strathearn, applying for a dispensation, is required to endow a chaplaincy in the town or diocese of Dunblane worth twelve marks annually. John de Douglas, of the diocese of St. Andrews, has to found two chaplaincies each of the value of ten marks. A more singular penance is imposed upon John de Drummond for marrying the countess of Menteith. Within two years they are to erect an altar in Dunblane Cathedral, endowed with ten marks sterling, with a house, books, and vestments for the service ; and further, they are to provide, within the same time, for the marriage of two young women, and give to each of them a dowry of five marks silver. Among the applicants for dispensation is Robert, lord of Strathgryfe in Renfrewshire, afterwards Robert 1 1., the first king of the Stuart line. He was then heir pre sumptive, David his uncle having no children. The papal letter indicates the immoral life that Robert was known to have led. He applied in 1347 for dispensa tion to marry his first wife, Elizabeth Mure, and then 424 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. again in 1355, on his marrying Euphemia Ross, countess of Moray.^ The papal court in all these cases ignored the previous marriage, where there had been a marriage, and the dispensation was necessary to give it validity. Occasionally it ordered separation for a season and re-marriage. The wars of succession had their effect in limiting the supply of clergy. John, bishop of Moray, had com plained to the pope in 1329 that in some parts of Scotland there was very great deficiency of ecclesiastical ministers,^ and that scarcely could one suitable chaplain be found for two or three united churches. The bishop asks dispensation, in the scarcity of suitable candidates, for five illegitimates. It is granted with the caution that they are not to follow their fathers' incontinence. James Bene, bishop of St. Andrews (called Benedict in the papal rescript), is consoled by the pope in the midst of the Scottish troubles of 1330, and warmly thanked for his gratifying gift to his holiness. The bishop is then commended to Randolph, the regent, and the see of St. Andrews is extolled as being " remarkable among {intra not super) other churches for the measure of its prerogatives." The gift referred to was two thousand golden florins and a gold ring with a ruby stone, for all of which the pope gives a discharge to the bishop's executors. The bishop died in I 3 3 2 at Bruges, whither he had fled after the battle of Dupplin from dread of the English. There was trouble at St. Andrews in appoint ing a successor to Bene. The prior and chapter elected 1 Several of Robert's sons were pensation was discovered in 1789. born before his marriage with Eliza- It is dated 22nd November 1347. beth Mure, including his son John, Theiner, p. 289. See Burton, Hist., who succeeded him as Robert III. ii. 344 seq. The legitimacy of the house of Stuart 2 > i Ministrorum ecclesiasticorum became a nice constitutional question defectus maximus habeatur. " Theiner, in later years, until the bull for dis- p. 249. XXIII APPOINTMENTS TO BISHOPRICS 425 William Bell, dean of Dunkeld, and he went to Avignon for confirmation of his election, which the pope refused. Edward III. had asked the see for an Englishman, Robert de Ayleston, archdeacon of Berks. The pope could not gratify Edward, and he would not satisfy the chapter. The see was in consequence vacant for nearly ten years, when William Landel, rector of Kinkell, Aberdeenshire, was appointed. He held the see during the remainder of David's reign. Landel is said to have owed the appoint ment to his influence as a territorial magnate, being lord of all Lauderdale. It will have been observed how rare in these times was the appointment of an untitled parish priest to any Scottish bishopric.-' The presentees were invariably either members of some chapter, very often that of the vacant see, or an abbot from a monastery, or, in the case of Argyll, a friar. The inference is that the Scottish chapters were, as might have been expected in that age, close corporations, tempted to keep ecclesi astical offices, including bishoprics, within their own narrow circle. In this light, an outsider foisted upon them by the pope, even if in breach of their constitutional rights, may not always have been a disadvantage to the Church. Pope John XXII. sent in 1333 two nuncios, friars, to Scotland to stop the war with England and make peace between the countries. The war is lamented in the old strain as destructive of religion at home and detrimental to the crusades abroad. If the nuncios could not see king David in person (he was then a refugee in France) they were to treat with his procurators. The next pope, Benedict XII., sent fresh nuncios, two years later, on the same errand, with letters to both kings, and also to Philip, king of France. In these letters the pope recalls " the old wars of which we have heard " ; reminds 1 Landel as parson of Kinkell was a prebendaiy of Aberdeen. 426 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the English king that he had broken truces and disturbed the peace of nations, and then with true impartiality he includes the Scots king in the charge, " and you, David, and your father Robert before you," have done the same thing. The French king is forbidden to supply the Scots with levies, partly on the ground that some of the French nobles were disposed to help Edward ; and if they did so, said the pope, what a pretty complication it would make. Popes preached, but kings were deaf, and the unchristian warfare continued. The papal court deserves all honour for its unwearied efforts in behalf of peace.^ During the year 1335 a nuncio was appointed to collect the tax known as " Peter's pence." ^ It was to be collected from all and singular, persons ecclesiastical and secular, of every station and condition, upon pain of the Church's censure. Eight letters follow in the autumn of this year upon the same business, with the request for a report upon the true value of all benefices, cathedral, collegiate, and parochial, to ensure more accurate assess ments for the Roman curia. In the next decade William Greenlaw, dean of Glasgow,, is made apostolic nuncio for Scotland to collect the Peter's pence, and is rewarded with church preferments at home for his efficiency as collector-general. The island of Britain was the granary of Rome under the old empire, and the field was still being reaped in ways ecclesiastical for the benefit of Rome.' Contemporary with this demand for Peter's pence there comes from Avignon the call to suppress a strange 1 Theiner, pp. 259, 260, 264, 265. Theiner, from the papal court on the 2 " Census qui denarius beati subject of Peter's pence and other Petri nuncupaturvulgariter," Theiner, assessments levied on the Scottish P- 266. Church from time to time. The re- 3 There are many letters, in petition of them would be tedious. XXIII HERESIES IN IRELAND 427 heresy, or category of heresies, in Ireland. In years not far off England and Scotland became rife with heresy, but here, in the year 1335, some years before heresy is whispered in Britain, it is rampant in Ireland. The pope calls upon Edward III. to suppress it, in a letter dated 6th November 1335, of which the following is the substance. The bishop of Ossory had reported to the pope that in his diocese, in the midst of a catholic people, there were men smirched with the filth of heretical pravity, some of whom were asserting that Jesus Christ was a sinful man and was justly crucified for His sins ; and others, paying homage to demons and offering them sacrifices, have come to think otherwise of the sacrament of Christ's body than the Catholic and Roman Church thinks of it, saying that the sacrament was not to be worshipped or adored in any way. And they also assert that they are not in the least bound to believe or obey decrees, decretals, or even the apostolic mandates. They are moreover addicted to the consulting of demons according to the rites and usages of gentiles and pagans, and so, despising the sacraments of the Catholic Church, have attracted Christ's faithful by their superstitions. The pope reviles them in strong language as the pestiferous spawn of the serpent, and adds that, as he understood there were no inquisitors of heresy in Ireland or England, nor any office of inquisition by which depraved heretics might be punished, " the holy Mother Church looked to Edward as the defender of the faith,^ to assist the bishop of Ossory and the Irish prelates with the secular arm, and to seize, punish, and extirpate these men." ^ The heresies are altogether a strange revelation from the Ireland of that day. 1 Henry VIII. was not the first English king styled "Defender of the Faith " by the pope. 2 Theiner, p. 269. 428 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Some of the episcopal elections of this reign are interesting. In a vacancy at Dunkeld, the chapter, unable to agree, postulated two of its canons, Richard of Pilmor and Malcolm of Inchaffray.^ They were accompanied to Avignon by Duncan, the precentor, who opposed the election of both postulants in the papal consistory. The case was protracted for at least two years, and meanwhile pope Benedict XII. and canon Malcolm both died at Avignon — " de hae luce subtractis." In 1 344 Richard's election was confirmed, and he then received power from the papal court to borrow three thousand golden florins and to burden the whole property of his see in order to pay the expenses of his election.^ His death occurred within three years, too brief a space for the repayment of the golden florins. The bishop of Ross, about the same time, had also to borrow and burden his see with the expenses incurred at Avignon. On the resignation of bishop Roger of Ross, " for reasonable causes " — Scottish bishops seldom resigned for any cause — Alexander his successor borrowed a thousand golden florins to pay papal charges.' A metropolitan in Scotland would have saved this constant drain of money, impoverishing the Scottish sees on every episcopal vacancy. Friar Martin in 1344 succeeds friar Andrew in the see of Argyll. Martin is said in the papal bull to have been " unanimously elected as if by divine inspiration." This was not the opinion of Angus de Congal (a thoroughly Celtic name), sub-deacon of Argyll, who followed the procurators to Avignon and claimed that he had been elected by the clergy of the city and diocese, to whom, as forming the chapter, the election by customary right belonged.* The papal 1 Theiner says Innerpeffrey, and 2 Theiner, pp. 280, 281. Grub, upon other authority, says the 3 /^/^_^ pp_ 394, 296. same. Inchaffray has been suggested * Ibid., p. 283. as the more probable. XXIII PAPAL USURPATION OF SCOTTISH SEES 429 court disputed the existence of this custom, but it was a matter of fact. The bishop of Argyll had no capitular seal like the other bishops, and the reason he assigned was that the whole body of his clergy formed the chapter. The papal court at this time openly usurped the power of appointment to the Scottish sees, thus gradually suppressing the constitutional rights of the chapters. The bulls now assume a stereotyped form, in which it is said that the chapter of A. B., ignorant of our rights of reserva tion, elected C. D. to the see. The Roman court there fore nullified the election and proceeded de novo to elect the same or some other. A new decree of Clement VI. in 1350 extended the papal prerogative in another direction. By this it was enacted that " in the case of any one dying while on a journey to or from, or residing in, the papal city, on a mission to receive plenary pardon for his sins, the pope reserved the appointment to the vacant monastery or benefice." The case was tested in the following year by the death of the abbot of Dunfermline on his way home from Avignon. The monks elected his successor as usual, and the pope at once abrogated the election, but in consideration of their ignorance of his decree, he re-appointed their nominee.^ In 1358 the pope replies to several letters of king David, and informs him that he could not conscientiously ratify the obligations for his ransom which the Scottish bishops and clergy had undertaken. It is conjectured that a provincial council was held to consider this question, simultaneously with a meeting of the Estates in Edinburgh, 26th September 1357. The ransom was fixed at 100,000 marks sterling. There were ten bishops present 1 Theiner, p. 297. 430 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. at the council, five of whom appended their episcopal and chapter seals, the bishop of Argyll appending only his episcopal seal, for the reason given.^ In the last decade of his reign king David confirmed an old donation made by his ancestor Alexander I. to Edward, bishop of Aberdeen, of tithes " vulgarly called the second tithes " in the shires of Aberdeen and Banff, within and without the burghs between the Dee and the Spey. He also himself presented the bishop and chapter of Aberdeen with lands in Banffshire (Gulthull) to endow a perpetual chaplaincy in the cathedral for the con tinuous celebration of the divine mysteries. And next year, 1365, he signs a charter at Perth conveying to the abbey of St. Mary, Cambuskenneth, an annual rental of ten pounds silver from his lands of De la Plean in Stirlingshire, for the health of his soul and that of queen Margaret.^ The pope confirms the gift in 1369.^ The first collegiate church in Scotland was founded in David's reign by Patrick, earl of March, at Dunbar, in I 342. Provision was made in the endowment for a provost or dean, an archpriest, and eighteen prebendaries or canons. The constitutions of the later collegiate churches were framed on similar lines, though seldom on the same extensive scale as Dunbar. These collegiate foundations stood midway in size and in aim between the cathedral and the parish church, and had features in common with both. They had a chapter of canons, with the provost at their head ; and the daily service with frequent celebra- 1 Cf. Robertson's Statuta, Ixxvi. Margaret Logie " ; and another says and Theiner, p. 312. ".genealogists have found reason to 2 Margaret is said by our believe that she was neither beautiful historians to have been a woman of nor very young." obscure origin, of whom next to ^ Thus far Theiner, in David's nothing was known; yet one writer reign, from the years 1 329- 1 369, pp. represents her as " the beautiful 247-334. XXIII FOUNDING OF COLLEGIATE CHURCHES 43 1 tions of the Eucharist, for which they were oftentimes specially founded, was rendered by the canons and a small choir. They were one more attempt, the last of the mediaeval Church, to arrest the decadence of religion.^ The country had not the wealth nor probably the zeal to vie with the older and more sumptuous foundations, but pious men and women did what they could, through the collegiate churches, to recover the first love, to revive the quenched devotion. Their history was brief and troubled. There were about forty of them altogether in Scotland, and the larger half were founded in the fifteenth century.^ The first was Dunbar in 1342, and the last to be founded was Biggar in 1545, a short fifteen years before the crash of the Reformation. They were in some cases conversions of already existing institutions, as, for examples, the old parish church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and the nunnery of Lincluden, Dumfries. As an indication of the localities of this latter-day zeal it may be added that only seven collegiate churches were north of the Tay, while one-and- twenty are found in the single archdeaconry of Lothian, which long after became the bishopric of Edinburgh. The most beautiful architecturally is Rosslyn Chapel, the chancel of an unfinished collegiate church. The most famous historically is the church of St. Giles, Edinburgh — which was first a parish church, then refounded as a collegiate church in the fifteenth century, next made the cathedral of the first bishop of Edinburgh in the 1 In this respect the latest reform so were there additional collegiate of the Franciscans, under the order of churches. BeWesheim, Hist. , ii. 414- Observantines, deserves to rank with 418, gives diocesan lists of forty the collegiate churches. collegiate churches and the names of 2 Spottiswoode, Hist, of Religious seventy-eight hospitals in alphabetical Houses, Keith, pp. 465-474, gives order. Some of these hospitals were only thirty-three collegiate churches no doubt small, but they were widely and twenty-eight hospitals. But as scattered over Scotland, and the list, there were "spitals " at other places large as it is, is not exhaustive. besides those named by Spottiswoode, 432 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xxiii seventeenth century, and now in the nineteenth, after various transmutations, restored decently and in order. " The ancient church of St. Giles," as a recent Act of Parliament designates it, is in itself an epitome of the chequered history of the Scottish Church. CHAPTER XXIV ROBERT IL, I 37 1 -I 390, AND ROBERT IIL, I39O-I406 Characters of Robert II. and III. — Ignorance and turbulence of the Scottish nobles — Semi-barbarism of the Highlands — The papal schism and rival popes — Walter Wardlaw, bishop of Glasgow and first Scottish cardinal — His nephew Henry Wardlaw, bishop of St Andrews — Bishop of Moray and "the Wolf of Badenoch" — Burning of Elgin Cathedral and Canonry — Church benefices gifted to abbeys — Crown's claim to property of deceased bishops — Nunnery in North Berwick — Education of clergy — Fordun the historian — Barbour the poet — Winton the chronicler — Synodal Statutes of St. Andrews. The first break in the direct descent of the Atholl line of kings, beginning with Duncan the father of Malcolm Canmore, occurred on the accession of Robert the Bruce, who inherited through a maternal ancestress. The second break was in the person of Robert 1 1., who was the son of Walter the Steward of Scotland and Marjory eldest daughter of Robert Bruce. The Stuart line of kings began from Robert II. and continued in direct descent from parent to child, with one exception, until the reign of Queen Anne. Robert II. was crowned in Scone in the fifty-fourth year of his age, by the bishop of St. Andrews, on 25 th March 1371. He was not a novice in the duties of ruler, as the government of the country had devolved upon him during the years of David's captivity. In the wars with England he had also proved himself a brave and 2 F 434 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. capable soldier. The English had now abandoned the idea of conquering Scotland, but the hereditary animosity found expression in raids across the Border.^ The most gallant romance of this time was the chivalrous battle of Otterburn, known as " Chevy Chase," in 1388; but it was fruitless of any lasting result. In the earlier years of his life Robert had not been a model of chastity ; after his accession to the throne he spent much of his life on the family estates in Ayrshire, and died there at Dundonald Castle, the 19th of April 1390. By his first wife, Elizabeth Mure, the king had four sons and six daughters, and by his second, Euphemia Ross, he had two sons and four daughters. He was also the father of eight illegiti mate sons, who lived at court with the king's family, and like them intermarried with the nobility. The king's eldest son was John, earl of Carrick, but the name was so unpopular in Scotland, from the hapless John Baliol, that it was changed on his accession to Robert. He was accordingly crowned at Scone as Robert HI., 14th August 1390. The king was a man of deep religious convictions and he had a sympathetic partner in his good queen, Annabella Drummond. The life of the court presented an example of domestic virtue which recalled the reign of David I. and his saintly mother. Robert is also said to have had the hereditary valour of the Stewards, but an accident which lamed him in his youth made him averse to active life. It was unfortunate for the country that he was not more equal to curbing the misrule of the feudal lords, which gradually increased as the danger from English invasion diminished. The king was unwittingly devising a legacy of disorder ; and the 1 Henry IV. of England demanded except the defeat of the Scots army homage from Robert III. in 1400, under Douglas at Homildon Hill in and upon its refusal invaded Scotland. 1402. Not much came of the invasion xxiv SCOTTISH NOBLES AND HIGHLAND CLANS 435 attempt to master it cost the life of his son and successor. Many of the older Scottish nobles had perished in the long wars with England, and their places were being filled by men of inferior stamp without the culture or chivalry of the Norman barons. For lack of culture and education, for lack of loyalty to man or principle, king or kirk, the Scottish nobles of this age and for long afterwards were probably unmatched in Christendom.^ The Highlands were also in a state of lawless disorder and their clans addicted to predatory incursions into the Lowlands. The gladiatorial fight on the North Inch of Perth, which took place in this reign, between thirty men of one clan pitted against thirty of another, however pictorial in the setting of romance, can only be regarded as a survival of barbarism which the Christianity of a thousand years ought to have uprooted. To assist the king in his more active duties. Parliament in 1398 made his eldest son, David, duke of Rothesay (the first Scottish duke), regent for three years. The real power was none the less in the hands of the king's brother, Robert, duke of Albany, a man both ambitious and unscrupulous. Under the pretext that the duke of Rothe say needed restraint, Albany confined him in Falkland Palace, where he was slowly and cruelly starved to death. The king, apprehensive of the safety of his only surviving son, James, sent him to be educated in France, but the ship was captured by an English cruiser, in a time of truce between the two countries, and James was carried a prisoner to London. The capture was a clear breach of international law, aggravated afterwards by the refusal of Henry IV. to give up the son to his father. Otherwise, it was the best thing that could have happened to James. He received in his long captivity at the English court an 1 Tytler, ii. 239, and iii. 368. 436 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. education better fitting him for his kingly duties than he would probably have received in the gayer court of France. And so the adage was true — " He had been lost, if he had not been lost." The bereaved father could not see it in this light, and he died, as others of his race died, broken hearted, at Rothesay, 13th April 1406. The second Robert was buried at Scone : Robert III. sought his grave within the Abbey Church of Paisley, founded by his paternal ancestors. Another prisoner captured at this time by an English cruiser was Stephen de Pays, bishop-elect of St. Andrews, on his way to the papal court for confirmation. He was confined in Alnwick and died within a year. Walter Trail was then appointed, and on his death in 1401 Thomas Stewart, fourth illegitimate son of Robert 1 1., was elected, but declined. The see was ultimately given by pope Benedict XIII. to Henry Wardlaw, nephew of Walter Wardlaw, bishop of Glasgow. Prince James, in his early years, and Henry Percy, son of " Hotspur,"' were educated together under Wardlaw in the castle of St. Andrews. Bishop Walter had been made a cardinal in 1385 — the first Scottish prelate to receive the honour — and also legate a latere for Scotland and Ireland, by the anti-pope, Clement VII. France, Spain, Scotland, and Savoy adhered to what were called the anti-popes. The ecclesiastical policy of Scotland was in this respect shaped by the political alliance with France, and probably by antipathy to England. The papal exile at Avignon was no sooner ended, largely by the mediation of that wonderful figure in history, St. Catherine of Siena, than Christendom was shocked by a schism in the papacy, and by the spectacle of rival popes mutually anathematising and excommunicating each other. The result was a sensible weakening of ecclesiastical authority in the XXIV BISHOP OF MORAY AND "WOLF OF BADENOCH" 437 churches under the Roman obedience, and a growing disregard for the ordinances of religion. During the schism, a meeting of the Three Estates at Scone, in 1 40 1 , passed an act touching appeals against sentences of excommunication. Persons under censure might appeal from the ordinary to the conservator, and from the conservator to the provincial council. " To this ordi nance," it is added, " the clergy consented, during the schism, like the rest of the king's lieges." ^ The bishop of Moray, Alexander Barr, D.D. and L.L.,^ had more than one trouble on his hands. He claimed the right of appointing the prior of Urquhart in his diocese, but the monks disputed his claim and rejected his nominee. The appeal from the bishop was first made to the conservator of the council for that year, I 391 ; but it was finally decided by the king in parliament with the advice of the clergy who were present. The decision was against the bishop. His next trouble was with the earl of Buchan, Alexander Stewart, third son of Robert 1 1., best known as "the Wolf of Badenoch."^ The bishop had rebuked him for his evil life, and the earl retaliated by descending from his castle of Lochindorb, in May 1390, with a band of wild Scots, who burnt the city and cathedral of Elgin, including the hospital and canonry of eighteen manses. The bishop lamented the sacrilege in a letter which he wrote as conservator to summon a provincial council. He described his ruined cathedral as " the pride of the land, the glory of the realm, the delight of wayfarers and strangers, a praise and boast among foreign nations, lofty in its towers 1 Robertson's Statuta, Ixxviii. ^ Tytler, Hist, ii. 380, describes Acts of Parliament, i., p. 214. him as "little less than a cruel and 2 Doctor in Decrees and Licenti- ferocious savage, a species of Celtic ate in Laws — degrees were now Attila." coming into use. 438 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. without, splendid in its appointments within, its countless jewels and rich vestments, and the multitude of its priests." 1 Elgin Cathedral was rebuilt in statelier form, and " the hoary incendiary " of Badenoch did open penance for his vandalism in the Dominican church, Perth, where bishop Trail absolved him from ecclesiastical censures.2 The lawless condition of the country at this time (1402) is thus described in the Register of Moray: " There was no law in Scotland, but the great man oppressed the poor man, and the whole kingdom was one den of thieves. Slaughters, robberies, fire-raisings, and other crimes passed unpunished, and justice seemed to be banished from the realm." ^ The abbeys of Deer, Kilwinning, and Holyrood received gifts of certain churches between the years 1 3 7 1 and 1377 to recompense them for the losses they had sustained by the wars. Robert the Bruce had intended to befriend Deer, but not until I 371 was any compensation made to it by the gift of the churches of Foveran and Kynnedor. To Kilwinning were given, in addition to earlier presentations, the churches of St. Mary and Kilbride in the island of Arran, by John, the lord of Arran. They are described as being in the diocese of Sodor. The church of Liberton, diocese of Glasgow, was also gifted to the abbey. William, bishop of St. Andrews, gave the parish church of Barw * to Holyrood, 1 Reg. Episc. Morav., p. 204. sepulchre had they known that its 2 Robertson, Scottish Abbeys, p. tenant in his time had set such a 52, remarks on the Wolf's latter end : brave example of ' rabbling prelatlcal "He sleeps in the cathedral of curates ' and destroying ' monuments Dunkeld beneath a tomb which of idolatry.' " describes him as ' an earl and lord of 3 Reg. Episc. Morav., pp. 381, happy memory.' His effigy was 382. Innes's Crit. Ess., p. 172. broken and defaced after the Revolu- * Barw possibly means Barra in tionof 1688 by a garrison of Westland East Lothian, a parish now annexed Whigs, or Cameronians, who, it may to Haddington. be supposed, would have spared this XXIV CROWN'S SEIZURE OF BISHOPS' PROPERTIES 439 which had suffered much from many invasions.^ Cambus kenneth received lands in the county palatinate of Strathearn ; and the properties of the hospitals of St. John of Jerusalem, within Scotland, were farmed for the sum of four thousand golden florins, annually, on a lease of ten years.- In 1372 Robert II. consented to the concession made by his predecessor, king David, to the Scottish bishops — that their personal property should be at their own dis posal and not seizable by the crown upon their decease. This was ratified by Parliament and confirmed by the pope. Hitherto the Scottish kings had claimed all the property, personal and real, of deceased bishops, except in special cases where the power of disposition by will had been granted by the Roman curia. The papal court regarded the claim of the Scottish crown as a gross usurpation, and three years after this confirmation of the bishops' rights, the pope threatened with excom munication the king's officials who had seized the goods of deceased bishops, notwithstanding the protection of the statute.^ The claim of the crown was still asserted for some years, and the bishops brought their grievance before Parliament in June 1445. A papal letter, 12th August 1375, on the nunnery {moniales) of North Berwick, gives a passing glimpse of contemporary monastic life. Beatrice the prioress {prioressa) had petitioned the pope for an enclosing wall to be built round the nunnery. She states that " the major and saner " portion of the nuns had acquiesced in 1 The bishop and chapter united "cum bona cera nova'' and the in the presentation by sealed letters chapter "cum antiqua cera." The to the papal court, but suspicion was bishop of St. Andrews in the papal roused from the bishop's seal appear- letters is called once or twice, by ing to be more recent than the inadvertence, " archiepiscopus." chapter's. Explanation was made 2 Theiner, pp. 343-362. that the bishop had sealed his letters ^ ibid., pp. 346, 353. 440 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the petition. The reason assigned for it was that frequent access had been had to the convent by certain nobles and other secular persons on the pretext of visitation — that this intercourse had increased of late from the building of a number of castles and forts in the neighbour hood of the nunnery. The consequences, as the prioress relates, were injurious to the devotion of the nuns and a growing scandal to religion, which she fears will be aggravated unless timely protection be given. The pope grants the petition, remits the matter to the bishop of St. Andrews, orders an enclosing 'wall to be built at the expense of the convent, and commands the prioress and nuns to live strictly within the enclosure.-' The petition of Thomas de Rossi, vicar-general of the F"ranciscans in Scotland in the year 1 375, supplies information on the education of the clergy at this period. Thomas was already a bachelor in theology of Paris, and he applies to the bishop of Glasgow (Walter Wardlaw), who was again at Avignon, to confer on him the degree of Master. He states that since taking his degree he had studied for more than a year at Paris the four books of the Sentences (a compilation from the fathers, chiefly from Augustine, by Peter Lombard), that he had made his responsions on many subjects to the masters and bachelors of the faculty in the university of Paris, that he had preached five times in their presence to the clergy, within the university, and had made many collations before them. On account of the office enjoined on him by his order, and by the restraint of its statutes as to study, as well as by reason of his poverty, he could not reside longer in Paris to take his degree as Master in Theology with licence to teach in that faculty. The pope remits him to the bishop of Glasgow for examination, and for the degree, if 1 Theiner, p. 355. XXIV JOHN OF FORDUN AND ARCHDEACON BARBOUR 44 1 found qualified. There is a similar petition addressed to Philip, archbishop of Cashel, then also at Avignon, who was himself a Master in Theology, from Herbert, an Irish Franciscan, who says he had studied at Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, and various other colleges in the faculty of theology.^ John 'of Fordun, the historian, was contemporary with cardinal Wardlaw. He was born at Fordun, in Kincar dineshire, the parish where Palladius rested. He was a chantry priest or chaplain in the cathedral of Aberdeen, and visited many libraries in Britain and Ireland while compiling his Scotichronicon. He wrote the history (in Latin) down to the death of David I. in 1 1 53, and it was continued by Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, and by other writers, until the death of James I. in 1437. The earlier portion of the civil history is an amazing tissue of fables, beginning with Scota the daughter of Pharaoh in Moses' time, the supposed progenitor of the Scots. The later ecclesiastical history is believed to be honest and fairly accurate.^ John Barbour, archdeacon of Aberdeen, is known chiefly from his spirited and patriotic poem, " The Bruce." ^ It is written in the Scottish dialect of that day, and gives the leading incidents in the life of king Robert Bruce, with cameos of the heroes of the war, including old bishop Lamberton. Barbour was born in Aberdeenshire about 1 3 1 6, appears first as one of the commissioners at Berwick for the ransom of David II. in 1357, and more than once went with companies of young Scotsmen to Oxford University. He was in the receipt of several royal 1 Theiner, pp. 356, 357. of the Saints, discovered not many 2 Innes, Crit. Ess,, p. 201. years ago by Mr. Bradshaw, Cam- 5 Other two works are attributed bridge University. See Eyre-Todd's to him — Tlie Brut, supposed to be edition Early Scot. Poetry, Abbots- lost, and the Book of the Legends ford Series, p. 64. 442 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. pensions, and as the last recorded payment of this kind was made in 1395, it is supposed that he died in that year.^ Andrew of Winton, prior of Lochleven, was another poet-chronicler of this age. His work, called by himself The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, is a history in Scottish verse from the Creation to his own time. It is the earliest composition of a strictly historical kind in the vernacular dialect of the north, and for fully two hundred years it remained the only history of the Scottish people in the Scottish tongue.^ His great value is as a chronicler of facts, and of the material collected by him our standard historians, Tytler, Scott, and Burton, have made industrious and grateful use. He was above all things a churchman, and loved to record the history of the Scottish cathedrals and his own St. Andrews, of which he was a canon, the founding of successive abbeys, and the growth and prosperity of the Church. The prior of Lochleven would seem never to have travelled far beyond the sound of his own monastery bells. He is supposed to have died between the years 14 19 and 1424, as he mentions the death of Robert, duke of Albany, in the former year, and says nothing of the return of James I. from his captivity, in the latter. There were twenty -five Synodal Statutes of St. Andrews passed towards the close of the fourteenth century but it is not known under what bishop or bishops they were enacted. The following is a summary of them : — ( I ) All rectors or vicars are to possess a copy of the statutes, 1 Barbour is sometimes styled the ton is not supposed to have seen the father of Scottish literature. But it Scotichronicon of Fordun. The little is open to question whether the library at Lochleven, of which we language which the writers them- heard in the times of the Culdees, does selves describe as Ynglis was any- not seem to have been furnished, at thing more than a dialectic modifica- least in Winton's time, with the tion of the Anglo-Saxon. work of the first Scottish historian. 2 Strange as it may appear. Win- XXIV SYNODAL STATUTES OF ST. ANDREWS 443 to be able to read them, and to bring them to the Synod, under a penalty of forty solidi. (2) Rectors and vicars to reside on their benefices, the rector under a penalty of ten marks, and vicars and others under a penalty of a hundred solidi, (3) Beneficed clergy to have manses suitable for the entertainment of diocesan officials before their next visitation, under a penalty of a hundred solidi, (4) All beneficed clergy to remove their concubines within three months, under pain of deprivation. For the first offence a fine of forty solidi ; for the second, ten marks; and for the third, suspension from celebrating the divine offices. (5) All clergy from other dioceses are forbidden to cele brate unless they present their letters of orders to be ap proved by the diocesan officials. (6) No members of a religious order to serve any cure, or administer sacraments, except by special licence in writing. (7) Some presbyters, more for the sake of gain than from devotion, being ad dicted to celebrating several masses a day for stipends, are prohibited therefrom, under the fine of a hundred solidi, to be applied to pious purposes. (8) A similar fine imposed upon laymen or women who solicit such masses by the stipends they offer. (9) Certain priests, to be named annually, are appointed to hear the confessions of ecclesiastics in each deanery. (10) Each church, oratory, or chapel to have a suitable number of presbyters and clerics for divine worship therein. (11) No presbyter to celebrate wearing a tunic that does not reach below the knees, under a penalty of ten marks — half to go to the informer, and half to pious uses. (12) Every rector, vicar, or parish presbyter to possess a seal, circumscribed with his name, for the authen tication of citations and mandates sent to him for execu tion by the bishop or his officials, under a penalty of half a mark. (13) No priest to carry about a long knife {cultellum) known as " a hanger',' unless he be on a journey. 444 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. under the fine of half a mark. (14) No cleric, religious or secular, to lease his benefice to the laity, under pain of being deprived of a year's value of the benefice, which shall go to the fabric of St. Andrews Cathedral. (15) Bene ficed clergy are forbidden, under risk of deprivation, to administer any kind of secular business, excepting always the business of the king, queen, and the royal family. (16) No priest to give his blessing to any marriage except after proclamation of banns, under pain of suspension for three years and the loss of promotion. (17) Betrothals are to be made in the presence of a priest and witnesses ; banns to be proclaimed on the Lord's Day or on Festivals, and the marriage to be performed, not in private chapels, or in secret, but openly and solemnly in the parish church. (18) Clergy in defending their characters are not to make Use of the influence of powerful laymen to intercede with the bishop in their behalf. (19) Priests are not to give Christian burial to persons excommunicated, under pain of a year's suspension from office. (20) All clergy of the diocese to meet annually, immediately after Easter, in the consistorial court, and to be instructed as to celebrations, sacraments, and parish duties — the court for the arch deaconry of St. Andrews to be held in the parish church of that city, and, for the archdeaconry of Lothian, in St. Giles', Edinburgh. (21) Each priest to bring with him to the consistory a list of such of his parishioners as are openly known to need correction, that they may be dealt with personally by the bishop on his next visitation. (22) Priests are also to bring to the consistory annual registers of all persons deceased, in the parish, stating rank, age, condition, testate or intestate, that effect may be given to their wills, if any .^ -^ (23) All ecclesiastics contumacious to 1 Registers for baptisms and marriages were not ordered until the Provincial Council of 1552. SYNODAL STATUTES OF ST. ANDREWS 445 the lawful and canonical authority of their bishops to be suspended from office. (24) Sentences of excommunica tion to be passed upon persons guilty of certain offences, thirty in number and stated in detail. (25) Directions for the Reconciliation of a church or churchyard in cases of desecration.^ 1 From Robertson's Stattita, pp. 64-72. Robertson gives several in stances of "Reconciliation": — The parish church of Berwick upon Tweed polluted by the blood of a cleric- Scoloc, shed by a brother Scoloc, and reconciled by David de Bernham, bishop of St. Andrews, in 1242. The church of Coldingham was re conciled, and payment made of a hun dred and ten shillings for its recon ciliation. Among the privileges be stowed by pope Martin V. on the abbot of Arbroath in 1420, was that of reconciling churches. William Scheves, second archbishop of St. Andrews, had the privilege, while re siding at the papal court, of reconcil ing churches by proxy. In right of this he commissioned certain clerics of his diocese to reconcile the collegiate church of Rosslyn, which had been stained by blood. CHAPTER XXV REGENCY OF ALBANY AND HIS SON, I406-1424; REIGN OF JAMES I., 1 424- 1 43 7 Wickliff doctrines in Scotland — First persecutions of the Lollards — Burning of Resby — Founding of St. Andrews University — Effects of continued papal schism — Councils of Pisa and Constance to heal the schism — Provincial Councils in Perth — Character and rule of James I. — The king as a church reformer — Council of Basle — Antagonism between the Scottish Church and the papal see — Legates in Scotland — Decrees against the Lollards — Burning of Paul Crawar — The king curbing the tyranny of the nobles — Their revenge in his murder. James the son of Robert III. was a prisoner in England at his father's death, and remained so for nineteen years. The government had been for some time virtually in the hands of the king's brother, Robert, the first duke of Albany. The ParHament which now acknowledged James as king made Albany the regent. His rule was marked by more zeal for his family's interests than for the welfare of the country. He obtained from Henry V. the release of his own son Murdoch, who had been made a prisoner at Homildon Hill, but he made no apparent effort for the restoration of James to his throne. It is therefore not surprising that the prince nursed in his exile the bitterest hatred to Albany and his family — a hatred which he quenched in their blood when the opportunity came. CHAP, xxv BURNING OF JOHN RESBY 447 During the regency of Robert we have the first indications of the spread of heresy into Scotland. The doctrines of Wickliff had already been condemned in England, and in 1407, John Resby, an English priest, and a follower of Wickliff, came to disseminate them in Scotland. The success of his preaching roused the vigilance of the Church, and the preacher was brought before an ecclesiastical court, over which Lawrence of Lindores, an eminent canonist and inquisitor of heretical pravity, presided. Resby was accused of forty erroneous propositions, only two of which have been recorded by Bower, namely, that the pope was not the vicar of Christ, and that no man could be Christ's vicar who was not personally holy.-' He was condemned as a heretic, and burned along with his books at Perth in 1407. The English priest was the first of a long line of confessors, of various creeds, who suffered in Scotland " for conscience' sake." Resby's death did not extinguish his doctrines, and though the regent was personally hostile to the Lollards, as the new teachers and their disciples were called, their numbers grew in secret until they were strong enough to show themselves openly. The country was soon alarmed by an invasion of a different kind from that of the Lollards. Donald, lord of the Isles, descended with his Highland host from beyond the Spey into Aberdeenshire. The object of the invasion was first of all to plunder, and then, if they could, to conquer the Lowlands. Their defeat at Harlaw, on the Ury in Aberdeenshire, in the year 141 1, by the earl of Mar, the Wolf of Badenoch's illegitimate son, saved Scotland from a rule of Celtic lawlessness. The Celts, who had in early days given religion and civilisation to Britain and the Continent, had relapsed 1 Scotichron., xv. 20. 448 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. into semi -barbarism. Such was their condition now. Burton estimates the victory of Harlaw as " a more memorable deliverance than even that of Bannockburn." ¦' The east of Scotland at this time presented a more pleasing picture. The year before Harlaw was fought, the university of St. Andrews was founded by its bishop, Henry Wardlaw, " the father of the infant literature of his country." At the close of the thirteenth century the lady Devorgoil, the foundress of Sweet heart Abbey, had founded Baliol College in Oxford for Scots students. Hitherto, when desirous of more learning than was to be had in the cathedral and monastic schools, young Scots went to the universities of England and France. In 14 10, Wardlaw and his chapter established the first university in Scotland, and after four years' work on a humble scale, a papal bull came from Benedict XIII. confirming its rights and privileges as a Studiuni Generate, High festival was held in the old city, beginning with a solemn celebration in the cathedral, a Te Deum as thanksgiving, and sermon by the bishop of Ross, in the presence of four hundred clergy and the chief citizens of St. Andrews. The first disastrous schism in the papacy, which lasted nearly forty years (1378 -141 7), still continued. This schism, followed by another in a few years, did most serious injury to the Church and to religion. They are believed, more than any other cause, to have precipitated the religious revolt in the next age.^ The see of Galloway was placed in a peculiar position by the schism. England adhered to one pope, and Scotland adhered to another — the anti -pope Benedict XIII. Galloway, ecclesiastically, was still subject to the see of York, and politically it was a part of the Scottish 1 Hist. Scot., ii. 394. 2 Forbes's Life of St Ninian, Ivi. XXV THREE RIVAL POPES 449 kingdom, so that the papal schism practically extended itself in that quarter The Council of Pisa was held, in 1409, to put an end to the schism.-' Both popes pledged their oath to resign, and both perjured themselves. The council then proceeded to elect another pope, Peter of Candia, who became Alexander V. There were thus for a short time three rival popes with as many factions. On the death of Alexander V. his faction elected a most unprincipled Neapolitan — John XXII. The Council of Constance, 141 7, declared that an CEcumenical Council was superior to the pope, and it deposed pope John, and elected Otto de Colonna, Martin V. Gregory, the pope accepted by the English, then resigned, but Benedict XIII. still reigned at Avignon. The Scottish Church agreed to acknowledge Martin V. The case was not, however, decided by the prelates in a provincial council, but by a general council of the Three Estates, held in 141 8, where the prelates sat with the barons and the burghers of the realm.^ In 1420 a provincial council met in the Dominican monastery, Perth. It is the earliest of which any formal record has been preserved. William Stephen, one of the first professors in the university of St. Andrews, and now bishop of Dunblane, was chosen conservator. The business of the council was to safeguard the rights of the bishops in the confirmation of testaments and in the appointment of executors to administer the property of persons dying intestate.^ The regent, Robert, duke of Albany, died in 14 19, and was succeeded in the office by his son Murdoch. The new regent was an amiable man, but without his father's ' Theiner, p. 369. also p. 77, the second of the 2 Robertson, Statuta, Ixxvii. statutes which were passed at this- 3 Ibid., Statuta, Ixxx., and see council. 2 G 450 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. ability or ambition. For a few years he attempted to govern the country, but the lawlessness of the nobles defied him. The accession of Henry VI. to the English throne gave him an opportunity, which he was probably glad to embrace, of effecting the release of his cousin from his long exile. James returned to Scotland in 1424, being then in the thirty -second year of his age. He brought with him as his wife Jane Beaufort, daughter of the earl of Somerset. On the 21st May he was crowned at Scone, Murdoch claiming the right, as earl of Fife, to seat the king on the throne, while Wardlaw, bishop of St. Andrews, the friend and tutor of the prince's early years, anointed him and placed the crown on his head. James I. was the ablest and most accomplished sovereign of all the Stuart line, and he did not lose his literary tastes and habits amid the cares and burdens of the throne. His southern education had been a fitting preparation for the more active duties of the kingly life, and probably well worth the forty thousand pounds that the English charged for his involuntary maintenance. Had Scotland been as firmly governed by his predecessors as it was by himself, his reign would have been longer and the benefits of his rule more lasting. On coming to his throne he is said to have vowed that if God gave him life, there should not be a spot in his dominions where the key should not keep the castle, and the furze- bush the cow, though he himself should lead the life of a dog to accomplish it. The curbing of the lawless nobility, and the suppression of their tyrannical rule, was the first task he attempted. He was at least impolitic if not cruel in his sanguinary revenge upon the Albany family, his nearest relatives. Murdoch, the late regent, with his two sons, Walter and Alexander, and his father- XXV JAMES I. AS RULER AND LEGISLATOR 45 I in-law, the aged earl of Lennox, were beheaded on the heading hill of Stirling, within sight of duke Murdoch's castle of Doune. A third son, James Stewart, took refuge with Finlay, bishop of Argyll, in Ireland. The king made his power felt also in the Western Highlands, and compelled the submission of Alexander, the lawless lord of the Isles. While the court were in Holyrood Chapel for worship, Alexander appeared almost destitute of clothing in their presence. Approaching the high altar, he knelt before the king and presented him with a naked sword in token of his submission. Besides suppressing disorder, the king was a great law-maker, and every year of his reign saw some fresh laws added to the statute-book to improve the condition of his subjects. One of them, from its vein of pure charity, so rarely compressed within the dry lines of a statute, deserves to be quoted. It provides that " if there be any poor creature that, for default of cunning and dispenses, cannot or may not follow his cause, the king, for the love of God, shall ordain that the judge, before whom the cause should be determined, purvey and get a lele and a wise advocate to follow such poor creature's cause." That law is still use and wont in Scotland.^ As law and order lifted their heads, the trade of the country began to revive, and to give promise of a return to the prosperity which Scotland enjoyed under the third Alexander. With this object the king welcomed a deputation from Flanders to renew the old foreign trade with the Flemings. James was not less anxious in his efforts to reform the state of the Church, and especially of the monasteries. He addressed a letter, 14th March 1425, to the superiors of the Benedictine and Augustinian orders, beseeching 1 Burton, Hist, Scot, ii. 400. 452 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. them in the most solemn terms " by the bowels of Jesus Christ to shake off their torpor and sloth and set themselves to work to restore their fallen discipline and rekindle their dying fervour, that so they might save their houses from the ruin which menaced them." ^ In June of the same year he wrote to the bishop of St. Andrews, commanding him to take instant measures for the recovery of the property of his see, which had been robbed by the greed and nepotism of his predecessors.^ The great reforming Council of Basle opened in 143 1, and James sent to it, in 1433, as representatives of the Scottish Church, Cameron, bishop of Glasgow, Crannock, bishop of Brechin, the abbots of Melrose and Dundrennan, and four other clerics. More of the Scottish prelates received letters of safe-conduct to attend the council in 1434. Some of them joined in the deposition of pope Eugenius IV. ; and Thomas Livingston, abbot of Dundrennan, specially distinguished himself in the council by advocating that measure and promoting the election of the anti-pope, Felix V.' A provincial council is supposed to have met during the sitting of Parliament at Perth in 1427. The Parlia ment had passed a remarkable statute simplifying the forms of process and curtailing the costs of civil suits against the clergy in the Church courts, and then remitting the same to be registered and executed by the provincial council. The papal see took offence at the enactment as an invasion of the Church's rights, and summoned Cameron, bishop of Glasgow, who was also chancellor of ' Acts of Parlt., ii. pp. 25, 26. king's mouth on visiting the tomb 2 The zeal displayed by king of David I. at Dunfermline, that James in this direction makes highly "he was a sore saint for the crown." improbable the adage, first ascribed 3 Robertson, Statuta, xcvii. and to him by John Mair, a century after p. 284. the king's death, and put into the XXV THE KING'S DISPUTE WITH THE POPE 453 Scotland, to the papal court. The king resented the pope's interference, declined to send his chancellor, but sent two other prelates instead. Their embassy was not successful, and the papal court despatched William Croyser, archdeacon of Teviotdale, and a member of the pope's household, to Scotland, to summon the bishop of Glasgow in person. Croyser served the citation on the bishop and immediately left, the king pursuing him with sealed letters and charging him with treason. At an assize of nobles, gentry, and burgesses, Croyser was found guilty and stripped of his benefices and property. The pope, Eugenius IV., annulled the proceedings and called upon the king by letter (April 1436) to revoke the sentence, denouncing certain of the Scottish bishops " as Pilates rather than prelates," and threatening the king with excommunication and interdict.-' At this stage the king temporised and sent the bishop of Glasgow and the abbot of Arbroath to Rome, requesting that a legate should be sent to Scotland to settle the misunderstand ing. It was agreed to send Antonius, the bishop of Urbino, on the condition that a thousand gold ducats should be paid in advance for his expenses.^ The legate arrived before Christmas 1436. A meeting of the nobles and clergy in Parliament was fixed to be held at Perth, but before the day came the king was murdered and the country thrown into confusion. The mission of the nuncio was consequently fruitless. The last appearance of Croyser is in the character of apostolic nuncio to Scot land, December 1439, absolving the, bishop of Glasgow from the several ecclesiastical censures he had incurred by resisting the papal mandates.^ A still more distinguished visitor had come to Scot land in the preceding year on the same business — ^neas 1 Theiner, p. 373. 2 pud., p. 375. ^ p^d,^ p. 375. 454 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Sylvius, afterwards pope Pius II. He was then a young man of thirty years, with observant eyes and the pen of a ready writer. He made himself the historian of his own mission, and gives a gossiping description of the people and the country he saw from the Forth to the Solway. It all appeared rude and comfortless to the nuncio reared in the luxury of an Italian home, and it appears little else to us looking back upon it from amidst the civilisation of our modern life. The doctrines of the Lollards continued to spread in Scotland. Masters of arts in the university of St. Andrews were required by a decree of 141 6 to take an oath to defend the Church from their heresies. A special act against them was also passed by Parliament in 1425 after the return of king James. Nothing is heard of the enforcement of this act until eight years afterwards, when Paul Crawar, a physician from Prague, appeared to disseminate the tenets of the Hussites. He is admitted to have been a learned man and remarkably versed in the Scriptures. He was brought before Lawrence, abbot of Lindores, the same inquisitor who had tried and sentenced Resby. Crawar was accused of teaching, among other things, that purgatory was a fable and pflgrimages a fraud, and that transubstantiation was unscriptural. It is also alleged that he and his followers denied the resurrection, preached the community of goods, and led licentious lives.^ Crawar was burned as a heretic at St. Andrews, 23rd July 1433. The successive , steps taken by James to curb the tyrannical power of the nobles made a section of them bitterly hostile to his rule. They formed a conspiracy with the object of dethroning him and substituting Walter, earl of Atholl, son of Robert II. James was in 1 Scotichron., xvi. 20. xxv MURDER OF JAMES I. IN PERTH 455 the habit of living with his court from time to time in some of the more affluent monasteries. He spent the Christmas of 1436 in the Dominican monastery, Perth, and continued there for some weeks. There the king was brutally murdered on the night of 23 rd February 1437. He was buried in the Carthusian monastery, Perth, the only house of that order in Scotland, and James himself had founded it. The untimely death of the king was a great blow to his people. Had his life been prolonged he would, judging from his character, his abilities, and the promise of his earlier years, have effected still greater reformations in both Church and State. In the reign of James I. the see of the Isles was separated from Man. The bishop of the Isles took his seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1430. In the time of James IV. the Benedictine church of Iona became the cathedral of the Isles. Finlay, bishop of Argyll and provincial of the Dominicans in Scotland, had fled to Ireland in 1425 with James Stewart, youngest son of Murdoch, duke of Albany. The bishop's connection with that family as chaplain laid him open to a charge of treason. At the request of James I. the pope issued a bull appointing a commission of inquiry as to the bishop's treason and flight. Nothing is known of the result. The tragedy at Perth threw the kingdom into confusion, and the eagerness to revenge the king's death, coupled with the necessity of preserving order and securing the succession to the crown, entirely absorbed for the time the thoughts of the country. CHAPTER XXVI JAMES IL, 1 437- 1 460 Faction and treason — Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews — Abbot Livingston — Provincial councils in Perth — Crown's claim on personal estate of bishops at their decease — Their address to Parliament — Collegiate churches — Glasgow University founded - — St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews — Bishop Lauder of Argyll — Noblemen's sons and relatives begging benefices in Scottish Church from the pope — Pope encourages theological study — Disputed presentations — Proposed absorption of priories — Observantines, reformed Franciscans — Suppression of Trinity friars at Failefurd — King's death at Roxburgh. James II. son of the late king was crowned in his seventh year at Holyrood, not at Scone, the 25th March 1437. The queen-mother had fled with the prince for safety to Edinburgh Castle. The condition of the country is indicated by the tragic fate of the late king. It did not improve by the loss of his firm rule. The civil history of the period becomes little else than the record of successive families rising into perilous eminence amidst a whirl of the most selfish and ambitious intrigues. The Crichtons, the Boyds, the Crawfords, the Livingstons, and especially the powerful house of Douglas, follow each other in quick succession. The boy -king is now in the hands of one faction, now in the hands of another. Battles are fought and heads are struck off for what was called treason — treason being then another name for opposition to the uppermost faction. There was once a ruler who wished CHAP. XXVI BISHOP KENNEDY OF ST. ANDREWS 45 7 that the heads of his seditious subjects were all on one neck that they might be dealt with at a blow. Such might have been the pardonable wish of more than one of the Jameses. Few civil histories are politically more despicable than the history of Scotland in this age. There are passing gleams of patriotism, but the general tone is depressing. It has been the fashion with some historians to ascribe the anarchy and misery of the country to the incapacity of the Stuarts and to condemn them as a succession of crowned weaklings. A more dispassionate view will lay the blame elsewhere — not on the unfortunate kings but on the semi-barbarous nobles, many of whom could not write their own name, and who acknowledged no law but self-will and no principle but self-interest. The first, second, and fourth James were all sovereigns of more than average capacity and moral courage ; but the guerilla chiefs of the age (it is altogether misleading to call them nobles) made good government impossible. The young king was fortunate in having an excellent adviser in Kennedy, the new bishop of St. Andrews. The aged bishop Wardlaw died in 1440 after an episcopate of thirty-six years. Kennedy, then bishop of Dunkeld, was translated to St. Andrews. He was related to the king, being a son of Mary, daughter of Robert III., by her second husband. Sir James Kennedy. The bishop was at Florence at the time of his translation, attending the General Council under pope Eugenius IV., and he probably owed his promotion to his devotion to that pope against his rival, Felix V. Bishop Kennedy was equally acceptable to the next pope, Nicolas V., who commissioned him, in 1447, to absolve from censure the Scottish prelates who had adhered to the Council of Basle and the cause of Felix V. Nicolas styles his rival " that son {alumnus) of perdition, Amedeus, formerly duke of Sebandie, and pre- 458 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. suming to be called Felix V." In the bull to bishop Kennedy the pope says : " Your devotion to the apostolic see at the Council of Basle, which for good reasons was transferred to our city of Ferrara, was well known to our predecessor, Eugenius IV." ^ Notwithstanding the eloquent advocacy of Livingston, the abbot of Dundrennan, in behalf of Felix V. at the Council of Basle, his supporters failed to carry with them a majority of the Scottish clergy. The strife in the Scottish Church was bitter between the rival factions, the one excommunicating the other, and each despising the other's excommunications. Livingston, who was a member of a family that had lately risen into political prominence, temporised after the Council of Basle and made his peace with the new pope, Nicolas V. His reward was the vacant see of Dunkeld, but the king opposed the appointment, and he was made abbot of Coupar (Angus), worth fifteen hundred gold florins a year, which he held with several other benefices.^ A provincial council held at Perth accepted Eugenius as pope, and the Parliament confirmed its decision in 1443, threatening with severe penalties, civil and ecclesiastical, the adherents of the rival faction now called " the schism." ^ Thomas Greenlaw, rector of Connayth ( ? Conveth, i.e, Laurencekirk), diocese of St. Andrews, was deprived for persisting in his adherence to the Council of Basle.* James was married in Holyrood, June 1449, to Mary the only daughter of the wealthy duke of Gueldres. Without possessing his father's accomplishments the young king showed, as he grew up to manhood, that he had all his determination. Aided by bishop Kennedy, his chan cellor in succession to Crichton, he set himself to ad minister the affairs of his kingdom with a firm hand. 1 Theiner, p. 377- ^ Ibid., Statuta, xcix. 2 Robertson, Statuta, xcviii. seq. * Theiner, p. 381. XXVI CROWN CLAIMING DECEASED BISHOPS' PROPERTY 459 Several of the nobles paid for their treason by death, some in battle, others on the scaffold after judicial trial. One of them, the haughty earl of Douglas, fell by the king's own hand in Stirling Castle, in breach of the royal pledge for the earl's safety. The Church is said to have enjoyed a brief respite, and religion to have revived as law and order prevailed. ^ A provincial council met in 1445 under the bishop of Brechin. The bishops were still aggrieved by the claim of the crown to seize their movable goods, or personal estate, at their decease. Successive papal bulls had been powerless to restrain the crown's cupidity. The bishops applied to Parliament this year, and a committee was appointed to consider the question, but nothing came of the conference. In another Parliament, held at Edin burgh in 1450, eight of the bishops appeared before the king, his barons and burgesses, and on their knees craved redress for the wrong that was done them by the confisca tion of their personal property at their death. Their petition was earnestly supported by the young queen, an ardent churchwoman, herself the munificent foundress of the Trinity Collegiate Church and Hospital, Edinburgh. The result was that ParHament issued a charter under the great seal to each of the bishops, giving them full power to dispose by will of their personal estate. It also pro vided that the rentals of the bishops' mensal churches and the revenues of their spirituality should go to their successors. But the crown still retained the real estate of the see during a vacancy, and the advowson of all benefices in the bishop's gift falling vacant before the entry of his successor.^ Against this last proviso the bishops made no stand, fruitful though they knew it to be of mischief to the Church. Episcopal vacancies were 1 Grub, i. 373 ; following Leslie. 2 Robertson, Statuta, c. to cv. 460 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. unnecessarily prolonged, and unworthy nominees of the crown were appointed to Church benefices. The year 145 1 was marked by the erection of two collegiate churches in the diocese of Glasgow — Hamilton, anciently known as Cadzow, and Dunbarton. The former was erected at the petition of James, lord of Hamilton. The rector of Cadzow was dean of Glasgow, and his parish church was served by a vicar, who was unequal to minister to the large population. The parish church was accordingly made collegiate with a provost and six chaplains, endowed with twenty pounds in lands and rentals, and the church was to be enlarged and beautified.^ St. Mary's Collegiate Church, Dunbarton, was a new foundation by the countess of Lennox, widow of Murdoch, duke of Albany, in memory of her husband, her father, and her two sons, beheaded at StirHng by James I. It was endowed for a provost, six canons, and several choristers.^ The year 1 4 5 1 is memorable for a greater and more lasting foundation — Glasgow University. William Turnbull, the bishop of Glasgow, has the honour of being its founder. It is proof that the leading churchmen of that age were earnest in their efforts to extend the benefits of learning to their countrymen. On the bishop's petition to Rome, supported by the king, a papal bull was received from Nicolas V., dated 7th January 145 1.' The pre amble of the bull enlarges upon the pearl of knowledge, the salubrity of Glasgow, the abundance of its victuals, and the desire of the pontiff that the city itself should 1 Theiner, p. 382. at the Reformation as heir of all its 2 The church stood on the site of property "in place of ye provost and the present railway station, and its canons." Irving's Dunbartonshire, tower arch, "the only remnant of a p. 82. once extensive pile," now forms the ^ The bull is given at length in gateway of St. Augustine's parsonage. Theiner, pp. 383 seq. The earl of Dundonald was infefted XXVI FOUNDING OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY 46 1 be adorned with the gifts of learning. The university was empowered to teach theology, the canon and civil law, and the arts, after the model of Bologna, and the bishop of Glasgow was to be ex officio chancellor. The university, it has been said, " came into the world as naked as every individual " ; to which it may be added that it was scantily clothed in its infancy. The classes are supposed to have met in the cathedral chapter-house, in the Dominican monastery, and in the old psedagogium. Rotten Row, until James, lord Hamilton, the founder of the collegiate church in his own parish, presented the regent and students in 1459 with a domicile near the Dominicans in the High Street, and endowed it with four acres of land on the Dowhill by the Molendinar burn. Three years later, David, rector of Cadzow, and regent of the university, endowed a lectureship with twelve marks, and his example was followed by a layman who gifted another tenement for the students. Thus modestly lodged, and scantily endowed, the university began its career. The number of students was for many years small. So late as 1521, Major (or Mair), in his history of Scotland, says this continued to be the case.^ Among the earliest of its matriculated students, in 145 i, was William Elphinstone, afterwards the learned bishop of Aberdeen, who founded the university in his own episcopal city. " Thus is one lamp lighted at another." ^ Among later Glasgow students who rose to eminence were Cardinal Beaton, John Knox, and John Spottiswoode. A month after the foundation of Glasgow University, bishop Kennedy obtained a papal bull for St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews. Its object was to strengthen the theological and arts faculties, and it provided for a small 1 Major, De Gestis Scotorum, p. 19. 2 Cunningham, Hist. Scot, i. 195. 462 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. corporation of thirteen members (the old monastic number), of whom the provost was to be a master in theology, the second a licentiate, and the third a bachelor in that faculty, besides four priests, masters of arts, and six poor clerics or scholars imbued with a love of mental science {scientiis speculativis). Two church benefices were annexed in support of the college.^ Bishop Kennedy's charter of 145 I was confirmed in 1458 by the next pope, Pius II. (^neas Sylvius), who also granted plenary indulgence for ten years to all visitors contributing to St. Salvator's within the octave of Michaelmas. A third of the money was to be sent to Rome for the crusades and two-thirds reserved for the college. In 1468 pope Paul II. confers on St. Salvator's the same right of granting degrees in theology and arts as was possessed by the university.^ The result of this concession was a collision between the rector of the university and the provost of St. Salvator's, and an appeal to the provincial council which met in 1470 under Patrick Graham, now bishop of St. Andrews, as conservator. This was the last provincial council of the Scottish Church for more than sixty years. The appointment of a metropolitan within two years of this date did not apparently promote the convening of pro vincial councils.^ Bishop Kennedy, the benefactor of St. Andrews, was alike the greatest and the best man of his age. He was the trusted friend and counsellor of the king to the end of his reign. Though much occupied in affairs of the State, being for a time chancellor of Scotland, the bishop is said to have visited four times a year every parish in his large diocese, from Berwick to the river Dee. A story is told of the king's repairing to him at St. Andrews for advice 1 Theiner, p. 383. 2 m^^^ pp_ ^Qg^ ^Qg^ ^39, 460. 2 Robertson's Statuta, cviii. cix. XXVI DISLOYALTY OF THE SCOTTISLI NOBLES 463 how to break up the secret leagues, known as bands of " manreds," that were now being formed among the nobles to strengthen their position against the crown. The bishop led him first into his oratory that they might together seek in prayer the Divine guidance. Returning to the library, the bishop made a bundle of arrows and asked the king to break them, which he could not. Advising him to separate them and take them one by one, it was easily done.^ The king understood the bishop's object lesson in government, and practised it at once in dealing with the " band " between the earls of Crawford and Douglas. Crawford retaliated upon the bishop by plundering his episcopal lands in Fife. The bishop excommunicated the earl, which he " highly vilipended as a thing of no strength." It had strength within a year, when the earl's dead body lay for burial and " no man durst earth him " till the sentence of excommunication was withdrawn. In those days church men reverenced the king and bishop Kennedy. Burton describes the bishop as " an able politician," " the first churchman to hold high political influence in Scotland " — " one of the few political reputations against which no stone is cast." ^ Equally favourable is the character of the bishop drawn by Tytler.^ George Lauder, the bishop of Argyll, on the other side of the country, makes a different figure in the year 1452. He became highly unpopular in his diocese from his praiseworthy efforts to reform the rough manners of the western people. Two Celtic officials, powerful laymen, his own chancellor and treasurer, refusing to be reformed, assembled the clan Lachlan and violently 1 Hist Scot, by Lindsay of Pit- ^ Hist..^ iii. pp. 198, 199, 330, scottie, pp. 32, 33. 331- 2 Hist, ii. 426, and iii. 2. 464 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. assaulted the bishop while on his way to his cathedral church. The clan cursed the bishop in Gaelic, but as he was a Fifeshire man he may not have understood them. They then unhorsed and robbed his attendant clergy, and next day proceeded to plunder the church of every thing valuable, including bulls and charters. They ended by making the bishop swear, under terror of his life, that he would not prosecute them. Three years later the bishop suffered similar violence at the hands of the forfeited earl of Douglas and John lord of the Isles, who were in league together against the throne. The bishop had affixed his episcopal seal, as other bishops had done, to the sentence of forfeiture pronounced against the earl, and this was the Douglas's revenge.-' The papal correspondence (Theiner) in the reign of James 1 1., in addition to references already made, records several applications to the pope from scions of the nobility for Scottish benefices. They all represent them selves to be of noble birth, some of them baronial on both sides, and this seems to be their chief if not their sole recommendation. This papal interference with the administration of patronage must have seriously crippled the hands of bishop Kennedy and other reforming prelates. There is a Lindsay of the house of Crawford, in his twenty-third year, commended by the pope for a canonry in Dunkeld, worth twenty-four pounds sterling. David Monypenny, sprung from barons on both sides, seeks papal aid to a living, and is commended. Canon Ogilvy of Aberdeen, noble in lineage, obtains another and richer canonry in Moray, to the extrusion of Gilbert Forester, who was in possession, but under excommunication for his adherence to the anti-pope. Gilbert's turn came in a few years, when he purges himself of schism, pleads 1 Tytler, Hist, iii. 263. XXVI PAPAL EXERCISE OF CHURCH PATRONAGE 465 his noble stock, and becomes canon of Dunkeld. John of Balfour, of noble race on both sides, receives a canonry in Aberdeen, value fifteen pounds sterling, after absolution for his complicity with the Council of Basle and the schism. A foreigner, Peter, cardinal -presbyter of St. Mark's, is granted a pension of three hundred gold florins from Paisley Abbey. The pope is careful to add that this was not done upon Peter's petition but of the mere good will {merd libertate) of his holiness. It was easy for the pope to be liberal at the expense of Paisley.^ A more commendable feature in the papal transac tions of this time was the effort to rescue from the religious houses some of their superfluous wealth for the promotion of learning among the parish clergy. Nicolas V. in a bull of -145 1 revoked several parish benefices in the city and diocese of St. Andrews, in the possession of monasteries, and conferred them on poor clerics who were devoting themselves to the study of letters. The pope states that however the benefices might have been originally obtained, they had not been peaceably possessed by the monks, and he complains that the secular clergy had now no provision left to encourage them in the study of theology. The next pope, Callixtus HI., began a similar reform in Galloway by revoking the parish church of Kirkinner, the richest in the diocese, from that well-beneficed ecclesiastic, Thomas Livingston, once abbot of Dundrennan and now abbot of Coupar, worth fifteen hundred florins a year, besides a pension of a hundred florins from Newbattle and the like sum from Dundrennan. The bull states that so many benefices in Galloway, formerly held by the secular clergy, had been annexed by the monasteries that few remained to be 1 Theiner, pp. 376, 378, 387, 393. 418. 2 H 466 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. conferred on parish priests. There is no doubt that this state of things extensively prevailed over Scotland.^ There was a dispute in 1453 between the bishop of Brechin and the abbot of Lindores about the patronage of the church in Dundee, value thirty pounds sterling. Both bishop and abbot claimed it, and the pope settled the dispute in the usual fashion by claiming the benefice for the holy see and then appointing the bishop's nominee, Richard Wylie, perpetual curate of Kirriemuir. Another disputed' presentation was that of Newlands parish, Peeblesshire, value forty pounds sterling. On the election of Ninian, its rector, to the see of Galloway, the widow of James lord Douglas, of Dalkeith, presented Andrew Lyall, rector of Blair (Dunkeld). The bishop of Glasgow refused to institute him, and appointed Umfred de Valenta. Lyall appealed to Rome and his appeal was sustained.^ In 1454 the pope appointed a commission to unite the priories of Urquhart and Pluscardine. The rentals of both houses were now so diminished that they could not decently support the ordinances of religion. The numbers of the monks were also much reduced — to six in Pluscardine and two in Urquhart. As the former belonged to the Vallis Caulium order, and its parent monastery was in France, while Urquhart was a cell of Dunfermline, it was proposed to absorb Pluscardine and give pensions to its prior and brethren. The commission apparently was not successful in its object, as we find afterwards independent priors of Pluscardine. There was also a papal commission in 1459 to absorb the priory of Fyvie into Arbroath Abbey, of which it was a cell. From mal administration the income of the great abbey had been reduced to twelve hundred pounds sterling, the buildings 1 Theiner, pp. 385, 401, 415, St. Ninian, Ivii. and see also bishop Forbes's Life of 2 /^^^.^ pp_ ^go^ 420. XXVI DECAY OF PRIORIES OBSERVANTINE FRIARS 467 were ruinous, and there was a debt of three thousand marks with no means of paying it. The income of Fyvie was only eighteen pounds sterling, and the little priorj^ was to be swallowed up by the impecunious abbey.^ These proposed absorptions of the minor houses indicate a growing declension of monastic fervour. The tide which had been in its fiood in the days of king David I., and for some time after, was now fast ebbing, and the revulsion of feeling against the monasteries was un doubtedly due to their grasping and avaricious spirit, their worldly ethics, and their relaxed discipline. The introduc tion of friars, and their popularity for a time in Scotland, was a reflection upon the monasteries, or " rented Religious " ; but the friars themselves soon stood in need of reform, and the Observantines, or reformed Franciscans, represented the last development of this kind in the national religion. James I., who would have been a radical Church reformer had his life been spared, introduced the simpler and severer order of Observantines from Cologne, and the last of their nine houses in Scotland — Jedburgh — was founded in 1513.2 In the year 1459 James II. and his devout queen, Mary of Gueldres, united in a petition to the pope to suppress the monastery of Red friars at Failefurd in Kyle, and to assign its house and church and rents for a hospital for poor and sick men which they had erected there. The royal petition gives a deplorable account of the immorality of the monastery, and prays for the removal of the minister and brethren to make way for their ^ Theiner, pp. 391, 418. The Houses, Keith, p. 411, Mason is absorption would seem to have been stated to have been still prior in 1484. postponed, as two years afterwards 2 xhe nine Scottish Observantine there was another commission to houses, in their probable chronological depose the prior, Alexander Mason, order, were Edinburgh, Aberdeen, for grave misconduct. Theiner, p. St. Andrews, Perth, Ayr, Glasgow, 430. In Spottiswoode's Religious Elgin, Stirling, Jedburgh. 468 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xxvi hospital. The pope, as informed by the king's letter, says the whole of Scotland was ringing with the scandal of it. The position of the " minister " of Faile as provincial of all the Red friars in Scotland, with a seat in Parliament, must have aggravated the scandal. The rental of Faile is stated at seventy pounds sterling. The pope appointed the bishop and archdeacon of Glasgow and the bishop of Galloway (always called Candida Casa in papal letters) a commission of inquiry.^ This petition was the last ecclesiastical act of the king. For more than a hundred years, ever since the battle of Neville's Cross, the frontier fortress of Roxburgh had been in the hands of the English. In the midst of a truce between the two countries James laid siege to it, and was killed by the bursting of a cannon, one of the rude pieces of ordnance then coming into use, in the month of August 1460. The king had not completed his thirtieth year when he met his untimely death. He left three sons — James, his successor, Alexander, duke of Albany, and John, earl of Mar — and two daughters. The widowed queen hastened with her infant son James to Roxburgh and urged the Scottish army to continue the siege, which resulted in the immediate capture of the castle. The prince was then hurriedly conducted to Kelso Abbey and crowned in his eighth year — James III. After which the court removed to Edinburgh for the burial of the late king in Holyrood, where he had been crowned twenty-three years before. 1 Theiner, p. 421. CHAPTER XXVII JAMES IIL, 1 460- 1 48 8 Death of bishop Kennedy — Englishmen precluded from Scottish benefices — TuUoch, bishop of Orkney — King's marriage — Papal letters and privileges — Scottish clerics begging benefices at Rome — King's usurpation and abuse of patronage — Deteriora tion of the Church — St. Giles', Edinburgh, made collegiate — Primacy of St. Andrews and archbishop Graham — Accusations against Graham — His trial and condemnation — Archbishop Scheves — Papal exemptions — Papal jubilee — Pilgrims' privi leges at Rome, at Glasgow Cathedral, and at St. Mary's, Lass wade — Bishop Blackader of Glasgow — Rivalry between Glasgow and St. Andrews — Founding of Aberdour " Hospital " for education of girls. The young king was early deprived of his two best advisers — the queen-mother, who died suddenly in 1463, and good bishop Kennedy, whose death in May 1466 was regarded as a national calamity. George Buchanan, in no way partial to bishops, says of him that " his death was so deeply deplored by all good men, that the country seemed to weep for him as for a public parent." ^ His successor in the see of St. Andrews was his uterine brother, Patrick Graham, grandson of Robert 1 11.^ Bishop Patrick was translated from Brechin to St. Andrews in 1466 and became the first archbishop in 1472. In the year 1466 the Scottish Parliament, losing 1 Hist Scot, xii. 23. Bishop Kennedy was a son of the 2 Mary, the daughter of Robert second marriage, and Graham of the IIL, was three times married. third. 470 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. bishop Kennedy's guidance, revived the act of king Robert Bruce forbidding Englishmen to hold benefices in Scotland. In the same year the application of Christian, king of Denmark and Norway, for the protection of the king of Scots on behalf of Tulloch, bishop of Orkney, led to an important political change in these isles. The bishop, who is described as " a Scotsman, and a prelate of high accomplishments and great suavity of manners," had been imprisoned by a son of the earl of Orkney. The steps taken to release the bishop were followed by pro posals for a marriage between king James and Margaret the daughter of king Christian. Margaret became queen of Scotland, and the Orkney and Shetland Islands, pledged for her dowry which was never paid, became part of the kingdom of Scotland. The queen is said to have been endowed with a rare union of wisdom and sweetness. The application made to the pope by king James for her canonisation after her death ^ would imply that she was a woman of exceptional piety. Nothing came of the application in the midst of the troubles of the king's latter years ; but it is not generally known how near Scotland was to having two Saint Margarets in her roll of queens. King James is credited with artistic tastes and some literary culture, but they were a poor substitute for the political capacity and firmness so much needed in a Scottish king of that age, and which he so singularly lacked. His education fell into bad hands after the death of bishop Kennedy, and he was tossed, as his father had been in his minority, from one unprincipled faction to another. Of church incidents in the reign of James IIL, from 1460 to 1472, when St. Andrews was made the metropoli tan see, we have the following additional information from 1 Theiner, p. 499. XXVII VARIOUS PAPAL FAVOURS 47 I Theiner. Hugh of Dunglass, a member of the Home family, receives the living of Kirkinner, rich in that day with forty pounds sterling.^ The parish church of Dunoon, .^12, is made " mensal" to the see of Argyll, worth only .£^140, upon which income George Lauder its bishop com plained that he could not decently live. The friar bishops of Argyll made no such complaint. The king out of pity made the gift to Argyll at the expense of Dunoon.^ To the abbot of Arbroath is granted that the vicars of the parish churches annexed to the abbey shall not be subjected officially, financially, or otherwise, to the bishops in whose dioceses they are, but only to the diocesan bishop of the monastery, namely St. Andrews.^ Thomas Spence, bishop of Aberdeen, receives power to nominate to all benefices falling vacant in his diocese, secular or regular, for six alternate months in the year during his episcopate.* To Mary of Gueldres, the queen-mother, is granted confirmation of the union of the hospital which she had erected for poor men at Soultra, near Edinburgh, with the collegiate church founded and endowed by her in memory of her husband.^ In the next year, 1463, the last of her life, Mary receives indulgence to have a portable altar {altare portabile) on which a priest might celebrate every Lord's Day, wherever she should be.^ Gilbert Forester, archdeacon of Brechin, after being excommuni cated for some offence,'' publicly flogged George Shores- 1 Theiner, p. 429. If Hugh took * Ibid., p. 437. possession he held it for a short time, ^ Ibid., pp. 439, 442. Trinity as it was offered three years after- Collegiate Church, endowed with 100 wards, in 1463, to Thomas Living- marks a year to support a provost ston, "bishop of Dunkeld in the and twelve presbyters and clerics, universal church," as a consolation for stood in the valley, a few yards the king's opposing his election to to the east of the present Waverley that see. Livingston had to vacate Station. It was still standing in Kirkinner when made abbot of 1848, with the stones numbered for Coupar and otherwise enriched. rebuilding on another site. 2 Ibid., p. 432. « Ibid, p. 451- 3 Ibid., p. 435. '¦ See ante, p. 464. 472 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. wood, the bishop of Brechin, and some time chancellor of Scotland, in his own cathedral. For this grave assault he was subjected to a court of inquiry held under papal commission.^ There are about twenty recommendations made within a few years by pope Pius II. on behalf of hungry appli cants for Scottish canonries and other benefices. The papal court was crowded by these hangers-on, beg ging and bribing the officials for livings which they had evidently no hope of procuring by meritorious service at home. James I. had passed an act of Parlia ment against barratry, or simony, prohibiting ecclesiastics to leave the kingdom except by permission of the crown, and forbidding them at the same time to carry money with them out of the country. In two of these cases, dated 1460, William Elphinstone, the future bishop of Aberdeen, is applied to by the papal court, and is designated canon and Official of Glasgow.^ King James III. is also largely responsible for the abuse of ecclesi astical patronage by invading the rights of cathedral and monastic chapters and appointing his own unworthy nominees. He requested pope Paul II., in 147 1, to confirm the abbots he had nominated to Arbroath and Melrose. The pope characterised the application as wanting in respect to the apostolic see, professed to ignore the king's nominations, and at the same time appointed his nominees.^ The king was guilty of the same tyranni cal intrusion into Paisley and Dunfermline Abbeys — in the latter case annulling the election made by the chapter, and appointing his own favourite, Crichton, as their abbot.* 1 Theiner, p. 444. incompetent persons to the most 2 Ibid., pp. 429, 454. important offices, and attributes it to 3 Ibid., p. 464. the influence of the nobles, but is * Bellesheim, .ffi'j-/., ii. 96, laments silent as to the larger share of blame the growing evil of appointing utterly which attached to the Roman see XXVII ST. ANDREWS MADE AN ARCHBISHOPRIC 473 In 1468 the papal court acquiesced in a petition of the provost and magistrates of Edinburgh to erect St. Giles' into a collegiate church with a provost, fourteen canons, a minister of the choir, and a sacristan. The latter was to beat or play {pulsare) the organ and the bells, and the choirmaster was to take charge of four boys.^ Two years later a papal bull was granted, on the application of the king, withdrawing St. Giles' and its clergy from the jurisdiction of the bishop of St. Andrews (Graham) and subjecting it immediately to the holy see. For this favour St. Giles' was to pay annually an ounce of pure gold to Rome.^ This attitude to bishop Graham is suggestive of his unpopularity with the king, and prepares us for the open hostility which broke out against him when made the first archbishop of St. Andrews. Many Scottish kings had solicited in vain a primacy for St. Andrews. Bishop Graham, when at Rome in 1472, prevailed upon pope Sixtus IV. to issue a bull creating St. Andrews an archiepiscopal and metro politan see, with all Scotland as its province, and the twelve Scottish bishops as its suffragans. Patrick received at the same time the pall and the cross, the outward insignia of his new office. The Scottish king, bishops, chapters, clergy, and people were all apprised of the new dignity conferred upon St. Andrews.' The result was a perfect storm of opposition from every quarter. The king, though related by blood to the new arch bishop, opposed it. The nobles, headed by Boyd, a bitter personal enemy to Graham, opposed it. The bishops, averse to the exercise nearer home than Rome of any for not checking the evil, but on the 1 Theiner, p. 455. contrary aiding and abetting it by 2 JUd., p. 463. its own corrupt practice. ^ Ibid., p. 465. 474 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. rule or authority over them, opposed it. And opposition came from other quarters. Neville, the archbishop of York, brother of the earl of Warwick, " the king-maker," though he was in prison for treason, and stripped of his temporalities, lifted his voice against it as an invasion of the ancient rights of York. The pope answered him that " an enemy ought not to have metro politan rights in Scotland." From distant Drontheim came the protest of its archbishop against being robbed of two of his suffragans, the bishops of Orkney and the Sudreys.^ Thus fared it with the first possessor of an ecclesias tical dignity which the Scottish Church had so long coveted and craved as a bulwark of her independence. The country was not disposed to be any more reconciled to the archbishop when he returned as apostolic nuncio with the odious commission to extort a tithe of all benefices for a crusade against the Turks. The arch bishop's only friend, and that for a brief time, was the pope, who gave him for his " mensals," to support the new dignity, the priory of Pittenweem (with that of the isle of May annexed), revenue £ioo, and seven parish churches in his diocese — Lasswade, Tyninghame, For teviot, Craig, Tannadice, Fettercairn, Kinnell, whose united stipends were ;^240 of the money of that day.^ Graham also persuaded the pope to cancel the exemption from episcopal authority which was the privilege of Kelso and Holyrood Abbeys, the collegiate church of St. Salvator's in St. Andrews, and St. Giles', Edinburgh, so recently exempted by the previous pope, Paul 1 1.' The archbishop's reasons, which are cogent, are recorded in the papal letter that recalled the exemptions.* ^ Cf. Robertson, Statuta, cxv. to St. Andrews — " Sancti Andrese 2 Theiner, pp. 468, 469. diocesi pro tempore existens." ^ Kelso was transferred tempor- * Theiner, p. 470. arily from the diocese of Glasgow XXVII GRAHAM FIRST ARCHBISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS 475 The pope recalled exemptions with one hand and conceded them with the other. Old bishop Spence of Aberdeen, a worthy and honoured prelate of that day, remonstrated with the pope for making him suffragan to St. Andrews, and added that only his old age prevented him from contesting in person the authority of the new metropolitan. The pope, while granting exemption to the bishop of Aberdeen during his life, denies that he had conferred metropolitan powers upon St. Andrews, which is not consistent with the terms of his own bull.-' Short-lived were the honours of Patrick, first arch bishop of St. Andrews. It is difficult amid the clamour of the times to get a proper estimate of his character. He was evidently ambitious, but there is reason for believing that he was a sincere reformer of the Church, sensible of its corruptions and abuses, and imbued with the honest desire to correct them. He had not, however, the cool head of his half-brother and predecessor bishop Kennedy, and so proved unequal to the general storm of opposition which his elevation had aroused. It is a doubtful point whether his elevation, or the opposition to it, had the greater effect in undermining his mental stability. At any rate, in the midst of the turmoil his reason gave way. The king, the chapter, and the university of St. Andrews agreed in accusing him to the papal see of simony and other grave offences. In 1474 the pope appointed Dr. John Huseman, of the diocese of Cologne, his nuncio, to examine and report upon the charges.^ The nuncio came to St. Andrews 1 Cf. Theiner, pp. 465, 473. following application of the Divine 2 The sense of reverence is gener- language. The pope says he would ally a sufficient safeguard in the have had Patrick tried before the papal letters against profanity, but apostolic see, but because the com- reverence seems strained in the plaints against him were a scandal 476 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and examined many witnesses, including the accused primate and his archdeacon, William Scheves, who acted as coadjutor during Graham's mental incapacity, and was all along his relentless enemy. The grounds of accusation are stated at length in the bull, of 9th January 1478, which condemned the archbishop. There is hardly a conceivable offence of which he was not accused. The charges included, among other things, tyranny, falsifica tion of papal letters, resistance to papal mandates, contempt of ecclesiastical censures from Rome, cele brating mass thrice a day when under excommunication, alleging that he was chosen by God to be pope, and called by an angel to reform the Church which was crowned with falsehood, appointing legates and proto- notaries to divers regions, and nominating a presbyter to the see of Ross, recalling indulgences granted by the holy see and asserting that they were given for filthy lucre. He was accordingly deposed from his see, degraded from his orders, and condemned as an obstinate heretic and schismatic to be imprisoned for life in a monastery. The sentence was ordered to be published in " the diocese and province of St. Andrews." ^ The deposed archbishop was first confined in Inch Colm Abbey, and from dread of his capture there by English cruisers he was removed to Dunfermline, and from that to Lochleven. There he died, and was buried in the monastery of St. Serf, 1478.^ It is inferentially favourable to the character of no longer to be borne, "therefore, putes the accuracy of Dr. David following the ' doctrina ' of the Laing's statement that the arch- Creator, who said, I will go down bishop was condemned for heresy. and see whether the ciy which is Grub says it rests only on the come to me, etc., we send you our authority of Spottiswoode, following apostolic notary to inquire and see," Leslie and Buchanan. Heresy is etc. Theiner, p. 478. distinctly named in the bull deposing 1 Theiner, pp. 479 seq. him. See Theiner, sttpra. 2 Dr. Grub, Hist, i. 386, dis- XXVII PAPAL JUBILEE 477 archbishop Graham that his bitterest accuser, William Scheves, archdeacon of St. Andrews, became his successor. Scheves was consecrated in Holyrood Church on Passion Sunday 1478, in the presence of the king and his court. He received the pall and the cross and became metro politan of Scotland, the office against which he had protested when it was held by another and probably better man.^ Further honours awaited archbishop Scheves. In the midst of these troubles in Scotland the papal see in 1474 was holding its jubilee. The first jubilee was in the year 1300, and the closing year in each century thereafter was to be so observed. But the period was gradually reduced to the fiftieth, the thirty-sixth, and finally, to the twenty-fifth year. Indulgences were granted in 1474 to pilgrims to the holy see, and they were by special favour extended to the faithful in Scotland who should visit " the great Church of Glasgow " between the feast of the Blessed Trinity and the eighth day of November. Citizens of Glasgow were to visit the cathedral on three days, other Scots on one day, repeat the seven penitential psalms, and the Lord's Prayer sixty times, with the angelic salutation, and contribute an offering for the crusades, in order to obtain the in dulgence. The offerings are nicely graded from much to little and from little to nothing, but poverty is not to exclude from the spiritual benefits.^ In 1478 the hospital of St. Mary at Lasswade, "for the infirm poor and other miserables," is singularly privileged by similar indulgences to penitent pilgrims, as much as if they had visited Rome at the jubilee. The offerings in 1 The pall, which was the badge and laid on the tombs of SS. Peter of the metropolitan's authority, was and Paul, after which it was blessed. made of lambs' wool, prepared by a 2 Theiner, p. 474. particular order of nuns in Rome, 478 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap- this case are to be equally divided between the hospital and the Roman camera. The rector of Lasswade at this time was Robert Blackader, a favourite of both king and pope, who ended his ecclesiastical career as the first arch bishop of Glasgow. His promotion was rapid, whether deserved or not. He became apostolic notary, ambassador for the king, prebendary of the stall in the royal chapel, St. Andrews, attached to Lasswade and recently endowed with ;^400 a year — a goodly sum in those days. In 1483 Robert was bishop-elect of Aberdeen in succession to bishop Spence, and in the same year the pope made him bishop of Glasgow.-' The Glasgow chapter had elected to the bishopric George Carmichael their treasurer, but the pope denied their right of election, and with the most violent anathemas on the whole diocese, cleric and laic, he dared them to reject his nominee.^ Blackader was succeeded in Aberdeen by William Elphinstone, translated from the bishopric of Ross. In May 1483 bishop Blackader receives from pope Sixtus IV. safe-conducts for himself and attendants on his way to Rome, as ambassador (" orator ") on business of State.' The pope had issued a brief on the suit of James III. commanding the Scottish prelates and peers to obey their sovereign. Scotland was rife with political factions of the nobles plotting against the king and each other. The king's two brothers, the duke of Albany and the earl of Mar, and latterly his own son, the young prince James, were mixed up in the conspiracies. Two years later the next pope. Innocent VIII., appointed the bishop of Imola legate a latere to Scotland, and issued a brief to appease t Grub, i. 391, gives 1480 as the The papal letter nominating Black- year of Blackader's collation to Aber- ader to Glasgow is one of the most deen. In the papal bull of 13th intemperate in Theiner. Its curses April 1483 he is styled " Robert elect are long and broad and deep. of Aberdeen." Theiner, p. 488. ^ Ibid., p. 491. 2 Theiner, pp. 481-484, 488. XXVII CONSPIRACY OF NOBLES — MURDER OF JAMES IIL 479 the growing disaffection between the crown and the nobles. Pope Innocent remarks that before his elevation to the popedom he knew that the affairs of the Scottish Church were not satisfactory — he refers to the conspiracies of the nobility, the wars, homicides, and devastation of the kingdom — the Church lacerated, divine worship neglected, and justice not administered. He laments the unnatural conduct of subjects towards " a king of such noble and ancient lineage as the house of the Scots {Domus Scotorum) which for many years had ruled in Scotland even before the advent of Christ." The pope's knowledge of Scottish history was not very accurate, but he gives sound advice to the king to make reasonable concessions and not to retract them. His holiness concludes with the usual menaces of excommunication against all opposers of the royal authority.^ In 1488 another legate was sent to mediate between James and his disaffected subjects, but the Parlia ment disavowed his mission, and before he arrived in Scotland the battle of Sauchieburn was fought and James was murdered, June 1488. The site of the battlefield, within a mile of Bannockburn, might have suggested pain ful reflections to the combatants. Where Scots had loyally fought together for their national independence against the southern invader, Scots were now fighting against each other and spilling each other's blood — the king's son heading an army against his own father. James in escaping from the battle was thrown from his horse and carried into a miller's house (Beaton's mill), where a villain in the guise of a confessor, professing to shrive him, stabbed him to death. His body was buried beside that of his queen in Cambuskenneth Abbey. Archbishop Scheves in 1487 was made primate of all Scotland and legate natus of the apostolic see, with 1 Theiner, p. 496. 480 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. the same rights and honours as were enjoyed by the arch bishop of Canterbury. The new primate commemorated his elevation by issuing a medal showing his bust on one side, his cross and arms with titles inscribed on the other. The death of bishop Spence of Aberdeen in 1480 with drew the only opposition to his complete metropolitan authority. His ambitious rival in Glasgow, Blackader, was preparing opposition of a more formidable kind, but meanwhile, 1487, he was in the hands of the money-lenders and deep in debt. The pope gave him power to exact a charitable subsidy for his debts from every church and monastery in his diocese, and the exaction was to be re peated, if necessary, under pain of ecclesiastical censures.^ Next year he succeeded in obtaining exemption from the jurisdiction of the primate, and Glasgow was made sub ject immediately to the holy see, a position which it had occupied in earlier years. The see of Glasgow was " the mother of many races," as William the Lion had declared in a charter ; its prelates were successors of St. Kentigern, and " bishops of the Britons " in the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde, and never in bondage to any bishop. They had withstood York in her best days and were not disposed to bend the knee to St. Andrews now.^ The pope had granted the exemption to Glasgow in the hope of obviating the scandals arising from the contentions between it and St. Andrews.' It was a vain endeavour. Glasgow was not to be satisfied with mere exemption — not to be satisfied with anything short of a rival metropolitanship. And when that was attained peace was as far off as ever between the rivals. A year before the death of James III. he had peti tioned the pope for the canonisation of his good queen, Margaret of Denmark. The king relates how the Scots 1 Theiner, p. 499. 2 Robertson, Statuta, cxix. 3 Theiner, p. 502. XXVII ABERDOUR HOSPITAL FOR GIRLS 48 I people venerated her name and memory, and deemed her worthy to be numbered with the canonised saints. A commission of three Scottish bishops was appointed, but the times were not favourable for the consideration of such a question.^ It would have been well for the Church and country had the king left such a memory of himself in the hearts of his subjects as he has drawn of his devoted queen. His scandalous trafficking in benefices, usurpation of the rights of chapters, and disposing of the highest ecclesiastical offices, sometimes for bribes, to his worthless favourites, hastened the ruin of the Church.^ That religion was still active in the land is evidenced by the endowment this same year, 1487, of the hospital at Aberdour (Fife) for the education of poor girls. The hospital was to be assigned to the sisters of the third Order of St. Francis, de penitentia, and was to be under the direction of the provincial vicar of the Franciscans in Scotland. The founder of the hospital was John Scott, canon of Inch Colm, opposite Aberdour, who became its rector or master. James, earl of Moray, had endowed it with lands and gifted it with chapel, gardens,* goods, etc., for the sisters. They had power to receive into their home women who were " fugitives from the world," and to retain and instruct in letters and good living, girls born of honest parents. The pope appointed as a commission to the hospital the bishop of Dunkeld, in whose diocese it was, his archdeacon, and the abbot of Inch Colm Monastery, which was also in Dunkeld diocese.' Two things are noteworthy in this modest foundation : first, that it is one of the earHest recorded instances of anything like a public provision for the education of girls in Scotland ; and ^ Theiner, p. 499. 2 See Spottiswoode, Hist., i. pp. 118, 119. ^ Theiner, p. 500. 2 I 482 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xxvii secondly, that the very old tradition connecting St. Columba's name with Inch Colm gave in early times the monastery and the district of Fife in its neigh bourhood to the see of Dunkeld, in place of St. Andrews. CHAPTER XXVIII JAMES IV., 1488-1513 Character of James IV. — Glasgow made a metropolitan see — Rivalry between the two archbishops — Suits at Rome forbidden — Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen — Founding of Aberdeen University — Hector Boece its first Principal — Introduction of printing into Scotland — First compulsory Education Act — Marriage of the king — Death of archbishop Scheves of St. Andrews — His two royal successors — The Lollards of Kyle — James Beaton, arch bishop of Glasgow — Bishop Brown of Dunkeld — King's death on Flodden Field. James III. had fallen by the assassin at the age of thirty- five. His son, James IV., was in his seventeenth year on his coronation at Scone. He is said to have worn through life an iron girdle round his waist in penance for his unnatural rebellion against his father. He made many pilgrimages over Scotland — from the ancient shrine of St. Ninian at Whithorn to the later shrine of St. Duthac at Tain. The canons of Glasgow were also honoured by having the king among their number — a. royal canon in St. Mungo's stalls. Some writers credit him with having the hereditary piety of his mother, but history shows him to have been, notwithstanding the pope's title of " protector of the faith," an inconsistent medley of piety and profligacy.^ He had, besides the literary and artistic tastes of his father, more of the masculine energy and political courage which Scotland needed in her king. 1 In proof of this see the contrast in Burton, Hist, iii. 51, 80. 484 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The father's devotion to art seemed a weakness to his illiterate nobles ; ^ they were made to feel the iron glove on his son's hand. An act of the Three Estates was passed in 1489, demanding that Glasgow should be erected into an arch bishopric, with privileges corresponding to those of the see of York.^ It was opposed by archbishop Scheves of St. Andrews, but the king, by repeated letters, importuned the papal court in its favour.' In 1490, Scheves was commanded by the pope to appear at Rome on " urgent business."* On the 9th January 1492, Innocent VIII. issued a bull erecting Glasgow into an archiepiscopal and metropolitan see, with the bishops of Galloway, Dunkeld, Dunblane, and Argyll as suffragans.^ The right of the cross was conceded to Glasgow, but not the pall nor the envied style of primate and legate natus. The compromise, as was expected, failed to bring peace to the Church, and the contentions between Scheves and Blackader broke out with renewed virulence, until they threatened the peace of the kingdom. Parliament at length interfered and passed an act, January 1493, to terminate the suits at Rome between the rival archbishops. They were commanded to cease from their disputes, and to abide by such judgments as the king and the Three Estates should submit to the pope, failing which, payment of their rents would be at once suspended. This had the desired effect for a season, for both prelates were heavily in debt through the expenses 1 " Hitherto,'' says Tytler, under general of the archiepiscopal see date 1493, " there is reason to believe during a vacancy. Galloway, which that the great majority of the barons was always a poor see, had annexed were deplorably ignorant, and careless to it the chapel royal of Stirling, and of all liberal education. " Hist. Scot., some years afterwards the abbey of iii. 470. 2 Acts Parlt., p. 213. Tungland. Bishop Forbes, Life of 2 Theiner, p. 505. St. Ninian, lix. Dunkeld and Dun- * Ibid., p. 504. blane were (later) transferred to St. ^ The bishop of Galloway as Andrews, and the Isles made suff'ragan chief suffragan was appointed vicar- to Glasgow. xxviii bishop ELPHINSTONE OF ABERDEEN 485 incurred by processes at the papal court. The Parliament also enacted that all subjects of the king, cleric and laic, who had pleas before the Roman court, should withdraw their litigation from Rome, and bring their legal muni ments to Scotland, where justice would be done by the judges of the realm.^ A better type of the episcopal order than the two contentious archbishops was William Elphinstone, bishop of Aberdeen. Pope Sixtus confirmed him in the see of Ross, notwithstanding his illegitimacy {de presbytero natus et soluta), for which he had granted dispensation. The next pope, Alexander VI., writes that concealment had been made as to the bishop's birth on his translation to Aberdeen, and, lest it should hinder him in the ad ministration of his diocese, the pope absolves him from censures, dispenses with the natal defect, and confirms him in the see.^ The bishop's father was a priest, possibly married in breach of canon law,' in the diocese of Glasgow, where Elphinstone was born. We hear of him first as one of the earliest students in the new university of Glasgow in 145 i, and again in 1460, when he is canon and official of that see. In the interval he had studied both in Paris and Orleans, and returned to Scotland with the reputation of being a learned jurist, to practise as an advocate in the ecclesiastical courts. He was for a few years rector of Kirkmichael in the diocese of Glasgow; in 1474 he became rector of his own university, and four years later he was official oi Lothian. Both James III. and his son employed him on frequent embassies to England, France, and elsewhere. In the last year of James III. he was chancellor of Scotland, 1 Robertson's Statuta, cxxiii. 2 Theiner, p. 508, 14th December seq. ; Acts Parlt. Scot, ii. 232 ; 1494- Tytler, Hist, iii. 466. ^ It was not marriage in the eye of the Church. 486 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and under James IV. he held office as keeper of the Privy Seal. The bishop was a man of affairs both before and after his elevation to the episcopate, but he was above all a bishop and a scholar, imbued with the best ideals of his sacred office and with a genuine love of letters. In 1483 he was nominated by the king to the see of Ross, and next year, before his consecration, he was translated to Aberdeen.^ Elphinstone spent a large portion of the revenues of his see upon the cathedral of St. Machar, finishing the central tower, and commencing the choir upon which he was still engaged at the time of his death. He bestowed equal pains in regulating the chapter and improving the musical service of the cathedral, besides remodelling the collegiate church of St. Nicholas in Aberdeen. Elphinstone, like bishop Brown of Dunkeld, was also a literal pontifex, or bridge -maker. The one spanned the Tay and the other the Dee, each with a substantial bridge of stone, much to the convenience of the inhabitants.^ The greatest work, however, of his episcopate was the foundation, in 1494, of the university of Aberdeen for the study of theology, canon and civil law, the liberal arts, and medicine. This was the first chair of medicine in Scotland. Hitherto the art ot healing had been in the hands of empirics, untrained medicine-men, barbers, and old wives. Scotland had as yet but two universities, St. Andrews and Glasgow. Aberdeen, though less famous as an ecclesiastical centre than either of these ancient seats, was in other respects more important as a city. For population and commerce 1 It is probable that the bar of tionis tibi minime impenso. " Theiner, illegitimacy postponed for a time his p. 508. consecration. Pope Alexander VI. says 2 Bishop Elphinstone's bridge is that while Elphinstone was bishop- still in use, though widened for elect of Ross — "munere consecra- modern requirements. xxviii ELPHINSTONE, FOUNDER of ABERDEEN UNIVY. 487 it then ranked second or third among the Scottish royal burghs, and exercised a relatively greater influence as the capital of the north than it did in later times when the trade and population of the country shifted southward. To bishop Elphinstone belongs the honour of founding the northern university. The pope's bull of 1495 sanctioned its erection, and the charter of king James IV., 1497, confirmed its privileges and property ; but the prime mover was the bishop. It should not be forgotten that Scotland owes her three ancient universities to three bishops — Wardlaw, Turnbull, and Elphinstone, all of them Scotsmen.^ The first principal of the university of Aberdeen was Hector Boece, a native of Dundee, whom Elphinstone had known as a fellow -student in Paris. Boece was an eminent scholar and rose to be professor of philosophy in Paris. He was the friend of John Major or Mair, after wards provost of St. Salvator's College, St. Andrews, and of the learned Erasmus with whom he corresponded. Boece was the author of a History of Scotland and of the Lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen. The inaccuracy of his history has already been dealt with in relation to the mission of Palladius. Dr. Grub remarks upon it : " After every aHowance has been made for the uncritical spirit of the time when it was composed, and for the author's reliance on the information which he received from others, it is hardly possible to acquit him of wilfully perverting the true history of his country." ^ Boece was more successful as a principal than as a historian, and did much for the revival of classical learning in Scotland. Several of his scholars rose to positions of influence in the Church. 1 The money, eight thousand at Edinburgh, was the nucleus of its marks Scots, bequeathed by bishop university. Reid of Orkney for building a college 2 Hist., i. 406. 488 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Scotland is also largely indebted-to bishop Elphinstone for the introduction of printing, thirty years after it was common in England. The Aberdeen Breviary, with the Lives of the Scottish Saints, was published by Chapman at Edinburgh, in the years 1509 and 15 10. It was to be the first of a series of liturgical works which were intended to supersede the Salisbury or Sarum use.'' It is to be regretted that the good bishop's scheme of a national liturgy for the Scottish Church was not completed. It would at least have relieved the Scottish liturgy of the next century from the odium of novelty, even if it had not saved it from the risk of misadventure. A very necessary act was passed by the Parliament, in June 1496, ordering all barons and freeholders to send their sons at eight or nine years of age to grammar schools to receive a competent knowledge of Latin, and then to proceed to the study of arts and law for other three years. We have remarked upon the want of educa tion among the Scottish mediaeval barons. The invention of printing and the revival of letters made it more difficult for the nobles to continue illiterate in the growing inter course with other nations. King James was himself an accomplished scholar, Ariosto's hero, and knew five or six languages besides being well read in history. ^ In the education of his leading subjects the king had another object in view apart from their own culture — to qualify them to act as judges and sheriffs in the administration of justice in their own district, so that " poor people will not be obliged, in every trifling offence, to seek redress from the king's principal council." ' 1 This is gathered from an act of i. 22., Pref. the privy council providing that after 2 gee the Simanca Papers quoted the printing of the Scottish books, by Burton, Hist., iii. 51 seq.; Cos. those of Salisbury "were not to be Innes, Scotch Legal Antiquities, p. brought to be sold within our realm 129. in time coming. " Acts of Parliament, ^ Tytler, iii. 470. xxviii two YOUTHFUL ARCHBISHOPS OF ST. ANDREWS 489 On the 8th August 1502, James was married to Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. of England. The king had been fourteen years on the throne and was in his thirty-first year at the time of his marriage. His best friends had urged him to marry before, but a section of the nobles encouraged the king's youthful amours with lady Margaret Drummond, and marriage was postponed and scandal promoted. The king escorted his youthful bride from Newbattle, and shortly afterwards they were married in the abbey church of Holyrood by the arch bishop of St. Andrews amid the rejoicing of all classes of his subjects. From this auspicious union of two lives came the union of the two kingdoms, England and Scotland, under one crown and one king, James VI. and I. Archbishop Scheves died in 1497, and the appoint ment of his two successors reflects indelible disgrace on the Scottish Church. James, duke of Ross, brother of the king, a youth of twenty- one years, was raised to the metropolitan see of St. Andrews. It was a violation of the canon law as to age, but for this, as in the next appoint ment, the pope made provision by dispensation. It is doubtful whether the ducal archbishop was ever consecrated during the six or seven years that he held the primacy, but it is certain that he exercised metropolitan authority. In addition to that office he held the abbacies of Dun fermline and of Arbroath in commendam, as it came to be styled by way of euphemism for ecclesiastical robbery. The office of chancellor of the kingdom was also thrust upon him ; and thus laden with dignities, which cannot be called honours, he passed to an early grave in St. Andrews, in the year 1503. The next appointment was still more shameless, and that it could have been possible is the severest condemna tion of the papal system under which it was accomplished. 490 HISTORY OF TIIE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. The see was kept vacant with a purpose for six years, and then Alexander Stewart, an illegitimate son of James IV., a boy of sixteen, became archbishop of St. Andrews. Two years later there were conferred upon him the chancellorship of the kingdom, the abbey of Dunfermline, and the priory of Coldingham in commendam, while Pope Julius II. made him legate a latere. It is a grave reflection upon the bishops and clergy of that age that they tolerated such an insult to the religion of the country without public remonstrance. No remonstrance of any kind is recorded. The king appointed his bastard boy, the pope dispensed with canon law, confirmed the arch bishop that was not elect, and the thing was done. It has often been said that religion in Scotland reached a lower level under the papacy than in any other country in Christendom. There are several indications in the first half of the sixteenth century that such was the case, and these appointments alone would go far to confirm the belief. There was no such scandal in the episcopate of the English mediaeval church, nor probably in any other under the Roman obedience. Much that was favourable to the character and attainments of the boy-bishop was written by contemporaries and was no doubt true. He had among other masters the celebrated Erasmus, who spoke in the highest terms of his disposition and learning. But the appointment remains none the less a lasting stain upon the Scottish Church. The youthful archbishop fell fighting by his father's side on Flodden Field. That heresies should make their appearance in Scot land under this evil administration, need cause no surprise. Yet the people were singularly patient, if they were not callously indifferent, under such a system. The only heretics hitherto had been the two itinerant strangers from England and Bohemia, and they both had paid the XXVIII THE LOLLARDS OF KYLE 49 1 penalty at the stake. The first native mutterlngs of protest were heard now, a century later, in 1 494, from the Lollards of Kyle. Some thirty persons, including both men and women of different social rank, were summoned by archbishop Blackader before the king and council. They were accused of holding thirty-four erroneous tenets, the most of them identified with the teaching of Wickliff. Among the chief of these were — that images and relics were not to be worshipped, that it was not lawful to defend the faith by carnal weapons, that consecration did not make the sacramental bread the natural body of Christ, that every faithful member of the Church was a priest, that Christ gave the power of the keys only to St. Peter personally, that Christ abrogated the power of secular princes, that tithes were not to be paid to the clergy, that the pope deceived the people by bulls and in dulgences, that the mass did not profit souls in pur gatory, that in no case was it lawful to swear, that priests might marry as they did under the Law, that prayers should not be addressed to the blessed Virgin, that the pope was anti -Christ. The proceedings at the trial would appear from Knox's account to have degenerated into unseemly repartee between the accusers and the accused. It was believed that the king was averse to extreme measures, and the parties were dismissed with an admonition.^ The elements of so-called socialism were largely mixed up with the doctrines of the Lollards, and made them appear treasonable as well as heretical. This added an incentive to the prosecutions of both Church and Crown. Archbishop Blackader died July 1508, on the shores of Palestine, while on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and was succeeded in the see of Glasgow by James Beaton, ^ Knox, Hist, i. pp. 7-12. 492 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. who was then bishop-elect of Galloway. Beaton became chancellor of Scotland, and held the abbacies of Arbroath and Kilwinning in commendam. There was more of the statesman than of the prelate in his character, which is true of all the three Beatons who became arch bishops of Glasgow or St. Andrews. The first Beaton held both sees in succession, being translated to St. Andrews in 1522. Beneath his episcopal habit he wore a coat of mail, which provoked on the occasion of the riot in Edinburgh known as " Cleanse the causeway," the biting sarcasm of Gavin Douglas, the witty bishop of Dunkeld. Beaton confirmed an asseveration of his innocence by striking his breast and appealing to his conscience. As the steel plates of his armour rattled with the blow, Douglas made answer : " Alas ! my lord, I perceive your conscience clatters." The predecessor of Douglas in the see of Dunkeld was George Brown, a native of Dundee, and son of its treasurer. He became bishop in 1484, and was worthy to be classed, with Elphinstone his contemporary, among the few Scottish bishops of this age who were an honour to the Church. In place of one rural deanery he made four in the diocese, to ensure a better system of discipline. Large parishes were divided and endowed, and each of them provided with a vicar and a manse. He also employed friars, skilled in Gaelic, to itinerate among the Highlanders and preach to them, so that the people were brought to confession, the first time for thirty years. Like Elphinstone, whom he much resembled, he built for the convenience of the people a bridge over the Tay at Dunkeld. His work was continued for thirty years, and at his death in 1 5 1 5 he had made a reformation in the see of Dunkeld. It is characteristic of him that, when making his will the year before his death, he XXVIII BISHOPS OF DUNKELD FLODDEN FIELD 493 bequeathed all the furnishings of his palace to his suc cessor, whoever he might be, because he himself had found it empty on his accession.^ In the days of the Celtic Church, Dunkeld had been a pharos of light to both sides of Drumalban ; in the later mediaeval Church it had become a besieged city in the midst of Highland caterans, the dread of whom had made successive bishops to remove their diocesan synods to the Carmelite monastery at Tullilum, near Perth. In the days of bishop Brown, and of a like predecessor, Lauder, the synods were held among their own people in the see city.^ The battle of Flodden, fought 9th September 15 13, when James IV. and the flower of his army perished, was a special grief to the bishops of Aberdeen and Dunkeld. Both had remonstrated against the ill-advised expedition, and neither of them recovered from the shock of the national disaster. Elphinstone was offered the primatial see of St. Andrews, and declined it.' He had set his house in order, and died next year in Edinburgh. He was buried before the altar in his own college chapel at Aberdeen, and a plain stone of black marble marks the grave of the excellent bishop — the honour of Aberdeen and the glory of the Scottish Church. 1 Grub, i. 399. dean of Angus, in Dunkeld diocese, 2 Bishop Brown's history is given under the bishop, afterwards abbot in the Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld, of Cambuskenneth, and first President pp. 27-54, written by his friend of the Court of Session. Alexander Milne, at one time rural ^ Theiner, p. 530. CHAPTER XXIX JAMES v., 1513-1542 Henry VIII. on the victory of Flodden — Henry's demands of the pope — Rival competitors for see of St. Andrews — Bishop Forman of Moray collated — Bad appointments to Scottish sees and abbeys — David Beaton and John Hamilton, future primates of St. Andrews — Archbishop Forman's Synodal Statutes — Gavin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld — Friar Dunbar, the rhymer — Burning of Patrick Hamilton and others — Moderate reformers — Founding of the College of Justice — King's marriages — Cardinal Beaton — Sir John Borthwick condemned for heresy— The English Bible sanctioned by Scottish Parliament — James v. and the Reformation — Satire of Lindsay and Buchanan on monks and friars — King's usurpation of ecclesiastical patronage — War with England — Death of James V. James V. was an infant of two years when crowned at Scone amid the tears of the people. The regency was committed to the queen-mother, Margaret Tudor, out of respect to her husband's memory. Henry VIII. lost no time in informing the new pope, Leo X., of the great victory of Flodden, in which he states that the king of Scotland and thirteen thousand of his soldiers had fallen, together with the archbishop of St. Andrews and all the nobility of the land. The letter makes no mention of the bishops of Caithness and of the Isles, who were among the slain. Henry urges that the see of St. Andrews should cease to be metropolitan and become a suffragan of York, and that his advice should be taken on all chap. XXIX THREE COMPETITORS FOR THE PRIMACY 495 appointments to Scottish bishoprics.^ The king's reason for this bold request is that the Scots had been violators of every sacred treaty and the contemners of the holy see.^ Before many years the king himself occupied the position he somewhat ungenerously assigns to the Scots. So great was the influence of Henry at this time with the Vatican that St. Andrews might have been reduced to the position of suffragan to York but for the king's fickleness.' This letter was immediately followed by another, requesting that Gavin Douglas, then provost of St. Giles', Edinburgh, and a noted partisan of England, should be made archbishop of St. Andrews and metro politan and primate of Scotland.* The vacancy had given rise to the unedifying spectacle of three rivals competing for the primatial see. The queen-regent favoured Douglas, who was uncle of the earl of Angus whom she had recently married. Hepburn, prior of St. Andrews, of the powerful house of Bothwell, had used his influence with the chapter, of which he was head, to secure his election, and had put himself in possession of the palace by ousting the servants of Douglas. Forman, bishop of Moray, a singularly able and politic prelate, who had been a favourite of the late king and sent by him on many foreign embassies, was the third competitor. His immense wealth is said by Tytler^ to have gained him great influence at the Roman court. Forman was successful in getting a bull from pope Leo appointing 1 Henry also asked permission of ^ Archbishop Lee, who succeeded the pope to take the body of James Wolsey in the primacy of York, had IV. and bury it with royal honours in the intention of claiming metropolitan St. Paul's Cathedral, London. This powers over the Scottish Church in implies that the body was at the date the first general council. Before that of the letter, 1 2th October, still in the council met at Trent the Anglican hands of the English. There is a attitude to the papacy was changed. little mystery about the disposal of the * Theiner, p. 513. king's body. * Hist., iv. 96. 2 Theiner, p. 511. 496 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. him archbishop of St. Andrews with the power ^ of legate a latere and the promise of a cardinal's hat. The new primate also received the abbey of Dunfermline in commendam. The prelatic strife did not end here, though we cannot follow it further. " These ecclesiastical commotions, however," says Tytler,^ " were surpassed in intensity by the feuds amongst the nobles, who traversed the country at the head of large bodies of their armed vassals, and waged private war against each other with a ferocity which defied all interference." Thus inauspiciously opened the early years of the infant king, fulfilling, not for the first time in Scotland, the saying, " Woe to the land whose king is a child." The duke of Albany, the nearest heir to the throne after the young king, became regent in 1 5 1 7 and held the regency for seven years, during which he wrote several letters to the papal court on church affairs. In July 1 5 1 7 he solicits the see of Caithness for Andrew Stewart, canon of Dunkeld and brother of the earl of Atholl. He describes the Caithness folks as being still barbarous, and his nominee as singularly qualified to civilise them.' The bishop proved to be the reverse of the regent's picture, promoting strife and bloodshed in his diocese until he was driven from it and took refuge in Atholl.* The previous bishop of Caithness was another Andrew Stewart, whom it was intended to make the successor of Elphinstone in Aberdeen, if the latter had accepted the primacy of St. Andrews. This Andrew held the abbacy of Kelso in commendam, and had resigned it on prospect of his translation to Aber deen. When that was frustrated he reasserted his claim ^ Strictly speaking, only a cardinal •'' Theiner, p. 529. could be legate a latere. * Grub, ii. 6. 2 Hist., iv. 96. XXIX SCOTTISH ABBEYS IN COMMENDAM 497 to Kelso. Meanwhile the regent had put Thomas Ker into possession, and begged the pope to confirm him in the abbacy.^ The bishop challenged the appointment of Ker, excommunicated him, and made an unseemly disturbance in the Borders. The history of the Scottish abbeys had now degenerated into an unworthy scramble for their wealth, in which the bishops played a prominent part not much to their credit. It is not supposed that the episcopal revenues had decreased in value, and yet too often we find now even the best-endowed bishops with one or two abbeys in commendam. The regent requests the pope this same year, 15 17, for the abbey of Arbroath to be held in commendam by archbishop Beaton of Glasgow.^ The abbey was at the time held by the earl of Moray as lay commendator, and he had agreed to resign in favour of the archbishop upon receiving a pension of a thousand pounds from the monastery.' The Beatons kept a firm grip on Arbroath Abbey for some years to come. The regent's next application is for the priory of Whithorn for his illegitimate brother, Alexander Stewart, on the plea that the priory wanted a man with strong family influence to protect it from pirates and enemies.* The worst " pirates and enemies " with whom the monasteries had to contend in this age were the parasites unconstitutionally imposed upon them by men like the regent. The names of two ecclesiastics who rose to eminence in the Scottish Church turn up together for promotion in the year 1524 — David Beaton and John Hamilton. The regent begs the pope to confer on David, nephew 1 Theiner, pp. 522, 530. Arbroath and Kelso in the forms 2 Ibid., p. 522. of a consistorial process. Theiner, ^ Ibid., p. 524. There are in pp. 524 seq. Theiner's i)/ff««OT««to lengthened and * Ibid., p. 524. interesting details of the abbeys of 2 K. 498 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. of James, now archbishop of St. Andrews, the vacant abbey of Arbroath. The nephew is mentioned as having been already much engaged on embassies to kings " both Catholic and Anglican" — the distinction of terms is noticeable, there being as yet no rupture between England and the papacy. The king himself, backed by a letter to the pope from his uncle Henry VIII., solicits the abbey of Paisley for Hamilton. Hamilton was the illegitimate son of the earl of Arran and was now " professed " as a monk of Kilwinning Abbey, which meant in this case more a profession than a reality. He was of the tender age of fourteen when elevated to be abbot of Paisley Abbey founded and endowed by the king's ancestors for a more worthy object than it was now made to serve. The king asked a papal dispensa tion, which was of course granted, from the barriers as to age and birth.^ Hamilton became bishop of Dunkeld in I 5 44 ; and flve years later, after the murder of cardinal David Beaton, he succeeded him in the primacy of St. Andrews and was the last Roman archbishop of that see. It is a marked coincidence that both prelates met with a violent death. The rival archbishoprics of St. Andrews and Glasgow brought neither peace nor prosperity to the Church. Double primacies did not always work harmoniously even in England where there was a wider field for archi episcopal energy. Forman and Beaton were at deadly feud with each other as their predecessors had been. When later on Beaton filled Forman's chair the rivalry was renewed between Beaton and Dunbar, and it came to an open rupture in Glasgow Cathedral between cardinal Beaton and archbishop Dunbar. Forman was as energetic as he was ambitious. One of his first acts was to get the 1 Theiner, pp. 538, 541, 548. XXIX ARCHBISHOP FORMAN'S SYNODAL STATUTES 499 pope to recall the exemption from his authority conceded to the prior and chapter of St. Andrews. The primate attempted the same thing with the see of Glasgow, and so far succeeded as to limit the exemption from his primatial and legatine jurisdiction to the lifetime of the then archbishop, and to strip it of two of its suffragans, Dunkeld and Dunblane, which were never again severed from the province of St. Andrews.-' In the primate's appeal to Rome against the exemption of the St. Andrews priory he emphatically denies the right of the pope to any civil jurisdiction beyond his own temporal dominions in the Italian states.^ The brief but vigorous primacy, 1515-1521, of arch bishop Forman was marked by a series of Synodal Statutes which throw valuable light on the condition of the Scottish Church at the opening of the sixteenth century. The following is a summary of them in order : — (i) Abbots, priors, archdeacons, deans, provosts, rectors, vicars -pensioners, chaplains, and curates cited to the synod, are exhorted to conduct themselves reverently, and to lay aside all levity and unbecoming behaviour. They are to appear in a clean surplice and with hair cut short, to go in procession to the church for the celebration and sermon at eight o'clock, and not to leave the synod before its close, on pain of excom munication. (2) Beneficed clergy owing procurations or synodals are to pay the same to the dean or his deputy before leaving St. Andrews. (3) This statute repeats the previous admonitions against the non-residence of the clergy, and against their publicly keeping mistresses and '¦ Robertson, Statuta, cxxvii. dominiis et terris sibi et Romane 2 "Nee sanctissimus dominus Ecclesie immediate in temporalibus noster Papa quemquam in crimin- subjectis consuevit." Robertson, alibus vel civilibus eximere nisi in Statuta, cxxvii. n. 500 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. concubines to the grave scandal and prejudice of the whole Church — evils which it is now determined to put down with a strong hand. Priests guilty of concubinage after the third warning are to be deprived of the cure of souls. (4) Oratories, chapels, and other unconsecrated places not sufficiently endowed for the reverent perform ance of divine worship, are placed under interdict, and it is forbidden to officiate in them, under pain of suspension. (5) Faculties for hearing confessions are withdrawn from parish priests and reserved for the Dominicans and Franciscans, until the clergy are found qualified upon examination, when their faculties will be restored. (6) The clergy are to enter in a schedule the names of persons excommunicated and of persons deceased, with the divisions of their property, whether their testaments have been confirmed or not. (7) The clergy are to bring copies of the testaments of deceased persons to the annual synod for the purpose of registra tion and for securing children's portions and bequests for pious uses. (8) Deans are to bring, on the eve of every synod, their books of corrections, visitations, and the register of testaments to the archbishop and his com missaries for examination. (9) The parochial clergy are to bring to the synod the book known as Manipulus Curatorum, that they may be examined as to the class of cases reserved respectively for the pope, the bishops, and the parish priests, so that the souls of the faithful may not suffer detriment. (10) Two customary evils are severely condemned, namely, clandestine espousals followed by illicit intercourse, and open espousals followed by the parties living as man and wife, before the solemni sation of marriage. (11) Priests solemnising marriage except openly, and after banns and in the presence of witnesses, are to be suspended and fined, and the con- XXIX ARCHBISHOP FORMAN'S SYNODAL STATUTES 501 tracting parties to be also fined according to their social station. (12) Clergy are not to affect the secular dress and garb of the laity — not to wear long hair and flowing beards and corded hats, and not to wear coats of mail or carry weapons. (13) Clergy who have incurred fines by canonical process are neither to ask nor to receive assistance from the laity towards their payment. (14) All persons sharing in the passing of statutes that do despite to the Church's canons incur thereby the greater excommunication. (15) The same penalty is incurred by secular persons and others guilty of fighting within churches and cemeteries to the effusion of blood. (16) Similar sentence is pronounced on " some, yea many," who violently seize and mutilate letters, from the ordi nary or his officials, directed to be served on parish churches. (17) The clergy are forbidden to ask or receive money or other reward for the execution of the letters of the ordinary or his officials. (18) The growing irreverence common throughout the diocese, and even in the cathedral city, is condemned, of carrying the sacrament to the sick privately and without due honour, and the priest is therefore required to be vested in surplice and stole, and attended by at least one light and a bell. (19) Concubines, especially if they are priests' concubines, are not to have the rite of purification after childbirth, unless security is given for their abstaining from illicit intercourse. Chaplains contravening this statute are to be fined twenty solidi, (20) Infants, to prevent their being overlaid, are not to be taken into bed, but put into cradles until after their second year. (21) Beneficed clergy (or vicars-pensioners), whose duties require daily ministrations, are to reside in the parish and dismiss their substitutes upon pain of deprivation. (22) Deans are to make strict inquiry into all foundations of perpetual 502 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. chaplaincies, and to report the names of chaplains who are not fulfilling the intentions of the founder. (23) Beneficed clergy are to present a list, on the Wednesday of the synod, of the names of all presbyters attached to their church. (24) All rectors, vicars, curates, and chaplains are to be present in their churches each Saturday at vespers, and at chief mass on the Lord's Day and other festivals. After ringing the bells and lighting the candles on the high altar, they shall celebrate in a clean surplice, and with a distinct voice, their vespers, matins, and masses. (25) Persons remaining excom municated for a year are to be publicly denounced by all the clergy in the diocese. (26) In behoof of the university (St. Andrews), and of sacred religion, and to strengthen the Church against heresy, it is enjoined that within forty days from the date of this statute, two monks shall be sent to the university from each of the following monasteries — St. Andrews, Arbroath, Dunferm line, Scone, Coupar, Lindores, Cambuskenneth, Holyrood, and Newbattle ; and one each from Kelso, Dryburgh, Coldingham, and Balmerino. (27) The deans are to provide themselves with copies of these statutes, and the clergy are to do the same, and bring them to each meeting of synod. The archbishop expressly reserves to himself and his commissaries the power of relaxing any penalty attached to the infringement of the statutes.-' The Synodal Statutes speak for themselves. While they manifest the laudable desire of archbishop Forman to reform the Church, they are painful evidence of immorality among the clergy and of lax ideas of morality, the less to be wondered at, among the laity. Besides the graver scandal of clerical concubinage, of which the Church never could rid herself at any time during the ^ Robertson, .Statuta, pp. cclxx. to cclxxxv., and summary. XXIX GAVIN DOUGLAS AND WILLIAM DUNBAR 503 incubus of compulsory celibacy, it seems strange to read that the superior clergy, abbots, deans, etc., should be exhorted by statute to behave decorously at a synod and to put away levity — that penalties should be im posed to prevent strife and bloodshed within the churches and cemeteries. It is difficult to realise that these things were so in the Scottish Church of the sixteenth century. Archbishop Forman died in December 1521, and there was a renewal of the competition for the primacy. Gavin Douglas, who was now bishop of Dunkeld, was put for ward by his powerful friends, but the Government resisted his translation, and next year he died of the plague in London, and was buried in the church of the Savoy. Douglas had given evidence of his scholarly accomplish ments in the translation of Virgil's ^neid and the com position of several allegorical poems. His career — in prisons oft^had been a chequered one, like that of many of his house. As a scholar and politician he occupied the fore most rank among his contemporaries ; as a bishop of the Church he was less satisfactory. A literary contemporary of Douglas was friar William Dunbar, " the Rhymer of Scotland," who often sought and never obtained a church benefice. Lax as the times were as to clerical morality, Dunbar's profane attacks upon religion are supposed to have hindered his promotion.^ James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, was translated to St. Andrews in 1522, and Gavin Dunbar, prior of Whit horn and formerly tutor of James V., succeeded Beaton. He was nephew of the bishop of Aberdeen, became chan cellor of Scotland, and held the abbey of Inchaffray in 1 For Douglas's and Dunbar's and was retained at court as a kind works see Medicinal Scottish Poetry, of poet laureate, but the king would Eyre-Todd, pp. 141 and 217. Dun- never gratify him with a church living. bar said his first mass before James IV. 504 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. commendam. In the interval between his election and consecration Dunbar had sufficient influence with pope Clement VII. to obtain a bull exempting the see and pro vince of Glasgow from the primatial jurisdiction of St. Andrews. This exemption was recalled on the remon strance of Beaton ; and again by the influence of the king, who came to the aid of his former preceptor, now his chancellor, the metropolitan see of Glasgow was once more made independent of St. Andrews. Henry VIII. wrote to the pope commending Beaton, and king James was equally strong in his opposition to Beaton's being made legate a latere for Scotland, and begged his holiness not to grant it.^ Both the archbishops appear to have in voked the influence* of Cardinal Wolsey. While the two ecclesiastics were engaged in this un edifying rivalry, the work of the Reformation was making secret but rapid strides. The impatience of the people under the gross and growing corruptions of the Church found utterance in repeated attacks upon its doctrines and morals. The influence of the Lollards had not been strong at any time in Scotland. It was otherwise with the new movement setting in from Germany, where it had originated under Luther. Patrick Hamilton was the first to preach in Scotland, 1528, the doctrines of the German reformer. In 1525 an act of the Scottish Parliament had forbidden the importation of Lutheran books into the king dom. But still they came, and Hamilton gave voice to them in his preaching. He was an illegitimate son of the house of Arran, born in 1 5 04 and now in his twenty- fourth year. Though probably not ordained he held, ac cording to the evil custom of that day, the abbacy of Feme, in Ross, in commendam. The conscience of the reformers, as we shall see, did not hinder them from holding the best 1 Theiner, p. 594. XXIX BURNING OF PATRICK HAMILTON 505 benefices of the Church while attacking its teaching. Hamilton had met with Luther and Melanchthon in Ger many and became an ardent disciple of their school. Like Ltfther, he was devoted to music, and in his student days at St. Andrews, under John Mair, the master of Buchanan and Knox, he was appointed precentor of the choir of St. Leonard's and wrote a musical service for the mass. His career as a reformer was short. He was made a prisoner in St. Andrews Castle and immediately tried and condemned for Lutheran heresies. Sentence was pronounced by the primate Beaton in the cathedral, in presence of several of the bishops. He was then handed over to the secular power, and with somewhat indecent haste was burned at the stake on the same day, 28 th Feb ruary 1528, in front of St. Salvator's College. Hamilton bore his long sufferings with patience and courage, and his death elicited the deepest sympathy for himself and his principles. He was the first Scotsman to suffer death in Scotland for his religious opinions. The primate re ceived the advice from a friend to burn no more heretics, or if he did, to burn them in cellars, as the smoke of Patrick Hamilton had affected all upon whom it blew.^ Friars and monks were among the first to challenge the doctrines of the Church, and became the chief sufferers from the persecutions. This arose not so much from their being better qualified to deal with theological questions, for many of the friars were but indifferently educated, as from their being individually less interested in the corporate wealth of the Church. The monasteries of Black and Grey friars had amassed property, though not to the same extent as the older monastic foundations, and so far they had I Spottiswoode, Hist, i. 124. as a poHtical execution — an act of re- Beaton is said to have urged Hamil- taliation by Angus against Arran the ton to leave St. Andrews before his head of the Hamiltons. trial. His death has been represented 506 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. forsaken their mendicant profession, but many of the friars continued miserably poor, notwithstanding the increase of monastic wealth. They lived in indigence within an opulent circle, and were keenly alive to the abuses' of their order. From these men came the first attack upon the established religion and its prevailing corruptions. The laity were less moved by doctrinal controversies, with which they were little conversant, than by the worldliness and corrupt living too common among ecclesiastics of all grades.! It was these men who undermined the Church by their unworthy lives and prepared the people to give a willing ear to the exhortations of reformers. Many of the new teachers sealed their testimony by their blood, and whatever may be thought of their teaching, they deserve to be credited with sincerity of conviction. It is not necessary to give details of the accusations and trials of the martyrs who suffered in succession during this reign. Fire and faggot were often burning in the land. After Hamilton, the next to suffer was Henry Forrest, a Bene dictine monk who was burned at St. Andrews about 1533. Next year David Straton, a layman, and Norman Gourlay, a priest, were burned at Greenside, near Edinburgh. In 1539 Thomas Forret, vicar of Dollar and canon of Inch colm ; two Dominicans, Keillor and Beveridge ; a priest named Simson, and a layman, Robert Forrester, both of Stirling, were burned at Edinburgh. King James was present at the trials in Edinburgh. Friar Keillor is said to have irritated the bishops by his satire in a religious play, performed before the king and his court at Stirling, in which the prelates were compared to the scribes and ^ If credit could be given to the bishop is said to have thanked God story about the bishop of Dunkeld re- that he never knew what the Old and buking one of his clergy, Forret, vicar New Testaments were. The story is of Dollar, for his frequent preaching, a manifest exaggeration, for the even the prelates were not veiy con- bishop, Crichton, would at least know versant with the Scriptures. The his Vulgate. See Grub, ii. 10 note. XXIX MORE PERSECUTIONS 507 Pharisees who persecuted Christ. Before the archbishop of Glasgow in the same year appeared Jerome Russell, a Franciscan, and a young layman, Kennedy. The arch bishop was disposed to leniency, but the assessors pressed for sentence, and both men suffered at the stake.^ Others than these are said to have suffered, while some are known to have recanted, and not a few fied for safety to England and the Continent. Among the exiles was Patrick Hamilton's friend, Alexander Aless or Alesius, whose history, including his sufferings and escape from St. Andrews, reads like a romance. His name was Alane, and Melanchthon called him Alesius, the Wanderer. He became professor of divinity in Leipzig and enjoyed the friendship of Melanchthon. John M'Alpine (known by his Latin name Macabaeus), prior of the Dominicans in Perth, went first to England and afterwards to Copenhagen, where he became a professor and assisted in the translation of the Bible into the Danish tongue. George Buchanan, the his torian, escaped from prison at this time and went to the Continent, where he visited and taught in several of the universities. The Latin tongue, which was the language then common to scholars, qualified them for teaching in any country. Besides the extremists on either side, those who main tained the Church's faith and worship as they were, and those who aimed at their complete overthrow, there were moderate men who sought a middle course between the extremes. They were anxious to have the Church reformed from palpable corruptions in her teaching and administra tion, but were not prepared to sever their communion with her or to see her overthrown by a revolution. Among these moderates were several divines connected with the 1 Spottiswoode, Hist, i. 129-133. 5o8 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. university and priory of St. Andrews. John Mair, pro vost of St. Salvator's College, John Winram, sub-prior, and Gavin Logie, principal of St. Leonard's College, all favoured and advocated reformation. Logie's teaching drew upon him the suspicion of the authorities, so much so that when any one was suspected of Lutheran heresy it was commonly said he had been drinking at St. Leonard's well. Robert Richardson, canon-regular of Cambuskenneth, and Alexander Seaton, a Dominican friar and confessor to king James, and probably William Airth, another friar, were of the same school. Their preaching was obnoxious to the prelates, and for safety they went to England. Richardson and Seaton both conformed to the Anglican Church, while Airth resisted the Erastianism of Henry VIII. and was thrown into an English prison. The persecutions for heresy are an unhappy feature in the history of this period. Their responsibility lies no doubt with the bishops, and chiefly with archbishop James Beaton. But the persecuting prelates must in fairness be judged by the prevailing opinions of their own time, and not by the tolerance of our day. Heresy was then regarded as treason to the Church, and like treason to the State was punishable by death. The execution of a heretic was the amputation of a diseased member, cut off from the body to save the corporate life of the Church. The punishments were not so much vindictive as corrective, though retaliation may have entered as a meaner motive into the jprosecution of some of the victims. The idea of toleration, of " the liberty of prophesying," was not born in that age, nor for a century afterwards. Episcopalians and Presbyterians were, as we shall see, as intolerant in their turn as the prelates under the Roman obedience. The guilt of the latter was greater only so far as they were the first to XXIX JAMES V. AND THE REFORMATION 509 persecute, were more thorough in the work, and numbered more " heretics " among their victims. What the bishops are justly to be blamed for is not their zeal for the faith, though it was not according to charity, but their indifference to the corruption of life and morals among the clergy, and not least among their own prelatic order. King James was no doubt in sympathy with the bishops in their persecuting zeal, though he was on indifferent terms with most of the prelates, and specially hostile to the primate Beaton. Pope Clement had exhorted the king to protect his dominions from Lutheranism, and to take warning from what was happen ing in England.! Henry VIII. was equally urgent on his royal nephew to cast in his lot with the Reformation ; but James, while he had scant respect for the priests of the old faith, was in no way favourable to the reformed doctrines. The Observantine friars, reformed Franciscans, were the only order that shared his respect and favours, and he warmly commends them by letter to the pope in 1 5 3 I. ^ In the next year we have the king's applica tion to the pope for ecclesiastical dignities for three of his illegitimate sons.' They were at the time but mere children. James, the eldest of them, who was known afterwards as " the good regent Moray," became, before he was seven years old, prior of St. Andrews, the wealthiest monastery in the kingdom. Another son, James, was made commendator of Kelso and Melrose ; a third, named Robert, received the abbacy of Holyrood in his fifth year.* There were other three bastards of the king, two sons and a daughter : John was made prior of Coldingham, and Adam prior of the Chartreuse in Perth ; Janet, the daughter, married the eari of Angus. 1 Theiner, p. 553. ^ Ibid., p. 597. 3 Ibid., p. 599. * Ibid., p. 511. 5IO HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. In the year 1532 was founded the new College of Justice, known as the Court of Session. It was to consist of fifteen judges, of whom the president and other seven members were to be ecclesiastics, the remaining seven laymen. The first president was abbot Milne of Cambus kenneth, a learned and moderate churchman. For its endowment the king proposed a tax of ;£^ 10,000 on ecclesiastical benefices. The clergy resisted the imposi tion of such a burden, and succeeded in reducing it to little more than ^^1400 a year. But even this lesser sum could not be levied without the authority of a provincial council, which was held in Blackfriars Church, Edinburgh, March 1536. Archbishop Beaton took care in summoning the council to assert his prerogatives as primate of all Scotland and legate natus of the apostolic see. Archbishop Dunbar was equally careful, in citing his suffragans, to avoid all mention of St. Andrews. It is supposed that the king urged the council to give up the hateful mortuary dues, the corse presents, church cow, and upmost cloth, which the clergy exacted on the death of parishioners. He also recom mended them to grant to every husbandman a lease of his tithes for a fixed sum. The advice was not followed, though the king is said to have accompanied it with a threat that he would compel the clergy to grant feus of all the church lands at the old rents.^ On New Year's Day 1537, king James was married, not too soon as his subjects knew, to Magdalen, the only daughter of the king of France. The marriage was celebrated in Notre Dame, and after a few months' residence in Paris, the royal pair came to Scotland in May, but the fragile queen died of consumption within two months of her arrival. In less than a year after ! Robertson, Statuta, pp. cxxxv. seq. XXIX CARDINAL DAVID BEATON 5 I I queen Magdalen's death, the king married Mary of Guise, the widow of the Duke of Longueville, commonly known as Mary of Lorraine. On this occasion, the ceremony was performed in the cathedral of St. Andrews by David Beaton, then abbot of Arbroath and bishop of Mir^poix in France. David Beaton becomes the most conspicuous figure in Scottish history from this date until his assassination in 1546. He was born in 1494, the third son of John Beaton of Balfour in Fife, and nephew of the archbishop of St. Andrews, whom he succeeded in that see. He was educated at the universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Paris, where he acquired an accurate knowledge of canon and civil law. Preferments and honours, ecclesi astical and civil, were showered upon him, until in a few years he attained the highest dignities in Church and State — a cardinalate in the Roman hierarchy, and the chancellorship of Scotland. His uncle, when archbishop of Glasgow, gave him the rectories of Campsie and Cambuslang and the chancellorship of Glasgow Cathedral. In 1523 he succeeded his uncle in the abbacy of Arbroath, and five years later the king gave him the office of lord pri-vy seal. Beaton had been the king's envoy to France, when only in his twenty-fifth year, and he was also employed in both of the marriage negotiations with the French court. On the latter occasion, 1537, he was preferred by king Francis I. to the bishopric of Mire- poix, a suffragan see of Toulouse, which brought him an annual revenue of ten thousand livres. In 1538 the king importuned the papal court by frequent letters to make Beaton a cardinal, and the honour was granted in December of that year. The king in his letters to the pope draws a sombre picture of church affairs in Scotland : speaks of the enemy (? Henry VIII.) sowing 5 1 2 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. tares among the Scottish wheat, and pleads the distance of Scotland from the clear light that shines in Rome, as reasons for the pope's compliance with his repeated request.! A month after receiving the cardinalate, Beaton succeeded his uncle in the archbishopric of St. Andrews, having been already co-adjutor with the right of succession. Beaton had also a co-adjutor bishop for St. Andrews, as likewise had his successor archbishop Hamilton. But the king and probably the cardinal himself were not satisfied with the honours already acquired. From Falkland Palace, James wrote to the pope in August 1539 petitioning his holiness to make the primate legate a latere for the good of the kingdom and Church. And if the pope would concede this special favour he (the king) would be bound by chains of devotion and gratitude to the apostolic see, and would prove what a Christian prince ought to be.^ But the coveted distinction did not come for four years, and meanwhile James had died at his palace of Falkland, soured and embittered at heart. Cardinal Beaton was made chancellor of Scotland in December 1543, and a month afterwards the pope crowned all his previous favours by making him legate a latere for the kingdom. Such an accumulation of honours probably never fell to the lot of a Scottish prelate, and the end of it all was the tragic scene at St. Andrews Castle, barely three years after receipt of the full legatine powers. The cardinal's character has been variously represented by writers of different schools. Some are blind to his merits because of his vices ; others shut their eyes to the gravest faults and see only his virtues. Beaton was a product of the times, and the times were very mixed. As a statesman 1 Theiner, pp. 608-611 ; Robertson, Statuta, pp. cxxx. seq, ^^ 2 Theiner, p. 612. XXIX CHARACTER OF CARDINAL BEATON 5. [ 3 and politician he was by far the ablest and most patriotic Scotsman of his day. While too many of the nobles were basely selling their services and their country for English gold, in the pay of Henry VIII.,! ^j-j^j others were selfishly intriguing at home, the cardinal was battling against many odds for the political existence of the Scottish kingdom. Nor in estimating his services should there be forgotten his diplomatic skill and courtly manners, which fascinated popes and kings and gained him their favours and friend ship. It is as a churchman, a prince of the Church and a Christian bishop, that his conduct is open to censure — - and very severe censure. The immorality prevalent among the clergy, secular and regular, was slowly but inevitably dragging the Church to her doom. It put into the hands of her enemies their sharpest weapons of attack against her. Amidst his many political engagements the cardinal could not be blind to the dangers menacing the Church from that quarter. And yet he not only failed to correct the abuses, but aggravated the common scandal by his own immoral life. Of that fact there is undoubted evidence in the contemporary records.^ A bastard son, David, re ceived a grant of crown lands in Angus in 1539, and one of his illegitimate daughters was married, soon after Wishart's death, to the Master of Crawford, the cardinal crossing over to Plnhaven Castle, in Angus, to be present at the marriage. She was dowered by her father out of the patrimony of the Church beyond the dower of the richest nobleman's daughter. And there is more and worse for any one who cares to read the painful facts in Robertson's Statuta, One of the first acts of the cardinal after receiving his ! For a detailed account of the 2 gee Robertson's Statuta, pp. pensions received by the Scottish cxxx. seq. ; and Tytler, Hist, iv. nobles and gentry from the English 272. Government, see Tytler, Hist. , iv. 454. 2 L 514 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. legatine powers was to summon Sir John Borthwick to St. Andrews on a charge of heresy. Before the day fixed for the trial Borthwick had fied to England. The cardinal was not present at the trial, being on a voyage with the king to the Orkneys and Hebrides with a view to their better government. Several bishops and abbots attended at St. Andrews, and sentence was pronounced in the cardinal's name against Borthwick. As they could not burn the knight, they burned his effigy in St. Andrews and Edinburgh ; " but better to be burned ten times in similitude than once in reality." Borthwick returned to Scotland after the Reformation and obtained a reversal of the sentence. One of the charges against him was that he used the New Testament in the vernacular. The translation of the Bible into English had been forbidden some years before by the archbishop of St. Andrews in a decree which Alexander Aless assailed in a tract addressed to king James V. The English Bible was sanctioned in England in i 538, and five years later the Scottish Parlia ment, while the cardinal was in prison, made it lawful to read the Scriptures in the common speech of the country, the archbishop of Glasgow protesting that the power to grant this permission lay with the provincial council and not with the Parliament. What the Scottish Parliament did for the vernacular Bible on the 15th March 1543, under the temporary ascendency of English influence, was never undone. The bishops promised that the question should be reconsidered in the next provincial council, but when the council met it was wisely left alone as an accomplished fact. The attitude of James V. to the Reformation is a puzzle. His position was no doubt difficult and em barrassing amid the conflicting interests of Church and State. He had barely reached his thirtieth year, and XXIX ATTITUDE OF JAMES V. TO REFORMATION 5 I 5 for a king was extremely poor — so poor that he had to maintain his royal estate by flocks and herds in the forest of Ettrick. His uncle Henry VIII. urged him to follow his example, and enrich himself with the spoils of the monasteries, and to leave sheep and cattle alone. Beaton and the clergy pressed a counter proposal — to conflscate the property of the heretical nobles and gentry whose names and estates they had scheduled. The king, to his credit, resisted both temptations. Meanwhile the pope was lavish with his honours to prop up the loyalty of James to the apostolic see. Legate after legate was despatched to Scotland. Rome sent him its most precious gifts, the mystic cap and sword, blessed by the pope on Christmas night ; it honoured him with the flattering title of Defender of the Faith, much to the displeasure of Henry VIII., on whom it had been formerly conferred, and who had now ceased to defend that particular phase of the faith. But if James showed little favour to the reformers' doctrines, no flattery from Rome could reconcile him to the misrule of the Scottish priests. He encouraged George Buchanan to lampoon the mendicant friars in the vigorous verse of The Franciscans, and he sanc tioned by his presence the public performance of Lindsay's satire on the clergy, The Three Estates, which, according to Pinkerton,! " contributed more to the Reformation in Scotland than all the sermons of John Knox." ^ The play was first performed at Linlithgow on the feast of the Epiphany 1 5 40, in presence of the king and his court, and a great gathering, which included bishops and nobles. The satire is so coarse, not to say lewd, that we may wonder at the presence of the queen and her ladies ; 1 Scottish Poems, i. p. xvii. 2 See Robertson's Statuta, cxxxvii. to cxi. 5l6 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and the feelings of the prelates were not to be envied while Lindsay lashed them with " The flash of that satiric rage Which, bursting on the early stage, Branded the vices of the age And broke the keys of Rome." ! It has been said in defence of James's consistency that he used the literary services of Lindsay and Buchanan to open the eyes of his subjects, and especially of the priests, to the ecclesiastical abuses of the times, in order. to prepare the way for a reformation which should purify and preserve the Church. He followed up the action of the dramatists by taking the bishops into his counsel and exhorting them to reform their own and their clergy's lives, under a threat that if they neglected his warning he would deal with them after the manner of his uncle in England. In a Parliament held in March 1541, in which severe measures were taken against heresy and heretical conventicles, there was also passed an act for " reforming of the kirks and kirkmen." In this act it is said that " the negligence of divine service, the great unhonesty in the kirk . . . and also the unhonesty and misrule of kirkmen, both in wit, knowledge, and manners, is the matter and cause that the kirk and kirkmen are lightly spoken of and contemned." ^ The king's own appointments to kirk and monastery contributed, probably more than others, to the disparage ment of " kirkmen " ; and two that he made towards the close of his reign are not free from blame. He asks the pope in 1539 to confirm the appointment of William Cunningham, son of the earl of Glencairn, to the bishopric of Lismore (Argyll) at the age of twenty-six. The western Highlanders are reported by the king to be still savage 1 Scott's Marmion, canto iv. 2 Acts Parlt. Scot, ii. 376. XXIX WAR WITH ENGLAND 5 I 7 in manners and strangers to discipline ; but a stripling of a prelate, albeit of noble and influential family, was not likely to improve the manners or reform the discipline of Argyll. He was, moreover, to be made comfortable by the annexation of the abbey of Saddale, in Cantyre, to be held in commendam as a " mensal " to his see.-' Next year the king twice asks the pope to prefer Thomas Erskine, " a young nobleman, robust in mind and body," to the abbey of Dryburgh, in suc'cession to a blind abbot, " a certain Scottish theologian who has hitherto been tempted to occupy it." There were more people blind in that day {luminibus orbatus) than the theological abbot. The predatory incursions of the English demanded, the king said, a strong man for the abbey, and evidently the young abbot-designate was to be something of an ecclesiastical Rob Roy on the Borders. The king'claims Dryburgh as having been founded and endowed by his royal ancestors.^ What would his royal ancestor, the saintly king David who founded Dryburgh, have said of his successor's ecclesi astical nominations ? The strained relations between Henry VIII. and James ended in a war on the Borders in 1542. The Scots were at first victorious, and cardinal Beaton magnifies the victory to the pope in a very grotesque fashion, by letter dated I oth November.' A few weeks later the disaffection among the Scottish nobles led to an army of ten thousand Scots being surprised and routed at Solway Moss by three hundred English cavalry, with scarcely the show of resistance. The disaffection of the nobles is explained by Tytler* as arising from the fact that " many of them favoured the doctrines of the Reformation ; some from a conscien tious conviction of their truth, others from an envious 1 Theiner, p. 608. 2 Hid., p. 612. 3 Ibid., p. 613. * Hist., iv. 261. 5l8 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. eye to those possessions of the Church which, under the dissolution of the English religious houses, they had seen become the prey of their brethren in England." The dis grace of this defeat broke the proud spirit of the king. He retired to Falkland Palace, where he died broken hearted on 13th December 1542, in the thirty-first year of his age and twenty-ninth of his reign. Two sons had been born to him, but they both died in infancy. On his deathbed news was brought that his wife had given birth to a child in Linlithgow Palace. Upon inquiries he was answered that the child was " ane fair dochter." He is said to .have murmured : " It came with a lass and it will go with a lass " — in allusion to the throne coming to the Stewarts through the princess Marjory, daughter of Bruce. The " lass " was the hapless and lovely queen Mary whose life has added more to the romance of Scottish history than that of any prince of the Stuart line, excepting perhaps prince Charles Edward's. So ended the unbroken succession of " The Five Jameses," who followed each other as kings of the Scots for nearly a hundred and forty years. All of them were minors, some of them mere infants, on their accession to the throne, and none of them lived out his natural days. Murder carried off the first and third ; the second and fourth fell in battle on the Borders, fight ing with " the auld enemy " ; and the fifth died, weary of the strife. Comparison has been made between James V. and James I. of Scotland, but their characters afford more material for contrast than for comparison. They had similar literary tastes and were both gifted with the faculty of poesy ; but there is not much resemblance in character between the moral and sententious James who wrote The King's Quair, and the gay and rollicking James, known to his subjects as " The Gudeman of Ballengeich," who wrote XXIX JAMES V. CONTRASTED WITH JAMES I. 5 I 9 Peblis to the Play and the Gaberlunsie Man. Another work, Christis Kirk on the Grene, has been claimed for both of them, though the balance of authorship is in favour of James V. Both kings pursued the same policy of crush ing the nobles, and the energy of James V. in this direc tion was really remarkable. True, he alienated many of the nobles by his preference of ecclesiastics to the chief offices of State. The archbishop of Glasgow was chan cellor ; the bishop of Dunkeld, keeper of the privy seal ; and the abbot of Holyrood, treasurer. Sadler, the astute ambassador of Henry VIII. in Scotland, remarks on this dominance of ecclesiastics, but admits that in the absence of an educated nobility it was a necessity. The compul sory Education Act of 1496 may not as yet have borne much fruit. " To be plain with you," writes Sadler to a member of the English privy council, " though the Scottish nobles be well-minded, and divers others also that be of the council and about the king, yet I see none amongst them that hath any such agility of wit, gravity, learning, or experience to set forth the same, or take in hand the direction of things. So that the king, as far as I can per ceive, is of force driven to use the bishops and the clergy as his only ministers for the direction of his realm. They be the men of art and policy that I see here, and they be never out of the king's ear." ! Had there been a king in Scotland with a strong will and firm hand it is certain that the illiterate barons who posed as reformers of the Church would never have been suffered to rob and plunder her as they did without scruple or shame. But where the carcase is the eagles will be gathered together.^ 1 Sadler's State Papers, i. 47. secret and most potent motives that 2 Dr. Rankin (Church of Scotland, led to the Church's overthrow with a ed. Story, ii. 401) writes of this phase sudden crash in 1560, unless we have of the Reformation with commend- seen in detail the nature, extent, and able candour. " Nor can we under- growth of the old ecclesiastical en- stand the working of one of the dowments whch were so strong a 520 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xxix temptation to greedy, turbulent, and unscrupulous barons and lairds, who shrewdly foresaw in an ecclesiastical revolution a rich chance of plunder, besides the crippling of a rival or superior power in the State. The view here taken strips the Reformed Church that succeeds of some of its gilding, but it is far better in the long run to be strictly impartial and draw as true a picture as we possibly can of the Roman Church in Scotland, which was our forefathers' church as well as Roman. We can never our selves be beyond the reach of revolu tion, and were such fate to overtake us we can conceive how bitter it would be to have our good qualities forgotten or caricatured, while our faults were exaggerated and gibbeted. " May future historians deal kindly with the learned minister of Muthill, and not forget among his good qualities that most excellent quality — historical candour. CHAPTER XXX QUEEN MARY REGENCY OF THE EARL OF ARRAN, 1542-1554 Imprisonment of the cardinal — Conventions and council of clergy, assessing themselves for the war and for Council of Trent — Brawl in Glasgow Cathedral between the primates — Persecu tions and burnings for heresy in Perth — George Wishart martyred — Murder of cardinal Beaton — John Knox in St. Andrews — Defeat of Scots at Pinkie — Bad bishops — Abuses of patronage — James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow — Bishop Hamilton of Dunkeld translated to St. Andrews — Bishops Dunbar of Aberdeen and Reid of Orkney — Provincial councils in Linlithgow and Edinburgh and canons enacted — Deplorable condition of the Church — Hamilton's Catechism and the Two penny Faith — Discussion on the Pater Noster — Burning of Adam Wallace for heresy. Mary, when six days old, succeeded to an inheritance of sorrow. In her ninth month she was crowned queen of the Scots at Stirling by cardinal Beaton. The cardinal played for the regency which he alleged the late king had assigned him in his will, but he was no favourite with the nobles, and they defeated his purpose and elected the earl of Arran regent and governor. He was head of the house of Hamilton and next heir to the throne, but a weak and vacillating man who changed his policy and religion from time to time under the influence of stronger minds than his own. Beaton, in place of being put into the regent's chair, was seized and put into prison. He was taken successively to Dalkeith, Setoun, Blackness, 522 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCLI chap. and St. Andrews, where he was to remain during the governor's pleasure. The effect of his imprisonment was a virtual interdict in many parts of the country, during which the churches were closed and the voice of religion silenced.^ After three months the cardinal was liberated, and on the 2nd May 1543 he writes a pathetic letter to the pope, excusing his absence from the Council of Trent, to which he had been cited the previous Christmas, and detailing his imprisonment and restoration to liberty, which latter, he says, was accompanied by the congratulations and sympathy of all good people.^ One of the first acts of the cardinal on i:egaining his liberty was to summon a meeting of the prelates and other clergy of the province to St. Andrews to raise money for the war with heretical England. In January of this year (i 543) the pope had given power to the king to raise a large subsidy from the revenues of the Scottish Church to wage war against " that son of perdition and Satan," as Henry VIII. is styled in the bull.' James had died before the bull passed the Seals at Rome. The clergy in the convention at St. Andrews agreed with much enthusiasm to raise ten thousand pounds by a tax upon all prelacies and benefices of the yearly value of forty pounds and upwards. They vowed that they would spend their own and the Church's plate, and even take the field in person, rather than that the war should languish. The clergy failed in much, but they never failed in patriotism. They were as loyal to the principle of national independence when threatened now by Henry VIII. as the clergy were who supported Wallace and ^ See Tytler, Hist., iv. 279, and sederunts, extending over irregular Robertson, Statuta, cxlii. periods of eighteen years. It closed 2 Theiner, p. 614. The Council finally on 4th December 1563. of Trent did not meet until 13th 3 Robertson, Statuta, cxxxvii. December 1545. It held ten note. x.xx CLERICAL ASSESSMENTS FOR THE WAR 523 Bruce against the first and second Edwards. Their conduct at this crisis contrasts favourably with that of the nobles, and especially of " the Assured Scots," the captives at Solway Moss who returned to Scotland as the pensioned instruments of Henry, ready to barter the liberties of the country in exchange for their own. Within two years of the convention at St. Andrews another was held by the cardinal in the refectory of the Blackfriars monastery, Edinburgh, where the clergy agreed to another assessment of thirteen thousand pounds for the purposes of the war. And again in March of the same year, 1546, Beaton, armed with a papal brief, summoned a general provincial council of the whole Church at St. Andrews, threatening absentee prelates and clergy with excommunication and suspension. The council agreed to another tax of two thousand five hundred pounds as their contribution to the expenses of the Council of Trent which had now met. No prelate from Scotland sat in it, though the cardinal was thrice summoned to attend. The bishops had their hands too full at home. The regent Arran was hard pressed for money to carry on the war, and asked the pope to permit him to spend in the public service the revenues of the abbeys held by the late king's illegitimate sons. In the same letter, lOth May 1543, the bishopric of Dunkeld is asked for John Hamilton, then abbot of Paisley, his own illegitimate brother. The request was repeatedly made, and next year the brother got the bishopric.' In the end of the year Arran begs a subsidy from the papal court for the purposes of the war. The governor adds that only two things are wanted to crush the English king's machinations — valour and money. The valour is to be supplied at 1 Theiner, pp. 614, 616. 524 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. home, and the money he expects from Rome — and prob ably expected in vain.! Henry VIII. was pressing his proposals of marriage between his son Edward and the infant queen Mary. When baffled in his design by Beaton, he invaded the country in May 1544 with an army and a fleet. The fleet ravaged the coast towns of Fife, the army burned Edinburgh for three days and spread desolation on their march homewards to the Border. They were intercepted at Ancrum Moor, near Jedburgh, and severely punished by the Scots. Next year the English returned with a more determined purpose " to wipe out," as Arran informed the pope, " both the Scottish nation and name." Scotland, from the Tweed to the Forth, was exposed or months to their atrocities, and the four Border abbeys of Kelso, Melrose, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh were sacrilegiously sacked and burned — ruined indeed beyond reparation. The earl of Hertford, who commanded the expedition, reported to Henry VIII. that he had destroyed seven monastic houses, and some hundreds of forts, towns, villages, parish churches, farm steadings, besides carrying off many thousands of horses, cattle, and sheep. Amidst heresies and burnings at home and the miseries of foreign invasions, the two metropolitans, Beaton and Dunbar, quarrelled in Glasgow, and the result was a scandalous riot in the cathedral. The questions at issue — contemptible enough at any time and more so now in the critical condition of the Church — were, whether the primate of Scotland had the right to carry his cross in the province of Glasgow, and whether the metropolitan of Glasgow was not entitled to carry his cross and give benediction in his own cathedral, even in the presence of the cardinal legate of St. Andrews. Their supporters ! Theiner, p. 615. xxx RIVAL METROPOLITANS IN GLASGOW CATHEDRAL 525 took sides, and the dispute ended in a disgraceful brawl in the cathedral, in presence of the queen -dowager and the regent, in which blows were given and returned, copes and vestments torn, and the crosses of both metro politans broken. In May 1545 the regent, writing from Linlithgow to the pope, gives an account of the unseemly affray, and says that only his respect for the sacred office withheld him from inflicting the extreme penalty {extremo supplicio) upon the archbishop of Glasgow, " who had no fear of God before his eyes." ! Two months later the cardinal sends to Rome his version of the story, stating that Dunbar had promised to the regent that he would not carry his cross, that he had filled the cathedral with armed soldiers to the risk of his (the cardinal's) life, and that only his intervention saved the archbishop of Glasgow from the regent's vengeance.^ If the two narratives may be taken literally, Scotland was near to having the murder of another archbishop in its annals. Apart from this, no more humiliating spectacle could have been presented to all true friends of the Church. Knox, writing about fifteen years afterwards, describes the scene with picturesque effect and much gratification.' In another letter of the same date, 6th July 1545, the cardinal sends to the pope a very rose-coloured account of the affairs of Church and State. Discord had ceased, heresies were all but extinct, the French had sent troops for the war against England, the regent and cardinal had met the nobles at Stirling in June, and all were agreed upon " the holy expedition," and confident of victory over that Englishman {ipso Anglo — Henry VIII.). The cardinal declares himself devoted to the defence of the kingdom, and prepared to serve it not only with his counsel 1 Theiner, p. 616. ^ Ibid., p. 617. 3 Hist. Reform., i. pp. 14S-147 ; Robertson, Statuta, cxxxi. seq. 526 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and wealth, but with his life and blood.^ The last words were prophetic, and probably by this time the cardinal had a presentiment of what might befall him. The miseries of foreign invasion had been preceded by troubles of a different kind at home. The regent Arran, won over it is supposed by his half-brother the bishop of Dunkeld to a policy of persecution, took part with car dinal Beaton in the trial at Perth, in i 542, of several persons accused of heresy. Four men were convicted and hanged, a poor woman was drowned, and several others were ban ished. Still, the reputed heresies spread, favoured by agents from the English Government and by Lutheran books smuggled into the eastern seaports. Aberdeen, Montrose, Perth, and Dundee were thus early affected with the new doctrines. In 1543 there was a riot in Dundee in which the Dominican and Franciscan monas teries were destroyed. The abbey of Lindores, always associated with Dundee from the days of its founder, was attacked by the same reformers, and the monks ignomini- ously expelled. This was the first rising of the Scots people against the monastic houses. Amid the troubled waters of this period appears George Wishart. He was of the Wisharts of Pitarrow in the Mearns, a family that had given a pluralist bishop to St. Andrews. In 1543, Wishart was a student in Cambridge, where he left a high reputation for personal piety and charity to the poor. Next year he came to Scotland and began to preach the reformed doctrines, which he is supposed to have imbibed on the Continent. Montrose and Dundee received several visits from Wishart, and his ministrations to the plague-stricken people of the latter town were praiseworthy. In some places the people were stirred by his preaching, in others, as at Haddington, he complained 1 Theiner, pp. 616, 617. xxx BURNING OF GEORGE WISHART 527 of their godless indifference. It was at Haddington, the birthplace of John Knox, that this celebrated reformer first identified himself, in Wishart's company, with the new doctrines. Knox appeared bearing a two-handed sword, typical of his own career, which was usually carried before Wishart in his public preachings. Cardinal Beaton had come to Edinburgh to hold a synod of his clergy, and learning that Wishart was in the neighbourhood and in the company of men, among others Crichton laird of Brunston, near Musselburgh, whom he knew to be plotting his death, he gave orders for Wishart's apprehension. Wishart was taken to St. Andrews and arraigned for heresy before the two archbishops and other ecclesiastical judges in the cathedral. The regent pleaded for delay and refused to take part in the trial. The cardinal took the responsi bility upon himself and proceeded. Wishart was accused of eighteen heretical tenets and condemned to death. Next day, ist March 1546, the scaffold was erected in front of the cardinal's castle, the faggots were prepared, the guns of the castle made to cover the scaffold in case of an attempt at rescue, and Wishart was burned to death. It was one more execrable attempt to strike terror into the hearts of the people, and destined like all the rest to failure. The people's hearts were indeed touched, but it was with commiseration for the fate of the young martyr and a deepening indignation at the Church's persistent cruelty. Unfortunately for Wishart's memory his name has been implicated with the conspirators who were pledged to assassinate Beaton. This was denied by suc cessive writers until the research of Tytler has placed it be yond challenge that Wishart was in the plot and was sent by Crichton of Brunston, first to the eari of Hertford at Newcastle, and from him to king Henry, with the informa tion that " Kirkaldy the laird of Grange, the master oi 528 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Rothes, eldest son to the earl of that name, and John Charteris, were willing to apprehend or slay the cardinal, if assured of proper support from England." ! Henry VIII. was therefore cognisant of the plot, if not its prime insti gator, and was expected to be its rewarder. The plot slept for a year, but the execution of Wishart probably gave it a fresh incentive, and on the 28th May 1546 it was accom plished, and Cardinal Beaton ignominiously murdered in his castle. It was a foul and wicked crime for which no man ought to make any excuse. ^ Before the discoveries of Tytler it was pleaded that the perpetrators of the deed had reasoned themselves into the belief that they were Samuels hewing Agag in pieces, just as the cardinal and the bishops believed that they were doing God service by the burning of heretics. The cardinal's method had at least a formal accusation and trial to plead in its favour ; his own death was devoid even of this decency. Tytler's documentary evidence now sweeps away every pretext, and it will be difficult to rebut his conclusion. " It may now be pronounced," he writes, " without fear of contradiction, that the assassination of Beaton was no sudden event, aris ing simply out of indignation for the fate of Wishart ; but an act of long-projected murder, encouraged, if not origin ated by the English monarch, and, so far as the principal conspirators were concerned, committed from private and mercenary considerations" {Hist., iv. 372).^ 1 See Tytler, Hist., iv. pp. 315, enough that a Scotsman named Wishart 337, and note F, p. 454. was inthe plot, and no other Wishart 2 Dr. Cunningham in his Cliurch than George is known to have been History, i. 251 note, is singularly can- intimate with the murderers. "We didas to Tytler's evidence of Wishart's may feel grieved," he adds, "at the guilt. "If it be asked," he says, dark discoveries Tytler makes, but " was George Wishart connected with there is no gainsaying the evidence the conspiracy to murder Beaton ? it he produces, and it is a weak thing to must be answered sorrowfully that shut our eyes against historic truth, there is a strong presumption that he because the sight of it pains us." was, though not positive and conclu- Equally honest is he in the next page sive proof." The proof is conclusive in his condemnation of Knox's in- xxx JOHN KNOX, A PRISONER 529 On the 1st September the regent wrote to the pope expressing his deep sorrow " at the impious murder of the cardinal in that castle which he had fortified for the whole of two years with the greatest care." He writes with much feeling about Beaton as " a true lover of his country and his own friend and companion in all labour and peril." His grief was intensified by the fact that the assassins had seized in the castle his eldest son, who had been entrusted to the cardinal for his education. In this letter the re quest is repeated for a subsidy from the Roman see for the war with England.! The castle held out for fourteen months against every effort of the regent to dislodge the assassins, and only with the aid of a French fleet was it captured, in August 1 547. Among the prisoners who fell into the hands of the French was John Knox. He had been for some months the minister of the desperate men beleaguered in the castle. On this situation Dr. Rankin writes with his usual candour : " It is only fair to confess that they were a crew of desperadoes and blackguards, and it is not easy to regard John Knox with honest Christian sympathy for casting in his lot, even temporarily, with such men ; and his having to keep them company in the French galleys till February 1549, was a punishment not altogether unmerited." ^ Henry VIII. died in 1547, but there was no change in the hostile policy to Scotland. The earl of Hertford, now duke of Somerset and protector of England during the minority of Edward VI., invaded the country and de feated the Scots army at Pinkie Cleuch, near Musselburgh. The clergy, true to their word, marched to the battlefield decent glee over Beaton's murder : whole narrative that he approved of " Notwithstanding our admiration of and applauded the murder." Knox, we think it impossible to read ! Theiner, pp. 618 seq. his indecent jests at the cardinal's 2 Church of Scotland, ii. 403, death without extreme pain and dis- 404; Buckle, Hist. Civ., iii. 74-76. gust ; and it is too evident from the 2 M 530 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. with a white banner bearing a figure of the afflicted Church. On this invasion Holyrood Abbey was sacked by the EngHsh soldiers, but not irreparably ruined as the Border abbeys had been a few years before. The Three Estates met next year at Haddington, and, not liking the English method of wooing their young queen, resolved upon marry ing her to the dauphin of France. Meanwhile for greater security she was removed from Stirling to the peaceful priory of Inchmahome, in the lake of Menteith. From thence she was taken to Dunbarton Castle, where she em barked, 7th August 1548, for France, to spend the few happy years she was ever to know in her chequered life. The appointments to the Scottish bishoprics at this time throw a lurid light upon the condition of the Church. The good and the bad were strangely intermingled, but unhappily the bad predominated. Worse men than the bishops of the falling hierarchy probably never wore a mitre. It has often been said in Scotland that the strongest argument against episcopacy was the episcopate. The bishops of this age give point to the remark. Many of them -were cadets, often illegitimate, of lordly houses, and thrust by family influence into the sacred office for which they were qualified neither by life nor learning. Thus, the son of the earl of Glencairn, made bishop of Argyll in his twenty-sixth year, was succeeded by Robert Montgomery, son of the earl of Eglinton. This bishop left three illegitimate sons for whom letters of legitimation were granted under the privy seal. In 1 5 4 1 , Robert Stewart, son of the earl of Lennox, and provost of the collegiate church of Dunbarton, was nominated bishop of Caithness while in his twentieth year. It is doubtful whether he was ever ordained, even to the priesthood, though his services were used by the reformers in so-called consecrations to the office of xxx BAD BISH;0PS 53 1 bishop.! He had in early life a natural daughter, and after the Reformation he married Elizabeth Stewart, the earl of Athole's daughter, who divorced him in order to marry her paramour the earl of Arran. Upon the assassination of the regent Moray, whose reforming principles had not led him to abjure the priory of St. Andrews with its lucrative emoluments, the family in fluence of the titular bishop of Caithness secured him the primatial priory, and Keith says that he alienated the revenues of both priory and bishopric.^ The same mis appropriation was made by Chisholm, bishop of Dunblane, who divided the property of his bishopric among his three illegitimate children and his nephew, Chisholm of Cromlix. Patrick Hepburn, bishop of Moray, " the son of a rebellious house " (Bothwell), endowed an illegitimate family out of the revenues of his see and otherwise alienated the see -property by perpetual leases. These men were as wise in their generation as the unjust steward, and doubtless foresaw the impending revolution which their own profligacy was provoking. Hepburn lived through the storm and kept possession of Spynie Castle, the episcopal residence of Moray, until his death in 1573. William Gordon, son of lord Huntly, when still a youth became bishop of Aberdeen in 1545. He dilapidated the rents of his see, and squandered its revenues among his base children and their baser mothers. His open concubinage was a scandal and a grief to the people of his diocese. He has been called, justly or unjustly, the blackest bishop of his generation, but it is difficult to distinguish between the shades. The episcopate had now become largely an appanage of the baronial houses — Stewarts, Hepburns, Gordons, Hamiltons, Chisholms, Sinclairs, and even a Campbell of the house of Argyll. 1 See Keith's Catalogue, p. 216. 2 md., p. 216. 532 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Some of them became professed reformers, when the storm burst, and they carried with them little credit to their new religion. Other episcopal appointments of this period were not much more satisfactory. Gavin Dunbar, archbishop of Glasgow, died in 1547, and the regent Arran immedi ately requested the pope to appoint as his successor James Hamilton, another of his bastard brothers, stipulat ing at the same time that a thousand pounds of the archiepiscopal income should be divided between two other brothers, David and Claud.-' The request was not granted, but that it ever was made is, as Bellesheim the Roman Catholic historian admits, " a lamentable instance of the laxity of the time."^ James Hamilton, unsuccessful in Glasgow, was made bishop of Argyll in 1556.' The vacant see of Glasgow was assigned in 1550 to Alexander Gordon, brother of the earl of Huntly. As provision was made in the Act of Institution for the reservation of four hundred golden ducats annually in favour of two clerics in the dioceses of Lyons and Bologna, the election must have been made with the connivance of the papal court. Gordon received the pall from Rome, but some obstacle intervened and he was not consecrated.* He was promised the first vacant 1 Theiner, p. 629. See also 1560, fix the limits of papal suprem- Theiner, p. 607, for a letter in which acy in this country. Frequent use king James V. asks the pope to has been made in this history of receive graciously James Hamilton extracts from Theiner, partly because "of a noble house," who had lapsed the matter is new and little known, into heresy but had now abjured it. and partly because the authority is This request of the regent Arran, unquestionable. dated 31st July 1547, is the last 2 Hist, of Cath. Ch., ii. 182. letter in Theiner's Monumenta affect- s Keith's Catalogue, pp. 289, 290. ing the history of the Scottish Church. Keith has been consulted for other It closes a correspondence between appointments. Rome and Scotland extending from * Brady, Episcopal Succession, i. 1217 to 1547, a period of 330 years, p. 155, quoted by Bellesheim, ii. which, with the remaining years to 195. xxx ARCHBISHOPS BEATON AND HAMILTON 533 bishopric in Scotland, which, as it happened, was that of the Isles. To gratify his disappointed ambition, the pope gave him the sounding title of archbishop of Athens. He also got the abbey of Inchaffray in com mendam, worth more to him than the archbishopric in partibus. Afterwards he was translated to Galloway, where he was made commendator of another abbey — Glenluce. Though he became an ardent reformer and preacher, he still held the Galloway bishopric and abbey, and in 1576 transferred them on his deathbed, as if they had been his own property, to his natural sons, two of whom held in succession the secularised abbey of Glen luce. " Thus went," says Keith, " the ecclesiastical benefices in that period." ! The metropolitan see of Glasgow was at last filled, in 155 I) by James Beaton, nephew of the cardinal, a youth of twenty - six years, not yet ordained even to the diaconate, though holding the abbey of Arbroath — the third Beaton in succession who held that rich benefice in commendam. The youthful archbishop was ordained and consecrated at Rome in 1552. The primatial see of St. Andrews had been vacant since the cardinal's death, and in 1549 the regent procured it for his half-brother, John Hamilton, bishop of Dunkeld. He carried the abbacy of Paisley with him to Dunkeld, and from Dunkeld to St. Andrews, by papal indulgence. The Scottish bishops of this age appear, with their " in commenda-ms',' like so many comets, each dragging after him a trail of abbeys and priories. Hamilton became primate and legate natus, and by and by the powers of legate a latere were conferred upon him, but there came no more 1 Bishop Forbes, Life of St. the see of Galloway to his own son Ninian, -p, lix., remarks :" Gordon John, then pursuing his studies in turned Protestant, and on his death- France." See Keith's Catalogue, p. bed, in 1576, resigned the benefice of 279. 534 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. cardinals' hats to Scotland, and all the power of the regent Arran, working for his half - brother, could not prevent the juvenile archbishop of Glasgow from securing the exemption of his see from the jurisdiction of St. Andrews. The pope was generous to the Beatons, and rewarded the third archbishop of that name for the services of his uncle. Hamilton was as ambitious as his predecessor in St. Andrews, but- without the cardinal's commanding abilities. In private life he was not more moral, and in his tragic death not more happy. He was enthroned at St. Andrews in July 1549, after feasting the gentry of Lothian and Clydesdale. In the following month he presided at Linlithgow — the plague was raging in Edinburgh — over a provincial council, in which several statutes were enacted that were afterwards confirmed by succeeding councils. Of these statutes a summary will be given. The new primate had a coadjutor in the see of St. Andrews, as Beaton had also had. There is another and brighter side to this dark picture — bishops of holy life and learning whose epis copates shed a radiance like that of the setting sun on the eventide of the mediaeval Church. The hierarchy never wanted a succession of these apostolic men, who kept alive in Scotland the true ideal of what bishops should be in the church of God. Besides bishops, there were other worthy ecclesiastics, such as abbot Kennedy of Cross raguel, and Ninian Winzet, the learned schoolmaster of Linlithgow, both of whom ably defended the old faith while rebuking unsparingly the worldly lives of the clergy that discredited it. Devout laymen there were also, like lord Fleming who founded and endowed at Biggar, in the year 1545, the collegiate church of St. Mary, the last venture of that kind in Scotland. The founder fell with xxx THREE WORTHY BISHOPS 535 many other brave Scots in the rout of Pinkie Cleuch, September i 547. Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen had a worthy successor in Gavin Dunbar, uncle of the archbishop of Glasgow of that name. He completed much of Elphinstone's work in St. Machar's, improved the services by an Epistolary for use in the cathedral church, and shortly before his death founded an hospital in Aberdeen for twelve poor bedes men. In the preamble to this grant he recites that prelates of the Church are not the lords but the guardians and trustees of her patrimony, and bound to bestow it on the poor and for pious uses, saving only so much as was necessary for their own modest maintenance. The bishop exemplified this instruction in his own benevolent and frugal life.^ David Panter, bishop of Ross, earned a good name in his day as a scholar and statesman. He succeeded his brother Patrick, abbot of Cambuskenneth, as secretary to the regent, and the two brothers wrote for many years the series of Latin letters issued by kings and regents of Scotland. Panter was occupied in the public service abroad when elected to Ross in I54S, and was consecrated at Jedburgh in i 5 5 2, in the presence of the regent and many of the nobles and gentry. A still more distinguished prelate of this period was Robert Reid, bishop of Orkney, the son of a gentleman who had fallen at Flodden. He was a student of St. Andrews and Paris, became sub -dean and official of Moray, and then abbot of Kinloss, holding also Beauly Priory in commendam. Few commendators of that day were like abbot Robert, who took Beauly in charge not to rob and lay waste, but to build and to plant. The priory owed much to his pious care, for he rebuilt it from the foundation, and in addition erected the nave 1 Grub, ii. 5 ; Bellesheim, ii. 183. 536 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. of the priory church. The abbot was also an accomplished scholar, and took pleasure in promoting learning in Moray and Orkney. On one of his visits abroad he brought the learned John Ferrerius from Piedmont, to write the lives of the abbots of Kinloss* and to instruct the younger monks of Beauly in classic literature. Ferrerius gave an impetus to classical study in the north country, and eulogised Aberdeen University in 1534 as the most celebrated at that time in Scotland.! The abbot of Kinloss owed the bishopric of Orkney to pope Paul III. in 1 541, and if his holiness had translated him to St. Andrews five years afterwards, when it was vacant, he would have done a still more meritorious service to the Scottish Church. Here was the most learned and energetic bishop of his day relegated to the remote Orkneys, while the illiterate and often in dolent sons of the nobility were pasturing upon the best bishoprics of the land to their no small detriment. It is vain to conjecture what might have been, but still we may imagine what twelve other bishops like-minded with bishop Reid would have done for the Scottish Church. There was one drawback to the pope's appoint ment to Orkney, namely, that the revenues of the see, never very large, were charged with a pension of twenty pounds to a youthful cleric named Thornton, a boy of fourteen, and another of eighty marks to John Stewart, an illegitimate son of James V., also described as a cleric, though of the early age of eight.^ Such was the baneful custom of the times, not passively tolerated, but actively encouraged by ' the Roman curia. Notwithstanding the crippled revenues 1 Cos. Innes, Sketches, pp. 273, 151, 152, quoted by Bellesheim, ii. 274. 196. 2 Brady, Episc, Succession, i. pp. xxx BISHOP REID OF ORKNEY 537 of his poor see, bishop Reid did a great work for Orkney. He took in hand the fabric of St. Magnus's Cathedral, and restored and enlarged it ; and he reorganised its chapter, placing a provost at its head, instead of a dean as in other secular chapters. Besides the provost there were six dignitaries, archdeacon, chancellor, treasurer, precentor, etc., seven other prebendaries, thirteen chaplains, and six choristers. He also founded in Kirkwall a grammar school to be a centre of instruction for the youth of the islands. Reid's appointment as official of Moray indicates that he was learned in the law, and for his legal knowledge James V. made him one of the senators of the College of Justice, and upon abbot Milne's death, in 1550, he became its president. With his legal duties in Edinburgh, his episcopal duties in Orkney, and his foreign embassies, the bishop must have been an active man, and often " in perils of waters." He was one of the commissioners with Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, Panter, bishop of Ross, and several of the nobles, who were sent by the Estates of Scotland to witness the marriage of queen Mary with the dauphin of France, which took place in Notre Dame, 24th April 1558. In September of that year, on his journey home, the bishop died suddenly at Dieppe, and as three others of the commissioners died at the same time and place, suspicion was aroused that they had been poisoned by order of the Guises, whose political schemes they had opposed. The bishop's body was buried in the church of St. James, Dieppe, where in 1870 a copper tablet was set up with an inscription to his memory.! There is no memorial of him in his native land. Bishop Reid bequeathed certain sums for the education of the sons and daughters of poor gentlefolks, besides eight 1 Bellesheim, ii. 198. 538 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. thousand marks Scots for building a college in Edinburgh. The money was appropriated by the regent Morton, but in 1 5 8 1 it was recovered by the magistrates, and applied to the purchase of a site on which was built the university of Edinburgh. Of that university the bishop has, therefore, a claim to be regarded as the founder.! The provincial council held at Linlithgow in August 1549 was adjourned to meet in Edinburgh the 27th November of that year. The statutes enacted were prefaced by the remarkable admission that the two main causes of the heresies and disorders of the Church were the profane and corrupt lives of ecclesiastics of almost every grade, and their crass ignorance of learning. Of the six bishops who sat in the council three of them, including the primate who presided, were known to have had each two or more illegitimate children. Among the other sixty prelates and clergy present at the council were " the excellent and accomplished Robert Reid," bishop of Orkney, Quintin Kennedy, abbot of Crossraguel, John Winram, sub -prior of St. Andrews, afterwards one of the superintendents of the reformed church. Conspicuous among them was James Stewart, the ejdest illegitimate son of James V., commendatory prior of St. Andrews, now a stripling of eighteen, and destined before many years to be the deadliest enemy of the Church, punishing her deservedly for the abuse of patronage which had made him the head of her wealthiest monastery when he was seven years old. He became the leader of the Reformation, and governed Scotland as the regent Moray. Another of the king's youthful bastards sat in the council as commendator of Melrose and Kelso. Only one rector of a parish church was present, namely, William Lamb, rector of Conveth, ! See Quarterly Review,vo\. Ixxii., pp. 393, 394, article by Cosmo Innes. xxx PROVINCIAL STATUTES OF 1549 539 now Laurencekirk. The provincial councils, like the Scottish Parliament, knew no distinction of houses, but sat in one chamber.! The subject of clerical incontinence was first dealt with by the council. The clergy were enjoined to dismiss their concubines on pain of deprivation ; to dismiss from their households the children born to them in concubinage, and not to promote such children to benefices, nor to dower their daughters to barons out of the patrimony of the Church. Prelates ^ were not to retain in their houses gamblers, fornicators, drunkards, jesters, profane swearers ; the clergy generally were exhorted to dress and live moderately, and to spare more of the Church's patrimony for the poor. Provision was also made for visiting monasteries and nunneries in order to restore their fallen discipline and to silence the reproaches of the people ; for recalling fugitive monks and nuns to their cloisters ; for punishing deans and other visitors for accepting bribes to hush up concubinage and adultery ; for compelling bishops and rectors to preach at least four times a year when they could preach, and when they could not, to get competent substitutes, and meanwhile to qualify them selves ; for making cathedral chapters support a theologian and canonist to lecture and preach frequently ; for making monasteries retain a theologian and send one or more of their monks to a university ; for securing more worthy candidates for the ministry ; for checking clerical non- residence ; for the better registration of wills, and making executors give an annual count and reckoning to the ordinary's official ; for appointing inquisitors of heretical pravity in each diocese to discover heretics and condemned ! Robertson's Statuta, cxlviii. ecclesiastics above the parochial 2 It is a common mistake that clergy — deans, archdeacons, abbots, prelates meant bishops and no more. priors, provosts. "Black prelacy" "Prelates" included all grades of covered them all. 54° HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. books. The bishops and other prelates and the beneficed clergy are exhorted by the council " in the bowels of Jesus Christ, and for the sake of true religion, to reform their own life and morals in accordance with these statutes." Their own evil example, the council adds, has been " the greatest scandal to the people, and the chief cause of heresies." ^ The plain speech of these statutes is evidence that the council was in earnest in its efforts to reform and purify the Church. The statutes are none the less a humiliating proof of the condition into which the Church had fallen. It was a deplorable sign of the times that prelates of the Church should be admonished by a council not to retain in their households the lewd and dissolute company named in the statutes. Religion in Scotland was deeply wounded in the house of its friends. " It fills one with shame to realise that such statutes should ever have found a place in a sacred synod of Christ's Church ; it certainly mitigates, though nothing can ever justify, the conduct of those who proceeded to extirpate the office of her spiritual rulers rather than reform and correct their lives." ^ Another provincial council was held in the Blackfriars monastery, Edinburgh, in January 1552. It re-enacted the more important canons of the previous council, which had confessedly not been observed, as to systematic preaching, teaching of theology and canon law in cathedrals and monasteries, examining curates and vicars, and securing the proper administration of wills. It passed sixteen new canons making provisions against clandestine marriages, and for enforcing a better attendance of the people at church. Few of the people, the statute says, even in populous places, attend mass or sermon, and those ! Robeitson, Statuta, pp. 81-127. 2 Luckock, The Ch. in Scot, p. 108. xxx PROVINCIAL STATUTES OF 1552 54 1 who do attend profanely jest during sermon and conduct sports and secular business in the porches and church yards. Hospitals are to be visited and examined before Michaelmas ; sentences of excommunication are to be more rigorously enforced, and the names of the excommunicated to be publicly exposed and the parties compelled to withdraw from the Church ; the clergy are forbidden to alienate church lands in order to enrich themselves and their relations and friends, and they are required (for the first time) to keep registers of baptisms and of proclama tions of banns.^ The synod, further, " considering that the inferior clergy, and the prelates for the most part, are not sufficiently learned in the sacred Scriptures to instruct the people properly in the faith or to correct the erring," decrees that a catechism, containing a popular exposition of the doctrines of the Church, be compiled " in the Scottish tongue " by the most learned theologians of the Church for the instruction of both clergy and laity. The catechism is to be read publicly every Lord's Day and festival at high mass by the clergy vested in surplice and stole ; no discussion is to be allowed between the audience and the clergy, and the catechism is not to be put into the hands of the laity except by permission of the ordinary. One reflection made by the council shows that its members were, or affected to be, fatuously blind to the signs of the times. They recall how " the horrible heresies which for some years had afflicted divers parts of this realm, seem at length to have been checked and all but subdued by the favour of God, the help of the State, and the vigilance of the prelates." The clerics who made 1 Registers of deaths, chiefly for deceased, had been in use for about the sake of securing the faithful two hundred years. administration of the property of the 542 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. this boast, eight short years before the storm fell which swept them away, were dreaming in a fool's paradise and fated to be early and rudely awakened. The catechism was published in August 1552 at the primate's expense, and came to be called by his name — Hamilton's Catechism. Its authorship is not known ; it was probably a composite work. The chief share in its compilation is credited to Winram, sub -prior of St. Andrews, who had the requisite learning and was near of access to the primate. The catechism is well written and of commendable tone. It has not inaptly been described as " the beautiful swan song " of the dying mediaeval Church. It contains expositions of the Ten Command ments, the Apostles' Creed, the seven Sacraments, and the Lord's Prayer, with an instruction on the invocation of saints and on prayers for the departed. The angelic salutation, Ave Maria, is given as in Scripture without the later suffrage for the blessed Virgin's prayers ; and there is no mention in it of the pope, or the Roman Church, or the mediaeval purgatory and indulgences.! The excellent catechism had little effect in improving the condition of churchmen or in staving off the revolution that was coming. The time had gone past for either canons or catechism to work any cure. The latter soon became a dead letter, and is only interesting now as a by gone page, and an honourable page, in the Church's history. The catechism of 1552 has been mistaken by some authors^ for a more modest venture of the same kind ! The Catechism was a small Introduction by Mr. T. G. Law. See quarto of two hundred and twenty further, Spottiswoode, Hist, i. 182 ; leaves printed in black letter at St. Keith's Affairs of Church and State, Andrews, 29th August 1552. It was p. 63; Burton, jyw^.i'co^., iii. 333,334. reprinted in facsimile by Professor 2 Spottiswoode, Hist., i. 182. Mitchell of St. Andrews in 1882. Keith, Affairs, etc., p. 63. Both Another edition was published in Spottiswoode and Keith make the 1884 with a Preface by the Rt. Hon. mistake, and they are followed by W. E. Gladstone, and a valuable others. xxx CONTROVERSY ON LORD'S PRAYER 543 called a " Godly Exhortation," made by the provincial council of I 559. It was in the nature of a " Companion to the Altar," to be read in churches before celebration in order to prepare the people for communion. The reformers exercised their caustic wit upon it, and Knox sneers at it as " The Twopenny Faith " — in probable allusion to its price.! The council of 1552 is credited with the settlement of a grotesque controversy about the Lord's Prayer, whether it should be said to the saints or not. Friar Cottis (of the Observantine order) had raised the question in a sermon at St. Andrews, in which he showed how each petition could appropriately be addressed to the saints. His glosses are said to have excited the ridicule of his audience, especially when he attempted to prove how the saints could give us our daily bread. The ridicule followed him into the streets, and the children saluted him as "Friar Pater Noster." The subject continued to be discussed by the doctors of the university with much scholastic subtlety, as recorded by Spottiswoode. The sub-prior, Winram, had an inquisitive servant who asked him the nature of the discussion that was absorbing so much of their time. " The sub-prior merrily answered, ' Tom, we cannot agree to whom the Pater Noster should be said.' He suddenly replied, ' Sir, to whom should it be said but unto God ? ' Then said the sub-prior, ' What shall we do with the saints ? ' He answered, ' Give them Aves and Credos enow for that may suffice them.' This answer going abroad, many said, ' He hath given a wiser decision than all the doctors had done with their distinc tions.' " 2 Spottiswoode writes that when the question 1 The "Exhortation" is given by 2 Spottiswoode, Hist, i. pp. 182, Robertson in his Statuta, p. 177. 183. See also Burton, Hist., iii. 334. 544 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xxx was put to the council the members voted in favour of the proposal, but that " the bishops and such as had any judg ment would not suffer the conclusion to be enacted." There is no allusion to the subject in the canons of 1552, while the canons of 1549 simply enact without comment that the Pater Noster and Ave, in accordance with ancient usage, be repeated before sermons. This has made some of our historians discredit the story, but its mere absence from the council records is not enough to explain away the detailed narrative of Spottiswoode who lived so near to the time.-' For four years after Cardinal Beaton's death there had been no prosecutions for heresy. Archbishop Hamilton and the regent were both supposed to be averse to severity. But in 1550a layman in Ayrshire named Adam Wallace, said to have been of humble rank and little learning, preached with such boldness and persistency that he was apprehended and taken to Edinburgh for trial. Among his judges, besides the primate and regent, were the earls of Argyll, Angus, and Glencairn. Wallace refused to abjure the doctrines he held on the eucharist and was sentenced to death. They cruelly deprived him of his Bible when sending him back to prison. But the con demned preacher knew most of the psalter by heart and he solaced himself in the night with snatches of the psalms.^ Next day he was burned on the Castlehill, Edinburgh. ! See Grub, ii. 37, who thinks incredible that it was formally it possible that the ignorant clergy brought before the synod. may have entertained the notion, but 2 Grub, ii. 35. CHAPTER XXXI QUEEN MARY REGENCY OF THE QUEEN-MOTHER, 1554-1560 Return of Scottish reformers — John Knox in Scotland 1555, leaves for Geneva 1556 — Delated for heresy and burned in effigy — Answers by " appellation " — Reformers and the regent — Bond by the lords of the Congregation — Their legislation for the Church, and use of the English Prayer-Book — Preaching of Protestant friars — -Burning of Walter Mylne — Protestants petition regent for religious liberty — Marriage of queen Mary of Scotland and death of queen Mary of England — Influence of English Reformation on the Scottish — Last provincial council, 1559 — Articles of Reformation submitted by churchmen — Rejection of the same by the council — Character of some Scottish bishops — Canons enacted in 1559. The regency of the earl of Arran ended in 1554, when he was induced to resign, by the offer of the French dukedom of Chatelherault, in favour of the widowed queen Mary of Lorraine, who then continued regent until her death in 1560. She is admitted to have been a woman of exceptional talents, and she certainly governed the country during a difficult crisis with remarkable moderation and tact. Devout Catholic as she was, her policy afforded complete toleration to the Protestants so long as they observed the laws and were not guilty of disturbing the peace of the realm. Her difficulties were increased by the return of several Scotsmen, driven from England by the persecutions of queen Mary. Among these were two ex-friars, Douglas 2 N 546 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and Willock, besides William Harlow, and Paul Methven. Douglas was an ex-Carmelite and became chaplain to the reforming earl of Argyll ; Willock had been chaplain to the duke of Suffolk ; Harlow, who began life as a tailor in Edinburgh, had been ordained deacon in the English Church ; and Methven had been originally a baker in Dundee. These men all became active in preaching the reformed doctrines in Scotland. A still more formidable adversary to the old Church arrived in Edinburgh soon afterwards, in the person of John Knox. Knox was born at Gifford, near Haddington, in 1505, studied at Glasgow and St. Andrews, and was ordained to the priesthood. For many years his life was passed in obscurity, and not until he was at the mature age of forty, on the occasion of Wishart's preaching at Haddington, did he cast in his lot with the reformers. By that time the Reformation was effected in England, and the free use of the Bible in English had been sanctioned by the Scottish Parliament. For his first services in the reformed cause — his ministry to Beaton's murderers in St. Andrews Castle — he paid the penalty of imprisonment in the French galleys. From this he was released in 1549 at the intercession of Edward VI. after an imprisonment of nineteen months. He then preached in England, chiefly at Berwick and Newcastle, for two or three years, after which he was appointed one of king Edward's chaplains and is said to have been offered the bishopric of Rochester by the young king. He is credited with a share in the Articles of Religion com piled at this time, for the English Church, and with having advised the insertion of the " black rubric " at the end of the communion service in the Prayer-Book.! Whether from 1 Hardwlck, Reformation, p. 219; Procter, Prayer-Book, p. 53. XXXI KNOX AND MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON 547 fear of apprehension at home, or from some other cause, he kept out of Scotland for six years, from 1549 to 1555. Reckoning the period of his public life at twenty- eight years, not much more than the half of it was spent in Scotland. During the persecutions of queen Mary in England, Knox went to Geneva, where he made the acquaintance of Calvin. For a short time he became minister to the English congregation in Frankfort-on-the- Main, but withdrew from them on differences about the Book of Common Prayer and returned to Geneva. In 1555 he received favourable intelligence of the pro gress of the Reformation in Scotland which induced him to return home. Erskine of Dun and Maitland of Lethington were then leading men among the reformers, but their counsels were too moderate for Knox. Many of the Protestants continued to join in the public worship of the Church — a practice which Knox vehemently denounced as idolatry. When Maitland defended it and pleaded the advice which St. James and the elders of Jerusalem gave to St. Paul to take part in the service of the temple, Knox replied that the cases were not parallel, and that he very much doubted whether the advice of the apostle proceeded from the Holy Ghost and was not worldly-wise counsel of his own which came to no good in the end. Knox's arguments prevailed, and from this occasion may be dated the separation of the reformers from the established church. Knox accompanied Erskine of Dun to his house in Angus, where he met many of the barons of Angus and Mearns and persuaded them to adopt the Protestant views. He preached frequently at this time in Edinburgh, in West Lothian where he was the guest of Sir James Sandilands at Calder, and in the shires of Ayr and Renfrew under the protection of the earl of 548 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. Glencairn. In the spring of 1556 he administered the communion at Glencairn's residence on the Clyde. The success of Knox and his growing influence with the barons at last alarmed the bishops, and they summoned him to appear in Edinburgh. Knox duly appeared, but not his intended accusers ; and he preached more defiantly than ever to the largest audience he had yet addressed. This emboldened him to write a letter to the queen-regent in defence of his conduct and doctrines. Mary handed the letter to Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, with the playful remark : " Please you, my lord, to read a pasquil." Knox was mortified on hearing of the regent's jest, and in the second edition of the letter he added a comparison between Elijah and Jezebel and himself and the regent.! It was at this time, when Knox's presence and influence seemed essential to the success of the Protestant cause in Scotland, that he accepted an invitation to return to Geneva. Argyll and the other reforming lords re monstrated with him and entreated him to stand by the cause, but Knox would Hsten to no persuasion. M'Crie and Tytler agree in thinking that his life was in serious danger, and that by retiring he saved himself ; " but judging with all charity," Tytler observes, " it must be admitted that whilst his writings at this season had all the impassioned zeal, his conduct betrayed some want of the ardent courage, of the martyr." ^ David Laing, who had a lifelong veneration for the reformer, and to whom -we owe the first collection of his writings, has remarked that " on more than one occasion Knox displayed a timidity, a shrinking from danger, scarcely to have been 1 Knox, History, i. pp. 245-252 ; 2 Hist., v. 39 ; M'Crie, Life of M'Crie's Life of Knox, pp. 106, Knox, pp. 115-117. 114. XXXI ROME AND KNOX BOTH PERSECUTORS 549 expected from one who boasted his willingness to endure the utmost torture or suffer death in his Master's cause." ' That Knox's life was in danger appears from the sub sequent proceedings. He was tried in absence and condemned for heresy, and his effigy was burned at the market cross of Edinburgh. The men who burned him in effigy would not have shrunk from burning him in person. Knox answered them from Geneva ' by an " Appellation from the cruel and most unjust sentence of the false bishops and clergy," in which he asserted his right to appeal from the judgment of the visible church to the civil authority, and the equal right of the civil authority to punish with death those who deprived the people of the Word of God.^ There was little difference here after all between Knox and his persecutors : no difference as to the end, which was death for heresy, but only as to the ways and means, whether the visible church or the civil authority was to be the final executioner. And even the Church in her suicidal persecutions was not guilty, in theory at least, of executing her own sentences. She condemned the heretic and handed him over to the civil authority to deal with him according to law. The preachers formerly mentioned — Douglas, Harlow, and Methven — aided by numerous converts, continued their advocacy of reformed principles. Some of them, headed by Chalmers of Gadgirth, forced their way into the regent's presence in Holyrood, addressed her in coarse language, and threatened the bishops with violence. Aggrieved as she was by the insult, she succeeded in pacifying them and the storm blew over.^ Early in the 1 Works of John Knox, vi., pref., ^ The regent never got over the p. Ixxxi. ' difference between " me " and "I" 2 Knox, History, i. 254 ; M'Crie, in her speech. In her gentle appeal Life of Knox, pp. 116, 117. to the intruders she says : " My joys. 550 LIISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. year 1557 Knox received an invitation from lords Glencairn, Erskine, Lorn, and the prior of St. Andrews to return to Scotland. They represented that the cause of the Reformation was prospering and that no further persecution was probable. Knox came as far as Dieppe, but on receiving news less favourable he returned to Geneva. Before leaving Dieppe, he addressed a fiery letter to the reforming lords, admonishing them to assume a bolder attitude in defence of their principles. The effect of this rebuke is evidence of Knox's influence with the reforming barons. In December 1557 a bond was signed in Edinburgh in which the leading men of the party, the earls of Argyll, Glencairn, Morton, lord Lorn, Erskine of Dun, and others, bound themselves to support " the Lord's congregation," and to renounce henceforth " the congregation of Satan." The " bond " was in old times a familiar device of the Scottish nobles, and this one, the first of a purely religious character, became the model of the more formidable Covenants of later days. The signing of the bond was a burning of the boats, a fatal blow to any hopes of peace or compromise. The associated lords further confirmed their bond by the following resolutions, meant as legislation for the Church : first, that the Book of Common Prayer be publicly read by the curates in the parish churches on Sundays and other festivals, together with the lessons from the Old and New Testaments as prescribed in its calendar ; and, secondly, that the Scriptures be explained in private houses until fuller liberty be secured for public preaching.-' my hearts, what ails you ? Me means hearts, should ye not luif the Lord no evil to you nor to your preachers. with all your heart, and should ye The bishops shall do you no wrong. not luif your neighbours as your- Ye are all my loving subjects. . . . selfes ? " Knox's only commentary Me will hear the controversy that is on this is, " O crafty flatterer." betwixt the bishops and you; they ! Knox, Hist, p. iii. shall do you no wrong . . . O my XXXI ENGLISH PRAYER-BOOK IN SCOTLAND 55 I The action of the " Lords of the Congregation," as they came to be called, in thus assuming legislative functions for the Church, has been variously regarded. Some writers, like Keith, adjudge it to have been high treason, and others, like Cunningham, believe it to have been the saving of both Church and State.! The lords of the bond had obviously no authority to act in the name of the Church or of the State, and their action was entirely self- constituted, whether justifiable or not. It was a public defiance of the ecclesiastical authority of the day, and has to be judged on its own merits, apart from the question of legality or illegality, on which there can be no doubt. What authority had they, Argyll and his confederates, to order every parish curate to lay down the missal and take up the Prayer-Book ? None in the world. They were a law unto themselves, and their conduct, if justifiable at all, must be justified by the plea of that extreme necessity which knows no law. It was at one time disputed whether the Book of Common Prayer, with which the reformers began their first public services, was Knox's Book of Common Order or the English Prayer-Book of 1552. The controversy has been definitely settled by the discovery of a letter from secretary Cecil to Throckmorton, dated 9th July 1559, in which he states that the parish churches in Scotland " had received the service of the Church of England according to king Edward's book." This is confirmed by a letter of the same period from Kirkaldy of Grange to Sir Henry Percy, informing him that " the Protestants cleanse the churches of images and all other monuments of idolatry, and command that no masses be said in them : in place thereof, the book set forth by godly 1 Keith, Hist. Affairs of Ch, and State, p. 66 ; Cunningham, Hist. Ch. Scot, i. 317. 552 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. king Edward is read in the same churches." ! This puts the fact beyond controversy that the English Prayer-Book was used by the Scottish reformers at the start of the Reformation. It continued in use for some years until superseded by Knox's Book of Common Order. There is, however, no proof that more than the morning and evening services of the Prayer-Book were used, and even this was only possible at first in the districts where the reforming lords exercised something of their old feudal jurisdiction. In accordance with their resolutions the lords of the Congregation brought preachers into their houses, where Protestants were invited to hear them. The ex-friar Douglas continued to preach in the house of Argyll, which brought upon the earl the remonstrance of the primate of St. Andrews for his encouragement of heretical teaching. The earl's answer, supposed to have been dictated by Douglas, was a strong personal attack upon the arch bishop's private life, which was not immaculate. It is not known that the primate answered the letter, and the earl died soon afterwards, arid was succeeded by a son, more pronounced than the father in favour of the Reformation. The primate might have retaliated in kind upon the reforming lords, for many of their hands were not clean, and the fingers of more than one that signed the bond, as Tytler has shown, had touched the gold of Henry VIII. and were itching to clutch the property of the Church. The policy of the queen-regent and the primate had been, on the whole, favourable to religious toleration. There had been only one execution for heresy since Hamilton had succeeded the cardinal, and it is difficult to account for the change of policy which prompted at this ! Forbes's State Papers, i. 155, quoted in the notes to M'Crie's Life of Knox. XXXI BURNING OF WALTER MYLNE 553 time the apprehension of Walter Mylne. He had been vicar of Lunan in Angus, and from early residence in Germany had adopted Protestant opinions. On his return to Scotland he made himself obnoxious to cardinal Beaton, who imprisoned him. After his release, nothing was heard of him until 1558, when, in his eighty-second year, he appeared as a public preacher. He was seized at Dysart, lodged in St. Andrews Castle, and tried on the 2 Oth April before an ecclesiastical court in the cathedral, where sat the primate and several bishops and other prelates. Mylne was accused of heresies touching the marriage of priests, the nature and number of the sacraments, the office of bishop, pilgrimages, and such like. Though old and decrepit in frame he answered with singular power, and his voice filled the great church. In vain he defended his doctrines ; the court pronounced him guilty of heresy, and he was handed over to the temporal judge for punishment. But so deep and general was the sympathy for the aged confessor that no judge could be found to pronounce the sentence of death, and it is said that he was carried to the stake by members of the primate's household.-' Walter Mylne was burned on the 28th April 1558. He was the last who suffered death under the Roman hierarchy in Scotland, and his execution was soon felt to be as great a blunder as it was a crime. The effect of Mylne's death was to increase the number of avowed Protestants, and to embolden the leaders of the Congregation to present to the queen- regent a petition craving that liberty be granted to meet publicly or privately for the reading of the Common Prayer in English, that the sacrament of baptism, and the Lord's Supper under both kinds, be administered to them ! Grub, ii. 52. Keith, Affairs of Ch. and State, p. 68, is doubtful of the last-mentioned incident. 554 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. also in English, that the Scriptures be explained to them in their assemblies, and that the wicked lives of the pre lates be at once reformed. The regent consulted the clergy, and their answer was favourable to prayers being offered and baptism administered in the people's tongue, provided it were done privately, and that the people adhered to the doctrines of the mass, purgatory, etc. The compromise was indignantly rejected, and the Protestant leaders then presented a petition for the regent to lay before Parliament, requesting that all laws against heresy should be meanwhile suspended until the questions at issue were decided by a general council. The regent was anxious to retain the favour of the Protestants at this juncture, as she wished their consent to the marriage of her daughter Mary with the dauphin of France. She therefore finessed, and fiattered them — addressed them in plausible speech, but kept the petition in her pocket. The marriage of queen Mary, now in her fifteenth year, was celebrated in Paris on the 24th April 1558. It was preceded by political intrigues, which had for their end the securing of the kingdom of Scotland for the house of Guise, in case of Mary dying childless. This little plot was divulged afterwards, and the sudden and mysterious death of four of the Scots commissioners, among them the good bishop of Orkney, at Dieppe, on their return home, was suspected to be the work of the Guises. The death in November of this year (1558) of queen Mary of England had an important bearing upon the Reformation in Scotland. Mary, as is well known, was a devoted adherent of the papacy, as became a daughter of Catholic Spain, and her name is unhappily associated in history with the persecution which shed the blood of English bishops and clergy, and left an indelible stain -x.xxi LAST PROVINCIAL COUNCIL, 1559 555 on her memory, though the guilt was less hers than her responsible ministers'. She was succeeded on the throne by her half-sister Elizabeth, who was as devoted to the reformed Catholic Church as Mary was opposed to it. The policy of Elizabeth favoured, more than is generally believed, the cause of the Reformation in Scotland, bitterly hostile as she was to the person of John Knox. The Reformation in England had been an accomplished fact for some years, and under Elizabeth and her advisers it grew in strength, until it was beyond the power of pope or prince to uproot it. The Reformation in Scot land was not accomplished by favour of princes but in spite of them, and from being so long repressed and so little controlled, it came with the spirit of a revolution and the force of an avalanche, which swept everything before it, bad and good alike. One more attempt, the last of the kind, was made to reform the Church from within by means of another provincial council. It met in the Blackfriars', Edinburgh, on the 1st March 1559, and sat continuously until the I Oth April. Comparatively few members attended the earlier sittings, and fresh citations were issued, as late as the 6th April, for a fuller attendance of the clergy. The council was called mainly for the consideration of four important Articles of Reformation submitted to the regent by influential laymen, nobles and barons, who were not disaffected to the Church but earnestly bent upon the correction of its abuses. The articles were remitted by the regent to the provincial council. The first article required that common prayers and admini stration of the sacraments in the parish churches should be in the English tongue ; the second, that all bishoprics and other benefices should be given to none but qualified men, that the bishops should be appointed by the nobles 556 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and gentry of each diocese, and the parish priests by their parishioners ; the third, that all bishops and beneficed clergy should reside within their cures and preach in the same, or give place to qualified men who would ; the fourth, that none should be admitted in future to any benefice but such as are learned and otherwise qualified to preach and administer the sacraments.! To these moderate demands, compliance with which might have saved the Church even in the eleventh hour, the council made answer, first, that they had no power to change the order of public prayers and administration of the sacraments, and could not therefore agree to public prayer, etc., being in the vulgar tongue, but leaving it to every man to pray privately in the speech that pleaseth him best ; second, as to the elections of bishops and priests, they refer to the provisions of the canon law, which they wished to see enforced ; and as for the nomination of bishops, they submit that the remedy was with the regent, into whose hands the power had fallen, and they refer the question to her and her council ; for the third and fourth they answer that no better provision could be made than was already provided in the canons, which they promised faithfully to enforce. It was a great opportunity lost, but in denying the use of the vernacular tongue for the administration of the sacraments, the hands of the council were tied. Where Trent had been silent, it was not for Edinburgh 1 There were two sets of articles, articles was sent to the provincial and Dr. M'Crie and Dr. Grub are council by the queen-regent; and of opinion that both were submitted further that the articles described by to the provincial council by the regent. bishop Lesley are the articles presented 'M.'Oxie, Life of Knox, pp. 123, 124, in the text." RohexVson, Stattda, pp. and Grub, Hist., ii. 55, 59. Dr. 300, 301. Lesley's articles agree Joseph Robertson says : " The ques- in substance, but not in details, which tion is not without difficulty, but are more ample than the articles upon the whole I must believe with quoted here. lord Hailes that only one set of XXXI CHANGES IN ELECTION OF BISHOPS 557 to speak. As for the reference to the canons, none knew better than the members of the council that every successive code had failed to effect any sensible correction of the abuses in the Church. The history of the Church presented on every side the sad spectacle of religious rules defied, and statutes broken by ecclesiastics of all grades from the primate downwards. The legislation of this council was a patent admission of the futility of previous efforts. The only palpable hit in the council's reply to the articles was their significant reference to the crown's usurpation of the power of appointing the bishops. It may be interesting to review here, at this final stage, the several changes to which the election of bishops had been subject. In the Celtic Church, when episcopacy was purely tribal, the bishop was appointed by the tribe, but by what manner of election we know not, unless the case of St. Kentigern be taken as a sample. In the early mediaeval period the clergy and people, as we have seen, elected their bishop, the king giving his consent, which was the nearest approach to primitive precedent. When cathedrals and chapters were formed, the election was placed in the hands of the capitular clergy, — in St. Andrews and Galloway it lay with the secular canons of their respective priories who formed the chapter, — the parish priests and the people being alike excluded from any voice in the election, except in Argyll, where the whole beneficed clergy were privileged with a vote. The Scottish kings made their influence felt in many of the elections at this time, and especially in appointments to the bishopric of St. Andrews. The next stage was the usurpation of the rights of chapters by the papal see, when for many years bishoprics were often sold or given at Rome to the wealthiest or most 558 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. influential suitor. And the final stage was reached under the equally objectionable and pernicious usurpation of episcopal nominations by the crown during the reigns of the last three Scottish kings, which resulted in inflicting on the Church bishops like Hepburn, Chisholm, and Gordon, not to mention others very little better.! The provincial council of 1559 passed thirty -four canons. Many of them are repetitions of previous enactments expressed in more stringent terms, (i) The statutes against concubinage, as ratified by the reforming Council of Basle, are to be strictly enforced, and the two archbishops, by way of example, agree to submit them selves to the counsel of six ecclesiastics who are to meet twice a year in Edinburgh, to admonish them, if necessary, or report to the provincial council, and, as a last resort, to the pope. (2) Prelates and other clergy are forbidden to keep their bastard children in their houses for more than four days in each quarter, and even then not publicly, under penalty of two hundred pounds in the case of an archbishop, half that sum from a bishop, and proportionately less from the inferior clergy. (3) Archbishops and other prelates are forbidden to present their sons to benefices, and the council begs the queen -regent to dissuade the pope against granting dispensations from this statute. (4) Prelates and other clergy who marry their daughters to barons and lairds having a rental of more than a hundred pounds, are not to dower them from the patri mony of the Church, and they are not to grant lands to ^ A few weeks before this council not correct himself." Among the sub- was held the dean and chapter of scribers to this document there is the Aberdeen petitioned their bishop, name of John Leslie, parson of Oyne William Gordon, to remove his con- and Mortlach, and prebendary of the cubine " by whom he was greatly cathedral, afterwards bishop of Ross, slandered," and they promise to do historian of the Church, and the the same; but unless and until he does devoted servant of queen Mary. so, they add that ' ' they cannot receive Reg, Episc. Aberd. , vol. i. pp. Ixi. - counsel and correction of him who will Ixv.; Grub, ii. 55. XXXI PROVINCIAL STATUTES OF 1559 559 their sons beyond that value, nor to alienate Church lands or tithes to their offspring or concubines. The other canons, to state them more briefly, forbid ecclesiastics from sheltering heretics in their houses — regulate the dress of the clergy in and out of the church — forbid them from engaging in secular business — enjoin more frequent celebrations — the visitation of the monasteries — the rebuilding and repair of churches — insist that beneficiaries be ordained and that pluralists exhibit their dispensations — that curates in charge of a parish church be provided with a manse and garden and a stipend of twenty marks in the five northern dioceses from Aberdeen to Orkney, in the other eight dioceses with twenty -four marks — renew former statutes against laymen violating ecclesiastical laws — insist upon bishops preaching four times a year, and oftener, according to the Council of Trent, visiting their diocese at least every two years, and keeping a theologian in their house — the clergy are likewise to teach and preach more if they can, and if they cannot, to fit themselves by study in the public schools {gymnasiums), and to provide qualified substitutes — stricter regulations to be enforced in the collation to benefices, and petition to be made to the queen -regent, praying her to appoint none to bishoprics, abbacies, or other dignities, except such as are fit and qualified for the ministry — mortuary fees are no longer to be exacted from the poor — the smaller tithes are to be collected before Lent, to prevent the scandal of seeming to sell the sacrament at the Easter communion, and Easter offerings are to be voluntary. The canons conclude — " Whereas Methven, Harlay {sic). Grant, Willocks, Patrick, and many other deserters from the faith, have introduced a new method of baptism, and made it doubtful whether children so baptized are baptized or not, the council decrees 560 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. conditional re- baptism in all such cases." For the same reason it forbids the sacraments of the eucharist, or of marriage, to be administered except by priests and according to the accustomed ritual of the Church, on pain of the major excommunication.! The council agreed to meet again in the refectory of the Dominican monastery, Edinburgh, on Septuagesima Sunday, 1560, to make inquiry as to the faithful execu tion of the canons now enacted, and to take further counsel for the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline. Before the date fixed, the Reformation had virtually triumphed, and the council met again no more. " One great evil, it will be seen," says Dr. Joseph Robertson, " the incontinence of the priesthood, stands confessed, deplored, condemned, through all the three centuries of Scottish ecclesiastical legislation. Here, as elsewhere throughout Western Christendom, every code of provincial, every code of synodal canons, calls, but calls in vain, upon the clergy to separate themselves from their ' concubines,' as they are styled — their wives rather, as we may charitably hope that in most cases they should have been regarded, but for the law which forbade the church man to marry. . . . Another evil, less conspicuous but not perhaps less fatal, was the failure of the Church in the due exercise of its right of collation. Whatever may have been the causes — negligence, or corruption, or inability — the consequences are only too certain. At no time during the three hundred years which preceded the Reformation does it appear that the Scottish bishops succeeded in making orders an indispensable qualification for a benefice. Synodal statutes in the thirteenth, provincial statutes in the sixteenth century, alike confess that rectories and other offices of the Church were filled by 1 Robertson, Statuta, pp. 146 seq. LAST STAGE OF MEDIEVAL CHURCH 561 men who had not even received the clerical character. We know otherwise — it is acknowledged and bewailed with grief and indignation by the best champions of the Church in her conflict with the reformers — that rich livings, with the cure of thousands of souls, were held by boys, and by infants even ; by men deformed in body, imbecile in mind, hardened in ignorance, old in wickedness and vice." ^ In addition to these grave scandals, the extra ordinary ignorance of many of the prelates and beneficed clergy upon whom the people depended entirely for their knowledge of religion, even the most elementary, weakened the Church's influence within, and made her powerless against attacks from without. Ministers who required to be provided with Hamilton's Catechism and the Twopenny Faith, and who were enjoined to read over and over each portion in private, as a schoolboy prepares his lesson, to prevent them from blundering in the public reading of it and incurring the ridicule of their audience, were surely out of place as teachers in the Church of Christ.^ ' Statuta, ccv. ; see also Milman, Hist. Lat. Christy., vi. 384, quoted by Joseph Robertson on the pre valence of clerical vice elsewhere. Milman says : ' ' The historian must not shrink from the truth, however repulsive. Celibacy, which was the vital energy of the clergy, was at the same time their fatal, irremediable weakness. The universal voice which arraigns the state of morals as regards sexual intercourse among the clergy is not that of their enemies only ; it is their own. Century after century we have heard through our history the eternal protest of the severer churchmen, of popes, of legates, of councils." 2 Bellesheim says that " the gross abuses that had grown up, in spite of popes and councils, in connection with the presentation to benefices were, in truth, the rock on which the Scottish Church finally split." Hist, of Cath. Churcli Scot, ii. 252. This is a bold statement to make in face of the papal letters found in Theiner. It was not in spite of the popes but largely by their agency that the abuses of the Church accumulated. 2 O CHAPTER XXXII QUEEN MARY REGENCY OF QUEEN-MOTHER, 1554- 1560 {concludetT) Quintin Kennedy and his Tractive and Controversies — Protestant preaching forbidden — Knox's arrival — Preaches in Perth — Destruction of the monasteries — Defiant attitude of reformers — Knox in St. Andrews — More wrecking of churches and abbeys, east and west — Iconoclastic policy of reforming lords — Final effort of Rome baffled by England — Progress of reformers — Death of queen-regent — Treaty of peace concluded — Parliament of August 1560 — Confession of Faith formulated — Fall of the mediceval Church — Reflections upon its decline and fall. The end was not far off, and events moved fast as the end drew near. There was controversy in several places between the defenders and opponents of the Church. Quintin Kennedy, the learned abbot of Crossraguel, published his " Compendious Tractive," in which he warmly defends the doctrines of the Church, and at the same time lashes the ignorance and venality of church men. The following extract, dealing with the latter subject, is given in modern spelling : " See we not daily by experience, if a benefice is vacant, the great men of the realm will have it for temporal reward, or else they will stir up sedition ? And when they have gotten the benefice, if they have a brother or a son, suppose he can neither sing nor say, and been nourished in vice all his days, yet shall he be straightway mounted on a mule CHAP, xxxil ABBOT KENNEDY ON THE CLERGY 563 with a long gown and a round bonnet, and then it is a question whether he or his mule knows best to do his office. Perhaps Balaam's ass knew more than they both. What wonder is it when such disguised personages are chosen to have Christ's flock in guiding that the simple people be wicked, as they are in deed, esteeming vice to be virtue, and virtue to be vice. And not only such men are cropping up in the kirk by means of some wicked great personages, but you may see daily likewise a bairn, or a babe, to whom scarcely would you give a fair apple to keep, get perchance five thousand souls to guide, and all for avarice that their parents may get the produce of the benefice. And so the convent, and place where God should be daily honoured and served, goes clean to ruin, and yet they who are the promoters of such monstrous farces in the kirk of God are the most principal criers out on the vices of kirkmen. If the kirk had the old ancient liberty, as perchance it once had, when a bishop was freely chosen by his chapter, the abbot and prior by the convent and of the convent, then should there be qualified men in all the estates of the kirk, then should all heresies be stemmed and the people well taught." ! Kennedy's Tractive was written in 1558 and answered in 1563 by John Davidson, principal of Glasgow University. The authors had been fellow-students in Paris, and the principal recalls " the old Parisian kindness" that subsisted between them, and at the same time makes honourable mention of the archbishop 01 Glasgow as his " good master and liberal friend, howbeit for religion they were now separated, as many fathers and sons were in these their days." ^ The abbot was also engaged in controversy with Willock, who had been a 1 Keith's' Affairs Ch. and State, iii. pp. 410, 411, Appendix. 2 Charters, Crossraguel, i. p. 41. 564 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH CHAP. friar in Ayr and was now preaching in that town. He challenged Willock to a public debate on the subject of the mass, but the ex-friar "fortified himself with some four or five hundred followers," instead of twelve as agreed upon, and the discussion did not take place. Both parties appealed in their correspondence to the Scriptures as expounded by the fathers. Willock after wards shifted his ground, and would accept the fathers only so far as in his estimation they agreed with the Scriptures, which as Kennedy said " was as gude as right nought," and meant so far as they agreed with himself! After the Easter of 1559 a proclamation was issued forbidding any person to preach or administer the sacra ments without the permission of the bishops. The reformers disregarded the injunction, and several of their preachers were cited to appear in the Justiciary Court at Stirling on the I Oth May. The Congregation, as the reformers now called themselves, determined to stand by their ministers, and accordingly mustered in great force at Perth.^ At this juncture, when a conflict seemed inevitable, John Knox returned to Scotland. He had intended to travel through England, but on reaching Dieppe he found that queen Elizabeth had refused him a passport. She had taken violent offence at his publication — " The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment (government) of Women," though it was not aimed at her, but at her half-sister, queen Mary, and indirectly at the queen-regent in Scotland. Knox came by sea to Leith, and landed on the 2nd May. He was immediately out lawed by the Government, and hastened with his friends from Edinburgh to Perth. The object of the demonstra- 1 The correspondence between is given by Keith, Affairs, etc., iii. Kennedy and Willock, published from pp. 393-404. papers in the Scots College at Paris, 2 Knox, Hist., p. 135. XXXII DESTRUCTION OF MONASTERIES IN PERTH 565 tion at Perth was no doubt to afford protection to the accused ministers and to overawe the Government. The ministers did not appear at Stirling in answer to the summons, and their sureties were fined and the ministers outlawed. Erskine of Dun, who was one of the sureties, attempted mediation, but, finding it fruitless, he returned to Perth. The day after the outlawry Knox preached a vehement sermon in the church of St. John the Baptist, Perth, inveighing severely against Roman idolatry. At the close of the sermon a priest opened a tabernacle on the altar for a celebration of mass. A youth in the church, excited by Knox's preaching, cried out : " This is intoler able, that when God in His word hath plainly condemned idolatry we should stand by and see it used in despite." The priest gave the youth a blow, and the youth returned the blow with a stone which, missing the priest, shattered an image in the tabernacle. This was the signal for a general rising, and in a trice every ornament of the church was smashed. The news speedily reached the streets, and soon a disorderly rabble, Knox's " rascal multitude," as he called them, attacked in turn the Dominican, p-ranciscan, Carmelite, and Carthusian monasteries. For two days the riot and destruction continued unchecked, until in Knox's words " the walls only did remain of all these great edifications." The Dominican monastery was one of the largest in the kingdom, and had entertained both the court and Parliament and the earlier provincial councils. The Charter-house, in which rested the body of its founder, James I., is described by Knox himself as " a building of wondrous cost and greatness." The ecclesiastical buildings, which for their magnificence first gave the name of " the fair city" to Perth — the fruits of many years' devotion and sacrifice on the part of Scottish king and subjects — were ruthlessly destroyed in a few days by an uncontrolled 566 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. mob in the presence of the reforming lords. Some writers, ashamed of the barbarous sacrilege, defend Knox and the Congregation from the guilt of complicity. They assert that Knox did his best to check the desecrators. There is no evidence in any reference of Knox to the occasion which warrants this assertion ; and it is otherwise incredible. The town of Perth was, for the time being, entirely in the hands of the reforming lords, who were present with their retainers in such numbers that they were not only able to control the inhabitants of a single town, but strong enough to defy the Government itself. Besides, the sacrilege in Perth was only a sample of the ecclesiastical spoliation which followed the track of the reformers throughout Scotland, and hardly spared even a parish church. ! The attitude assumed by the Congregation after the outrages in Perth confirms what is here stated. The regent was indignant at the demolition of the religious houses and threatened the perpetrators with immediate punishment. The reformers answered by fortifying the town of Perth and sending letters to the regent and to the nobles of her party, declaring in the latter that what they had done was in accordance with the law of God, " who plainly commands idolatry and all monuments of the same to be destroyed and abolished." In a third communication addressed to the clergy of the Scottish Church, the policy of the reformers is still more plainly avowed. The title of the manifesto reads : " To the generation of anti-Christ, the pestilent prelates and their shavelings within Scotland, the Congregation of Christ Jesus within the same, sayeth." The spirit it breathes ! Knox, Hist., i. pp. 320-324; frank admission of Knox that his Buchanan, i. 313; Spottiswoode, i. followers heartily set their hands to 272 ; Innes, Crit. Essay, p. 569 ; demolition," but is inclined to believe Grub, ii. 68. Burton, Hist. Scot, iii. that "the most merciless element of 352, quoting Knox's description of destruction has been mere neglect." the riot at Perth, remarks upon " the XXXII JOHN KNOX AT ST. ANDREWS 567 corresponds with its title. The clergy are threatened with a war of extermination such as God commanded Israel to wage against the idolatrous Canaanites.! At this time the reformers were greatly encouraged by the accession of the earl of Argyll and the prior of St. Andrews to their body. They had never been hearty on the regent's side, and it is said by Knox and Buchanan that their desertion of her now was owing to her late breach of faith with the Protestants — which is doubt ful.^ A meeting of the Protestants in St. Andrews was summoned. Knox meanwhile preached at Crail and Anstruther, and after his preaching the churches in both places were wrecked. He had publicly declared his inten tion to preach in St. Andrews on Sunday the iith June, and the archbishop, who was at Falkland, hastened with his retainers to resist the intrusion. The Protestants were there before him, and, such was the hostile spirit of the people of his own city towards the primate, little to his credit, that he prudently withdrew. Knox preached in the cathedral on the cleansing of the temple, and the practical commentary was, that the provost and magis trates headed the populace in a crusade of destruction which left its mark upon St. Andrews and made it very much what it is to-day — a city of melancholy ruins.^ The two neighbouring abbeys in Fife, Lindores and Balmerino, were the next to suffer in the same sacrilegious fashion. Altars were cast down, shrines and carved work defaced, and the vestments and liturgical books 1 Knox, Hist, i. 335; Keith's ^ Knox, Hist, i. 324-350; Spot- Affairs, etc., i. 197 ; see also Tytler, tiswoode, Hist., i. 272-277 ; Keith's Hist, V. 72, who remarks that Affairs, i. 203-206; Grub, ii. 70. " none can read it without sorrow. " There is some doubt whether the 2 Not so doubtful that she broke cathedral was destroyed at this time, faith with the Congregation, but cer- but Grub says that "a tradition of tainly doubtful whether this was the very general reception connects its cause of Argyll's change of policy. destruction with Knox's sermon." 568 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. burned in the presence of the monks, who were com manded, if not compelled, by the mob, as some writers say, to strip themselves of their religious habit. The churches in Cupar and the abbey of Dunfermline were also rifled and defaced about this time. On the 25th June the regent's troops retired from Perth, and the Congregation again took possession of the town. This was immediately followed by the destruction of the ancient abbey and palace of Scone, in its neighbourhood. The lords of the Congregation informed its commendator, who was no other than the notorious Patrick Hepburn, bishop of Moray, that unless he joined their ranks they could not save the abbey. Hepburn is said to have promised compliance, which is not improbable, but a motley multitude from the towns of Dundee and Perth anticipated negotiations, sacked and burned palace and abbey, and left them a mass of blackened ruins. Both Knox and the lords of the Congregation endeavoured in this instance to restrain the fury of the mob, but as Keith naively observes, " It is an easy matter to raise the devil, but few know how to lay him again." ! The earl of Argyll and the prior of St. Andrews with their retainers left Perth for Edinburgh. On their march southwards the monasteries of Stirling, Cambus kenneth, and Linlithgow suffered the common fate. The regent withdrew from Edinburgh on their approach, and retired to Dunbar. Lord Seton, the provost, who had hitherto preserved order in the capital, felt himself powerless in the presence of the reformers and their followers to prevent spoliation. Monasteries were demolished, churches robbed of their ornaments, the abbey of Holyrood and the palace pillaged, and the ! Knox, Hist, i. 350-362; Buchanan, Hist., i. 316; Keith's Affairs, etc., i. 208-210. XXXII SELFISHNESS OF REFORMING BARONS 569 mint seized by the mob. The earl of Glencairn served in like fashion the monasteries of Glasgow, and the duke of Chatelherault (formerly the regent Arran), who had now joined the Congregation, despoiled the abbeys of Kilwinning and Paisley. The object of the attack on the monastic houses by the lords of the Congregation is now very well understood, and there is nothing in our Church history more despicable than the hypocritical iconoclasm of too many of the reforming lords. It was not the images in the churches that troubled their con science, but the lands of the Church that tempted their covetousness. " In a really Christian land," as Buckle writes, " the patrimony of the Church would be left untouched." ^ Not so in Scotland. " From the beginning to the end," as he says, " it was nothing but spoliation." Burton exposes the same motives in " the friends of the new religion." " They soon saw that an ecclesiastical revolution would set free a great stretch of land for new owners. This, too, made a common interest, which held them firmly together when they professed a union for purely religious objects." ^ After the revolution, when the larger portion of the Church lands had been seized by the reforming nobles and gentry, while a beggarly pittance was all that was left for the support of the reformed religion, Knox saw his mistake. Whatever may be said of Knox and his policy, he has never been accused of a selfish creed. While the spoils of the tottering Church were falling to right and left of him, he remained a poor man to the end of his life. Probably he credited his compeers in the revolution with the same unselfishness. When his eyes were opened to the facts he was not the man to mince his language. " I see," he said, " two parts freely given to the devil, 1 Hist. Civil, iii. 88-92. 2 Hist Scot, iii. 344. 5 JO HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and the third must be divided between God and the devil." 1 The death of Henry II., king of France, in July 1559. led to the accession of Francis, the husband of queen Mary. More French troops were then sent over to Scotland to the aid of the regent. The bishop of Amiens was despatched to Scotland in September by pope Paul IV. as his legate a latere, and with him came three learned doctors of the Sorbonne. They held a service of " Recon ciliation " in St. Giles' Collegiate Church, and the addresses of the Paris doctors are credited with confirming the faith of many waverers in the capital. In November the Congregation had to evacute Edinburgh, the people hoot ing and pelting them as they marched out in retreat to Stirling. Had they been left to depend upon themselves at this emergency in all probability the insurrection would have been suppressed. Knox wrote a somewhat cringing letter to queen Elizabeth in his straits ; and Cecil, propitiating the Tudor queen, to whom Knox was odious, arranged a secret meeting between him and the governor of Berwick, in Holy Island. Knox put it plainly to the governor that Scotland wanted both men and money from England, with the assistance, if possible, of a fleet.^ Advised by her ministers, Elizabeth agreed to support the cause of the Congregation with the object of undermining the French alliance and barring the possibility of Scotland becoming a mere province of France. In January 1560, the treaty of Berwick was adjusted between Elizabeth and the Congregation ; and soon after, an English army of eight thousand men crossed the Borders and advanced towards Edinburgh. Money also came : first three thousand, and afterwards an additional subsidy of two thousand pounds for " the ' Knox, Hist, ii. 310, 311. 2 pi,id.^ ii. 224-227; Burton, iii. 364. XXXII MILITARY ACTION OF KNOX 57 1 comfortable support," as Knox puts it, of the Con gregation. A fleet of fourteen English war-vessels appeared in Leith Roads in April 1560. The position now occupied by the Congregation was remarkable : it was both formally and virtually a treasonable alliance with a foreign power in opposition to the recognised sovereign of the country and her regent. How com pletely changed was the situation now, when English men and money and ships came to help the Scots to expel the French and preserve the independence of the kingdom. One remarkable feature in the negotiations with the English Government which led to the treaty of Berwick is, that the subject of the reformation of religion seems to have been carefully avoided on both sides. Knox's attitude was more like that of a defeated general rallying his troops and securing Rallies for a secular campaign than of the leader of a great religious movement bent upon purifying the Church. This is the light in which his conduct presents itself to the candid judgment of Tytler, whose sympathies are all with the Reformation. " A somewhat mortifying view," he says, " is presented to us of the early reformers in this country, when we find that after all the solemn warnings against trusting too ex clusively to an arm of flesh, Knox and Balnaves consented to purchase the co-operation of mere human power by omitting all allusion to that great cause of religious reformation which they had so repeatedly represented as the paramount object for which they had taken up arms, and were ready to sacrifice their lives." ! Some important accessions were gained at this time by the Congregation. Maitland of Lethington, the secretary to the queen - regent, and reputed to be the 1 Hist, V. 112. 572 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. most sagacious statesman of his day, secretly joined their party, and after a time was sent to represent their interests at the English court. Winram, the sub -prior of St. Andrews, joined the Protestants after labouring in vain to reform the doctrine and discipline of the Church on more conservative lines than were now in vogue. Grey- son, the provincial of the Dominican friars, followed him and made a public recantation of Romish errors in the parish church of St. Andrews in March 1560. John Row was another who conformed in this year. He had been a student of St. Andrews and practised there for some time as an advocate in the Consistorial Courts. He was afterwards agent of the Scottish Church at Rome for eight years, and took the degree of doctor of laws at Padua. He is said to have owed his change of religion to Knox and lord James Stewart, still prior of St. Andrews. Adam Heriot, canon of St. Andrews, also joined the reformers. It is very significant that St. Andrews, the primatial city and the seat of the oldest university, should have contributed so many converts to the Pro testant cause, from the lordly lay-prior downwards. In the beginning of 1560 the barons of the Mearns, who had been for some time professed Protestants, taking example from the desecrating raids in the south country, went in force to Aberdeen and destroyed the Dominican and Carmelite monasteries. The houses of the Franciscan and Trinity friars were saved by the intervention of the citizens, and the cathedral owed its preservation to the exertions of the earl of Huntly and of John Leslie, then official of Aberdeen, and afterwards bishop of Ross. The war was carried on with varying success for some months, and in the midst of it the queen-regent, wearied with the strife, sickened and died. Her death in Edin burgh Castle recalls the not unsimilar circumstances xxxn DEATH OF QUEEN-REGENT 573 of her husband's death at Falkland. Mary, though a Frenchwoman, and devoted to the Roman Church, identified herself thoroughly with the interests of the Scottish people, and was much beloved by them. She sent on her deathbed for the leading barons, expressed to them her undying love for Scotland, her grief at the distraction and miseries of the war, and advised them earnestly to send both the English and French troops out of the kingdom and to make peace with each other. She begged with tears the forgiveness of all whom she had in anywise offended, that they might forgive her as freely as she forgave them and hoped to meet forgiveness at the bar of God. She then embraced and kissed them in token of her dying charity. The rough barons were as deeply moved, and parted from her in tears. They offered to send her a minister of religion, and she received a visit from Willock. While he addressed her on the efficacy of the death of Christ she assured him that she looked for salvation through no other than Christ ; when he spoke of the superstition of the mass, she remained silent. It would have been more fitting to have offered her the consolations of her own religion in her dying hours ; but such was not the charity of the time on the part of either Roman or Protestant. After her death Knox's vindictive intolerance followed her to the grave.! The Congregation refused to allow her Christian burial according to the rites of her Church. " Question being moved about her burial," says Knox, " the preachers boldly gainstood to the use of any superstitious rites in that realm, which God in His mercy had begun to purge. Her burial was deferred till further advise- 1 See Dr. Cunningham, Hist. that a vindictive intolerance, now to Scot, i. 344 : "Knox did not forgive be found only in Spain, followed her her, and we are ashamed to write to the grave. " 574 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. ment ; her corpse was clapped in a coffin of lead, and kept in the castle from the loth of June till the 19th of October, at which time it was carried by some pioneers to a ship." ^ The regent's body found rest in the Benedictine abbey of St. Peter's at Rheims, of which her sister Ren^e was then the abbess. She died in the forty-fifth year of her age. The war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Edinburgh, Sth July 1560. It provided for the holding of a Parliament on the 1st of August, subject to the con firmation of the king and queen — Francis and Mary. Questions regarding religion were to be settled by deputies, chosen by the ensuing Parliament. The cause of the reformers had so far triumphed, and on 17th July the lords of the Congregation wrote to queen Elizabeth thanking her for her assistance and assuring her that Scotland owed more to her than to its own sovereign for the settlement. The leaders lost no time in following up their victory. Preachers were at once appointed to the chief towns : Knox to Edinburgh, Goodman to St. Andrews, Heriot to Aberdeen, Row to Perth, Methven to Jedburgh, Christison to Dundee, Ferguson to Dunfermline, and Lindsay to Leith. Superintendents were also appointed to different districts : Spottiswoode to Lothian, Willock to Glasgow, Erskine of Dun, though a layman, to Angus and Mearns, Winram to Fife, and Carsewell, parson of Kilmartin, to Argyll and the Isles. Neither minister nor superintendent was sent north of Aberdeen. The ecclesiastical warfare waged for some years had not disturbed the tranquil shores of Moray, and they were not favoured now with a representative of the Congregation. The Parliament met in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh on the 1st August. There was a large muster of the nobles ! Calderwood, i. 421. , xxxn PARLIAMENT OF 1560 575 and still more of the lesser barons or landed gentry, who attended to the number of a hundred and more. On no former occasion had they exceeded twelve, and it was felt to be a significant feature that they should appear in such unusual numbers. They were the class among whom the reformed doctrines had made the greatest progress, and their votes secured a large preponderance in favour of the Congregation. The Church was not so well repre sented. The archbishop of St. Andrews was present and also the bishops of Dunkeld, Dunblane, Argyll, and the bishops-elect of Galloway and of the Isles. The arch bishop of Glasgow was in Paris when he ought to have been in Edinburgh. The bishops of Aberdeen, Moray, and Ross did not appear, and the three remaining sees were vacant. Of the twenty and odd representatives of the monastic houses, abbots and priors, who attended, many were merely lay commendators, such as lord James Stewart, prior of St. Andrews, and his brother Robert, abbot of Holyrood. They were leading men in the Con gregation or in active sympathy with its political and religious principles. Moreover, they had all tasted the sweets of ecclesiastical plunder and were no doubt already anticipating the conversion of their ecclesiastical life-rents into permanent heritages. A constitutional question met the Parliament on the threshold, namely, whether the meet ing of the Estates without the sovereign's writ, and under the sanction of a treaty which she had not confirmed, was legally a Parliament at all. A week was spent in debat ing this point, and it was ultimately decided by a vote that they should continue their sittings. After this decision, many of the members withdrew and very few of the ecclesiastical order attended the subsequent meetings.^ Maitland of Lethington was chosen president, in the 1 Tytler, v. 135. 576 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH CHAP. absence of the chancellor, the earl of Huntly, who pleaded ill-health as an excuse. In choosing the lords of the Articles — a committee of twenty-four members chosen from the Three Estates, peers spiritual and temporal and burgesses, whose approval was necessary to the introduc tion of any measure — the prelates justly complained that none had been elected from their order but such as favoured the new religion, and that some of those elected were laymen, mere titular ecclesiastics, who could not truly represent them. There was no answer to this com plaint. A petition was then presented from certain barons, gentlemen, and burgesses, craving reformation in doctrine and discipline, in the power of the pope, and the patrimony of the Church. It was couched in the coarsest language, condemning the Church as the Roman harlot and denouncing the clergy without distinction as " a rabble of thieves and murderers, traitors, rebels, and adulterers." It called upon the Parliament in the most sacred Name to expel the clergy from the councils of the nation, and it concluded by virtually saying that the petition was not theirs but God's. The authors are not known, but it is believed to have had the sanction, if it were not the composition, of Knox. Whoever they were, " it is difficult," as Tytler writes, " to read it without emotions of sorrow and pity." ! There was one sting in the petition which must have pricked some of the leading and most influential of the Protestant lords : it called upon them to restore the patrimony of the Church, of which they were the robbers, and apply it to the religious uses for which the donors had destined it — the support of the ministry, of schools, and of the poor. This, according to Knox, was not palatable to the nobles, " who for worldly respects abhorred 1 Tytler, Hist, v. 138. -^;xxii FIRST CONFESSION OF FAITH 577 a perfect reformation." ^ The demand for reforming the Church's patrimony was passed over in silence, and the Protestants were requested to lay before Parliament a summary of the doctrines which they desired to establish. In four days they prepared a " Confession of the Faith and Doctrine believed and professed by the Protestants of the Realm of Scotland," which was presented to the lords of the Articles and by them to the Parliament. The Con fession was singularly moderate, more so than might have been expected in such an emergency.^ It is said to have owed its conciliatory tone to the revision of Maitland the president, and Winram, who sat in the house as com mendator of Portmoak. One article, savouring strongly of Erastianism, may be supposed to cover the peculiar action of this mixed Parliament legislating for the Church in matters of doctrine and discipline. It declared that the civil magistrates are God's vice-gerents to whom chiefly pertain the reformation and purgation of religion. That was elevating the civil magistrate to a very lordly position in the church of Christ. The whole proceedings, so far as they affected the Church and her creed, were contrary to the agreed stipula tions — that the subject of religion should be submitted to the king and queen by commissioners chosen at the convention. This may have been wise or unwise, but it was the agreement. Hitherto the bishops and other prelates had made no sign of resistance to a Confession of Faith which would inevitably overthrow both the Church 1 Knox Hist., ii. pp. 252- of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 2r6. "Indeed, it is worthy of remark," 2 Tytler calls the Confession "a he adds, " that in these holy mysteries clear summary of Christian doctrine of our faith this Confession, drawn up founded on the Word of God," and by the primitive Scottish reformers, he remarks how much it approximates keeps in some points at a greater to the words of the Apostles' Creed distance from the rationalising of and the Articles of the Church of ultra-Protestantism than the Articles England, especiaUy in its definitions of Edward." Hist., v. pp. 140, 141. 2 P 578 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap. and the hierarchy. They sat as dumb spectators of the scene. It is idle to say that their lives would have been endangered by a plain and manly protest, if they could do no more in a packed assembly. There was no such danger ; and even if there had been, it was the time for brave men to have taken some risk for the faith that was in them. " Those who felt no hesitation," as Dr. Grub has well said, " in putting their fellow-Christians to death for not believing as they themselves did, should have been prepared to peril their own lives in defence of their faith. It is to be feared that the bishops' chief anxiety was for the restitution of their sequestrated estates, and that they had no adequate conception of the important nature of the change in religious belief which was the subject of discussion." ! That they were not yet awakened to the gravity of the crisis is, from all that appears, probable. The bishops were equally blind and cowardly.^ On the 17th August, when it was put to the vote whether the Confession should be ratified or not, the bishops at last found their tongues. The primate and the bishops of Dunkeld and Dunblane spoke and pleaded for delay — that was all. No argument was offered on the merits of the case, no opposition or protest entered ; nothing but a plea for delay. No wonder that their friends were disheartened and their enemies en couraged by the cowardice of the bishops. The earl marischal voiced the feeling of many when he said : " Seeing that my lords the bishops, who for their learning can, and for the zeal that they should bear to the verity, would, as I suppose, gainsay anything that ! Grub, ii. 85. bishops, " What could be expected 2 See Robertson's Statuta, p. xii., from men that, by anything that hath for a letter from Father Thomas Innes, yet appeared, made not so much as author of the CW^;Vfl/.S'.W(y/, a zealous a protestation for their religion and Romanist, to bishop Keith, in which calling in the pretended Parliament he remarks, in reference to the dumb of 1560?" xxxii DISESTABLISI-IMENT OF CATHOLIC CHURCH 579 directly impugns the verity of God ; seeing, I say, my lords the bishops here present speak nothing to the contrary of the doctrine proposed, I cannot but hold it to be the very truth of God, and the contrary to be deceivable doctrine. And yet more, I must vote, as it were by way of protestation, that if any persons ecclesias tical shall after this oppose themselves to this our Con fession, they have no place or credit, considering that they having long advisement and full knowledge of this our Confession, none is now found in lawful, free, and quiet Parliament to oppose themselves to that which we profess. And therefore, if any of this generation pretend to do it after this, I protest he be repute rather one that loveth his own commodity and the glory of the world than the truth of God and the salvation of men's souls." When the Confession was put to the vote, the three bishops named and the abbot of Kilwinning voted against it. Among the temporal peers who followed them were the earl of Athole and lords Borthwick and Somerville, the latter two saying, " We will believe as our fathers believed." Several of the nobles known to be favourable to the Church absented themselves, and others withdrew from the meetings. The Confession was thus accepted by the great majority of the Parliament.! Three more acts were passed on the 24th August. The first abolished the jurisdiction of the pope within the realm, and the authority of bishops and prelates to act in his name. The second rescinded all former statutes passed in favour of the Roman Catholic Church. The third enacted that no one should administer the sacra ments but those admitted by "the Congregation," and also that no one should say or hear mass under pain 1 Acts of Parlt. Scot, ii. 525-534; Knox, ii. 87-122; Keith's Affairs, i. 311-322, and iii. 4-12; Tytler, v. 133-143; Spottiswoode, i. 325-328. 580 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap- of confiscation of their goods for the first offence, banish ment from the kingdom for the second, and death for the third.! Religious toleration is of slow and uncertain growth. But it is disappointing to find that the men who had suffered so much from papal intolerance and persecution, who had so often protested, and justly, against the cruelty of fire and faggot, should now on the first opportunity retaliate with the very weapons they had condemned in the hands of others. It leaves little choice after all between the charity of the papalist and the charity of the protestant. The persecuting statute of 1560 was ratified and renewed in 1567, and the General Assembly again and again urged its enforcement upon opponents in order to " the eschewing of the wrath and judgment of the eternal God and removing the plagues threatened in His law." ^ The mediaeval Church had fallen, and Scotland was lost to Rome. What the causes of the fall were has been indicated in these pages. They may be summed up in the following heads : — (i) The want of self-government in the National Church which left her powerless to enforce discipline and correct abuses as they arose. The supervision of Rome, even when wisely exercised, was too cumbersome, too costly, and at too great a 1 Acts of Parlt. Scot, ii. 534, just escaped the rigour of ecclesiastical 535; Knox, ii. 123-125; Keith, i. tyranny proceed to imitate these ex- 322-326; Tytler, v. 143; Robertson, amples of severity of which they them- Statuta, clxiii. note. selves had so justly complained." 2 Book of the Universal Kirk Hist. Scot, i. 195, 196. Dr. of Scot., i. pp. 6-59. Principal M'Crie in his Life of Knox, p. 162 Robertson, an eminent Presbyterian, (ed. 1855), very ingeniously glosses writing in 1758, remarks upon the the statute in question. "The spirit of the statute of 1560 : "Such Parliament," he says, "abolished strangers were men at that time to the papal jurisdiction, and prohibited the spirit of toleration and to the laws under certain penalties the celebration of humanity; and with such indecent of mass." He takes pious care to haste did the very persons who had conceal what the penalties were. XXXII CAUSES OF THE CHURCH'S FALL 58 I distance to be readily effective for good, while its venality and the systematic abuse of dispensations and in dulgences, were productive of the very gravest evils. (2) The celibacy of the clergy, and its resulting con cubinage, fostered immorality and bred scandals which wounded and weakened religion. (3) The system of pluralities and the alienation of church benefices in support of bishoprics, cathedrals, and monasteries im poverished the parishes and left them destitute of properly qualified priests. (4) The nepotism of the later kings and of the barons, thrusting incapable persons, some times mere boys, into the highest offices of church and monastery. (5) The gross ignorance of many of the clergy, especially in the later period, and the intrusion of men into benefices who had no intention of receiving orders or discharging clerical duties. (6) The wealth of the Church, said to have been equal to half the wealth of the kingdom, tempting the needy barons and gentry, poorer than the corresponding classes in England, to unite in the overthrow of the Church. (7) The severe pressure of the tithe system, and the still more hateful mortuary dues which unfeelingly stripped the people, even the poorest, when they were the least able to bear it. (8) The mistaken policy of persecution which turned the hearts of the people against the Church. (9) The final efforts of the provincial council to seriously enforce clerical discipline drove many of the priests, who had no mind to be reformed upon celibate lines, into the ranks of the Congregation. (10) The corruption of the Catholic faith by the introduction of mediaeval dogmas and superstitious rites and usages which overlaid the truth and damaged the mission of the Church among the people. It would, however, be a very inadequate representa tion of the life and work of the mediaeval Church to 582 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH chap, xxxi i single out these defects and abuses as her only pr chief characteristics. Unhappily, they have a painful and unhealthy prominence in the later chapters of her history, and the historian is bound to honestly record them. But the mediaeval Church has nevertheless many claims upon our grateful regard. The Church which in her better days, amid a sparse population and in a comparatively poor country, elicited the devotion and sacrifice that covered Scotland with .stately cathedrals and abbeys, built churches and chapels in every parish, and none of them of a mean order, planted schools and hospitals broadcast, founded three of our now ancient universities, endowed most of her foundations with lands and other properties, not always wisely but always generously, — the Church which did such splendid service for the religion and education of Scotland in the Middle Age can never fail, with all her later faults, to command the veneration of Scottish churchmen. END OF VOL. I AUTHORITIES .-Vberdeen, Reg. Episc. Acta Sanctorum -. BoUandine ed. Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland. Anderson, Joseph : Scotland in Early Christian Times, 2 vols. Bede : Ecc. History. Bede : Life of St. Cuthbert. Bellesheim, .\lphons : History of the Catholic Church of Scotland. 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History of the English People. Grub, George: Ecclesiastical History of Scotland. Haddan, A. W. , Remains of Haddan and Stubbs : Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Hailes, Lord : Annals. Hamilton, The Catechism of Arch bishop Hardwick : Reformation, History of Innes, Cosmo : Middle Ages. Innes, Cosmo : Sketches Early Scot. Hist. Innes, Cosmo : Pref. Chart. Kelso. Innes, Cosmo : Scotch Legal An tiquities. Innes, Thomas : Crit. Essay. | Irving, Jos. ; Dunbartonshire. Irving, D. Lives of the Poets. Jamieson, Dr. : Historical Account of the Ancient Culdees. Johnston, Dr. : Journey to the Western Highlands. Keith, Robert : Affairs of Church and State in Scotland. Keith, Robert : Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops. Kelso, Liber de. Edinburgh, 1846. Knox, John: History of the Reforma tion in Scotland. 584 HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH Laing, David : Works of John Knox, with Preface. Lanercost, Chronicle de Lea, Dr. H. C. ; A Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary in the Thirteenth Century. Philadelphia, 1892. Lightfoot, Bishop : Leaders in the Northern Church. Lindsay of Pitscottie : Hist. Scot. Lockhart : Life of Bishop de Bern ham. Luckock, Dean : The Church in Scotland. Macaulay's History of England. M'Crie ; Life of Knox. M'Kinnon, Prof. . Contributions to Scotsman, January 1889. M'Lauchlan, Ur. : Early Scot. Ch. Major : Historia Majoris Britannife, Scottish Llist. Soc. Malachy, Life of Milman : Latin Christianity. Montalembert, Charles de : The Monks of the West. Morav., Reg. Episc. Mylne : Lives of the Bishops of Dun keld. Nennius, Giles's ed. O'Donell : Life of St. Columba. Paris, Matthew : Chron. Petrie : Essay on Tara. Pinkerton : Enquiry. Pinkerton : Scottish Poems. Pinkerton ; Vitse Antiqua; Sanctorum Scotiae. Procter : English Prayer-Book. Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronicle of Quarterly Review : Article by Cosmo Innes. Reeves, William : Culdees of the British Islands. Reeves's Adamnan : Life of St. Columba, vol. vi. Historians of Scotland. Register of the Priory of St. Andrews. Robertson, E. W. . Scotland under Early Kings. Robertson, Joseph : Statuta Ecclesia Scoticanse. Robertson, Joseph : Scot. Abbeys and Cathedrals. Robertson, J. C. : History of the Christian Church. Robertson, Principal ; Hist, of the Scottish Church. Sadler's State Papers. Simeon of Durham : De Gestis. Skene, William F. Celtic Scotland, vols. i. and ii. Skene, WilHam F. : Chronicles of the Picts and Scots. Smith, Dr. John : Life of St. Columba. Spottiswoode : History of the Church of Scotland. Spottiswoode : Religious Houses (in Keith's Cat.), Russel's ed. Stanley, Dean : Lectures on the History of the Church of Scot land. Stokes, Whitley : Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore. Stokes, M. . Early Christian Art in Ireland. Stokes, Prof. : Ireland and the Celtic Church. Story, Dr. : Church of Scotland, edited by Stuart, Dr. John : Sculptured Stones of Scotland. 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