where the local magnates were Roman Catholic or episcopal in sympathy. This was why the 1638 Assembly, seeing the urgent necessity to advance to such places men able to “stop the mouthes of the adversaries,” had revived an Assembly Act of 1596, ordering presbyteries to take particular care that this be done.55
Secondly, it would have occurred to Johnston that Glassford’s challenge to the Kirk’s working relationship with the patrons might well be repeated in other parishes. Glassford’s patronage was in private hands, but the worrying thought was that, since many parishes still had the king as patron, these too might now be emboldened to complain about the level of attention paid to their preferences, thereby creating the possibility of much damage to the Covenant’s professions of respect for the Crown.
These two concerns would have fuelled Johnston’s anxiety to produce a rebuttal which was both swift and assertive. In the immediate term, he was probably successful, but, as will be seen in the next section, the issues which had risen to the surface at Glassford were not to disappear. If anything, Johnston’s treatise served to stimulate debate about patronage rather than dissipate it. Nonetheless, what is significant about his essay is that it provides not only a revealing insight into the thinking of the Covenanters’ leading legal adviser, but also emerges as the Kirk’s first serious discussion of the tensions involved in attempting to reconcile the ideal of congregational consultation with the interests of a landowning elite, jealous of their rights.
Attitudes to Lay Patronage in the 1640s
For all his attempts to quash the complaints raised at Glassford, it is clear that Johnston also knew the Church could not afford to ignore them. Having now been voiced publicly, they were not likely simply to go away. That the Kirk was well aware it could not forget about the issue can be glimpsed in the wording of some of the Assembly legislation ratified by Parliament in 1640. Although the rights of patrons were upheld, the Act for planting of kirks unprovided with ministers through the patron’s default reminded presbyteries to use every opportunity to fill vacancies, but at the same time to obtain the consent of the parishioners.56 Again, the Act anent admission of ministers to kirks which belonged to bishoprics reassured patrons of their status, yet took the opportunity of pointedly asserting that presentations had not always been necessary to establish right to a stipend.57
An indication of how matters were now rapidly developing can be seen the following year in a book, The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland, by the prominent Covenanter, Alexander Henderson.58 In the section on the admission of ministers, Henderson (who writes in the guise of a detached observer) suggests by his tone that the principle of popular consent should be regarded as settled in Scotland, and that presentations are, by contrast, merely endured for diplomatic reasons: “liberty of election is in part prejudged and hindered by patronages and presentations which are still in use there, not by the rules of their discipline, but by toleration of that which they cannot amend; in the meantime procuring, that in the case of presentations by patrons, the examination and tryall by the presbytery is still the same. The congregation, where he is presented to serve, is called, if they have aught to object against his doctrine or life, after they have heard him, or [if they have not] that their consent may be had.”59
By 1642, it is clear that the status quo was becoming less and less attractive. At that year’s Assembly, an attempt at reform appeared in the guise of the Act anent the order for making lists to his majestie, and other patrons, for presentations; the order of tryall of expectants, and for trying the quality of Kirks.60 The main feature of this was the revelation that an arrangement had been negotiated with the king, so that, if a vacancy were to arise within the gift of either the Crown or anyone to whom he had disponed the patronage after 3 January 1642, then the presentation would only be given to a candidate selected from leets provided by the Church. On the occurrence of each vacancy, the presbytery would send the patron a blank presentation and a list of six persons who were both acceptable to the majority of the congregation, and willing to take the charge.61 To the parliamentary commissioners who had arranged the agreement, it may well have seemed a suitable compromise, but Baillie saw no future in it: “The overture . . . was of no use to us; for it was hard for us to find one person to a vacant kirk; bot to send up six . . . “62
Baillie felt the same lack of enthusiasm for another compromise, this time put before the Assembly by the Marquis of Argyll.63 Hoping to persuade his fellow patrons to join him, Argyll offered a bargain whereby, “they would give free libertie to presbyteries and people to name whom they would to vacant places, on condition the Assemblie would obleidge intrants to rest content with modified stipends.”64 Baillie’s view was that it was foolish to tie the Church’s hands, but further debate on the matter was aborted when it became obvious that some landed patrons were outraged that any such arrangement was being discussed at all. Accordingly, it was thought wise to drop the subject of patronage for the remainder of the court’s sitting.
When the 1643 Assembly came around, it was obvious the patronage debate was still very much alive. The fact was, Johnston’s optimism that patrons and parishes should not find it difficult to work in harmony, was starting to be contradicted by a succession of tiresome altercations. Since 1641, lengthy disputes had arisen between the preferences of patron and people, as at Dundee and at Inverness second charge; between patron and presbytery, as at Kilrenny [St. Andrews]; and between patron against presbytery and people, as at Campsie [Glasgow] and Largo [St. Andrews].65 It was perhaps not unexpected, therefore, that some should have considered the time had come for a full airing of the subject, as Baillie was to report: “We are like to be troubled with the question of Patronage. William Rigg [Sir William Rigg of Ethernie, who sat in Parliament for Fife] had procured a sharpe petition to us from the whole Commissioners of shyres and burghes against the intrusion of ministers on parishes against their minde; diverse noblemen, patrons, took this evill. We knew not how to guide it; at last, because of the time, as [with] all other things of great difficultie, we got it suppressed.”66
Clearly, however, stifling the debate could only act as a temporary expedient. When the Assembly returned to the issue a few days later in a resolution to reduce, through scarcity of candidates, the leets submitted to the king from six to three, the Marquis of Argyll used the opportunity to make a suggestion that “pleased all.” This was that a start should be made in drawing up a code of practice for other patrons beside the king. To this end, he moved that presbyteries be asked to consider the best way of admitting ministers to charges, and send their opinions to the following meeting. The Assembly, thinking it “very necessary that some general course were set down . . . whereby all occasions of contests and differences among patrons, presbyteries and paroches may be removed,”67 gratefully accepted the suggestion.
Given the weakness of the Crown at the time, it is possible that the Argyll proposal might well have thrashed out a system which preserved patronage in a form acceptable to most interests and opinions. Whether it would have survived and thereby spared the Kirk the anguish of the next two centuries, is hard to guess. In the event, however, Argyll’s initiative petered out as developments south of the border rose to occupy the main focus of national attention.
Summary
The 1587
