The crucial agreement reached at the Leith meeting was over what to do with the bishoprics. The Church agreed to accept the nomination of bishops by the Crown, but on condition that candidates would have to be subject to the approval of their fellow ministers, and after their installation, accept the authority of the Assembly in spiritual matters. As for the priories and abbacies, the Kirk would recognize the Crown’s interests in disposing of their patrimony as vacancies arose. Patronage would continue unchallenged. Despite the spirit of compromise evident in the concordat, it did not turn out to be a success. Ignoring the Kirk, James, fourth Earl of Morton, who was Regent between 1572 and 1578, continued to allow the diversion of ecclesiastical property and money into secular hands, while at the same time showing scant sensitivity in his appointment of bishops.
By 1576, a clear note of unease with episcopacy was showing itself in the Assembly registers,36 coming to a head with the petulant behavior of Patrick Adamson, archbishop of St Andrews, whose defiance of Assembly authority appeared to have Morton’s countenance, if not encouragement. Morton’s view in reply was that, if the Church could not be happy with the Leith agreement, it should draw up a statement, clearly re-defining its position on all such matters. The Church duly responded and the result was The heads and conclusions of the policy of the Kirk, or, the second Book of Discipline, which was completed, and accepted by the Assembly, in 1578.
In it, patronage is not only disapproved, but replaced a by a mode of election that was now refined into consent by the congregation, after nomination by the eldership.37 This was a distinct advance on the first book’s rather vague axiom of election by the people.38 It should at once be said, however, that caution should be exercised as to the meaning of “eldership,” when used in the book. Rather than meaning individual kirk sessions, the reference here is most likely to groups of neighboring ministers, doctors [i.e., teachers] and elders. Although only three or four parishes might have been involved, these groups were probably (along with the exegetical “exercise” meetings) the prototype for presbyteries, which start to be mentioned in the 1580s. As for the rest of the book, the subject of patronage is raised again, in a section entitled, Certain special Heids of Reformation quhilk we crave. What is noteworthy is that, in comparison with the first book’s comments on the issue, the language has become markedly more uncompromising:
9. The libertie of the election of persons callit to the ecclesiastical functions....we desyre to be restorit and reteinit within this realm. Swa that nane be intrusit upon ony congregation, either be the prince or ony inferior person, without lawfull election and the assent of the people owir quham the person is placit; as the practise of the apostolical and primitive kirk, and gude order craves.
10. And because this order, quhilk Gods word craves, cannot stand with patronages and presentation to benefices usit in the Paipes kirk: we desyre all them that trewlie feir God earnestly to consider, that for swa meikle as the names of patronages and benefices, togethir with the effect thairof have flowit fra the Paip and corruption of the canon law only...... And for swa meikle as that manner of proceeding hes na ground in the word of God, but is contrar to the same.....they aucht not now to have place in this licht of reformation.39
Burleigh’s opinion that the whole book “was in short a demand for a complete reversal of the ecclesiastical policy pursued by Morton since 1572,”40certainly seems to be confirmed by the tenor of the passages on patronage. Their tone conveys an anxiety which would have derived not only from unease at the regent’s attempts to extend state authority over the Church,41 but especially from the authors’ realizing that the Leith concordat had merely facilitated further secularization of church lands. Yet, for all the defiance of these paragraphs, the upholders of the second Book of Discipline well knew that their wishes on patronage would be received with as little enthusiasm as their claims for the old Church’s patrimony. In all their deliberations, there would have been an inescapable tension between what they believed ought to happen, and what was realistically possible.
A typical example of the struggle between conscience and political reality can be seen in the writings of one of the book’s authors, John Erskine of Dun. During the course of the same year (1571), he writes on one occasion to scorn the fact that, according to human laws, the patron can nominate a pastor to his office even though, “we haif it be the Scriptouris and consuetud of the primitive kirk that the congregatione namit the persone.” Against that, however, he writes in another letter: “I mean not the hurt of the King, or others in their patronage, but that they have their privileges of presentation according to the lawes, providing alwise that the examination and admission pertean only to the Kirk, of all benefices having cure of souls.”42
As for the new king (who had in 1567 succeeded his mother as James VI and whose minority lasted until 1584), the response of his government to the book’s passages on patronage, was to act as if they did not exist. Thus, his receipt of a copy of the book in the spring of 1578, did not distract the government from passing an Act a few weeks later, stating that all rights of presentation, previously belonging to abbots, bishops and priors, should now be regarded as the monarch’s. A year later, another Act was passed, ratifying all the legislation of 1567, which, of course, included the December Act defending the rights of “the Just and auncient Patrones.” Again, in 1581, an Act was passed bluntly reaffirming the presentation rights of both the Crown and “the lawit [legal] Patronis.”43
Given government reaction, which was wholly shared by James on attaining his personal rule, it is unsurprising that the second Book of Discipline never received official recognition by the state. This meant that the most status the Assembly could give it was simply a formal recording among its register of Acts, on 24 April 1581.44 This setback was not without significance, since, as Shaw points out in his work on the first General Assemblies, the second Book could not then be considered part of the Church’s constitution: “It did, however, represent within the General Assemblies of the period the majority opinion of what the constitution of the church ought to be, but because of the lack of approval by the state, the Assembly did not consider itself competent to go further.”45 As with Erskine’s letters, this diffidence led to curious contradictions. Thus, despite the Assembly’s approval of the second Book, its registers still continued to imply that patronage was as acceptable as before: “[it is ordained] that presentationes of benefices be direct to Commissioners of Countries” (24 October 1578); “That no presentatione of benefice be directit to any persones but sic as beirs commissione” (12 July 1580); “And alwayes the Laik Patronages to remaine haill and unjoynit or provydit, except it be with consent of the patrons’ (24 April 1581); “The advyse of the Kirk concerning the direction of Presentations, that they be directit to the presbytries’ (24 April 1581).46
The situation, then, at the start of the 1580s, was that if the Church had any hopes of relieving itself of the perceived burden of presentations, it knew these would be firmly obstructed by a Crown that now held the vast majority of benefices in its gift. On the other hand, there was still the matter of the nobility and gentry. Although they had been glad to follow the Crown’s lead in the plunder of ecclesiastical properties, they had not, as mentioned above, shown the same interest in acquiring the rights of presentation that went with them. It was not inconceivable that they might be sympathetic to the Church’s desire.47 However, if the Church harbored hopes in that direction, the possibility of their being realized,
