over the medieval Church’s temporality.
As an introduction to that crucial legislation, however, it is necessary first to recall in more detail how the Scottish Church came to be funded, and how secular predations left the Crown in the favorable position it eventually found itself.
The Church’s Property
It will be remembered that, originally, when a church was founded, it was customary for the patron to ensure its upkeep by a grant both of land and a proportion of all the parochial produce. This proportion, normally a tenth, came to be known as the parish tithes or teinds. Although they began as an act of generosity, by the time of King William the Lion (1165–1214), the state had made them into a compulsory levy.48
As already mentioned, there was a continuous process, in the era before the Reformation, of appropriation of parish churches by religious houses, cathedral chapters and bishoprics.49 This meant that the incumbent no longer received all the teinds directly as the titular parson, or rector. The religious house, chapter or bishop, in effect, became the titular parson, and on their behalf a vicar usually served the church, receiving only a share, or stipend, out of the teinds. Such a charge is called a patrimonial (as opposed to patronate) benefice.50
Despite the attempt by the third Lateran Council (1179) to restrict the alienation of tithes, by making it conditional on papal consent, the feuing out of lands and teinds was commonplace in Scotland by the sixteenth century. In this process of secularization, the Crown led the way, and the tactic it employed was to wrest concessions from the Church, and then simply to stretch and expand these as far as possible. Thus, although James II undertook, in 1450, to restrict his claims, in vacant dioceses, to the temporality and patronage of its livings, by 1515, the spirituality was being uplifted by the Crown as well.51 Again, as seen above, when the Indult of 1487 granted James III privileges regarding certain benefices attached to monasteries as well as cathedrals, the Crown did not hesitate to use this as another avenue for extending its advance into the wealth and patronage of the prelacies.
The monarch could not only garner income during vacancies, but use his power of appointment to provide for friends and their dependents, who could return the favor through a lease on the revenues. In this regard, access to the patrimony of a monastery was frequently gained by appointing a commendator to the abbacy. This would be someone who, not being entitled to the office, held it in commendam (in trust) and acted as steward of its resources. By 1560, two thirds of Scottish monasteries had commendators52. One particular abuse of religious houses, oft-quoted, took place in 1533, when, exploiting papal anxieties over the Reformation in England, James V asked Clement VII to grant his three illegitimate sons: “any church dignities whatsoever either secular or regular of any order, in title or commend.”53 As a result, they received St Andrews priory, Holyrood, Kelso, Melrose, and Coldingham abbeys. Then, ten years later, the revenues which were surplus to the boys’ requirements, were simply annexed by the Crown.54 As for the thirteen bishoprics, a practice equivalent to that of installing commendators was to make a nomination, while at the same time reserving a generous portion out of the episcopal income.
Turning to the nobility and lairds, these followed the Crown’s example in encroaching on the Church’s wealth and privileges even to the extent that, for some families, the headship of a particular abbey or priory became their own, private preserve.55 However, as already mentioned, for all their dilapidation of the religious houses’ patrimony, comparatively few laymen by the end of the 1570s had also troubled to take over their right of presentation to parochial charges. In the 1580s, the situation began to change.
Temporal Lordships
The lynchpin of the change was James’s Act of Annexation of the Temporalities of Benefices to the Crown 1587,56 and it was certain consequences of this measure that were to have a profound effect on the identity of those who were to hold the majority of patronages throughout the following centuries. Instead of the Crown possessing all but a handful, such was the reversal that, by the time of the Patronage Act of 1712, private rights of presentation outnumbered the Crown’s by two to one.
The 1587 Act laid down that all the Roman Church’s temporality, that is its lands and their rents, were to be appropriated by the Crown, although various exceptions were made. Manses and glebes were to be exempted, as were the mansions of the bishops, the latter probably being kept by James in preparation for a full restoration of episcopacy later. Teinds were also largely exempted from annexation, which may have provided the Kirk with some small comfort, given that the temporality was now beyond their grasp, but financing the Church through the teinds remained far from satisfactory until the issue was set on a firmer footing by the Revocation scheme of Charles I.
There were other exemptions, and it was these which were to affect the issue of lay patronage thereafter. The first was those church lands already held through lay commendators or erected as temporal lordships.57, This meant that the noble families to whom this applied now had the security of a heritable right to these assets. Through a judicious beneficence, James continued to create these “lords of erection” to such an extent that, “At James’s death in 1625, 21 abbeys, 11 priories, six nunneries and one preceptory, either separately or conjointly, had been erected into temporal lordships. Indeed, of the 54 major ecclesiastical foundations in Scotland, only one—Dunfermline Abbey—had been retained, but not wholly preserved, by the Crown.”58 It was, however, the final exemption within the 1587 Act that was to prove crucial: namely, that all lands and rents of any benefice in the gift of a lay patron were to be excluded as well. Suddenly, the issue of patronage, previously of little particular concern to landed families, was of real significance. As they consolidated their lands as a heritable possession, they also took steps to assert the heritable rights that went with them—of which patronage was one. The newer temporal lords decided it was only wise to follow their example. Some idea of the number of benefices recorded as being in the gift of landed families from this time, can be derived from Kirk’s investigations: “The patronage of 29 churches annexed to Paisley, for example, fell to Claud Hamilton by 1592; Kelso with the right to present to more than 40 churches became the heritable property of Francis Stewart in 1588; Kilwinning, with 16 annexed churches, was assigned to William Melville in 1592; Arbroath, with 37 specified churches, was bestowed in 1608 on the Marquis of Hamilton ; and Alexander Lyndsay, created Lord Spynie with the erection of the lordship out of the temporality of the bishopric of Moray, came to possess the patronage of some 40 churches.”59
The General Assembly’s reaction was one of alarm, and the following year, petitioned the king to cease bestowing patronages, since it was “to the evident hurt of the haill Kirk.” The plea was repeated in 1591 with equal lack of success.60 It is possible that these displays of anxiety on the Assembly’s part, were not altogether justified by its experiences of patronage from the Reformation up to this time. Indeed, there is little evidence to contradict the impression that presentations had, on the whole, been exercised with sensitivity.61
On the other hand, it must be admitted that the Crown had been the main source of presentations before 1587, and, after such consistency, there may have been nervousness that
