A Great Grievance. Laurence A.B. Whitley

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      WRH West Register House

      * from 1 April 2011 this became The National Records of Scotland (NRS)

      Introduction

      Ecclesiastical lay patronage is a system, dating back to the early middle ages, whereby a benefice without an incumbent is supplied with a replacement, a benefice being a church office involving duties for whose discharge, property (sometimes called the temporalities) and income (sometimes called the spiritualities) are provided. Where the patronage system still operates, as in the Church of England, the church’s patron, be it a private individual, college, trust, local council, bishop, dean and chapter, or the Crown, has the right, whenever there is a vacancy, to choose who should be the one to fill it. The patron’s preferred candidate is intimated to the church authorities, and in England this is the bishop, in the form of a presentation to the charge. If the authorities are satisfied that certain criteria concerning the presentee have been met, he/she is then installed as the legal incumbent.

Although the historic practice remains commonplace within the Church of England, that the right of patronage (jus patronatus) continued to exist within the Church of Scotland after the Reformation, especially after the emergence of its presbyterian structure, has sometimes caused surprise. This is despite the fact that lay patronage was the reformed Church of Scotland’s official system for filling, or “planting” vacancies, for by far the greater part of its history after 1560, and thus in general continuity with pre-Reformation practice. On occasion, the practice did fall into disuse, and twice it was formally abolished by Parliament, but its absences were never of long duration. Only as recently as 1874 did it disappear for what would seem to be the final time.1

When in 1712 it was restored, after a short suspension, for its last appearance in Scotland, the disruptive effects were deep and prolonged. Quite apart from the changes brought to the character of the Church’s courts in their conduct of business, public perception of, and therefore loyalty to, the established church altered. Schism became not only an option, but even desirable for some. By the end of the nineteenth century, there was, as a consequence of the patronage issue, scarcely a community where the parish church did not find itself in competition with at least one other Christian alternative, usually presbyterian. In short, patronage was the cause of some of the bitterest divisions within modern, Scottish society, and as a result, the Patronage Act of 1712 swiftly came to be demonised as one of Scottish history’s great deeds of mischief and betrayal. By the middle of the nineteenth century, no language was considered too melodramatic in its condemnation: “Whether the hand of the misguided Sovereign [Queen Anne] shook when affixing the sign manual, has not been recorded; but certainly at that moment, she put her hand to a deed by which her right to reign was virtually rescinded, the Revolution Settlement overturned, and the Treaty of Union repealed.”2

To read from the Disruption3 era, some of the indignant speeches, pamphlets and books concerning “This infamous Bill”4 it might be assumed that in its passing, all the Kirk’s enemies had indeed combined to violate “the deep–seated, ineradicable feelings of the people of Scotland”5 and that those feelings had, by contrast, been triumphantly expressed twenty-two years earlier, when patronage had been abolished. When it is considered that within the short time-span of 1688–1715, Scotland experienced four different sovereigns, the constitutional upheaval of the Revolution Settlement, a parliamentary union, an attempted invasion and a rebellion, then it can be seen that the removal and restoration of patronage took place against a complicated and unsettled religious and political backdrop.

      In the following account of how, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, lay patronage in Scotland was abolished, restored and exercised, five traditionally-held beliefs will be critically re-examined. These are, first, the doctrine that patronage was abolished in 1690 simply because it was the will of the majority of Scottish churchmen; secondly, the much–repeated claim that the 1712 Act was an infringement of the Treaty of Union; thirdly, the tradition that patrons shied away from making presentations within the first twenty years after the Act; fourthly, the assumption that it was possible for a popular franchise to achieve acceptance within the established church, despite the admission of heritors (owners of heritable property) into the process of minister selection in 1690, and lastly, the belief that it is possible to speak of “the Church” making autonomous decisions at its General Assembly, or Assembly Commission, as if such deliberations were free from secular influence and political manipulation.

      As will be gathered, the chief intention of what follows is to consider the period between 1690 and 1750, however, by way of introduction, and to demonstrate how lay patronage was historically as much embedded in Scottish life as elsewhere in Europe, the book will begin by giving a brief sketch of the medieval background. It will then follow an approximately chronological pattern, highlighting what might be considered landmarks in the way attitudes towards patronage were affected by the course of Scotland’s history.

      In each chapter, various key questions will be addressed, as outlined below:

      Chapter One

      What were the origins of lay patronage?

      What, if any, were its Scottish characteristics?

      Why was it not abolished at the Reformation?

      Chapter Two

      How did the early seventeenth century strengthen the place of lay patronage in Scottish society?

      Why did the National Covenant revolutionary movement of 1637–9 not sweep it away?

      Chapter Three

      What conclusions did the Westminster Assembly arrive at regarding presentations?

      How did the 1649 abolition of patronage come about?

      What system did the Kirk favour as a replacement for presentations?

      Chapter Four

      How important an issue was patronage in the Restoration period?

      How did abolition come about in 1690?

      Chapter Five

      What was the thinking behind the provisions of the 1690 Act?

      What were their defects?

      What was meant by a “call”?

      Chapter Six

      What was the patrons’ reaction to the Act?

      What contributed to controversy during the 1690–1712 period?

      Chapter Seven

      Was the 1712 Act a violation of the Treaty of Union?

      How did the 1712 Act become law?

      Chapter Eight

      What were the effects of the Toleration Act?

      Did patrons initially hold back from making presentations after the 1712 Act?

      Why did the Kirk not resist presentations more strongly?

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