A Great Grievance. Laurence A.B. Whitley

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СКАЧАТЬ one.25 The queen, however, decided that if she let this wording pass, it would set a precedent which had financial implications. In her reply, she said she considered “it no ways reasonable that she should defraud herself of so great a part of the patrimony of the Crown, as to put the Patronage of Benefices forth of ther own hands; for her own necessity in bearing of her port [living and retinue] and common charges will require the retention thereof’.”26

Accordingly, when the next Assembly met, at Edinburgh, on the 25 December 1565, it had much on its mind. Not only was it unhappy with the queen’s answers to its six Articles, but it beheld a ministry now so starved of income, that it was “like to decay and fail.”27 Agreeing it could not be fully satisfied with the former, and having appointed John Row, minister of Perth and former canon lawyer, to draw up answers, it proceeded to approve a supplication to the Crown for an urgent remedy of the stipend problem. It must be guessed whether desperation was responsible for the tone of the entreaty, but it was certainly polite to the point of being conciliatory.

Moreover, a softer note also appeared in Row’s responses to the queen’s letter, to which the Assembly returned the following day. In the first Article, the Mass was firmly repudiated, but not discourteously. Then, in the second, the Book of Discipline’s scruples on presentations were discretely ignored: “[our mind is not] that her Majesty or any other patron of this realm should be defrauded of their just patronages. But we mean, whenever her Majesty or any other patron does present any person to a benefice, that the person presented should be tried and examined by the judgement of learned men of the Kirk.....and as the presentation of benefices pertains to the patron, so ought the collation thereof, be law and reason, pertaining to the Kirk.”28 Thus Row, as an ex–canonist, was able to echo the aspirations articulated by Pope Alexander.

Clearly, the Assembly judged it expedient to compromise on the issue of patronage. However, such forced civility was motivated not only by financial considerations. The Assembly’s reply reveals yet another cause of alarm to the new Church. Since 1560, it had become obvious that the Crown was increasingly returning to the practice of the early medieval period, namely, the filling up of benefices purely on the authority of the patron’s gift, without due deference to the Church’s rights of collation.29 This was not just in respect of abbeys and priories and the lesser benefices that went with them, but even parish churches. Moreover, the appointment would often be merely that of a lay titular.30 For the sake of its authority, this was not something that the Church could ignore, and it is highly likely that it prompted the conclusion that it was better to negotiate a modified system of presentations, than stage an attempt at abolition and subsequently fail on all counts. In addition, if, as would be likely, the new Church’s own landowning supporters were lukewarm about dismantling a system that had much to offer them, the Assembly probably felt that, overall, it was no time to be over-ambitious.

In the event, the queen’s response to the Assembly was her customary one of delay and prevarication, which left the Assembly’s commissioners no option but to return home “waiting upon the good providence of God.”31 Nonetheless, the events of 1566 brought an unexpected change in the Church’s bargaining position.

Following the murder, in March, of her secretary, David Riccio, Queen Mary’s political strength had started to ebb away, and by the autumn, it obviously occurred to her to use concessions as a means of winning favor from the Church. As a result, the reformers at last won access to the lesser benefices—those worth 300 merks’ yearly rental or less—when they became vacant. It was a major breakthrough in securing the new Church’s future, but there was a sting in the tail. The benefices would be disponed only to those whom the Church had examined and deemed suitable, but such candidates were then to be “nominat and present to thair Majesteis,” whereupon “thair Hienesses sall admit thame, and be thair autoritie caus thame be answerit of the frutis and dewiteis of the saidis benefices.”32 In other words, although only approved candidates would be admitted, the Crown was in effect reserving to itself the right of collation and admission. It was a shift of authority the Church could hardly accept.

Mary continued to make other concessions that were two-edged.33 However, 1567 brought dramatic developments in the political situation. Darnley, the queen’s husband, was murdered in Edinburgh on 9 February, and a mere three months later, Mary married the Earl of Bothwell. The general scandal surrounding both events was enough to make it impossible for the queen to continue in the eyes of some. An armed confrontation took place at Carberry, East Lothian, between rebel lords and Bothwell and Mary. While Bothwell departed eventually into exile, Mary was taken to Edinburgh and then to imprisonment in Loch Leven Castle. On 24–25 July, she signed documents giving the crown to her infant son, James, and naming her half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, as regent. The following May, Mary escaped and raised an army, only to see it defeated at Langside. She fled south of the border, where she remained in Queen Elizabeth’s custody until her execution for treason on 8 February 1587.

      Meanwhile, in December 1567, the first Parliament of the new era secured royal assent for the legislation of the Reformation Parliament of 1560, and thereby established the legality of the Reformation and the reformed Church. Thereupon the Scots Confession of Faith (1560) was incorporated into the published Acts of Parliament (but not the Book of Discipline).

The December Parliament also went on to legislate on other ecclesiastical matters, including the question of ministerial admission: “It is statute and ordained....that the examination and admission of Ministers, within this Realme, be only in the power of the Kirk, now openlie and publickly professed within the samin. The presentation of laick Patronages alwaies reserved to the Just and auncient Patrones. And that the Patroun present ane qualified persoun, within sex monethes...to the Superintendent of thay partis, quhar the Benefice lyes, or uthers havand commission of the Kirk to that effect; utherwise the Kirk to have power to dispone the samin to ane qualifyed person for that time.”34

The Book of Discipline’s aversion to presentations had been ignored. On the other hand, the Kirk would certainly have been relieved to see two vital points established. The first was that only the Church possessed the right to examine and admit candidates, and the second was that, in the event of any dispute, appeals could only be heard by the Kirk’s courts, whose decision would be final. On balance, there was justification for the Kirk to consider it had done well out of the 1567 settlement. Indeed, within a few months, Regent Moray was politely writing to the Assembly, enquiring how best to use the King’s right of presentation to some chaplaincies, “that ignorantly we doe nothing wherewith the Kirk may justly find fault hereafter.”35 There were, however, other loose ends, which would not be so harmoniously resolved.

      The most significant of these concerned the fate of the abbacies and the bishoprics. The Assembly’s wish was to have both dissolved, but Parliament balked at the idea. The Crown’s lack of enthusiasm was also understandable, since, on account of its traditional claim on the finances and patronage of vacant prelacies, it had most to lose. The Church could not, however, remain passive if the state used the grey area of appointments to greater benefices to flaunt the rights agreed with the Kirk regarding the lesser ones. Thus when, in 1571, the state appointed John Douglas to the archbishopric of St Andrews, John Porterfield to the see of Glasgow, and James Paton to the see of Dunkeld, all without deference to the Kirk’s processes of trial and qualification, strenuous protests were made. It became obvious that a meeting was necessary in order СКАЧАТЬ