A Great Grievance. Laurence A.B. Whitley
target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_28127f9e-41fc-573c-8e6c-72c06e1e7502">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 to clear the air, and as a result, the Convention of Leith met in January 1572.
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