Chapter 7 Settlement of the 1560s
At the start of the 1560s the situation regarding church estates, both nation- ally and in St Andrews, was chaotic. Rents were going unpaid, the ownership of many properties was disputed, and the long-term plans for ecclesiastical lands were unclear.1 Such a state of affairs was highly unsatisfactory, and both evangelicals and traditionalists called for something to be done. In the spring of 1560 the Protestant compilers of the First Book of Discipline advocated major economic reforms, in order that the Kirk ‘may recover hir libertie and fredome’.2 Six months later, members of the Catholic clergy petitioned Parlia- ment to bring about a return of their revenues.3 The representatives attending Scotland’s Reformation Parliament (which met in August 1560) recognised that the recent religious upheavals had raised several problems concerning church property. On 24 August 1560 legislation was passed banning the Archbishop of St Andrews, and certain other senior churchmen, from issuing any tacks or feus.4 At the same time Parliament or- dered that the possessors of teinds should collect their money and produce as usual but must ‘retein the payment thairof in thair awin handis quhil they get commandement of the counsal to quhom it sould be payit’.5 It seems likely from this statement that the Protestant leadership thought that a national settlement regarding church lands would soon be forthcoming. In fact central government guidance on this matter was not immediately produced, prob- ably because of disagreements about what the settlement should be. Whilst John Knox and many of the more radical Protestants believed the old church’s lands should be used to support the Reformed Kirk, poor-relief, and education, other Protestants suggested that monastic revenues could be granted to the crown.6 Meanwhile the Catholic clergy (and some Reformist nobles who had
1 For discussion of non-payment of rents see Chapters 6 and 8. 2 wjk, vol. 2, p. 223. 3 rps, A1560/8/10 [Accessed 1 August 2018]. 4 rps, A1560/8/8 [Accessed 1 August 2018]. 5 rps, A1560/8/9 [Accessed 1 August 2018]. 6 Some Protestants hoped that if they offered the Queen the monastic revenues she would lend her backing to the Reformed church. As early as July 1559 Sir William Kirkcaldy reported to the English government that if Queen Mary was willing to support ‘ane general reforma- tion’ the Lords of the Congregation might offer to ‘anex the hale revenues of the abayes to the croune’. tna, SP52/1 f.92 v. wjk, vol. 2, pp. 221–226.
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benefitted from feus and commendatorships) wished for the economic struc- tures of the 1550s to be restored.7 By the time Mary Queen of Scots returned from France in the summer of 1561, it was evident that the issue of church estates urgently needed to be ad- dressed.8 The Queen and her advisors rapidly set about tackling the problem. On 10 September 1561 (less than a month after Mary had arrived back in Scot- land) the Privy Council decreed that proclamations should be made ‘at all mer- cat croces of the burrowis of this realme’ forbidding the practice of sending to Rome for confirmation of ecclesiastical feus.9 Shortly afterwards the Queen’s councillors initiated discussions with former Catholic clerics in an attempt to create a national compromise regarding church property. As a result of these talks, during the winter of 1561 a tentative settlement concerning church lands was devised. On 22 December the Privy Council agreed that ecclesiastical property should be ‘assignit to the auld possessouris’, on the condition that benefice-holders paid a portion of their revenues to the monarch to ‘sustene the [Protestant] ministeris throw the hale realme’ and enable ‘the Quenis Maj- estie to intertein and sett fordwart the commone effaris of the cuntre’.10 Two months later, on 15 February 1562, the contribution to the crown was set at a third of annual revenues, causing the policy to be known as the ‘thirds of benefices’.11 At the same time, in a crucial but often overlooked amendment, special provisions were introduced concerning the lands of the friars and the urban rents of chaplainries and collegiate churches.12 Traditionally, historians have regarded the arrangement of the thirds of benefices, and Queen Mary’s policy towards ecclesiastical lands generally, as a conservative compromise which brought little change to church estates. For example, in the mid twentieth century Gordon Donaldson claimed that ‘the as- sumption of thirds’ left ‘the old structure intact’.13 Yet the extent of continuity
7 According to John Knox the Protestant nobles who were ‘most unmerciful to the poor Ministers’ were those ‘which had greatest rents of the Churches’. hrs, vol. 1, p. 344. 8 For example, Alexander Scott’s contemporary poem ‘Ane New Yeir Gift to the Quene Mary quhen scho come first hame’ devotes no less than three stanzas to abuses and problems relating to church lands. See John and Winifred MacQueen, eds, A Choice of Scottish Verse, 1470–1570 (London, 1972), pp. 179–186. 9 This was stated to be necessary because ‘be occasioun of the last trublis, the maist part of the clergy and ecclesiasticall estait hes on thair pretendit maner, set the lands unite and annexit to the kirk in fewferme and heretage, to the greit hurt, nocht onlie of the Quenis Majestie, bot als of the pure tennentis thairof’. rpcs, vol. 1, p. 162. 10 rpcs, vol. 1, p. 193. 11 rpcs, vol. 1, pp. 201–202. 12 rpcs, vol. 1, pp. 202–203. 13 Gordon Donaldson, Scotland James v – James vii (Edinburgh, 1965), p. 144.