Maitland Club > Register of ministers, exhorters and readers, and of their stipends, after the period of the Reformation

VIII
presentment to the Estates of the kingdom, had heen treated with dis-
regard and derision, and was made to yield to the ravenous cupidity
of the courtiers and favourites of the day. The long train of evasi\ c
and vexatious proceedings which are known to have retarded any
effectual or permanent establishment for the reformed Clergy, it would
far exceed the bounds of this notice to state ; and it may be here enough
to refer to some of those legislative Acts which formed the basis of that
system of ecclesiastical benefices which obtained for nearly half a cen-
tury after the overthrow of the Roman Catholic Church. *
In the Convention of the Estates holden at Edinburgh in De-
cember 1561, there was adopted a sort of compromise with the actual
possessors of the ancient revenues of the Church, and " it was con-
" cludit, decernit and determit, be the Quenis grace and Lordis of
" Counsale, and utheris of the Nobilitie present, that gif the ferd part
" of the frutis of the hale benefices ecclesiasticall within this realme
" may be sufficient to sustene the Ministeris throw the hale realme,
" and support the Quenis Majestie to interteny and sett fordwart the
" commone effaris of the cuntre : Failyeing thairof, the thrid part of
" the saidis frutis or mair, quhill it be fund sufficient to the effect foir-
" said, to be takin up yeirlie in tyme cuming, quhill ane generale or-
" doure be takin thairin ; Samekle thairof to be employit to the Qiu>iii~
" Majestie for intertenying and setting fordwart of the commone effaris
* In further illustration of this subject, a few Extracts from the Records of the
Secret Council have been appended to this Notice.