Series 4 > Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Scotland

xliv THE KNIGHTS OF ST JOHN
Knights of St John with their highly-developed bureaucracy and
the system of linguae or nations at Rhodes were able still to make
their authority felt in remote and outlying preceptories of the order.
After Andrew Meldrum’s administration this relationship con¬
tinued. In 1449 de Lastic wrote to brother Henry de Livingston,
preceptor of Torphichen, concerning the payment of arrears and
responsions due from Scotland;1 and another brother in Scotland,
William de Meldrum, complained to Rhodes in 1453 on account
of Livingston’s maladministration,2 visiting the prior of England
en route.3 Brother William Meldrum was nephew of brother
Andrew Meldrum; he had a dispute over the preceptory with
Livingston in 1449.4 Livingston appears as commendator of the
preceptory of Torphichen in 1450,5 and issued numbers of charters
as preceptor throughout the 1450s and early 1460s.6 Although
Livingston was undisputed preceptor at the time of his death in
1462,7 William Meldrum had not given up without a fight; he was
acknowledged by the master as legitimate preceptor in January
1452/3 but may have died soon after.8
Henry Livingston was probably one of the vastly ramified tribe
of Livingstons who profited so much during the minority of James
11 ;9 some Livingstons, who survived James ii’s attack on the family
in 1450, later benefited from Henry’s preceptorship at Torphichen,
most notably his cousins William and Alexander Livingston, sons
of William Livingston of Balcastle, who had a tack of the Briggs
(Kirkliston) for three years from September 1461.10 But despite the
emergence of numbers of Livingstons in connection with Tor¬
phichen at this time, a community of brothers seems to have
continued in some fashion; brother Elias (?) Lany ‘nostri ordinis
presbytero’ witnesses a charter of Livingston’s in 1458,11 and
1 Malta Cod., 361, ff. 233-235, 337, 339 2 Malta Cod., 363, f. 28jr
3 CDS, iv, no. 1255 4 Malta Cod., 361, ff. 233r-v, 234r-v, 235V
5 Brechin Registrant, 142-3
6 Colstoun writs, 10 and 11 (Documents nos. 15-16 below pp.64-69); Hist. MSS
Comm., Various Collections, v, 80-84
7 Malta Cod., 363, f. 2851 8 See below, pp. 198-9
9 Nicholson, Later Middle Ages, 348-51 10 sro, GD 97/3/6 and 13
11 Colstoun writs, n (Document no. 15 below, p.ooo); brother Ellis de Lani, chaplain
is mentioned in connection with Henry Livingston on 2 January 1452/3; Malta Cod.,
363, f. 285r