Series 4 > Stirling Presbytery Records 1581-1587

INTRODUCTION xxiii
commenced in December 1582 when Graham was assigned the task
of making the exercise on the text of Ephesians 13, ‘to the effect the
brethrein may juge on his doctrein’, which was considered to be
both ‘sound and proffitablleh But the bishop admitted having
failed to preach and exercise discipline at Dunblane for a year; he
affirmed that he ‘nevir gaif ony collatioun of beneficis to na persone
sen his admissioun to the foirsaid bischoprie’; and he sought a
postponement to answering the charge of dilapidating episcopal
patrimony. The presbytery, however, found Graham’s inventory of
feus and tacks to be incomplete and unsatisfactory; grants of episco¬
pal property to the Earl of Montrose and Masters of Mar and
Livingston had not been entered; and it admonished Graham ‘ nocht
to styll him self bischop in tymis cuming nather be word nor wrett’.
At the same time, John Drummond of Pitkellany, on behalf of the
kindly tenants of the bishopric, took the opportunity of complaining
to the presbytery that Graham had ‘nocht onelie to the grit hurt
damnage and skayth of his successuris bot alswa to the extreim hurt
of us, possessuris and tennentis of the said kirk lands, sauld, delapidat
and put away the haill leving of the said bischoprie or at the lest ane
gret part thairof in gret menis handis by us, the saidis possessuris and
kyndlie tennentis’. Another tenant with a lease of the teinds of
Kinbuck protested at how the bishop had not only declined to renew
her lease but ‘ maist ungodlie intendis to set the samin to utheris ovir
hir hed’. These ‘bills of complaint’ seeking redress for wrongs had
the intended effect of securing promises from the bishop to recog¬
nise the tenants’ rights. Yet further investigations led the presbytery,
by October 1583, to pronounce Graham guilty of ‘negligence in
doctrein and disciplein, waisting of the patrimony of the kirk,
setting of takis againis the actis of the kirk’.1
Although he promised the presbytery in January 1583/4 that he
would make no further grants of episcopal property ‘without the
advys and consent of the brethrein of the said presbytery’, Graham
continued to be less than responsive in fulfilling his duties. He
procrastinated when ordered to admonish the Earl of Montrose for
associating with an excommunicated kinsman; he was fined for
absence from the synod in April; and in May, a few days before
1 See below, 66-74, 76-78, 82, 85-86, 88, 93-95, 97, 102, 105-6, 110-12, 155, 167,
171, 174-6