Series 4 > Stirling Presbytery Records 1581-1587

xlii STIRLING PRESBYTERY RECORDS 1581-1587
assembly wished to subject the bishop in life and doctrine to the
presbytery or synod (as well as to the assembly in respect of his
commission); but, on the king’s objection, the bishop’s subjection
to the presbytery or synod was waived.1
In drawing up its plans for establishing 16 synods and 52 presby¬
teries, the assembly separated Stirling and Dunblane into two
distinct presbyteries (as Bishop Graham had sought in 1581) with
23 and 20 constituent churches respectively. Detached from the
province of Lothian, the two presbyteries were to form a new
province of Dunblane with its own synod, an arrangement which
persisted until 1588 when both presbyteries were incorporated into
the province of the synod of Perth. Since the assembly accepted in
1586 that bishops and commissioners should act as moderators of
presbyteries, James Anderson, minister of Stirling and the crown’s
nominee to the assembly for the office of commissioner, automati¬
cally became moderator of Stirling presbytery which resumed its
activities on 21st June; but the assembly also gave commission to
four ministers from the two presbyteries in the province of Dun¬
blane to observe the commissioner’s behaviour.2
As efforts were made to effect a scheme along the lines of the
bishop-in-presbytery, the first matter to come before the presbytery
after its resumption, curiously enough, was the case of Bishop
David Cunningham of Aberdeen, formerly sub-dean of Glasgow,
whose trial for the ‘sclandir of adultrie’ the assembly had remitted
to the presbyteries of Stirling and Glasgow. Thereafter, the presby¬
tery resumed its supervision of the benefices within its jurisdiction
by ordering James Cockbum, a non-resident benefice-holder, to
produce his presentation, collation ‘with all uthir richtis and docu-
mentis that he hes’ to the benefice of Muckhart.3 The candidate,
identified elsewhere as the brother of John Cockbum of Clerkington,
1BUK, ii, 650, 652-4
2 Ibid., ii, 648-9, 664, 667, 676; see below, 237, 245-6, 256-9; Scottish Record Office
(sro), CH2/722/1, Stirling Presbytery Records, 20 August 1588: ‘The generall
assemblie ordanis the presbyteriis of Perthe and Dunkeld to concur with thir twa
presbyteriis, viz., Sterling and Dunblane in ane synodall assemblie, and the placis of
thair conventione to be at the appointment of the said synodall assembUe, and thair
first conventione to be in Perth. Sic subscribitur, J. Richie’. (This authenticated
record varies somewhat from the minute in BUK, ii, 738, which does not mention
Stirling as part of the enlarged synod.) See below, 220; BUK, ii, 667
3 See below, 220-1; 221-2