Series 4 > Stirling Presbytery Records 1581-1587

INTRODUCTION
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had been presented by the king to the benefice of Muckhart on
12th January 1585/6, during the presbytery’s abeyance; and the
presentation in his favour had been directed to the archbishop of St
Andrews, or to the commissioner or superintendent of the bounds.
The presbytery’s action, though not immediately effective, ulti¬
mately led to Cockbum’s deposition four years later in 1591.1
Although he was present in the sederunts of most presbytery
meetings, the commissioner seems to have played no special part in
the routine business of the presbytery (other than his acting as
moderator) and, indeed, his activities escape mention in the records
until October 1586 when the presbytery ordered him to notify a
congregration of the presbytery’s approval for the admission of an
assistant minister. The commissioner, however, was accorded the
right of attending the general assembly, but it was the presbytery, as
a whole, which ‘electit and nominat’ the ministers to accompany
him to Edinburgh in June 1587; and it was the presbytery, again,
which decided when to resort to excommunication, leaving to the
commissioner merely the task of executing its verdict. Although
responsible for conducting visitations (and also for negotiating with
the modifiers of ministers’ stipends), the commissioner was nonethe¬
less accountable to the presbytery, which inspected the parochial
books of discipline and which criticised and fined him for his absence
from the synod in April 1588 ‘berassone he is nocht onlie ane minis¬
ter of the Word within thir boundis quhairby he is daitbund to haif
bein thair, bot also, seing he is commissionar of thir haill boundis
quhairby sindrie thingis concerning his offeice was neidfull to be
handlit, and becaus thair was sindrie waightie materis traittit’.2
In the examination and admission of candidates to the ministry,
the presbytery again played a leading part. In addition to examining
ministers and prospective ministers at the exercise, the presbytery
proceeded, after due trial, to admit Henry Laing, ‘ane yung man of
honest report newlie retumit frome the schollis’ to the ministry at
St Ninians in 1586; it licensed William Paton as a minister in 1587,
and when no local church ‘that hes only rassonablle stipend’ could
1 sro, CH4/1/2, Register of Presentations to Benefices, fo. I45r.; PS1/66, Register of
the Privy Seal, fo. U9r.; CH2/722/2, Stirling Presbytery Records, 3 November, 1590;
22 June, 10 August, 1591
2 See below, 289-90; 266; 305-7; 294; 253; sro, CH2/722/1, Stirling Presbytery
Records, 9 April 1588