Series 3 > Letters of James the Fourth, 1505-1513

72
LETTERS OF JAMES IV
[1507
order in Scotland and that he should have the full juris¬
diction in visitation and reformation which the Abbot of
Soulseat, despite his much inferior status, then held.
The General complied, and granted a commission exercised
by the Prior of Whithorn until now. James was not alive
(minime cognovimus) to what he wrote at the prior’s sup¬
plication ; and he referred the whole matter to the wise
consideration of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, primate
and legate, who found that the famous house of Dryburgh
had been at the head of the order, not Soulseat or Whithorn.
Accordingly James besought the archbishop to put things
right and to see that the General’s authority in Scotland
was not altered or improperly transferred to another
judge, as the archbishop himself is writing to explain.
H.
108. Alexander, Archbishop of St. Andrews, to the General
of the Premonstratensians, Stirling,1 May 1, 1507.
n.l. 170 ; b.m. 67.
Dryburgh had the first place among the houses of the
order in Scotland and a title to visit and reform, a title
recognised by the General’s predecessors in delegating the
jurisdiction; yet the Prior of Whithorn presumptuously
and illegally resorts to harsh treatment, not mere correc¬
tion, and now exercises superiority in this province of St.
Andrews, encroaching upon Dryburgh’s old freedom and
disturbing it in many ways. The archbishop desires that
the old pre-eminence of Dryburgh should be revived and
its former authority in visitation and reformation restored,
or at least that the house should be exempt from the com¬
missioner of Whithorn, absolved from his censures, and
subjected to the control of the General of the order alone :
otherwise the archbishop may be forced by the unbecoming
action of the commissioner to interpose his ordinary and
diocesan authority in defence of his jurisdiction or to seek
1 ‘ Ex palatio nostro apud Striveling.'