Series 5 > Calendar of Fearn

INTRODUCTION
25
1467 refers to the burning of the ‘collegiata capella’ some forty years
earlier, while the ‘ecclesia collegiata sancti Duthaci’ is named in three
royal documents issued during James II’s northern tour ten years
earlier, and the ‘college kirk’ appears in Alexander Sutherland of
Dunbeath’s testament, 1456.40 One of the royal charters endowed the
chaplainry of Dunskaith, laying down detailed liturgical duties; it is
very possible that the king actually visited the shrine at this time.
Stewart devotion to St Duthac was also shown injames Ill’s creation of
a new chaplainry of Newmore, designed to provide prayers for the
king, his wife, and his parents.41
The 1487 establishment provided for a provost and five prebendaries
or chaplains with landed endowments. Three of the chaplainries -
Tarlogie, Morangie and Cambuscurrie - were in the presentation of the
earl of Ross, and may have been endowed before the royal annexation
of the earldom. Their lands do not appear in the earliest surviving
earldom rental of 1476, nor amongst the retoured lands of John Ross V
ofBalnagown in 1440.42Two of the three, Cambuscurrie and Tarlogie,
were certainly held by chaplains in I486.43 Payments to an unnamed
chaplain of Dunskaith appear in the Exchequer Rolls from 1457.44 The
newly-founded chaplainry of Newmore, worth £10 annually, was
granted in 1482 to Sir Thomas Monylaw (74), subsequently provost of
St Duthac; as ‘chaplain celebrating in St Duthac’, he had been receiving
the same sum since 1479.45 Bishop Hay’s foundation allocated
Newmore to the provost of St Duthac, stipulating that he provide a
chaplain as deputy, but this appears to have been an arrangement
personal to Monylaw. His successor as provost, William Spynie, is not
known to have held the chaplainry of Newmore, or to have received the
annual payment of £10, which was received from 1494 at latest by sir
Donald Reid, on whose death in 1517 it passed to sir John Fearn;46 Reid
was belatedly presented to Newmore in 1515.47
James IV’s rather showy devotion involved conspicuous attention to
'40 Isles, no. 90. Fraser Papers, 219-21 (GD86/31), Inverness, 10 Oct., endowment of chaplainry of
Dunskaith; GD297/199, Inverness, 12 Oct., confirmation of privileges of kirk of St Duthac and
inhabitants of Tain; C. Fraser-Mackintosh, Invemessiana (Inverness, 1875), 136 (original in Inverness
Museum), Elgin (not Edinburgh), 22 Oct., letter in favour of burgesses of Inverness. I am indebted to
Dr Alan Borthwick for advice on these documents. Bannatyne Misc., iii, 96.
41 RMS, ii, 1513, 13 June 1482.
42 ER, viii, 592-6; Isles, no. 31.
43 Macgill, no. 1.
44 ER, vi, 465.
45 ER, viii, 597.
46 ER, xii, 238: for Reid see below.
47 RSS, i, 2599, 17 Aug.