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Chapter XI: Accession of the Stewarts, 1329-1370


A charitable concession, which must have been gratifying to the Abbot and his brethren in their low estate, was made by Earl Malcolm of Lennox. [7] He gave them all their lands in his country of Dunbartonshire The contested properties of Monackeneran, Backan, and others, appear in his charter for the last time, all their rights, churches, and fishings being forever secured, so that no person, clerical or lay, should interfere with them again. These properties had been an incessant cause of disquietude and litigation during nearly a century, and many of them amid the confusion of the War of Independence, had, in every likelihood, been lost altogether: The Earl now confirmed them inalienably to the Monastery “for the soul of the illustrious King Robert of Scotland,” who had died two years previously. In order that the Convent might hold their lands with a firm hand, he gave them power to have “courts of life and members,” and eschent at the death of a man, in all their lands. These powers would enable them to keep all the wild Celts on their Dunbartonshire lands thoroughly in order, without need, as formerly, to apply to the Bishop for spiritual excommunication. For the latter, the rude marauders of the Lennox, as we have seen, cared but little, and the Bishop thundered at them in vain ; but the fear of summary execution and a short shrift, could not fail to instil into them wholesome respect for their monastic superiors. The Earl, however, provided that when any were condemned to death, they should pay the penalty at his own gallows of Lennox. Possibly he thought it might be necessary to have some check upon the clerical power in carrying out the last penalty of the law, or he may have felt it added to his dignity as a great feudal baron to have always a plentiful supply of offenders hanging, as a terror to evil doers, from his ancestral gibbet. [8]

During the short Regency of Randolph things looked brighter for the Church, and under his firm rule, aided by these donations from the be¬nevolent, the Abbot and Convent would naturally begin to prepare for the rebuilding of their Monastery. The lawlessness which had caused them to suffer so much seemed passing away; and, if we believe the chronicler, “the traveller might tie his horse to the inn door, and the ploughman leave his ploughshare and harness in the field without fear”
[9] Inspirited by the hope of better days, and perhaps thinking that his house deserved some solatium from the head of the Church for all the privations they had undergone, Abbot John sent a petition to Pope Benedict XI. begging that the honour of wearing the mitre and ling might be conferred upon himself and his successors. The Pope, then residing at Avignon, granted his request. [10] He gave him and his successors in office, by a bull issued in August, 1334, leave to wear the coveted insignia, and to bestow the accustomed benediction after masses, vespers, and matins in his monastery, and in all priories, and other places belonging thereto, as well as in parochial and other churches under their jurisdiction, provided that no Bishop or Legate of the Apostolic See happened to be present. This was a great honour to the Abbot, who had hitherto been distinguished only by the crosier ; but by the time the permission reached Paisley from Avignon, Scotland was again distracted by warfare, and the prospect of the restoration of the Abbey appeared indefinitely postponed. England had once more put forward its claim of sovereignty over Scotland. In 1332 Edward Baliol was crowned King, and the old strifes which seemed to have passed away under the government of King Robert began again. In these the Stewart, as yet a mere boy, took active part, with all the spirit and energy of his ancestors. Though only sixteen or seventeen years of age, he led a division of the Scottish army at the disastrous battle of Halidon Hill. [11] He was, says Fordun, a comely youth, tall and robust, affable and modest, liberal, gay and honest, and for the innate sweetness of his disposition, generally beloved by all true-hearted Scotchmen. [12] After the defeat at Halidon, the Stewart fled to Bute, and his lands in the Barony of Renfrew were confiscated and conveyed to David Hastings, Earl of Athol, who came down to Renfrew personally and received homage from all on his newly-acquired lands. [13] The Stewart, with some of his friends, again recovered them, but only to lose them immediately; for about the time the newly-conferred honour of the Pope reached Abbot John on Christmas, 1334, Edward Baliol was holding high festival in the Stewart's castle at Renfrew, and with royal state conferring favours upon his guests, [14] in which favours we may well believe Abbot John did not share.


[7] Reg. de Pas., p. 205. The date is 1330.
[8] The privilege of a gallows was greatly esteemed in feudal times, and a day of hanging a source of great festivity to the tenants of a lordship. To this day, in Invernesshire, when any general rejoicing is afloat, the saying is often repeated as an incentive to jollity, “It's no every day that the M‘Intosh has a hanging.”
[9] Tytler,—Fordun by Goodall, Vol. II., Book 13th.
[10] Reg. de Pas., p. 429.
[11] Stewart's History of the Stewarts.
[12] Fordun by Goodall, Vol. II., p. 314.
[13] Ibid. p. 317.
[14] Chalmers' Caledonia, Vol. III., p. 734.—Genealogical History of the Stewarts.