Chapter XII: Royal Patronage,
1373-1405
The Abbot gladly obeyed the command of his patron not to pay the pension, but Sir William More of Abercorne, who had succeeded his father, was not disposed to yield ready acquiescence. He made a raid upon the churchmen. He plundered the lands of the Monastery, and lifted the cattle of the Monks. He even ventured wrathfully into the sacred precincts of the Abbey, and generally behaved himself in a very violent manner. He was clearly a dangerous man, and determined to get his rights by force if necessary. The Abbot in 1368 applied to the conservators of the privileges of his Order in Scotland for protection, and in his application he gives a pitiful account of the doings of lawless Sir William of Abercorne. “He had injured them again and again, [7] entering their Monastery against their will, breaking their doors and windows, striking their men and servants who resisted him, wounding a man within the village [8] of Passley, going with his followers to their church lands in various places, beating their men, and spoiling and robbing them of their goods.” [9] He was duly summoned by the Church authorities to appear before them, and answer for his doings ; but they do not seem to have been able to bring him into subjection. It was in the time of Abbot John, in 1373, that the whole matter was finally compromised. Robert the Stewart was now King, but his son, John, who took the title of Stewart, was as interested in the affairs of the Abbey as any of his family had been. He appears to have mediated between the determined Sir William and his refractory creditors at Paisley. He and William, Count of Douglas, Hugh of Eglynton, Sir Adam Stewart, John of Carrie, Canon of Glasgow and Chancellor of Scotland, and William de Dalgarnoc, Canon of Dunkeld, Adam Forester, Alderman of Edinburgh, and Alan de Lawedre, met together at Edinburgh in the chapel of St. Katherine, in the Church of St. Giles, [10] and there they settled for ever the vexed question of the forty merks. The agreement [11] is a long one, and there is no need to give it in detail. The Convent were to pay the Lord of Abercorne three hundred merks sterling in three different instalments, and to restore him all his lands which they had received from Robert the Stewart ; on the other hand, Sir William was to give them all the documents by which he claimed the pension, and become bound that the canons and nuns of Sempringham should never make any charge against the brethren of Paisley in all time coming. It must have taxed all the revenues of Abbot John to raise this large sum, especially with the work which he had in hand in the rebuilding of the Monastery ; but he had many friends to help him, and it must have been with no small satisfaction that he saw this vexatious burden for ever removed. In 1380, King Robert II [12] gave him a token of his good will by erecting into a barony all the Abbey lands of Lennox, with all the privileges which a barony usually possessed, assigning as the reason for this favour, that the Monastery had been founded by Walter son of Alan, Stewart of Scotland, of beloved memory, and liberally endowed by him and other of his ancestors, as well as by various other faithful Christians. In return for his concessions, the King asks the offering of their earnest prayers, and the only condition which he attaches to it is that they should continue to pay, as hitherto, five chalders of oatmeal to the watchmen of the Castle of Dunbarton. He reserves also the “points” of the Crown.
[7] Reg. de Pas., p. 40.
[8] Villam.
[9] The valiant Lord of Abercorn, ancestor of the present family of Caldwell, was aided and abetted by his brother Gilchrist and a certain John, son of John, burgess of Linlithgow.—Reg. de Pas., p. 41.
[10] Sancti Egidii de Edynburg.—Reg. de Pas., p. 46.
[11] Reg. de Pas., p. 43.
[12] Reg. de Pas., p. 208.