Archbishop of Glasgow

“ The triduo, or three days' celebrations in honour of the centenary of Bishop Hay, had been fixed for September 12-14; and we entertained more than seventy guests in the abbey for the occasion. All the Scottish bishops, except the aged Archbishop of Glasgow, were present, besides Bishop Hedley, Abbot Gasquet, Monsignors, canons, heads of religious orders, priests and devout laymen, including {215} Lovat and his brother Alastair. The weather was perfect throughout the week ”

“ Seven, wholly women, ‘refused to conform to the religion presently professed within the kingdom; in respect whereof, the Lords ordains them to be committed to ward within the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, therein to remain upon their awn expenses till they be freed and relieved by the said Lords.’ Five days after, the whole were committed to the hands of Patrick, Archbishop of Glasgow, to be dealt with as he might think fit.’—P. C. R. ”

“ They carried conviction to the minds of many, and gradually ripened opinion [Pg 264] to demand the right to do publicly what many had learned to do secretly—to study the Word of God, and especially the New Testament, in their native tongue. This right was authorised by an Act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 1543, [306] when Cardinal Betoun was in disgrace, and the Archbishop of Glasgow was left alone to protest against it. ”

“ Andrews in 1611 by the archbishop of Glasgow and the bishops of Galloway and Brechin. He supported the cause of the people of Orkney against the oppression of Earl Patrick Stewart, and succeeded in getting the lands and jurisdiction of the bishopric separated from those of the earldom. Through the influence of Archbishop Spottiswood, 'his old companion at football and condiscipulus,' he was promoted to the archbishopric of Glasgow in 1615, where he completed the leaden roof of the cathedral. ”

“ Ecclesiastical matters do not seem to have much disturbed the thoughtless “joyeosity” of this outrageous crew till they came to Glasgow, when Fairfoul entered a grievous complaint to Middleton, that, notwithstanding the acts of parliament and the time that had elapsed, not one of the younger ministers who had entered the church since 1649, had acknowledged him as archbishop—that he had incurred all the hatred attached to his office without obtaining any of the power; and, unless his Grace could devise some method for securing obedience, a bishop would be merely a cipher in the state. ”

“ After the serious discussing of the several Processes, in many Sessions, from Sess. 14. (which are in the Clerks hands, and needeth not here to be insert) the following sentences were solemnly pronounced after Sermon by the Moderatour, in the Assembly of Glasgow, Sess. 20 December 13, 1638.
Sentence of deposition and excommunication against Mr. John Spottiswood, pretended Archbishop of St. Andrews; Mr. Patrik Lindsay, pretended Archbishop of Glasgow: Mr. David Lindsay, pretended Bishop of Edinburgh: Mr. Thomas Sidserfe, pretended Bishop of Galloway: Mr. ”

“ The slightest suspicion of being papistically inclined was sure to bring any one to trouble. One David Calderwood in Glasgow being found in possession of a copy of Archbishop Hamilton’s popish catechism, the presbytery sent a minister ‘to try and find of the said David’s religion.’ Another citizen of Glasgow was taken to task, on a charge of having, in the way of his profession as a painter, painted crucifixes in sundry houses. ”

“ Andrew's and Primate of Scotland was the brother of the Earl of Arran. Though a convinced Catholic himself, he was not the man either to make a struggle or to inspire confidence at such a crisis. Archbishop Beaton of Glasgow had fled already from the kingdom; the Bishop of Argyll, another illegitimate scion of the house of Hamilton, was a Protestant or was soon to become one; Adam Bothwell, [19] whom the Pope had appointed the previous year to the See of Orkney on the petition of the king and queen of Scotland, could not be trusted, as his subsequent conduct showed ”

“ He was rector of Peebles and archdeacon of Glasgow, and in 1151 was made by King David chancellor of Scotland, an office in which he was continued by Malcolm IV. In 1159 he defended the Scottish church at the council of Norham in opposition to the pretensions of Archbishop Roger of York, and afterwards went on a mission to the Roman curia with the same object. In 1164 he was elected bishop of Glasgow, and was consecrated by Pope Alexander III at Sens on 28 Oct., despite the opposition of Roger's envoys. In 1173 he opposed the war with England. ”

“ Bishop Mitchell of Aberdeen, who was succeeded by Burnet; Sydeserf, who was succeeded in the bishopric of Orkney by Mr Andrew Honeyman, formerly minister of St Andrews; and Archbishop Fairfoul of Glasgow, who was succeeded in the arch-episcopate by Bishop Burnet of Aberdeen, Dr Scougall being appointed to that see.
112 [1664.] Even this symptom, small as it was, of moderation, was not at all agreeable to the prelates. Like all upstarts, suddenly raised beyond their expectations, their arrogance became insupportable, and could brook no opposition. ”

“ In this bull the church is said to contain the following episcopal sees—viz., St. Andrews, Glasgow, Dunkeld, Dunblane, Brechin, Aberdeen, Moray, Ross and Caithness, that is, nine of the bishoprics mentioned in the previous bull—that of Candida Casa, or Whithern, remaining subject to the archbishop of York; and these nine bishoprics are obviously the episcopal sees referred to by Ailred of Rivaux, when he states that King David found at his accession only three or four bishops, and founded or restored so many as to leave nine at his death. ”

“ Entering the Church he gained the favour of James VI., and was his chief instrument in his endeavours to restore Episcopal church-government in Scotland. He became Archbishop successively of Glasgow and St. ”

“ In this document, which has been preserved, and which may be placed in the year 1120 or 1121, its framers relate the foundation of the church of Glasgow by St. Kentigern, and that he was succeeded by several bishops in the see; but that the confusion and revolutions of the country at length destroyed all traces of the church, and almost of Christianity, till the restoration of the bishopric by Earl David, and the election and consecration of John, who had been his tutor, and is commonly called the first bishop of Glasgow. ”

“ At this time an ancient controversy between the Archbishops of St Andrews and of Glasgow, touching their respective jurisdictions, had been resuscitated with great acrimony, and in the debates concerning the same the Glasgow people took a deep interest, for they are stouthearted and of an adventurous spirit, and cannot abide to think that they or their town should, in anything of public honour, be deemed either slack or second to the foremost in the realm, and none of all the worthy burgesses thereof thought more proudly of the superiority and renown of their city than did Deacon Sword. ”

“ From time immemorial that has been the motto of this stately city, now the second in size in Great Britain, numbering some nine hundred thousand souls. It should, therefore, be no surprise that there are two hundred and seventy-five Presbyterian churches here. "Glasgow is the largest Presbyterian city in the world, whether it be measured by the number of churches, of communicants, or of aggressive work done in the cause of Christ." It was in Glasgow that the first missionary [Pg 114] society, to send the gospel to the heathen world, was formed in Scotland. ”

“ On 29 Jan. 1688 he preached a thanksgiving sermon at Edinburgh for the queen's being with child, in which he mentioned that she often spent six hours at a time on her knees in prayer. At the Revolution he, with the majority of the bishops, adhered to James II. At the meeting of the estates in April 1689, when nine bishops were present, of whom seven were against declaring the throne vacant, ‘the Bishop of Glasgow made a long discourse of passive obedience’ (ib. 12th Rep. App. vii. p. 237) . ”

“ A minister in that archipelago, being one Saturday detained from crossing a ferry to preach next day, was induced to break the Sabbath in order to fulfil his engagement, for which, as ‘scandalous,’ the presbytery processed him. It ‘shews they are stricter there in discipline than we are.’ On the other hand, the College lads at Glasgow, excited by the process of the presbytery and synod against the liberal Professor Simson, went the length of writing a play taking off the city clergy. ‘Matters are come to a sad pass when people begin openly to mock and ridicule gospel ministers ”

“ While the Bishop’s Castle was the centre of ecclesiastical influence, the first extension of Glasgow was due to the erection of manses for the minor officials of the Cathedral. To any one acquainted with the topography of Glasgow, the city may be thus “skeletonised” to show the manner of its evolution. The Cathedral stands on an eminence rising gradually from the north bank of the Clyde, and is distant about a mile from the river. ”

“ It is a grave error to attribute, as some have done, to the Protestant pastors of Scotland an incomprehensible domination, ‘an authority nowise inferior to that which they had exercised as Catholic priests,’ and to represent them as ‘the most effectual obstacle to popular progress.’ [372] Nothing has in fact been less like the haughty Catholic prelates of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and other dioceses, than a Scottish minister. ”

“ The Kings and Princes who contributed towards the cost of the structure, the Bishops who added various portions to the building at long intervals, and the Archbishops who consecrated these additions are all carefully recorded; but the architects from whose fertile [Pg 71] brains the ideas sprang, and the workmen who laboriously realised their dreams, are alike unknown.
The Cathedral of Glasgow took its origin from a cella erected on the bank of the Molendinar Burn, by the pious St. Kentigern. ”

“ Although there were from 12,000 to 15,000 young men and women arriving in Glasgow every year at an age when they should become members of some church, the Establishment was getting barely sufficient from that multitude to maintain its old numbers. He was afraid, he added, that a great many had not the chance of joining any church, as none of the churches were increasing in proportion to the population of the city; and that, therefore, they would go on to swell the ranks of heathenism and materialism. ”

“ Mungo's early church, of wood and wattles or of stone, on the banks of the Molendinar, is shrouded in the mists of antiquity until the first quarter of the twelfth century, when David, Prince and Earl of Cumbria, the youngest son of Queen Margaret, took measures to reconstruct the see and recover its property. Of Glasgow during the Culdee period nothing can be definitely known. ”

“ The east wall and gable of both choirs occupy the same relative position, rising above the eastern aisle and chapels. Churches with an eastern aisle are not unknown in England, such as Abbey Dore, Herefordshire, and Romsey Abbey, Hampshire; but the former has three openings in the east end, thus showing an arch in the centre; while Romsey Church, Glasgow Cathedral, and Rosslyn Church have the peculiarity of having a pillar in the centre of the east arcade. ”

“ The existing buildings consist chiefly of the remains of the church—an aisleless choir N. and S. transepts with eastern aisles, and square tower. There is no nave. The monastic buildings consist of the sacristy, or St. Mary's aisle, the chapter-house, the slype, and monks' hall—the whole forming the E. side of the cloisters. To the S.E. of cloister garth is probably the prior's house. The oldest parts are transepts with eastern aisles, built doubtless soon after the foundation. Glasgow Cathedral (p. 22) . Brechin Cathedral (p. 44) . ”

“ He and the congregation which he had succeeded in forming were transferred in May 1862 to the more permanent structure that had been erected in Walker street by the joint efforts of the Deacons' Courts of First Church and Knox Church. Here Mr Glasgow did valuable work as long as the state of his health permitted, but he was called away from his earthly labours in March 1863, at the early age of forty-eight. ”

“ Each of the provinces that were originally independent must, at one time, have possessed its own monastery and bishop; but as the district kings sunk under the dominion of the supreme sovereign, the bishops either disappeared altogether, or became subordinate to, and dependant on, the Bishop of St. Andrews; so that only three or, at most, four sees existed in Scotland when David ascended the throne. [359] One of these must have been the bishopric of Glasgow, created, or revived, by the king during the lifetime of his predecessor Alexander ”

“ Upon the bishops’ arrival, it was deemed necessary to make an example of some of the most steadfast and distinguished Presbyterians in the west, as that part of the country had ever been remarkable for attachment to their profession. The Chancellor was, in consequence, directed to require the attendance of such ministers as he thought fit; and, by the suggestion of the prelates, wrote to Messrs John Carstair, Glasgow; James Nasmyth, Hamilton; Matthew Mowat and James Rowat, Kilmarnock; Alexander Blair, Galston; James Veitch, Mauchline ”

“ He exerted himself in the following years, together with the other Scottish bishops, in endeavouring to obtain grants from the government for relief of poor clergymen, as well as some allowance for themselves out of the revenues of their sees. It was the queen's intention that such grants should be made, but it was not carried into real effect, except with regard to Bishop Alexander Ross [q. v.] of Edinburgh and Paterson himself. On 7 Dec. 1704 Paterson and Bishop Rose, with others, accredited Dr. Robert Scot, dean of Glasgow, as an agent to make collections in England. ”