Note 213 — Chapter II

In 1526, ‘the poore ministers, exhorters, and readers, compleaned at church assembleis, that neither were they able to live upon the stipends allowed, nor gett payment of that small portioun which was allowed.’ Calderwood's History of the Kirk, vol. ii. p. 172. Compare Acts of the General Assemblies, 1839, 4to, vol. i. p. 53; ‘To requyre payment to ministers of there stipends for the tyme by past, according to the promise made.’ This was in December 1564. In December 1565, the General Assembly said (p. 71), ‘that wher oft and divers tymes promise hes bein made to us, that our saids brethren, travelers and preachers in the Kirk of God, sould not be defraudit of their appointit stipends, neither zet in any wayes sould be molestit in their functioun; zet nottheless universallie they want ther stipends appointit for diverse tymes by past.’ On the state of things in 1566, see ‘The Supplication of the Ministers to the Queen,’ in Knox's History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 529. See also, in the Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. iv. pp. 92–101, Aberdeen, 1849, 4to, a letter written by John Erskine in December 1571, especially p. 97; ‘the gretest of the nobilitie haifing gretest rentis in possessione, and plaicet of God in maist hie honouris, ceasis nocht, maist wiolentlie blindit with awarice, to spoilye and draw to thame selfis the possessiones of the Kirk.’