This burning of St. Duthac's chapel was of concern to others besides the unlucky victim and the clergy immediately affected. The white canons of Fearn, whose abbey had been founded near Edderton about two centuries earlier by Earl Ferquhard, had moved before the thirteenth century was out to a site within five miles of the chapel of St. Duthac. This flitting, it has been pointed out, put the sanctuary of Tain between the abbey and the wild Highlanders of Kincardine parish - a wise precaution for an order which combined services in parish churches and manual labour with their own religious observances. Not content with that, the abbot seems to have entrusted his most precious records to the chapel for safe keeping: for a new charter granted in 1467 records that the abbey's foundation charter, the papal bull of confirmation, and other deeds, together with numerous relics, were reduced to ashes with St. Duthac's chapel. It is also sad to think that some of the early documents relating to Tain may have perished at the same time, for the town's oldest charter now extant (1587/8) says that their 'old infeftments and charters were cruelly burnt in a fire caused by certain savage and rebellious Ersch (Gaelic) subjects'.

But the picture cannot have been one of unrelieved gloom, of a sanctuary that was never a safe refuge. Just as the newspapers of our own day give prominence to the exceptional rather than the normal, so we may suppose that many fugitives found safety when they sought it for everyone who suffered by its violation.

One who remained safely in Tain for several years, although accused of treason against James 111 along with the king's brother Albany, was William Lord Crichton. Himself a low­lander, Crichton had family connections in the North: his father (son of James Il's chancellor) was at one time Earl of Moray in right of his wife, who was also heiress of Dunbeath and other lands in Caithness. As a part of a process of for­feiture against him, a macer or messenger summoned him by proclamation at the market crosses of Banff, Elgin, Forres, Nairn and Inverness without getting any certain knowledge of his whereabouts. Someone must have talked, however, for on the last day of 1483 the messenger passed 'to the town of Thane in Ross, where the Lord Creichtoun lived in the vicar's house', and summoned his lordship to appear in parliament at Edinburgh to answer for his treason. Witnesses included a bailie of Tain (William Johnsoun) and of Cromarty, a burgess of Inverness, and Lord Crichton's 'brother and familiar follower' Alexander Sutherland. Failing to appear, he was forfeited and outlawed in his absence; and although parliament knew where he was lodged no further action is recorded ­and it is not known how, when or where he died.

By this time the earldom of Ross had fallen to the crown through the repeated rebellion of its holders, who as Lords of the Isles acted the part of independent sovereigns. Donald of Harlaw had claimed the earldom to which his wife was heiress, and had fought for it against the king's own forces. His son Alexander of the Isles had also rebelled, begged for clemency at Holyrood house, and been reinstated after a spell in Tan­talion castle. In January 1436, as Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, he granted the lands ofScardy, Plaids and others, and the office of 'baillie of the immunity of Tain' to Alexander Mac­Culloch by a charter dated at the castle of Dingwall. The same office - it was to last for more than 300 years - was held in 1458 by John McCulloch, to whom Earl John addressed a letter as 'bailie of the girth of Sanct Duthowis'.

At this time the earl was at peace with King James, but it was not long before he was back at the old intrigues. These reached a peak with the so-called treaty of Ardtornish (or Westminster-Ardtornish) of 1462, by which he promised his own and his followers' allegiance to Edward IV of England and their support in his wars against the Scots. It was some time before this came to light, but Ross was probably involved in its earl's rebellion along with other parts of the North. He was himself at Tain on 12th April 1463, when he put his seal to a charter (the only one known by an Earl of Ross which has Tain as its place of origin) to Donald Corbatt of the lands of Easter Arde. The list of witnesses - Finlay Abbot of Fearn, William Thane of Cawdor, John Munro of Foulis, and even a Maclean from Mull and MacQuarrie of Ulva - suggests that he still had his army, or at any rate his council, around him.

The inevitable eventually happened. Forfeited in 1475, he was later pardoned but forced to surrender the earldom of Ross, which was annexed to the crown and appointed to remain with the king's second son. At Edinburgh in July 1476 John Lord of the Isles put his seal - now showing only the galley with double tressure, no longer quartered with the three lions rampant of Ross - to a terse but comprehensive renuncia­tion of the earldom and the offices of sheriff of Inverness and Nairn, binding himself and his heirs never to offer any impedi­ment or obstacle to the king, his chamberlains, officers, servants and vassals, etc. His father's humiliation in the sanctuary of Holyrood may have been more abject, but it could not have been more complete. As the galley of the Isles sailed back into the Hebridean mists, severing a 200-year­old link with the sanctuary of St. Duthac and the town which was growing up beside it, there were signs that a new epoch was already beginning for the church and community of Tain.

 

Collegiate church

Ross was one of the three northern dioceses of Scotland in the Middle Ages, and, like its neighbours to the north and south - Caithness and Moray - it took its name from the province and not from the town in which its cathedral church was built. From the Hill of Tain, as it happens, you can still see Dornoch Cathedral across the firth, once the heart of the See of Caithness and now largely rebuilt; on a clear day it might almost bave been possible to glimpse the twin towers of the sister church at Elgin, glory of the bishopric of Moray; but the rounded ridge of the Black Isle hides from view the Cathedral Church of Ross, of which enough remains in the burgh of Fortrose to show that it must have been 'an architectural gem of the very first description'.

In the absence of diocesan and cathedral records, we can form a general idea of the diocese of Ross. Tain was one of its 35 parishes, all on the mainland, stretching from Tarbat in the east to Applecross in the west. Under the bishop were four principal dignitaries - the dean, preceptor, chancellor and treasurer - and several lesser ones, and with them a-body of about twenty canons formed the chapter of Ross. Each had for his maintenance an allowance derived from the revenues of some parish church or churches in the diocese (where he was obliged to support a resident vicar), those of Tain and Edderton being enjoyed by the sub-dean. In addition, there were sanc­tuaries protected by the influence of the Church at Applecross and Tain, and two of the religious orders had establishments in the North - a priory of the Valliscaulians at Beauly, and an abbey of the Premonstratensians or White Canons at Fearn.

The reputation of St. Duthac and his sanctuary ensured that Tain would not sink to the level of a forgotten parish, solely dependent on the services of a poorly rewarded vicar. The 'translation' of Duthac's body from Armagh to Tain is re­corded in 1253, showing that Tain was regarded as worthy of honour, and that its sanctity was to be increased. As was only fitting, it long treasured various personal relics of the saint ­cane heid of silver callit sanct Duthois hede', his breast-bone, his shirt (supposed to protect its wearer from death or injury), his cup and his bell.

But an important step in advancing the importance of Tain as an ecclesiastical centre was taken by Robert the Bruce himself. In allowing an amnesty to William Earl of Ross, who had handed John of Atholl over to execution (probably when the Queen was taken), the king expressly stipulated that Ross should 'maintain at his own expense six chaplains to say masses for Earl John at St. Duthac's church'. The English too must have had an inkling of Tain's reputation, for when the next Earl of Ross was killed at Halidon Hill, in spite of wearing the miraculous shirt, they thoughtfully returned it. A member of the great house of Douglas, too, is said to have had the pious intention of leaving one of his robes to be added to the sanc­tuary's vestments, although there is some doubt whether this was ever  carried out.

The records of the day show that Duthac was accorded the title of 'Saint' long before it was formally conferred by the apostolic see. It was Archibald Earl of Douglas who, both by special envoy and by letters, represented to Pope Martin V his suitability for canonisation. This was described as the wish of the entire Scottish people in the humble petition drawn up by James Haldenstone, Prior of St. Andrews, probably soon after visiting Rome in 1418,1 While not wishing to weary His Holi­ness by recounting the candidate's many miracles, enough was said to show the nationwide fame which he had achieved.

Precedent required - as the eloquent prior well knew - that many careful and exact inquiries must be made before a new name was added to the roll of saints; that Duthac's survived the inquisition may be presumed from the fact that it has long been allotted a place in the Roman calendar under the 8th of March. Bishop Elphinstone, whose brief tenure of the See of Ross before he went to Aberdeen is worth remembering, selected nine passages on the life of St. Duthac from Irish and Scottish writings and legends to be recited in his diocese on that day.

Tain took its place among other religious centres in the North when, in 1456, Alexander Sutherland of Dunbeath directed that it should be one of the six places where masses should be said for his soul (the total of 30 successive masses was made up by having 8 in Chanonry, 4 each in Fearn, Tain, Dornoch and Kinloss, and 6 in Orkney). This Caithness laird, who was married to a sister of Alexander Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, evidently had lodgings ('ynnys') of a kind in Tain, where he is on record as leaving three 'kists' full of gear.

A year later came the first sign of devotion by a Stewart monarch to Tain and its saint. At Inverness on 10th October, 1457, James II endowed a chaplaincy in the parish church in honour of the Virgin Mary, the blessed Duthac confessor, and for the souls of his father, his mother and his own queen. The charter, witnessed by John Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, speaks of 'ecclesia collegiata S. Duthaci de Tayne', and directs I hat the chaplain is to celebrate mass daily at the high altar, and at the beginning of each to exhort the people to say a pater noster with a Salutacione Angelica and to be present in the choir at matins, high mass, and vespers in his habit like the other chaplains of the church. For his maintenance the lands of Dunskaith were allocated, and also two merks from the profits of the king's ferry from Cromarty to Nigg.

As the number of its clergy grew, St. Duthac's church at Tain gradually came to have a communal existence. This is made plain by the use, rather prematurely, of the term 'col­legiate', which is also used in referring to a grant by the Earl of Ross before 1468 of a mill and lands - evidently those of Morangie - to support a sacrist. In 1482, James III followed his father's example by endowing a chaplainry at St. Duthac's to say masses for the souls of his father, mother and wife, and gave the lands of Newmore to Thomas Monelaw and his successors as chaplains.

Masses were said for the souls of lesser folk as well as for royal personages. In June 1487 Thomas Ross, sub-dean of the cathedral church, granted to 'the chaplains and deacons' of the church of St. Duthac the lands of Priestown commonly called 'Balnasagyrde', lying within the lands of Tain and near the king's way; sixteen plough oxen and two horses belonging to these lands; and a further 'croft' of land. The first grant was for the welfare of his own soul and those of William Ross of Easter Kindeace, his own mother, and all the faithful departed; the second to pay for one mass for the queen every seventh day on all the Mondays at the altar of St. Marie in the parish church of Tain and after vespers for the safety of the queen; and the third was for the celebration of 'our obit' (or death anniversary) likewise annually at the altar of St. Marie. For performing these duties the clerks were to be paid two shillings in the year, twelve pennies at Pentecost and twelve at St. Martin ..

Finally, the chapel of Saint Duthac of Tayne, bishop, con­fessor, and priest, was erected in 1487 into a collegiate church for a provost, five canons, two deacons or sub-deacons, a sacrist with an assistant clerk, and three singing boys. This was done with the assent of his chapter by Thomas Hay, Bishop of Ross, at the instance of James Ill, for the weal of his soul and of the souls of his predecessors and successors kings of Scotland, and of all who had contributed anything towards the foun­dation, by a charter dated 12th September, which passed the Great Seal on 3rd December.

Many of these collegiate churches were founded in Scotland during the fifteenth century, but they had no connection with education. They were, in fact, incorporated bodies of clergy whose primary function was to sing masses for the souls of the founder (in this case the king himself), his family, friends and heirs in perpetuity. The 'college' was thus basically a glorified chantry, but the service attained a beauty and dignity which was impossible with only one priest. As in cathedrals, the usual daily services were provided, but on a smaller scale.

Although subject to some supervision by his bishop, the provost of a collegiate church was a man with wide powers and responsibilities. In Tain, he was invested with full ecclesiastical authority over all his clergy, and also full jurisdiction over them, their familial's and servitors dwelling in the town of Tain. He could suspend or excommunicate any of them, and he also had the power of excommunication and absolution over the inhabitants of the three 'touns' - Tarlogie, Morangie and Canibuscurrie - within the girth of Tain whose teinds or tithes were granted (by consent of Thomas Ross, the rector of Tain) for maintaining the fabric of the church and repairing its ornaments and books, and the 'toun' of Newmore, recently added to the foundation by the king.

For his own maintenance the provost was given the vicarage of Tain, which he himself continued to hold, and the escheats (fines) of the courts of the town of Tain were also allotted to him.

The five canons or prebendaries, declared the charter, were to be regularly qualified priests, trained in morals, literature and especially singing. They were bound to be present with the other officials at matins, vespers and other canonical hours and masses, in good surplices made at their own expense, and to sing at the mass De Corpore etc. every Thursday. One of the five was to be chosen by the provost to preside in his absence, and to celebrate a private mass daily for the welfare (status) of the king, his ancestors and his successors.

Of the four other canons, one was to rule the choir in singing und to instruct the three choir boys; the two deacons or sub­deacons were to be regularly instructed and sufficiently qualified in singing and in literature; and the sacrist, also trained in singing and literature, was to have under him an assistant with a surplice and becoming dress, who should ring the bell and supply fire and water in the church. The charter laid down exactly how all these were to be maintained, and who was to appoint them. The five canons, for instance, drew their revenues from Newmore, Dunskaith, Tarlogie, Morangie and Cambuscurrie; the two deacons were to have for their main­tenance six merks Scots each from the lands of Invereathie and Tain, and the choir boys were to be paid three merks or forty shillings Scots by John Munro of Foulis, John Merschell of Davochcarty, and the heirs of Andrew Alanesoun and their successors.

All these officials were bound continually to reside in the college, and not to be absent above eight days, or even so long without the licence ofthe provost or his deputy. Should they be longer absent, even in the courts of the king, the bishop or the earl, they would forfeit their offices - not even the pope himself could release them from continual residence. So much weight was attached to this that all had to swear obedience to these statutes, and especially to that relating to residence and the invalidity of any dispensation.

The first Provost of the Collegiate Church was Thomas Monelaw (or Monylawe), who had been chaplain of Newmore in 1482. Two years later, as perpetual vicar of the parish church of Tain and a notary public, he witnessed a charter by John Ross of Balnagown and other 'common citizens and clerks' of Tain. In 1486, while holding the same office, he granted pro­perty in the town to his cousin Donald Monelaw, with a William and John Monelaw among the witnesses. Thomas appears on record as provost a few months before the bishop's charter setting up the collegiate church (when he witnessed the grant by Thomas Ross already referred to), and again in October, 1487, but he was provost for not much longer than three years. His early disappearance from the records gave rise to the erroneous idea that he was dismissed but he actually died in officc in January, 1491; and in recording his death the Kalendar of Fearn (a manuscript found at Dunrobin, and not yet printed in full) shows that he left the collegiate church richer by a silver head of S1. Duthac. Monelaw's successor William Spynie held the office for more than twenty years, and his long provostship is memorable for Pope Innocent VIII's confirmation of the foundation carter of the collegiate church, and for the almost annual pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Duthac by King James IV.

Pope Innocent's bull of 1492 is one of the most treasured possessions of the Royal Burgh of Tain today. It measures only 14 inches by 9, and attached to it (by a silken cord in which red and yellow strands mingle, to show that it contains matter of justice as well as grace) is the original lead seal in perfect condition. The Pope himself could have had little if any part in the transaction, for he died only eight days later after a long and painful illness; but the parchment which carries his name in decorative capitals, 'INNOCENTUS', bears the signature of (and was perhaps prepared by) a man of even greater eminence - Alessandro Farnese, then cardinal-secretary, who later wore the triple crown as Paul Ill, and was the pope who excom­municated Henry VIII of England. The bull, dated at S1. Peter's in Rome on 17th July, 1492, is addressed to William Spynie, provost of the church of the blessed Duthac of Tain, in Ross, on whose behalf the petition had been brought.

Gone now were the days when Tain boasted nothing but a hermit priest living the simple life in the chapel on the knoll whose ruins we know today. The hermit remained, as we learn from Tain's most famous pilgrim, but what had been the simple parish church on the terrace above had blossomed into a grander structure. The nave, with a choir very long in pro­portion, would still be used for parochial purposes, and the chancel would be enlarged to fit in with the church's collegiate status. The sacred relics, much venerated for themselves and also a valuable source of revenue, were kept in the 'revestre' when not in use, had an important place in the liturgy, and were carried in procession in costly reliquaries. There was also a chapter house where the clergy could convene to transact business, and a schoolhouse, but of both all trace has now disappeared. Some of the great walls to be seen nearby - said to be connected with the church by underground passages, and later to raise speculations about a dubious 'castle' ",may have been part of the living quarters for the college clergy and their dependents, who must have formed a considerable community.

James IV came first to Tain as a young man of 21, on the threshold of a life which was to be devoted to solemn expiation (he blamed himself for having been accessory to his father's death five years earlier), culture and gaiety, and the improve­ment of his people's condition, in not unequal parts. Tantalis­ingly brief, but sometimes revealing, the records mention some 18 different visits from the first in October 1493 to the last in August 1513 - the month before he fell at Flodden. Four or five years in the sequence are blank, but it is by no means certain that what had become such a regular event did not take place in them as well.

It was for only a day or two at a time that the king 'lichtit' (alighted) at Tain, but sometimes (as in 1497) there were two visits in the same year, or even three; most of them were in the summer months, but he also made the journey at Easter and in March, October and November. This constant loyalty to St. Duthac's shrine is remarkable, for James also made an annual pilgrimage to Whithorn (at the other end of his king­dom), and frequently visited remote shrines such as that on the Isle of May, as well as looking after the interests of a country which needed a firm and vigilant monarch to rule over it.

There was, perhaps, some pleasure in moving about his kingdom with only a small escort, and beating for a day or two those who pursued him with the business of state. (There is record of only one charter which he granted while at Tain ­a confirmation to Alexander Guthrie of some lands in Angus in 1511.) The king would usually come North by Aberdeen and Elgin - once he made a call at Kingussie - with some time for hunting or other entertainment on the way; then round the head of the firths by Inverness, Beauly and Dingwall, or across the ferries of Ardersier and Cromarty with pious halts at the Chanonry of Ross and Rosemarkie. Extra boats would he needed  for his servants and gear, which on at least two occasions included a portable organ for use at Tain. Within a month of his marriage to Margaret Tudor, offerings were made at Tain for the king and queen, and she rode with him by way of Elgin on his Easter pilgrimage in 1510; but on other occasions he travelled light, rapidly and alone, as in that astonishing journey recorded by a later Bishop of Ross ­those who experienced it may have told him of the royal hustle - when James rode in one day from Stirling through Perth and Aberdeen to Elgin (130 miles), slept on a table in his riding clothes, and after rising at daylight and covering another forty miles in the saddle, reached Tain in time to hear mass at St. Duthac's. On his last visit, according to local tradition, James passed barefoot along the stony track south of the town still known as the King's Causeway.

Just how much money was disbursed during these visits is known from accounts of the royal expenditure. In 1495 they record the first payment of £5 to be paid every half year to a chaplain to say masses for the soul of James III - for the priest (as later entries succinctly put it) 'that singis for the King in Tayne'. In Tain itself the main items were for offerings: there seem to have been five principal 'stances', and in 1506 the king handed out 14 shillings each (this was apparently the regular donation at a religious place) to the 'relics' on arrival, in the 'chappell be est Tayn', to the relics at the revestry, in the 'stok' ofthe town, and on the 'bred'. Then there was 5s. to the hermit at St. Duthac's chapel and to the pardoner with St. Duthac's cup, 4s. to the man that bore St. Duthac's 'cabok' (alb, shirt), 3s. to the man who carried St. Duthac's bell, and 2s. to the poor folk at the gate. In most years there was also even heavier expense in providing further 'relics' (or more probably reli­quaries in which to keep them), when the value of the silver, the craftsman's fee, and the cost of gilding might total as much as £28 4s. For 'a cas of silver to the croce the King offerit to Sanct Duthow', weighing 9t oz., the goldsmith received £6 Os. 3d.; but another item shows that the cost of the precious metal at least might be saved by economical housekeeping, as one relic was made from 'ane of the auld silver platis brokin' containing 23.5- oz.

From entries for 1498 and 1505, it appears that the king of lodged with the vicar of Tain (this was the provost of the collegiate church, William Spynie), and presumably the parish revenues would have to pay for maintaining the royal guest and his household. There are, however, payments for 'extras', which show that all was not solemnity and ceremonial: such as 28s. 'for the King's be1cheir (entertainment) in Tayn', and 14s. to the laird of Balnagown's harper.

 

James V was less the pious pilgrim than his father, and as he was only an infant at the time of Flodden he was at first the pawn of his nobles. Among his early tutors was Sir David Lindsay, poet and herald, who may have told him of his father's devotion to images, such as:

'Sanct ringane, of ane rottin stoke,

Sanct Duthow, borit out of ane bloke,

Sanct Androw, with his croce in hand ... .'

So great a concourse of pilgrims flocked to the shrines of the Scottish saints that even in England verse-makers wrote after Flodden of 'Saint Andrew with his shored croce' and Saint Ninian of 'Quhytehorn'. They even took such liberties with the name of one saint that those who venerated it would hardly recognise Duthac as

'Doffin, their demigod of Ross'.

These were increasingly hard days for the old religion, and there is a link between Easter Ross and the new ideas of Luther and Erasmus in the person of Patrick Hamilton, the first Scottish martyr of the Reformation. At the age of fourteen he received the revenues of the abbey of Fearn to enable him to study on the Continent, where he absorbed the new teachings so eagerly that he must propound them to his countrymen at home. Brought to loggerheads with the archbishop, he was summoned to St. Andrews in 1528 to answer for his faith; and by a strange coincidence, it is said that the clergy persuaded the young king to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Duthac so that he could not attempt to save the Abbot of Fearn from the stake. It is certainly suggestive that Hamilton should have suffered on 29th February, and that James should be 'in the north country' in that month and had just returned from 'the extreme parts of his realm' a bare month after the 'reek' of Master Patrick Hamilton had begun to 'infect as many as it blew upon'. It is certain that James was in Tain at Easter 1534, when Ross Herald passed to London 'with writingis to the ambassatouris' and returned to St. Duthac's with answers to the King's grace; more than a year later a silver 'relic' of the saint, weighing 36 oz. and costing £5 to make and £7 to gild, was delivered to the king, and later 3s. was spent on two ells of canvas, presumably for wrapping it up.

By this time old William Spynie had gone to his rest, and Donald Munro (whose nephew and namesake wrote an account of the Western Isles) was provost of the collegiate kirk. The rapid line-up for that office - five presentees are named within just over three years - suggests unsettled times; the last of them (John Thornton) is on record in 1544 as enjoying a rather unhandy plurality by being also precentor of Moray. With his approval, Nicholas Ross feued the lands of his chaplainry of Dunskaith and the profits of the queen's ferry at Cromarty to his son Nicholas (recently legitimated), or to his three other natural sons in succession, and they might also build a 'sufficient house and other necessary policies'. About the same time, the chaplain of Newmore (John Bisset), with con­sent of the queen and the bishop, gave a feu charter of his church lands to a neighbouring laird.

Grave abuses were freely admitted to exist in the Scottish church at this time, but the difficulty was to find a method of removing them. The clergy who saw the writing on the wall would naturally be anxious to ensure that they and their families were not ulJ.provided for, if the opportunities on which they had been able to count became closed to them. In this atmosphere of clerical immorality, plurality of offices, and appropriation of church lands, Nicholas Ross the younger was appointed provost of the collegiate church of Tain in March 1548/9, and the scene was set for the last decade of the old order and its final disappearance.

This is not the place to recount in detail the progress  the Reformation in Scotland, but its impact on Tain can be gauged by three events which quickly followed each other in the year 1560. On 16th June, the queen regent's presentee to the vacant chaplainry of Newmore (a younger son of Munro of Foulis) was given possession through a procurator at the church in which it was founded 'by touching or delivery of the iron ring of the north door as also of the south door of said collegiate church'. Just a month later, Alexander Ross of Balnagown received from his 'speciale friend' Nicholas Ross, commendator of Fearn and provost of Tain, 'ane hede of silver callit sanct Duthois hede his chast blede [breast-bone] in gold and his ferthyr [case, or portable shrine] in silver gyIt with gold', and bound himself under a penalty of 2,000 merks that these relics 'sal be furcht cum and to the said provest and college of Tayne and all uthers heffand entres [having interest] thairto by just titill'. One month later again, in mid-August, 'Nicholas of Ferne' sat among the representatives of the three estates of the realm in the 'Reformation Parliament' at Edin­burgh, and voted with the majority (along with Robert Munro of Foulis) for accepting the reformed Confession of Faith, and forbidding the saying of mass and the exercise of all authority derived from Rome.

This brought to an end the activities for which the collegiate church existed. Its ceremonial ceased, and its relics, no longer venerated, were in the hands of strangers; but the structure survived, even if stripped of its finery, and the clergy were allowed to enjoy the fruits of their benefices, all but one-third which was to be devoted to augmenting the crown revenues and paying stipends to the Reformed clergy. The bishop of Ross (Henry Sinclair and his successor John Leslie the historian) adhered to the old church, but among those who went with the Reformers were the archdeacon, chancellor and treasurer of the diocese.

Many of the collegiate churches became parish churches, and presentations to prebends and chaplainries in some of them continued. An Act of 1567 ordained that patrons might grant benefices as bursaries to students at the universities.  Nicholas Ross retained the offices of provost and vicar of Tain until May 1567, and he died in September 1569; on his demission the parson of Alness, Thomas Ross, was appointed to hold the benefice and provostry as he would have done 'of auld before the alteratioun of the stait of religioun'. Up to 1587, when church lands were appropriated to the crown by Act of Parliament, the revenues of Newmore, Morangie, Tarlogie, Cambuscurrie and Dunskaith were granted regulary to boys for their support 'at the scule', and even for studies at Edinburgh and Cambridge.

And so, with more gradualness and less violence than is generally associated with the Reformation in Scotland, the old system of religious observance and ecclesiastical privilege changed its form or vanished entirely. But the town of Tain, which had grown up and found recognition under its shadow, remained and continued to develop.

 

 

Market Cross

BURGHS as we know them in Scotland today have an ancient origin, and the privileges of exclusive trade and commerce for which they came into existence reach back into the years before such matters were recorded in detail. Some of the earlier burghs still possess their foundation charters, however, or at least can point to authentic evidence of their granting; others have later charters which say specifically that they are renewing a right or confirming a position already granted by royal or noble authority; others again can show that they bore the burdens and responsibilities of burghal status before their rights to it can be established by anything stronger than tra­dition; while of some it must be presumed, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, that like Topsy they just 'growed'.

These varied origins are illustrated, to some extent at least, in the story of Tain and the other Ross-shire burghs. Dingwall had a charter of erection from Alexander II in 122617, according to a later confirmation; Cromarty makes its first appearance as a burgh in 1264; there are some grounds for placing the existence of Rosemarkie also as a burgh in the thirteenth century; but the latest expert opinion admits that Tain's origin as a burgh 'presents unanswerable questions'. It is not denied, however, that its eminence as a sanctuary and place of pilgrimage dates from much earlier than any recorded reference to it as a burgh, and in fact it attracted to itself from an early date trading privileges comparable to those given to the great abbeys of the south.

Our only evidence for the trading rights conferred on the liberty or immunitas of Tain by Ma1colm Canmore (who reigned from 1058 to 1093), and confirmed by his royal sucessors is the report of an inquiry or inquest which sat at Tain on 22^nd April 1439.  Reference has already been made to their findings , but as the original document is missing , and there is no other bearing on this event , it is not now possible to learn the reason for such an inquiry.  In the copy which has come down to us , this testimony is regarding the ancient origin and trading privileges of Tain is said to bear the seal of Alexander Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, the King’s Justiciar north of the Forth; and the sederunt at Tain’s first recorded meeting  contains a formidable list of names, some recognizable as those of known individuals , and others  which recur often in the History of Easter Ross.  Just three years earlier for instamce the Earl had appointed Alexander MacCullochh as his deputy with the title of 'Bailie of the Immunity of Tain', and this family held the office and the lands of Plaids for some 136 years, first under the earls and then direct from the king.

Tain's growing importance is reflected in another document, known through an official copy made from the original for the Lords of Council by the Clerk Register in 1564. It is a charter  by the king himself, James 11, dated at Inverness on 12th October, 1457; Tain must have been much in his mind just then, for only two days earlier he had endowed a chaplaincy in its parish church. It has been translated as follows:-

Know that we for the praise and honour of God Omni­potent and of St. Duthac have approved ratified and by this our present charter have confirmed the infeft· ments donations and concessions made and granted in times past by our predecessors Kings of Scots to the said St. Duthac and to his collegiate church of Tain and those inhabiting the town itself with the immunity granted them within the four corner crosses placed around the limits of the bounds of Tain and all liberties and privileges whatsoever hitherto granted them by our said predecessors as freely quietly fully wholly honourably well and in peace as the chaplains clerics and inhabitants possessed and enjoyed the said immunity and liberties and privileges foresaid

 but he added a cautious rider that the confirmation must not prejudice the burgesses of Inverness or interfere with their privileges. There, of course, was the rub, for Inverness was the emporium of the Highlands; it had been a royal burgh for some 300 years, and had four charters from William the Lion conveying important and exclusive economic privileges over a wide area. The interests of the two were bound to clash, and in spite of the express reservation the people of Inverness seem to have taken alarm. They appealed to the king or his advisers to prevent any encroachment on their rights, and ten days later - after lames had returned south - a royal letter made it abundantly clear that anything which Tain might gain was not to be at the expense of Inverness.

That this was more than a tiff between two burghs is shown by the fact that the Earl of Ross - grandson of that Donald of Harlaw who had given Inverness to the flames only 50 years before - seconded the royal wishes. He wrote in 1458 ordering his bailie of the girth of St. Duthac, lohn MacCulloch, and the inhabitants of Tain to help and defend their neighbours of Inverness and to allow no impediment to be made to them in carrying on trade as authorised by the king.

The not unnatural jealousy shown by the magistrates of Inverness was to keep the northern towns at loggerheads for another century and a half, simply because privileges were granted to each which must lead to conflict. The trouble came to a head again at the end of 1493, when lames IV was in Inverness a month after his first recorded visit to St. Duthac's shrine. He was told - and perhaps he may have seen for himself - that customable goods from Ross, Sutherland and Caithness which should have been brought before the royal customs officers and searchers at Inverness, and there paid the proper duties, had 'of long time byegone' gone instead 'to the burgh (sic) of Tain', where the duties had been collected by 'the bailies and community' and withheld by them to the prejudice of both the royal treasury and the burgh of Inverness.

The king and council determined that this should stop, or they would know the reason why. The people of Tain and the northern shires must in future bring their merchandise to the market of Inverness as their principal market, under the pain of forfeiting them, 'unto the time that they show if they have privileges or freedoms to the contrary of old'. It is not unlikely that the Inverness magistrates advised the king - as they were to do later with less reason - that Tain had no such authority to produce. Acting on this order, which was signed in the king's name on 12th November, the local sheriff made it known in Tain, probably by proclamation, in presence of Angus MacCulloch of Plaids and three bailies of the town.

Any effect this may have had was apparently short-lived, for the burgh of Inverness maintained vigorous legal pro­ceedings between 1499 and 1501 against Tain, and also against Dingwall. Fourteen inhabitants of Tain were summoned to appear before the king and his council at Inverness, and after several hearings, the Tain men were ordered to desist from the trading objected to, unless they could produce their authority. [n July 1501, the council continued the case with the consent of both parties 'in the hope of concord' till the next justice aire at  Elgin.