The Tron Kirk; Kirk. was destroyed by fire in the year 1793, when the church, now called the Tron, or Saint Mary's, was built on the same site, distant by a few yards from the tower and spire which had been erected beside Our Lady College about the year 1637.' to pay to the toun thesaurer 80 merks yearly for a Sangster, Mr Weemes reports that Mr John Bell hath obtained a gift from the toun of the duties of the New Kirk, upon which the session engages for the said 80 merks. "From the Reformation till 1592, there seems only to have been preaching in the High Church or Cathedrall. Then there is mention of the New Kirk, now the Trone or Laigh Kirk. A Reader is spoken of in the records, 15 June, 1592. The first collection recorded to be made at it, is on 31 October, 1594; and then,as I take it, Mr John Bell began to preach in it. And after that, the records afterwards still mention two collections. There is mention of the steeple of the New Kirk, on 21 December, 1598; and a meeting in the bell-house there, on 9 May, 1650. "14 February, 1599. The session appoints as much cloath of green to be bought as will cover the pulpit of the New Kirk, with fringes and other things needfull. "11 December, 1595. The Bible in the New Kirk that the Reader reads on, is declared to belong to the kirk and session. "18 March, 1602. The session order that Prayers be in the High Kirk and New Kirk as they were accustomed to have been. "13 July, 1613. That Prayers be every Wednesday morning in the Tronegate Kirk. "5 Aprile, 1621. The session appoints the New Kirk door to be opened at five hours in the morning, and closed at nine at night, for the summer half year; and, for the winter, from seven in the morning till five in the evening. This (like the Old Kirk at Edinburgh) was for particular persons praying in the Kirk. "13 November, 1645. The session appoints two dayes catechizing in the week, Munday and Friday, at half eight in the morning in the New Kirk. “26 May, 1631. The session appoints, with the consent of the magistrates, that partys to be proclaimed shall come on Sundays night after the evening prayer, to the New Kirk, there to be booked, and a minister and some elders to wait on for that purpose." The "Memorabilia of the City of Glasgow" supply the following notice: “25 March, 1665. The same day the beddelship of the Laigh Kirk in Trongait, is conferred wpon and given to James Smith merchand; and he is not onlie to be carfull anent the ringing of the belles, but also he is to walk throw the kirk in tyme of divyne service, with ane whyt staff in his hand, as wont to be of old, for the crubbing of bairnes and wthirs that maks disturbance in the kirk, and for impeiding of all abuses therin," (p. 256.). 1 M'Ure says that after the Reformation "the fabrick of the church decayed, and in a manner ii. The Muniments of the Friars The second place in the volume is occupied by THE CHARTERS OF THE FRIARS PREACHERS OF GLASGOW, of the rule of Saint Dominic, often styled also THE BLACK FRIARS, from the colour of their habit. At the Preachers. Reformation, the muniments of this Convent, together with the greater portion of the conventual buildings and property, passed to the neighbouring University; and from its archives they are now printed, with the addition of one or two deeds, copies of which have been preserved elsewhere.' The institute of the Preaching Brethren, founded about the year Rise of the Order. 1205, and formally approved by the Apostolic See in the year 1216, spread itself throughout Western Christendom with unexampled speed. It appealed to the favour of the multitude not less by its zeal, learning, and devotion, and its stern self-denial in renouncing all worldly possessions, trusting wholly for support to the voluntary alms of the faithful, than by the vehemence with which its members inveighed against the clergy of the church, and all other religious societies, by the confidence with which they boasted themselves the only ministers who proclaimed "the gospel," and by the enthusiastic eloquence and flattering doctrine of their sermons, which, delivered in the fields and on the streets and by the waysides, were went to ruin, till the community repaired it in the year 1592; and as the city increased in trade and inhabitants, they enlarged the church, and added many different isles to it towards the high street, all of ashler work, and built a handsome steeple or spear before it, but not adjoining to the church, in the year 1637. At the bottom of the steeple there is a trone, or a place for weighing of goods." (View of the City of Glasgow, p. 59.). 2 One or two of the muniments, unfortunately, appear to have been lost at some time after they came into the keeping of the University. "The Inventar of the euidentis lettres gudis and geir e perteining to the college of Glasgow the viij day Dominican Convents in Scotland. filled with such devices as never fail, in any age, to gain the many "who will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned unto fables."3 Hence it was that both the Dominicans and their rivals, the other great Mendicant Order which took its name from Saint Francis, rose so suddenly in the popular affection and esteem, that, in the words of Matthew Paris, himself a Benedictine, "the Monks did not, in three or four hundred years, ascend to such a height of greatness as the Friars, Minors and Preachers, within twenty-four years after they began to build their first house in England." The progress of the Preaching Friars in the northern region of the island, was scarcely less rapid. They found a munificent patron in the writ; with sum vthir new rentallis, and Freir 3 II. Timothy, iv. 3, 4. "Saint Dominic's character as a preacher," says "Christ said not to the convent of His twelve, gave them truth to build on; and the sound Lond. 1841.). The kind of parallel which the prebendary of York suggests, has been traced at great length by Bishop Lavington of Exeter, in a work which enjoyed no small popularity during the last century, and has been reprinted within these thirty years. The late Poet Laureate has left an expression of his regret that in the reformed Anglican communion "no attempt was made to substitute something for the Mendicant Orders, and to incorporate an auxiliary force for the service of the national church: perhaps if this had been done, the Puritans would never have set these kingdoms in a flame; certainly, Wesley and Whitefield would, like Francis and Dominic, have found their place, and Methodism would have kept within the bounds to which the founders, notwithstanding their sincere wish, were not able to confine it." (The Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. no. xliii., p. 90. July 1819.). Mr Southey has claimed as his own the paper in which this pas sage occurs, by a note in his Book of the Church, p. 183. edit. Lond. 1837. 4 Mathaei Paris Historia Major, p. 541. edit. Lond. 1684. Cf. p. 607. land. King of the Scots, Alexander II. A tradition of the sixteenth century bore that the youthful descendant of Saint Margaret and Saint David, while at Paris, about the year 1217, beheld the renowned Founder of the Order himself, and besought of him that he would send some brethren of his rule into Scotland. The Saint is said to have complied with the 5" Anno Domini MCCxxx. ingrediuntur primo Scotiam Fratres Jacobini, quos allexit Alexander rex; et in magna teneritudine tanquam patronus, vel procurator singularis, eis astitit, loca designavit, ornavit, et fundavit." (Joannis Forduni Scotichronicon, lib. ix. cap. xlvii., vol. ii. p. 58. edit. Edinb. 1759.). "Fratres ordinis Predicatorum primo intrant Scociam, et honorifice suscepti sunt ab Alexandro rege, locis per eum datis et ordini ornatis, anno Domini m° ii xxx." (Extracta e Variis Cronicis Scocie, p. 93. Edinb. 1842.). The Friars Preachers are commonly supposed to have received the style of Jacobins in France and Italy, from the name of their chief convent in Paris, which was originally an Hospital for the reception of Pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Saint James at Compostella. But a different, and perhaps a more probable, account of the origin of the appellation may be seen in Matthew Paris, (Historia Major, p. 161.). Clement, bishop of The order is said to have been brought to Dunblane, the first Scotland by Friar Clement, who had himself Dominican in Scot- received the habit at the hands of Saint Dominic, and was elected Bishop of Dunblane in the year 1233. (D. Camerarii De Scotorvm Fortitvdine, p. 118.). It is at least certain that the Bishop was a brother of the order. (Chronica de Mailros, p. 143. Edinb. 1835.). John of Fordun gives him high praise: "Anno Domini MCCLVI. obiit egregius praedicator de ordine Praedicatorum Clemens episcopus Dumblanensis, variarum linguarum interpres eloquentissimus; vir potens sermone et opere coram Deo et hominibus: qui etiam episcopatus sui cathedralem, praedecessorum suorum incuria, invenit aporiatam in tantum, ut in ea, tanquam in rurali capella, vix in hebdomada ter divina celebrarentur: quam in insigne sanctuarium construxit, terris et possessionibus ditavit, praebendis et canonicis exaltavit." (Joannis Forduni Scotichronicon, lib. x. cap. xi., vol. ii. p. 92.). 6" Aliquot annis quam haec gesta sunt aduenerunt in Scotiam viri sanctitate clari a Diuo Dominico missi. Nam ferunt Alexandrum, cum in Galliam ad Philippum ad redintegranda antiqua foedera venisset, forte etiam Dominicum conuen. isse, multumque precatum vt, ex iis quos ipse secum habebat, sanctos quosdam viros in Scotiam ad erudiendum populum mitteret: quod vbi factum est, maximo apud Alexandrum honore habiti sunt, aedesque vbi agerent aut suppeditatae sunt aut nouae aedificatae. Itaque ij viri vt qui a sanctissimo viro instituti erant, sanctam omnino vitam exegere. Caeterum vti fere (vnde comparatum sit nescio) omnes res ab optimis initiis in deteriora prolabi videmus, defunctis illis sensim ab exacta illa vita in omnem prope luxum plurimi eorum qui successerunt declinauerunt. Itaque pene trecentos annos a pristina religione prolapsos, Ioannes Adam aetate nostra vir et pietate et eruditione insignis, qui primus Aberdoniae theologiae lauream nobiscum accepit, in pristinum eos vitae statum relictis vitiis redegit." (H. Boethii Scotorvm Hist., lib. xiii. foll. 283, 284. edit. Paris. 1575.). "Alexandrum II.," says a writer of the subsequent century (a Scotish ecclesiastic whose elevation to the purple, a premature death alone prevented), “duae Christiano Principe dignae exornant virtutes, iustitia et pietas. Iustitia maxime The Place of the Friars Preachers in Glasgow. Monarch's wish it seems at least certain that the King, who died within fifteen years after the canonization of Saint Dominic in 1234, founded no fewer than eight houses of the order, namely, at Berwick-upon-the-Tweed, at Perth, Ayr, Stirling, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Inverness, and Elgin in Murray. During the same reign, or in the earlier years of the succeeding sovereign, a convent was planted at Glasgow; the Maiden of Galloway built another at Wigton; the Earls of Fife established a third at Cupar; a fourth was erected at Montrose by the great northern house of the Ostiarii or Durwards; and, at a period not long subsequent, a fifth, in the ecclesiastical capital of the kingdom, owed its foundation to the bounty of William Wischard, bishop of Saint Andrews. According to a tradition of the order, which survived the Reformation, "thair Place in Glasgw wes biggit and foundit be the Bischop and Cheptour.' The foundation charter has not been preserved; but we 19 eluxit in sumendo de Cathanesijs supplicio, qui 7 Lord Hailes' Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 161. Thus early had the Friars, in the choice of their places of settlement, begun to merit the reproach of Erasmus: " Irrepsistis in mundum adhuc credulum, sed pauci, humiles, quidam etiam docti ac pii: nidulabamini in agris ac vicis, mox in opulentissimas quasque civitates, et in florentissimam civitutis partem demigrastis. Tot sunt agri qui pastorem alere non possunt; ibi locus erat vestrae operae: nunc nusquam adestis, nisi in aedibus divitum." (Erasmi Colloquia, "Funus," p. 443. edit. Amstel. 1662.). 8 Spottiswoode's Account of the Religious. Houses in Scotland, in Bishop Keith's Catalogue of the Scotish Bishops, pp. 440-447. edit. 1824; Extracta e Variis Cronicis Scocie, p. 249; Joannis Forduni Scotichronicon, vol. ii. p. 540. 9 Extracta e Variis Cronicis Seocie, p. 249; from a note by Sir William Sinclair of Roslin, knight, who thus adds the source of his information: "Hec ex relacione Fratris Andree Leys asserentis se octogenarium anno 1564.” There may, however, be room to doubt whether it was not extant in the year 1582. The |