[1597/11/58]¹

Act in favour of [Alexander Campbell], bishop of Brechin

Our sovereign lord, being moved with the sincere and faithful service done to his highness by a reverend father in God, Alexander, bishop of Brechin, and therewithal considering that albeit the whole temporal lands which pertained to the bishoprics, abbacies and other benefices within this realm be now annexed to the crown and united and incorporated with the rest of his highness's property, nevertheless it was not his majesty's intention nor of the estates at the time of the annexation of the said temporal lands that the present titulars and possessors of the benefices to which the said lands did appertain should in any way be prejudiced or damnified in their yearly rents and casualties, but that they and each one of them should in all peace and quietness possess, enjoy and intromit and uptake all and whole their fruits, rents, profits and casualties whatsoever in as free and peaceable manner as they did enjoy the same before the said annexation of the temporal lands; therefore his highness, with advice of the three estates of this present parliament, has given, granted and conveyed to the said reverend father the superiority of all and whole the temporal lands which pertained to the bishopric of Brechin during all the days of his lifetime, with power to the said reverend father during the space foresaid to enter the tenants of the said lands, receive their grassums and other duties in as free and seemable manner as the said reverend father was in use of before the said annexation, which shall be as valid and sufficient to the tenants and others that shall be entered by the said reverend father during the space foresaid as if the same was done by a precept directed out of his highness's chancellery in all respects.