If you found BAILII useful today, could you please make a contribution?

Your donation will help us maintain and extend our databases of legal information. No contribution is too small. If every visitor this month donates, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing free access to the law.

Thank you very much for your support!


BAILII [Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback]

Scottish Court of Session Decisions


You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Scottish Court of Session Decisions >> The Magistrates of Lanark v The Earl of Murray. [1709] Mor 9908 (5 February 1709)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/1709/Mor2409908-008.html
Cite as: [1709] Mor 9908

[New search] [View without highlighting] [Printable PDF version] [Help]


[1709] Mor 9908      

Subject_1 PATRONAGE.
Subject_2 SECT. I.

Nature and Extent of the Right.

The Magistrates of Lanark
v.
The Earl of Murray

Date: 5 February 1709
Case No. No 8.

The brocard patronus mei patroni est mibi patronus, does not apply where another patron is known.


Click here to view a pdf copy of this documet : PDF Copy

In the competition for the vacant stipends of the parish of Longbride, betwixt the Town of Lanark, as having a gift thereof from the Treasury, and the Earl of Murray, who, in consequence of his being patron of the church of Alves, whereof the parson was patron of Longbride, pretended to the right of patronage of Longbride, according to that rule of the canon law, patronus patroni mei, est patronus meus; the same way as by our custom, vassalus vassali mei, est vassalus meus; because, as Craig observes, when the immediate vassal fails, the mediate vassal ascends up in his place, and holds by the same tenor of the paramount superior:—The Lords, without regard to the brocard, found that the Earl cannot pretend to the right of application of the vacant stipends of Longbride, unless he instruct that he hath particular right of patronage of that church; albeit it was alleged for the Earl, that probably the curacy of Longbride, (which is a pendicle of the parsonage of Alves) was doted out of the rents of the greater benefice; and thereby the Earl, as patron of the latter, was entitled to the patronage of the former, by the rule patronem faciunt dos, &c. and the patron of the first minister of Haddington, No 6. p. 9901. was found to be patron of the second, though provided by the town.

Fol. Dic. v. 2. p. 48. Forbes, p. 318. *** Fountainhall reports this case:

1709. February 8.—The Magistrates of Lanark having got a gift from King William, of 2000 merks, out of the first and readiest of the vacant stipends of the kirk of Longbride, for mending and repairing their bridge, they pursue Innes of Cockston, and the other heritors of that parish for payment. They founded on partial payments by repairing the kirk and manse, and the 20 merks paid to the ministers sent there by the presbytery to preach; but after deduction and allowance of these, there was still as much in their hands as would pay the sum given to the town of Lanark; and a decreet being craved against them, compearance is made for the Earl of Murray, for whom it was alleged, That he, as patron of Longbride, had by act of Parliament the administration and disposal of its vacant stipends to pious uses, and so the gift from the King and his Exchequer was null, and he was ready to make application of it to uses nearer home than Lanark bridge; and the way he qualified his being patron was, that Longbride was but a pendicle of the kirk of Alves, and he being patron of Alves, the ecclesia matrix, he, by consequence, was also patron of the kirk of Longbride, which was only disjoined and dismembered from it for the conveniency of the people, as a chapel of Ease.—Answered, Esto he were patron of Alves, the mother church, and that Longbride were but one of its daughters, yet it never makes him patron of Longbride, because, by presentations produced, it appears the parson of Alves was patron of Longbride, who put him in as vicar, even as bishops did in their mensal kirks; so that this patronage by the abolition of prelacy devolved to the Crown, and did not accresce to the Earl of Murray; and the brocard patronus mei patroni est mihi patronus, does not hold where another patron is known.—The Lords found the Earl was not patron, and so had no right to the vacant stipend of Longbride. Sir George M'Kenzie, in his Latin pleadings, p. 131. shows, that the Earl of Haddington, as patron of the first minister of that town, had likewise the right of presenting the second minister, though founded and paid by the town, as being only an accessory consequence depending upon the first. See it from Stair's decisions, 18th Nov. 1680 No 6. p. 9901.

Fountainhall, v. 2. p. 489.

The electronic version of the text was provided by the Scottish Council of Law Reporting     


BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Donate to BAILII
URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/1709/Mor2409908-008.html