till his death in 1564. Third, William Chisholm, nephew to the preceding, who was first coadjutor to his uncle, and then his successor. He was forfeited for non-compliance with the new measures both in Church and
Fig. 527.—Dunblane Cathedral. Details of Stalls.
State, sometime before the 3rd July 1573, and retired to France, where he died in his old age a Carthusian at Grenoble.
The first of these bishops, James, receives very favourable notice from Bishop Spottiswoode in his History of the Church (Vol. I. p. 215, Spottiswoode Society edition). “A severe censor he was of the corrupted manners of the clergy, and recovered many lands and possessions which were sacrilegiously taken from the Church before his time;” and otherwise he speaks highly of him. The same authority condemns his successor, Bishop William, as “a wicked, vicious man, who, for the hatred he bore to the true religion, made away all the lands of the bishopric, and utterly spoiled the benefice.” Bishop Keith bears the same testimony, saying that “he alienated the Episcopal patrimony of this church to a very singular degree.” The extent to which this alienation went will be best understood from the remark of Bishop Keith regarding the second Bishop William, that he “dilapidated any remains of his bishopric,” clearly implying, as his more detailed account shows, that there was little left to squander.
Fig. 528.—Dunblane Cathedral. Wood Carving.