GEORGE obliged himself to make Lawrence, Lord Oliphant, his bailie for life of the lands of the monastery within twenty days after he should be admitted to the spirituality by the ordinary and by the King to the temporality of the said benefice. The family of Oliphant held this relation during the reign of James V., Mary, and James VI. In 1539,
GAVIN DUNBAR, Archbishop of Glasgow, had the Abbacy in commendam. On 15th May of that year he granted Anthony Murray a tack of 4 merk lands of the "Raith" "for furnishing of our bulls"—probably for the expense of his confirmation. Before the tack had run out the tenure was made perpetual by a free charter of the same lands of "Raith" and of the Moor of Maderty, granted by
ALEXANDER, styled Archbishop of Athens, postulate of the Isles, and perpetual commendator of the Monastery of Inchaffray, dated at Inchaffray, December 24th, 1554. This commendator was Alexander Gordon (brother of George, fourth Earl of Huntly), who was defeated in his hopes of the Archbishopric of Glasgow on the death of Gavin Dunbar, and imperfectly consoled by the high-sounding title of Archbishop of Athens in partibus fidelium, the poor See of the Isles, with, on November 26th, 1553, the Abbacy of Inchaffray in commendam, which last he held till 1564. In 1558 he was promoted to the See of Galloway. Nine years later he was accused before the General Assembly of the Kirk, and confessed to the indictment that he had not visited for three years part of the churches within his charge; that he had haunted Court too much; that he had purchased to be one of the Session and Privy Council, which cannot agree with the office of a pastor or a bishop; that he had resigned Inchaffray in favour of a young child, and set diverse lands in feu in prejudice of the Kirk. The young child was James Drummond of Innerpeffray, second son of David, second Lord Drummond. The Abbey was erected into a temporal lordship in his favour, and in 1609 he was created Lord Maderty. From him is descended the noble family of Strathallan.
And now the old Abbey fell on troublous times. The Reformation—that harbinger of good not unmixed with evil—closed the book of the monastery. It is strange and sad that ecclesiastical changes should partake so largely in the destruction of buildings and the spoliation of belongings. Never yet did religious fanaticism satisfy its own desires without simultaneously and obligingly ministering to the rapacity of the attendant greedy grabber. And so Inchaffray, experiencing the fate of other such establishments, had its walls torn down, its vessels strewn and broken, its canons put to flight or death, its revenues disposed by rude, regardless hands. The Earl of Kinnoull is the proprietor of the ruin and the few acres that surround it. These gave him the patronage of the seven parishes with which, we observed, the convent had been endowed.
Quite a crop of stories are told in connection with the demolition of Inchaffray. It is said, for instance, that long ago the ploughman-tenant of the dwelling contiguous to the convent discovered, while digging, the golden image "of a sow." This relic (for relic it was supposed to be of the abbey practices) he carefully secreted, but latterly converted into current coin, and became himself a very wealthy man. But perhaps the most reliable and authenticated is the following:—A Fowlis widower, lately bereaved, sought to find a grave-stone to honour his spouse's memory. Either he was too fastidious or too ungenerous, but he abstracted from Inchaffray a stone to be utilised for this solemn purpose. The writer quite lately identified the stone as the lid of the coffin of Abbot Maurice. There is the figure of a battle-axe engraved upon the slab.
And now we return to the point from which we started. All that the passer-by can see of this object is a chimney-crowned gable. Nearer approach shows an arched chamber. But the whole history of an interesting past appears to be covered with debris. It is impossible to fancy the feelings of Abbot or Earl were he to rise from his tomb and hear to what uses the fabric of his cherished house was being devoted. Pig-styes, barn-walls, fences—these comprise the objects to which the "holy stones" are set. O tempora, O mores.
If these words should meet the eye of antiquarian enthusiasts, and should happen to stir within them the desire of research, a welcome and a courteous lodging will be found at the Manse of Maderty.