3lS Greyfriars' Convent of Dumfries. 



most of the Friary properties were feued out. In 1556 

 Home obtained skilled advice by feuing- out to Hew Cunning-- 

 ham two acres of land on Corberryhill for " xxiiij shillings of 

 male [rent] and assistand to the place with his gud consale 

 allanerly,"38 and it was after that date that most of the land 

 was alienated. 



Notwithstanding- the demands of the poverty-stricken 

 Protestant clergy " for the haill rentis of the Kirk abusit in 

 Papistrie," the Privy Council in 1561 limited immediate con- 

 fiscation to the thirds of benefices. Half of the thirds went 

 to the Queen, half to the ministers. " 1 see," said John 

 Knox, " two parts freely given to the Devil and the third must 

 be divided betwixt God and the Devil." Crown grants, such 

 as that founded by the Bruce previously noted, were re- 

 absorbed to the Crown. The two-thirds retained were, how- 

 ever, in the case of the Friars, insufficient for their support, 

 for they possessed little land and no vicarage or parsonage 

 tithes. '^9 The Privy Council therefor annexed the two-thirds, 

 and instead gave each recanting mendicant a pension of ;£^l6. 

 Stewart, Home, and Law were in receipt of these pensions for 

 several years. '*o After 1563 we have no record of Stewart, 

 who, an elderly man, may have died about this time. Home 

 occasionally appears before the Burgh Court of Dumfries. ^^ 

 In 1562 he is named in connection with a standing jest at the 

 expense of the Friars. In this case, however, it is the lady, 

 Kathern Scott, the spouse of Robert Velche, who complains of 

 being slandered by Jon Lyndesay, who had said, among other 

 things, that " she had brokin matermony." Lyndesay was 

 fined six and tenpence, and warned that "in caise he dois some 

 vyther fait to be expellit the burt for day and zeir. "'*2 On 

 another occasion Home is charged to " pay ix merks mony 

 and XV s. for ane bonet " to Adam Walkcar within a year.'*^ 

 On November i6th, 1563, the Council " decernis and ordanis 

 charles hwym minister of the freir kirk situate in the samin 

 burt to keip the knok and bell being therintill wt the mornin 

 preweris (prayers) dailie and he to be pait and dewli<^ anserit 

 of ten merks mony at the feists of Vitsonday and saint mertin 

 in vinter be evin portionis of the common purss and ordanis 

 the knok to be mendit and sett in ordor on the touns coist 



