History of the churches

The history of the Scottish Episcopal Church in the Mearns is inextricably also part of the Church of Scotland. When Martin Luther published his ninety-five theses in 1517 in Wittenberg, which was then part of the Holy Roman Empire, little did he realise the effect of pushing back against the established Church.

This sparked the period known as the ‘Reformation’ and sparked a severance with the papacy. Roman Catholicism ceased to be the established faith in Europe. The period that followed should be described as a series of reformations, rather than the idea that there was one reformation that reverberated across Europe. Across the region, there were a series of reformations. Within eight years, Scotland was feeling the effects of the English Reformation, with Henry VIII having taken the title ‘Defender of the Faith’ in 1521.

There are two maps at the bottom of this page – one is more generic and shows the locations mentioned, the other magnifies the area shown on the generic map.

History content

Main page (this one)

St Palladius’, Drumtochty

St Andrew’s, Fasque

St John the Baptist, Drumlithie

St Laurence’s, Laurencekirk

1528 – The first martyr of the Scottish Reformation was Patrick Hamilton who was burned at the stake in 1528 for supporting Martin Luther’s teachings.1
1560 – The Scottish Parliament removed the Pope’s authority in Scotland, forbade the Mass, and restricted the administration of the Sacraments to those admitted as preachers. The General Assembly came into being, with ‘superintendents’ replacing bishops.  As an aside, the Roman Catholic Church ceased to be the ‘Established Church; and for almost three hundred years, the word ‘bishop’ almost always referred to what becomes the ‘Episcopal Church’. Roman Catholicism did not have dioceses in Scotland until 1848.2 Several of the pre-Reformation bishops, joined the Reformers, and thereby continued to have authority in their former dioceses. There was still a single Church in Scotland, but its allegiance fluctuated between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism.
1582 – The Church of Scotland rejected episcopal governance, and what would eventually become the Scottish Episcopal Church came into being as a separate church tradition.3 Sometimes continuity was provided by a priest in Episcopal orders, so the switch between the two was not clear-cut. Further disputes meant that Presbyterian governance was in control from 1592-1610. This switched to Episcopacy 1610-1638; back to Presbyterianism 1638-1661; and finally Episcopacy 1661-1688. By 1688, there was a broad pattern of church identity in Scotland. According to E. Luscombe, the pattern was thus: predominantly Episcopalian north of the R. Tay; predominantly Presbyterian south of the R. Forth, and roughly equal between the two rivers.4
1689 – proved a year of many events. William, Prince of Orange, took the crown, and sought allegiance with the Scottish bishops; James VII forfeited the Scottish Crown; there was the first Jacobite rising; the Presbyterian Church became the established Church of Scotland, and Episcopacy was disestablished. There were promises that the Episcopal Church would be secure and continue as the Church of Scotland if the bishops would support the new king and queen as the English bishops were doing. The Scottish bishops said they could not break their oaths of allegiance to James VII. Through a declaration that James had forfeited his right to the throne, the Crown of Scotland was offered to Mary, and her husband, William. Clergy were ordered to pray for the monarchs, and William in accepting the Crown, made it clear his intention to allow no persecution. As much of northern Scotland remained opposed to rule by William and Mary, this led into the first Jacobite Rising. Later in the same year, a petition was received requesting a meeting of the General Assembly to heal division and settle the governance of the Church. Presbyterians opposed this as they would have been outnumbered six to one by Episcopalians. However, the Westminster Confession of Faith was ratified and the Presbyterian form of government of the Church was established. Many Episcopal priests remained in charge of parish churches with the support of their people.5
1690 – The first Penal Law was passed that required all clergy to subscribe to the Westminster Confession. The Incumbent of Conveth (Laurencekirk) was the Rev’d William Dunbar. He did not agree to the establishment of Presbyterianism, and refused to submit to the Presbyterian governments, and refused to pray for the monarchs, William and Mary. He took an active part in the events that led to the first rising in 1715. Having been deposed from the ministry by the Presbytery of Brechin, he and the congregation built a meeting house at Redmyre.6 He was succeeded by the Rev’d Robert Taylor (1726-1741) and Rev’d William Cheyne (1741-1745).
1693 – The second Penal Law required all holding office to swear that William was king in law and in fact.
1695 – The third Penal Law is passed – The Act to Forbid Deprived Episcopal Clergy – prevents Episcopal clergy from conducting marriages or baptisms.
1702 – It was not until 1702 when King William died and was succeeded by his sister-in-law, Anne (James VIII’s second sister), that Episcopalians were granted the right to be protected in the peaceful exercise of religion.
1712 – The fourth penal law – The Act of Toleration – was passed in 1712, declared it lawful for Episcopalians to meet for worship using the Book of Common Prayer, abolished the 1695 Act against irregular baptisms and marriages, and required both Episcopalian clergy and parish ministers to take an oath of allegiance to Queen Anne, thus renouncing any Jacobite allegiances. Both English and Scottish liturgies were developed and used at different periods by different groups. The 1712 Toleration Act effectively acknowledged the existence of Episcopalians in Scotland as a separate church from the Church of Scotland, but more importantly it began the division between the ‘qualified’ clergy, who swore allegiance to Anne and her Hanoverian successors, and the ‘nonjurors’ who remained loyal to the exiled Stuarts. No Scottish bishop qualified and only a few clergy.7 ‘Qualified’ congregations used the English Prayer Book and were ministered to by clergy who ‘qualified’ under the Act of Toleration. In 1792, there were twenty-four ‘Qualified’ congregations.8 Qualified chapels existed outside the authority of either the Scots or the English bishops, and operated on a collegiate basis.

The Qualified chapels bowed to the political reality of the time whereas the rest of the Episcopal church would not accept the legitimacy of the Revolution government and its Hanoverian successors. The Qualified chapels could not legally submit to the Scottish bishops, while in turn, these bishops saw them as ‘disloyal appendages of an alien establishment, namely the Church of England.9 The English bishops could not or would not take responsibility for them as that would violate the Act of Union between Scotland and England.
1715 – More congregations became ‘qualified’ after the second Jacobite rising in 1715, and in response to penal restrictions. The penal restrictions came into force by the government due to the Jacobite army being almost entirely Episcopalian. In 1719, it became unlawful for clergy who did not pray for King George and take the abjuration oath to minister to more than eight people.10 After the 1745 rebellion, a Penal Law of 1746 prohibited worship unless the clergy had taken the oaths of allegiance and abjuration, prayer for the monarch and royal family by names in public worship, and registered their letters of orders. Worshippers in places which broke the law were also punishable. For the first offense, imprisonment by the space of six months, and for the second, transportation to some of His Majesty’s plantations for life.’11
In 1746, six clergy from the Diocese of Brechin were summoned to the court in Stonehaven to answer charges that they had ‘preached or read prayers to more than nine persons’. The clergy were John Troup of Muchalls, Alexander Greig of Stonehaven, John Petrie at Drumlithie, Charles Rose at Arbuthnott, John Strachan in Laurencekirk and Alexander Lunan at Northwaterbridge. None appeared, and the Sheriff-Depute, John Young of Stonehaven ordered that the meeting houses should be boarded up. In 1748, three of the six were apprehended, charged and sentenced to imprisonment in the Tolbooth Gaol at Stonehaven. These were Alexander Greig, John Troup, and John Petrie. A number of Episcopal clergy elsewhere also suffered.

The Duke of Cumberland following the Battle of Culloden destroyed many churches. In the Diocese of Brechin alone, the churches destroyed were Brechin, Drumlithie, Redmyre, Luthermuir, Benholm, Muchalls, Portlethen, Stonehaven, and Tarfside. See below for two maps for all these locations.

The Episcopalian congregation, having lost their meeting house at Redmyre, met as often as possible for Divine Service at Mill of Haulkerton. There is a record by the priest at Northwaterbridge, who recorded on the 29th December 1745 that he administered the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist to the congregation in Saint Laurence-kirk. The service at Northwaterbridge was taken by John Strachan, a deacon. 12
Worship was further restricted in 1748 when only clergy who had letters of orders from English or Irish bishops were considered qualified, and clergy who had been ordained by Scottish bishops were disqualified even if they had taken the oaths. These penal laws were repealed in 1792. 13
The Penal Act of 1748 decreed that in regard to every clergyman ordained by a bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church:
– His letters of orders were not admissible for registration;
– That any past registrations of his orders were ‘null and void to all interests and purposes’;
– That he was prohibited from conducting public worship, and even from acting as chaplain to a private family;
– He was permitted to exercise the right (as of any other householder) to hold family worship in his house, but the number of fellow-worshippers was limited to four persons besides his own family.14

In the winter of 1748-49 the priests from Muchalls, Stonehaven and Drumlithie were imprisoned in Stonehaven Tolbooth for ministering to congregations other than their own families. Some Episcopal congregation members from the landed and merchant classes decided they could no longer continue to be regarded as nonjurors and further Qualified chapels were established between 1749 and 1760 in Dundee, Brechin, Stonehaven, and Arbroath (in addition to that founded at Montrose in 1712).15 This was further complicated when only clergy who had letters of orders from English or Irish bishops were considered ‘qualified’ , and clergy originally ordained by Scottish bishops were rejected even though they had submitted to the oaths required.16

The Rev’d John Strachan, now ordained as priest, became the incumbent of the congregation at Mill of Haulkerton.
1760 – In 1760, George III ascends to the throne. A relaxation of the penal laws begins and services begin to be held more openly across Scotland. The Rev’d John Strachan built a meeting house at East Redmyre in the same year.

In 1762 Francis Garden purchased the lands of Johnston and Blackiemuir (on the western flank of the Hill of Garvock. He was then the Sheriff of Kincardineshire. By 1776 he was Lord Gardenston (with his name from the family home in Gardenstown, Banffshire) and a Lord of Justiciary. He envisioned the idea of a model village on the site of the clachan of Conveth.17 The new village was given the name, Laurencekirk, which had been used from time to time in the past. The name may derive from the second Archbishop of Canterbury rather than a deacon of Rome from the third century.18 The village thrived with local industries that were supported by Lord Gardenston. In 1779 it was elevated by Royal Charter as an independent burgh of barony. Laurencekirk became noted for the manufacture of hinged snuff boxes.19

The Scottish Communion Office is published in 1764. The Liturgy contains a long prayer of invocation of the Holy Spirit and has both Celtic and Eastern Orthodox influences. Its title page states, revealing the mind-set of the bishops, that it is “The Communion Office of the Church of Scotland.”20

In 1777, John Strachan became Dean for the Diocese of Brechin, before moving to Dundee in 1780. He later became Bishop of the Diocese of Brechin. His successor as incumbent of Redmyre was the Rev’d Robert Spark. Spark then became the incumbent of saint John the Baptist in Drumlithie in 1791.
While all of this was going on in Scotland, when the war of American Independence ended in 1783, there were no bishops consecrated for America. In order to be ordained by the Church of England, they would have had to acknowledge the royal supremacy. Samuel Seabury abandoned his attempts in England to be consecrated as a bishop for the newly independent United States and came to Scotland. His consecration in Aberdeen in 1784 by Robert Kilgour, Bishop of Aberdeen and Primus; Arthur Petrie, Bishop of Moray; and John Skinner, Co-adjutor Bishop of Aberdeen, is the beginning of the world-wide expansion of the Anglican Communion.21

In 1789, the Bishop of Aberdeen and Primus, John Skinner, summoned a Convocation of Clergy and Laity to a meeting in Laurencekirk on 11th November. Laurencekirk was ideally placed as most of the clergy of the Episcopal Church were resident in the diocese of Aberdeen and Brechin after all the Penal Laws across Scotland. The purpose of the meeting was to gather information on the moves being made to repeal the penal laws that had so oppressive to Episcopalian worship.

Lord Gardenston, brought up as a Presbyterian was gratified that Laurencekirk had been chosen for this Convocation. He wrote to the parish minister asking if he would accommodate a couple of the clergy in his manse. The reply was curt and to the point. The minister would like to see neither the Episcopalians nor their houses.22 Lord Gardenston duly marked out the site for the Episcopal Church, endowed it, and also provided a parsonage and a glebe.23
1792 – At the second attempt the Scottish Episcopalians Relief Act is passed by both Houses of Parliament and the repression of the Church ends. However, the last hundred years have taken their toll – in 1689 there was a bishop for thirteen of the fourteen dioceses and six hundred clergy ministering to 66% of the population of Scotland. In 1792 there are four bishops and forty clergy ministering to 5% of the population.24 

In 1804, there was a meeting – a convocation of the Bishops and clergy at St Laurence’s, Laurencekirk. This is covered in the page for St Laurence’s.

In 1811, Bishop Skinner summoned a General Synod of the whole Church where a Code of Canons was agreed and which became the Constitution of the Scottish Episcopal Church.25 John Skinner turned the hopes of the SEC around from three aged bishops and forty odd clergy to being organised, strong, and confident for the future.
1
2

At this point, we turn to St Laurence’s, Laurencekirk and its relevance to the Scottish Episcopal Church.

  1. Gerald Stranraer-Mull, Scots’ Church – 16th Century ↩︎
  2. Ibid. ↩︎
  3. History of the Scottish Episcopal Church – Wikipedia ↩︎
  4. Edward Luscombe and Stuart Donald, The Scottish Episcopal Church of Saint Laurence, Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire ↩︎
  5. Gerald Stranraer-Mull, Scots’ Church – 17th Century ↩︎
  6. Luscombe and Donald, The Scottish Episcopal Church of Saint Laurence ↩︎
  7. Frederick Goldie, A Short History of the Episcopal Church in Scotland from the Restoration to the present time 2nd edition (St Andrew Press, 1976) in Churches – Episcopalians in Scotland – Your Scottish Archives ↩︎
  8. Patrick Jones, The Qualified Episcopal Chapels of the North-East of Scotland 1689-1898 | Northern Scotland | DeepDyve ↩︎
  9. Ibid. ↩︎
  10. Stranraer-Mull, Scots’ Church – 18th Century ↩︎
  11. E. Luscombe, Steps to Freedom (2004), General Synod Office of the Scottish Episcopal Church ↩︎
  12. uscombe and Donald, The Scottish Episcopal Church of Saint Laurence ↩︎
  13. History of the Scottish Episcopal Church – Wikipedia and Churches – Episcopalians in Scotland – Your Scottish Archives ↩︎
  14. Luscombe, Steps to Freedom ↩︎
  15. David Bertie, About Us: History, Beliefs & Leaders of the Diocese of Brechin ↩︎
  16. History of the Scottish Episcopal Church – Wikipedia and Churches – Episcopalians in Scotland – Your Scottish Archives ↩︎
  17. Luscombe, Steps to Freedom ↩︎
  18. Luscombe and Donald, The Scottish Episcopal Church of Saint Laurence ↩︎
  19. Laurencekirk, Laurencekirk – Wikipedia ↩︎
  20. Stranraer-Mull, Scots’ Church – 18th Century ↩︎
  21. Ibid. ↩︎
  22. Sir Colin Thornton-Kemsley in ‘Steps to Freedom’, E Luscombe, p9. ↩︎
  23. Ibid. ↩︎
  24. Stranraer-Mull, Scots’ Church – 18th Century. ↩︎
  25. Luscombe, Steps to Freedom ↩︎

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