Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV TITHES IN SCOTLAND DURING THE REFORMATION PERIOD AND SUBSEQUENTLY: 1560-1628 What Machiavelli wrote of the ecclesiastical principalities of Italy in the beginning, may be applied to Scotland in the end, of the sixteenth century. The greatest difficulty, he says, is to get into possession, ' because they are gained either by fortune or virtue, but kept without either, being supported by ancient statutes universally received in the Christian Church, which are of such power and dignity they do keep their prince in his dignity, let his conversation or conduct be what it will.' ' These,' he continues with a cynicism which scarcely veiled the truth, ' are the only persons who have lands and do not defend them; subjects, and do not govern them; and yet their lands are not taken from them, though they never defend them ; nor their subjects dissatisfied, though they never regard them; so that their principalities are the happiest and most secure in the world by being managed by a supernatural power, above the wisdom and contrivance of man' (The Prince, chap. xi).1 1 As regards the 'subjects,' however, the tenants and vassals of the great abbeys of Scotland had, as Sir Walter Scott points out, 'many advantages over those of the lay barons, who were harassed by constant military duty, until they became desperate and lost all relish for the arts of peace. The vassals of the Church, on the other hand, were only liable to be called to arms on general occasions, and at other times were permitted in comparative quiet to possess their farms and feus. They, of Before the Reformation came it had been long foreseen. The wealth of the upper clergy, whose lands covered half Scotland, brought plentiful abuses in its train, and the poverty of the vicars and of the curates contraste...