Lesmahagow

Thomas de Somerville, first Lord Somerville, made a donation to the Priory of Lesmahagow, A.D. 1421 which was confrimed by James I.  He made another "mortification" out of his lands of Manuel, in the county of Stirling, for a chaplain to the same priory, with consent of his son, for the safety of his soul, dated 3d June 1424, and confirmed by the King two days after.  (Douglas' "Peerage".)   How long the monks retained this grant does not appear, but it must have been alienated previous to 1556, as in that year John Veir, then chamberlain, rendered his accounts, where it does not apper.

The last prior of Lesmahagow, according to Crawford ("Peerage", p.169), was James Cunningham, third son of Alexander, Earl of Glencairn, commonly called the Good Earl, on account of the active part which he took in the Reformation.  The same Earl, between 1554 and 1560, obtained from Mary of Loraine, the Queen Regent, a grant to his lawful son James, during his life, of the Monastery of Lesmahagow, with the estatees there to belonging, as well as other property, which grant was ratified in 1561, by May Queen of Scots.  (Privy Seal Reg., xxx. 55)  In 1565, William Ker was commendator of Kelso.  He must have died before 1566-7, as on the 6th February of that year, the Queen granted the monastery and benefice of Kelso and cell of Lesmahagow, with all the revenue to the same belonging, vacant by the death of William Ker, commondator therof, to Francis Stewart, then a child, son of her bastard brother John, afterwards created Earl of Bothwell.  (Ibid., xxxv. 116).   See appendix, Note A.

In 1587, an Act of Parliament was passed annexing to the Crown the temporalities of all benefices, but by a subsequent statute passed in 1592, the temporal property of Kelso and cell of Lesmahagow was specially exempted from its operations, being then held by the Earl of Bothwell, under the above grant.  (Act Par., iii. 431-587.)  On his forfeiture in the following year, the Priory of Lesmahagow with the whole of its temporal property devolved on the Crown ;  but by Act of Parliament, of date 11th August 1607, it was, along with other possessions of Kelso, granted to Robert, Lord Roxbrugh, who afterwards became Earl of Roxburgh and his title was again rarified by Parliament in 1621.   (Act Parl., i.v. 3, 399, 639.)  He sold the Priory of Lesmahagow and patronage of the church and chapels to the Marquis of Hamilton, before the 5th May 1625 (Spec. Inquis., 149.), and they have since continued in that family.  When in 1633, Francis, son of the Earl of Bothwell, was restored, a clause was inserted in the Act specially exempting the rights of the Maarquis of Hamilton.  (Act Parl., v. 55.)

In the history of the Abbey of Kelso, as given by Morton, the spirituality of Lesmahagow was returned by the Earl of Roxburgh in 1630, as follows:- "Durham, his pairt of the teynds of Lesmahago, worth 41 chalders, 12 bolls, payes to the minister £200, and four chalders.  Marquis of Hamilton, for his pairt of the teynds of the said kirk, worth 12 chalders."

Until the Reformation in 1560, the cure of the parish was probably served by one of the monks.  Gilbert, presbyter or priest, is mentioned in a charter by Abbot Osbert A.D. 1180-1203.  In 1556, in the accounts of John Veir, chamberlain, mention is made of Schir George Ker, Curate, to whom payment had been made of 8 bolls of oats in addition to his other emoluments, conform to his gift under the common seal.  The Easter dues and vicarage tithes amounted to £112 : 1 : 2.  At the Reformation, the vicarage tithe was let for £66 : 13 : 6.

It is probable that a colony of Tyronensian Benedictines, circa A.D. 1100 to 1120, built a church at Abbeygreen, in which case they existed only by sufferance until they received a charter from David I., in 1144 comprehending that church which in their zeal they had built on the royal domains, and which by law belonged to the King.   The King gave them an extensive grant of land along with it, which became the barony, and subsequently the parish of Lesmahagow.  The reader will find the testimony of the carved stones on this intricate question given in the Archaelogical chapter.  The most probable conjecture is that at Kirkfield, on the vale of the Clyde, there may for centuries have existed a Culdee establishment, which had to remove elsewhere after the Benedictines had received the favour and countenance of the King, as toleration in these early times was not recognised as a principle of government.    Kirkfield would then be reduced to dependent Benedictine chapel, and may have been identical with the one known to have existed at Greenrig, in that immediate neighbourhood.   So early as A.D. 1147-1160, Abbot Arnold granted to Lambyn Asa the lands of Draffane and a chapel therein, with service three days a week, on condition that on the principal feasts the people should come to the mother church.  A chapel stood at Blackwood and another at Chapelhill.  As the chapel fo St. Bride of Kyp, in the parish of Strathaven, belonged to Lesmahagow, the spiritual cure of the inhabitants dwelling on the borders of the two parishes would doubtless be entrusted to the curate who resided there.

The following translation of a document, in the original of which is preserved by the Duke of Roxbrugh at Fleurs, affords a curious illustration of the parochial economy of Lesmahagow immediately preceding the Reformation.  It is an account rendered to the Abbot of the superior house of Kelso, by the chamberlain of the dependent cell or priory of Lesmahagow.  At first sight it might apper that the Chamberlain could not write, from the concluding expression that "he was led by the pen;" but the days were fast passing away when the magnates of the land despised learning, and it is therefore possible that bodily infirmity, such as palsy, added perhaps to old age an dthe fatigues of a long journey, induced him to call in the aid of a notary.   If the Chamberlain was Weir of Blackwood it would appear that he died soon afterwards ; at least, there is a charter, of date 27th September 1561, granted by "Margaret Hamilton, one of the two daughters of the deceased Archibald Hamilton of Raploch, of the lands of Cummir, in the paroch of Lesmahagow, with consent of John Hamilton of Stenhouse, Sir Andrew Hamilton of Goslington, and James Weir of Blackwood, her curators, and also with consent of Margaret Hamilton to her mother, " which shows that James not John Weir was then in possession of Blackwood ("Families of Birnie and Hamilton of Broomhill," p. 16) ; but as the same work proves (p. 21) that in 1546, i.e., ten years previous to the audit, John Weir was proprietor of Auchterfardel (Auchtyfardle), he may have been the party referred to.   Our readers will also remark how common the name of Weir is in the parish of Lesmahagow, and that the Chamberlain is sometimes called Veir and sometimes Weir.