Glasgow’s prestige soared with Blackadder securing his spot in history of city
Archbishop Blackadder did much to complete the Cathedral
WHEN James IV, King of Scots, came to rule Scotland following the assassination of his father James III after the Battle of Sauchieburn, he was just 15-years-old.
As nearly always happened with Stewart kings in their minority, there was an immediate struggle for power among the great noble families of the land. The Hepburns and the Humes joined together to support – or rather control – the teenaged king who would not be able to assert his personal rule until he was 21.
In a move which directly affected Glasgow, in 1489 the Earl of Lennox, in whose control Glasgow lay, broke out in open rebellion against the regime then running the country. His fellow rebel Lord Lyle occupied Dumbarton Castle and in the North east, the Master of Huntly, Alexander Gordon, also rose against the King’s party.
James IV personally led a detachment of his forces to Glasgow where he gathered his troops and artillery on Glasgow Moor before heading off to besiege Lyle in Dumbarton Castle – that great fortress held out until the rebels decided to deal with the King’s regime. They were persuaded to go home, and in 1490, a new Scottish Parliament, sometimes known as the ‘Healing Parliament’, saw an agreement reached with the rebel lords which brought peace to Scotland.
James IV was growing up a handsome lad and he was also a brilliant scholar speaking seven languages including Gaelic. He visited Glasgow on several occasions, sometimes on his way to meet one of his several mistresses.
At that time Edinburgh, Perth, Aberdeen and Dundee were the four main burghs, and Glasgow was well down the order of pecking. But it was still the second most important diocese in the church, and Bishop Robert Blackadder was nothing if not ambitious for his charge.
In March, 1487, Pope Innocent VIII had made the Archbishop of St Andrew’s, at that time William Scheves, the Primate of Scotland, much to the chagrin of the other bishops, especially Aberdeen and Glasgow. Scheves – the ‘doctor bishop’ as he had originally trained in medicine – had been a favourite of James III, and perhaps predictably was not in favour with James IV.
Instead the young king struck up a strong relationship with Robert Blackadder, the Bishop of Glasgow, who was both a forceful and highly intelligent man.
Faced with the prospect of Scheves and his St Andrews clerics laying down the law to Glasgow, Blackadder had protested to the Pope and even as James IV was battling his father in 1488, he won for Glasgow an exemption from the rule of St Andrews.
This impressed James IV and slowly taking more control of his government, he wrote to Blackadder to express his respect to the Bishop “and his renowned chapter, which holds the chief place among the secular colleges of our kingdom”.
James was worried that the Archbishop of St Andrews held too much power, so he and the Scottish Parliament sent a letter to the Pope asking that Glasgow be elevated to an archbishopric, and on January 9, 1492, a Papal Bull by Innocent VIII made Glasgow’s last bishop Robert Blackadder the first Archbishop of Glasgow.
The same Bull made the dioceses of Dunblane, Dunkeld, Galloway and Argyll answerable to Glasgow as suffragans, effectively giving Archbishop Blackadder control of the church in the west of Scotland.
The prestige of Glasgow soared and Blackadder was right at the heart of James IV’s government after he took up his personal rule at the age of 21. The King was a patron of the arts, and is often seen as a ‘renaissance man’ but he was also something of a warrior and used Glasgow as a base to attack those remaining lords on the Western Isles who were still in rebellion – James did so very successfully, and the whole realm of Scotland was at peace by 1495.
James turned his attention to his neighbours, and Blackadder advised him not to antagonise England too much. Nevertheless it was the Archbishop of Glasgow himself who went to France to re-negotiate the Auld Alliance which annoyed Henry VII of England intensely. James also sent Blackadder to try to arrange treaties with Spain, and both King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile were impressed with the Scot, recommending to the Pope that he be made a Cardinal.
All the Continental negotiations went into abeyance after James IV controversially gave refuge to the English pretender to the throne, Perkin Warbeck, and James also twice invaded the north of England. Probably wishing himself rid of a pest, Henry VII duly made peace with the King of Scots by marrying off his daughter, Margaret Tudor, to James.
Archbishop Blackadder of Glasgow negotiated the terms of the dowry and made sure the resultant marriage was the finest ever staged in Scotland to that point. The Archbishop presided over the wedding ceremony in Holyrood.
He continued to work alongside the king as James and Margaret suffered the loss of several infant children, Blackadder’s godson, the first Prince James, among them.
One major advantage that James IV gave to Glasgow in the early days of his reign was to give the city the right to export goods without having to pay customs duties. In order to assess merchandise it had to be weighed on a public scale known as a tron. That’s why Glasgow has to this
day a place called Trongate near to where the scale was located.
Thanks to a former historian of Glasgow Cathedral we also know that Archbishop Blackadder did much to complete the Cathedral.
The Historian recorded: “He founded the exquisite Crypt of the South Transept, and though it is deeply to be regretted that the work was not carried forward or completed, we have still enough to show the rudiments of a most brilliant design. He also beautified the Church internally by the construction of the Rood Screen and its tabernacle work; the decorative flight of steps that conduct from the aisles of the Nave, across the Transept, to those of the Choir and by completing the enriched descending archways between the piers of the Great Tower, leading to the Crypts.
Upon these works his arms are carved and are still plainly visible. He was the last prelate who lent a kindly hand to the extension and decoration of the time-honoured Cathedral which had seen a period of more than 370 years since its original foundation by Bishop John.”
As the first Archbishop of Glasgow and as the man who completed the city’s Cathedral, Robert Blackadder has his place in Glasgow’s history. He died on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in July, 1508.
The Scottish Church History Society records: “His was a turbulent spirit. The urge to be up and doing as well as the feeling of penitence – or superstition, call it what you will – sent him on his last journey to Jerusalem.”
He left Glasgow in good health in time for the 16th century.