Alexander de Kylwos - Bishop of Ross

Bishop of Ross

On 9 May 1371, Alexander was given papal provision to the bishopric of Ross following the death of Bishop Alexander Stewart. Alexander Steward is found to have been alive for the last time on 4 February though the date of his death afterwards in not known. The letter of provision by Pope Gregory IX was addressed to Kylwos as "elect of Ross", and describes how following Bishop Stewart's the chapter of Ross had elected Kylwos in ignorance of the pope's previous reservation of the see; the election was declared void, but on account of the chapter's expressed will he nevertheless provided Kylwos to the see.

It is probable that he did travel to Avignon to obtain this confirmation of his election and to receive consecration, as no Bishop of Ross was available to attend the coronation of Robert II at Scone and following parliament on 27 March. He is first known to have been a consecrated bishop on 6 March 1372, though no document records the date on which his consecration took place. A promise of his "services" was made on 22 May 1371, part of which were paid through William de Greenlaw, acting as proctor, on 2 September 1372; another part was paid on 15 April 1374, this time through Adam de Tyninghame, future Bishop of Aberdeen.

Kylwos was back in Scotland in 1372, attending Robert II's Scone parliament of 6 March, and then the Scone parliament of 3/4 April 1373. Kylwos was afterwards very little involved in national affairs, largely confining himself to activities which concerned Ross and his diocese there; thus, despite being bishop for a quarter of a century, documentation of his episcopate is weak.

He is found witnessing a Moray Registrum charter at Nigg on 21 October 1375. A papal mandate of 3 October 1379, mentions a dispute between Bishop Alexander and one of his canons, John de Carralle, authorising the dispute to be settled by the Bishop of Moray. The dispute also involved the Bishop of St Andrews, William de Landallis, two priests, and two laymen from the diocese of St Andrews and the diocese of Brechin; the dispute involved revenues from the prebend of Colyroden (i.e. Cullicudden) in Ross and the church of Mockard (i.e. Muckhart) in St Andrews dioceses, though the exact details at issue are not revealed.

He witnessed a charter of Euphemia I, Countess of Ross and her husband Walter Leslie at Tain on 26 November 1380, another at Elgin on 18 August 1381, and yet another at Dingwall in March 1382. On 7 February 1382, he was at Montrose in Angus and is recorded, along with Alexander Bur, Bishop of Moray, adding his seal to a document which transferred the lands of Abernethy, Strathspey, into the hands of Alexander Stewart, Lord of Badenoch and Earl of Buchan.

He is found again over seven years later, at Inverness, on 27 October 1389, witnessing a settlement between Alexander Bur and the titular Earl of Moray, John de Dunbar. He is found once more with Alexander Bur, on 2 November that year, commanding Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, to take back Euphemia, to whom Stewart had been nominally married. He was at Scone on 2 December 1390, on Bur's behalf demanding that King Robert III deliver justice after Buchan had burned down Elgin Cathedral, the seat of Bur's Moray bishopric.

The remainder of Kylwos' last decade as Bishop of Ross is obscure. He is mentioned in a papal mandate, dated 31 March 1396, in relation to his grant of the subdeanery to John de Kylwos. According to the Calendar of Fearn, he died on 6 July 1398. The bishopric of Ross was said to have been reserved, once again, as a papal benefice during Kylwos' episcopate.