Bishop of Ross
In the 1490s Fraser became a royal councillor and Clerk of the Register. Some time before 10 September 1497, Fraser was elected through royal influence to the bishopric of Ross, vacant at least three, possibly five years, since the death of the previous bishop, John Guthrie. He received papal provision on 14 March 1498. On 5 May, the Florentine clerk Ilarion de Portiis acting in Fraser's name paid the papacy 600 gold florins. His name appeared in Scottish sources datable to 3 December as "elect and confirmed of Ross." He was granted the temporarlities of the bishopric on 3 January 1499, by which time he had probably received consecration.
On 10 March 1504, Bishop Fraser was present at a meeting of the parliament; on 10 May, Bishop Fraser is recorded as granting his cathedral at Fortrose an annual rent of £10 from a tenement he owned in the burgh of Linlithgow. On 15 September 1506, King James IV of Scotland, while at the Chanonry of Ross, granted to the bishop part of the lands of the toun of Arkbol, in the earldom of Ross. The History of the Frazers (Wardlaw MS) claimed that he died on 5 February 1507, aged 78. According to tradition one of the three funeral effigies in Fortrose Cathedral is that of Bishop Fraser. The tradition - attested in the Wardlaw MS History of the Frazers - that he was Abbot of Melrose and Prior of Beauly is now thought to be spurious. Professor Donald Watt omitted him from his list of chancellors of Glasgow Cathedral, a position he was also widely believed to have held.
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