Robert Pont - Leader in The Kirk

Leader in The Kirk

Pont was chosen moderator of the general assembly which met in August 1575; and from this time he occupied a prominent position in the assembly. He was a member of nearly all its major committees and commissions.

Pont was one of those who, after the fall of the regent James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton in 1578, accompanied the English ambassador to Stirling to arrange an agreement between the faction of Morton and the faction of Atholl and Argyll; and he was also one of those who, nominally at the request of the king James VI, convened in Stirling Castle, on 22 December 1578, for the preparation of articles of a Book of Policy, later known as the Second Book of Discipline. He again acted as moderator at the assembly of 1581. After October of the same year he, on invitation, became minister at St. Andrews; but for want of stipend he was in 1583 relieved of this charge, and returned to that of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh. He took a prominent part in the proceedings in 1582 against Robert Montgomerie in regard to his appointment to the bishopric of Glasgow; and at a meeting of the privy council on 12 April he protested in the name of the presbyteries of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dalkeith that the cause was within the jurisdiction of the kirk.

In 1583 Pont was appointed one of a commission for collecting the acts of the assembly; and the same year was directed, along with David Lindsay and John Davidson, to admonish the king to beware of innovations in religion. At the general assembly held at Edinburgh in October of the same year he again acted as moderator. When the acts of parliament regarding the jurisdiction of the kirk were proclaimed at the market cross of Edinburgh on 25 May 1584, Pont, along with Walter Balcanqual, made a public protest. For this he was on the 27th deprived of his seat on the bench; and immediately he took refuge in England. On 7 November he was summoned by the privy council to appear before it on 7 December, and give reasons for not subscribing the "obligation of ecclesiastical conformity"; shortly before this he had returned to Scotland, and had been put in ward, but not long afterwards he received his liberty.

In May 1586 Pont again acted as moderator of the general assembly. In 1587 he was appointed by the king to the bishopric of Caithness; but, on his referring the matter to the general assembly, it refused to ratify the appointment, on the ground that the office was "not agreeable to the word of God". The same year he was appointed by the assembly one of a committee for collecting the various acts of parliament against papists, with a view to their confirmation on the king's coming of age; and in 1588 he was appointed one of a committee to confer with six of the king's council regarding the best methods of suppressing Catholicism and extending the influence of the kirk; and also one of a commission to visit the northern parts, from the River Dee to the diocese of Caithness inclusive, with a view to the institution of proceedings against Catholics, the planting of kirks with qualified ministers, and the deposition of all ministers who were unqualified, whether in life or doctrine.