Andrew Forman - Diplomat and Pluralist

Diplomat and Pluralist

Although Forman obtained many high offices in the church, his primary role was as a senior emissary in the service of the king; a role that saw him receive generous royal and papal gifts. The first benefice he received was in 1489 when Pope Innocent VIII provided him to the Parsonage of Forest church (Yarrow in the Scottish borders).

Then in 1492, he used his influence at Rome to obtain the guarantee of the provision to the abbacy of Culross but resigned his rights in 1493 in return for a substantial pension from the monastery’s income. The possession of multiple religious appointments was common in late medieval Scotland when ecclesiastical and later, temporal lords, would be gifted commendatorships of monasteries at the discretion of the monarch—it was unlikely that the monasteries in question would have been visited by their commendators very often, if at all. He became prior of May (Pittenweem) in 1495—an office which he retained up until his death—and by 30 September 1497, he was protonotary apostolic. The king received Perkin Warbeck, the bogus Duke of York, in Stirling Castle in November 1495 and designated Forman to attend him. Warbeck's presence in Scotland may have been used by King James and some of his councillors as an excuse to wage war with England. Apart from a raid into Northumberland, war did not ensue and in July 1497, Forman watched over Warbeck's departure from the port of Ayr. Forman and Bishop William Elphinstone of Aberdeen were the principal envoys who brokered a seven year truce with King Henry VII of England at Aytoun in September 1497. They were assisted by the Spanish ambassador Pedro de Ayala, who recommended in May 1498 that diplomatic correspondence to Scotland should be copied to Forman, his influential friend. The search for a queen for James began in 1499 when negotiators were appointed to treat with King Henry for the marriage of his eldest daughter, Princess Margaret.

Dispensation from the pope for the marriage was received as both James and Margaret were cousins, descended from John Beaufort, Marquess of Dorset. On 8 October 1501, Forman, now postulate to the see of Moray, was commissioned along with Robert Blackadder, Archbishop of Glasgow and Patrick Hepburn, 1st Earl of Bothwell to conclude the treaty of marriage. In that same year, King Henry, in gratitude for his services required that Thomas Savage, Archbishop of York institute Forman as Rector of the parish church of Cottingham. On 26 November 1501, Pope Alexander VI provided Forman to the bishopric of Moray and then only a few months later in 1502, Bishop Forman concluded the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with England at Richmond Palace. The formal proceedings that finally concluded the marriage terms of King James and Margaret Tudor were conducted in Glasgow Cathedral on 10 December 1502 where Forman was a signatory. He was then appointed as a commissioner to oversee the exchange of the ratified marriage treaties at the courts of Henry and James. James designated Forman to conduct Margaret to Scotland but while in England, gave King Henry an undertaking that the King of Scots would not renew the league with France unless Henry was first consulted. The procession to Scotland took them to Fast Castle near Berwick where they stayed with Forman’s sister Isabel and her husband Alexander Oliphant of Kellie. In 1509, Forman became commendator of Dryburgh Abbey and tried unsuccessfully to obtain the commendatorship of the wealthy abbey of Kelso in 1511. The lands and possessions of the parson of Boleskin, south of Inverness were given to Forman (as bishop of Moray) in 1511 and then in 1512 he became the Keeper of the castle of Darnaway, near Forres, Chamberlain of Moray and Custumar north of the River Spey.