Cambuslang Clergy - The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church

The revenues of the Parish of Cambuslang (originally, Drumsagart) were obviously substantial enough for the priests to carry the title Rector. One - William Monypenny - had enough to endow a Chapel to Our Lady. These revenues also supported Vicars when the Rectors were made Prebendaries and were usually absent, attending to their official duties in Glasgow Cathedral. Cambuslang Parish was obviously a step on the career ladder of ambitious clerics who also had political ambitions. John Cameron (of the Lochiel Campbells) became Bishop of Glasgow - and made the Prebendaries of Cambuslang Chancellors of the Cathedral - and went on to hold all the Great Offices of State. David Beaton probably never even visited his Parish on his way up the ladder to become the Cardinal later murdered by soldiers supporting the Reformation in Scotland.

Both Cameron and Beaton were members of the Scottish aristocracy, as were a number of other Rectors and Prebendaries - such as Lord Claud Hamilton - and the “English Cleric” mentioned below no doubt accompanied the many Anglo-Norman adventurers who came to Scotland at the time. The issues associated with a the revenues of Cambuslang, and its entanglement with finding a living for young aristocrats, continued beyond the reformation. The revenues were in the hands of the landowners - the Heritors - who therefore nominated the Ministers, according to the Patronage Act, 1712.