George Gledstanes (or Gladstanes; c. 1562 – 1615) was an Archbishop of St Andrews during the seventeenth century.
Biography
Early life
George Gledstanes was a son of Herbert Gladstanes, clerk of Dundee, and one of the bailies of that town. He was born there between 1560 and 1565, and after spending some time at Dundee Grammar School went in 1576 to the university of St. Andrews, where he graduated Master of Arts in 1580. He probably afterwards studied theology under Andrew Melville. He was for some time a teacher of languages in Montrose, and was appointed reader in that town in 1585. Before 23 July 1587 he was ordained minister of St. Cyrus or Ecclesgreig in Kincardineshire, and had at the same time the church of Aberluthnott, or Marykirk, also under his care. During his residence at St. Cyrus he was on several occasions in danger of his life from armed attacks on his house by William Douglas the younger of Glenbervie and others, but was relieved by the exertions of his neighbours.
Introduction to St. Andrews
Gladstanes was a member of the general assembly of 1590. In May 1592 he was presented by the king to the vicarage of Arbirlot in Forfarshire, and was again a member of assembly in that year, and also in 1595, when he was nominated with several others as assessors with the king in the choice of two royal chaplains. About this time he served on several commissions appointed by the general assembly, one of which was for advising with the king on church affairs. The ministers in St. Andrews, Messrs. Black and Wallace, having offended by their preaching, the king ordered them to be summarily removed from their charge, and brought Gladstanes from Arbirlot to fill their place. He was inducted at St. Andrews on 11 July 1597, James Melville very reluctantly preaching on the occasion.
Career ascendancy
When the king in the following year introduced the proposal that the church should be represented in parliament, he was warmly supported in the assembly by Gladstanes, who was appointed one of three commissioners chosen to sit and vote in parliament in name of the ministry. He became vice-chancellor of the university of St. Andrews in July 1599, and on 14 October 1600 was made bishop of Caithness by the king. He sat in parliament as bishop, and was challenged by the synod of Fife, meeting at St. Andrews 3 Feb. 1601, for doing so, when he declared he was obliged to answer ‘with the name of Bishop put against his will, because they would not name him otherwise’.
Commissioner for the union, appointment as archbishop
Gladstanes continued to be minister of St. Andrews. He was employed by the assembly on various commissions for dealing with the papists, for the plantation of kirks, and for visiting presbyteries. On 24 November 1602 he was admitted a member of the Privy Council of Scotland, being the second clerical member of that body, and after the accession of James VI to the crown of England was appointed in 1604 one of the commissioners for the union of the two kingdoms. He went to London in the latter part of that year, but before starting he, along with his brethren of the presbytery of St. Andrews, renewed the national covenant, or Scots confession of faith, and subscribed it. When at London, on 12 October 1604, he was appointed by James VI archbishop of St. Andrews; but on his return, fearing the displeasure of his co-presbyters, he did not disclose what had taken place. At a meeting of the presbytery on 10 January 1605 he openly declared that he claimed no superiority over his brethren. Some of his friends asked him, according to Calderwood, how he could bear with the presbytery. ‘Hold your tongue,’ he replied; ‘we shall steal them off their feet.’
Gladstanes long refrained from assuming the title of archbishop of St. Andrews. The king required him to resign the old archiepiscopal residence of the castle of St. Andrews, in order that it might be conferred on the Earl of Dunbar, and Gladstanes resigned it formally both at Whitehall and in the Scottish parliament. He received in exchange the provostry of Kirkhill, &c., with an annual pension of three hundred merks (£13. 6s. 8d.). James also compelled him to yield another of the old primatial residences, Monimail, Fife, in order that he might confer it on Sir Robert Melville of Murdocairnie. Gladstanes then obtained a few vicarages in Forfarshire. But at a later date the king purchased back the castle of St. Andrews as a residence for the archbishops of St. Andrews, and Gladstanes dwelt in it for a time.