ARCHIBALD, Archdeacon of Moray, was chosen on the rejection by the Pope of Nicolas, Abbot of Scone. The Pope’s letter confirming his election mentions R., the Dean, Patrick, the treasurer, and Roger de Castello, canon of Caithness, as the parties by whom he was nominated. In his time Boyamund de Vitia was commissioned by Pope Gregory X. to collect a special subsidy in aid of the crusade, and his accounts furnish us with the names of a number of the churches in the diocese of Caithness and the amounts contributed.[155]
Bishop Archibald must have been dead before 1279, for in that year the Pope addressed a letter to the Bishops of St. Andrews and Aberdeen,[156] setting forth that the see of Caithness being vacant, the chapter had proceeded to the election of R., the Dean of Caithness, and had constituted Henry of Nottingan[157] (in Caithness) their procurator to obtain confirmation of the said election, and that the said Henry, in the Pope’s presence, had confessed that the said dean had a son thirty years old or more, and that he was said to have another, although he (Henry of Nottingan) did not believe it; and, moreover, that he had been stricken with paralysis, and was old and debilitated. The bishops are enjoined to use their influence to oblige him to resign.
ALAN de St. Edmund, eighth bishop, was an Englishman, elected by the influence of Edward I. of England. In 1290 he signs the letter addressed to that king, proposing a marriage between the Maid of Norway and the young Prince Edward. Alan was a favourite with King Edward, and was made Chancellor of Scotland in 1291. In that year a writ[158] was addressed by the king to Alexander Comyn, keeper of the royal forest of Ternway, in Moray, ordering him to give Bishop Alan 40 oaks suitable for material for the fabric of the cathedral church of Caithness, which the king had granted for the souls of Alexander, King of Scotland, and Margaret, his queen, the sister of King Edward. Bishop Alan died in 1291, and on his death King Edward ordered the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow to commit the vacant cure to some cleric in the king’s allegiance.[159] The fulfilment of this mandate is not on record, but we learn from the letter of Pope Boniface VIII.[160] addressed to Bishop Adam in 1296, that on the death of Alan the chapter of Caithness had chosen the Archdeacon of Caithness, whose name is given as I(oannes?) to be his successor, but because the election had not been in canonical form it was not confirmed by the Pope, who preferred to the vacant diocese Adam, then precentor of the church of Ross.