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Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

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Chapter 11<br />

Andrew Melville<br />

The Tulchan Bishops<br />

THE same year (1572) which saw Knox<br />

descend <strong>in</strong>to the grave beheld the rise of a system<br />

<strong>in</strong> <strong>Scotland</strong>, which was styled episcopacy, and yet<br />

was not episcopacy, for it possessed no authority<br />

and exercised no oversight. We have already<br />

<strong>in</strong>dicated the motives which led to this <strong>in</strong>vasion<br />

upon the Presbyterian equality which had till now<br />

prevailed <strong>in</strong> the Scottish Church, and the<br />

significant name borne by the men who filled the<br />

offices created under this arrangement. They were<br />

styled Tulchan bishops, be<strong>in</strong>g only the image or<br />

likeness of a bishop, set up as a convenient vehicle<br />

through which the fruits of the benefices might<br />

flow, not <strong>in</strong>to the treasury of the Church, their<br />

rightful dest<strong>in</strong>ation, but <strong>in</strong>to the pockets of patrons<br />

and landlords.<br />

We have seen that Knox resisted this scheme,<br />

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