Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cameron, John (d.1446)
CAMERON, JOHN (d. 1446), bishop of Glasgow and chancellor of Scotland, is said to have belonged to a family of Edinburgh burghers, and to have drawn his name more remotely from the Camerons of Craigmillar, and not, as was formerly asserted, from the Camerons of Lochiel (Robertson, Concilia Scotiæ, i. lxxii). In 1422 he was appointed official of Lothian by Archbishop Wardlaw of St. Andrews (Crawfurd). Two years later he was acting in the capacity of secretary to the Earl of Wigtown (December 1423), who gave him the rectory of Cambuslang in Lanarkshire (Reg. Mag. Sig. 13; Gordon). Next July he signs as secretary to the king (James I), and would appear to have been made provost of Lincluden, near Dumfries, within six months of this date (ib. Nos. 4, 14). Before the close of 1425 (October) he was keeper of the privy seal; and by the commencement of 1427 (8 Jan.) keeper of the great seal (ib. Nos. 25, 74). According to Crawfurd and Gordon he had been appointed to the latter post as early as February and March 1425–6. By July 1428 he had been elected to the bishopric of Glasgow (ib. 56), but does not appear to have been consecrated till later in this year or early in the next (Robertson, with whom cf. Reg. Mag. Sig. 78, for 12 Jan.) About the same time he was made chancellor, under which title he is found signing in December 1426 (ib. 68). According to Dr. Robertson, Cameron was appointed to the privy seal in April 1425, and to the great seal in March 1426. There does not seem to be any means of ascertaining where he studied, but it is worth while noting that he signs a charter of the Earl of Wigtown in 1423 as ‘licenciatus in decretis,’ which, taken in connection with the patronage of Wardlaw, may point to his having been a student of the newly founded university of St. Andrews, where there had been a faculty in canon law since 1410 (Goodall, Scotichronicon, ii. 445). Cameron seems to have continued chancellor of Scotland till May 1439, when he was succeeded by William Crichton (Reg. Mag. Sig. 201).
The newly appointed bishop and chancellor is credited with having assisted James I in his attacks on the ecclesiastical courts of Scotland, and is supposed to have been the leading spirit in the provincial council of Perth (1427), and mainly instrumental in drawing up the great act of parliament passed in July this year (Robertson, Concil. Scot. i. lxxxi). For this offence he was summoned to Rome by Martin V. James, however, would not forsake his servant, and sent an embassy (1429) to excuse the bishop from appearing, on the plea that the duties of the chancellorship prevented him from quitting the kingdom. The pope's reply was a citation to Rome, which was delivered to the archbishop by his personal enemy, William Croyser, archdeacon of Teviotdale, who was thereupon (1433) driven from the kingdom for treason, and deprived of all his possessions and preferments (Robertson, lxxxiii; Raynaldus, ix. 228; Excheq. Rolls of Scotland, pref. cxi; Theiner, 373–5). Eugenius IV now demanded the abrogation of the obnoxious statutes, and threatened even the king with excommunication (1436). Meanwhile the bishop of Glasgow had been despatched to Italy and had persuaded the pope (July 1436) to send a fresh legation for the purpose of reforming the church of Scotland ({{sc|Raynald}. ix. 231). The king's murder seems to have delayed the reconciliation for some years, and it was not till the very end of 1439 that we find Croyser commissioned to raise the excommunications that had been levelled against the bishop (Theiner, 375).
In the years that had intervened since his election to the see of Glasgow, Cameron had been employed in many other affairs of moment. In 1426, 1428, and 1444 he appears as the king's auditor (Excheq. Rolls, iv. 379, 432, v. 143). In 1429–30 he was appointed member of a commission for concluding a permanent peace with England. Seven years later he was employed on a mission to the English court (Rymer, x. 417, 446, 482–491, 677). About 1433 Cameron was one of the two bishops whom James I selected to represent Scotland at the council of Basle (Robertson, ii. 248, 384); and it is probably in connection with this appointment that he received a safe-conduct for his journey through England in October and November 1433 (Rymer, x. 537, 563). He sat on the lay-clerical commission of June 1445, charged with the settlement of the long-disputed point as to the testamentary powers of the episcopacy (Robertson, i. ciii–civ). Within the limits of his diocese Cameron seems to have been a vigorous administrator. In 1429 he established six prebends in connection with his cathedral (Reg. Episc. Glasg. ii. 340); and in the course of three years caused an inventory of all the ornaments and books belonging to the church of Glasgow to be taken (ib. ii. 329). About 1430 he built the great tower of the episcopal palace, where his arms were still to be seen in the last century (Innes, Sketches, 58–9; Gordon), and continued the chapter-house commenced by his predecessor. He appears to have died in the castle of Glasgow on Christmas eve 1446 (Short Chronicle of Scotland, quoted in Gordon). There does not seem to be any valid foundation for Spotiswood's charge that Cameron was of a cruel and covetous disposition; and still less is any credit to be attached to the legend of terror with which the story of his death has been embellished (Buchanan). The circumstances of this legend seem to point to an attack of apoplexy.
[‘Gordon's Eccl. Chron. for Scotland, ii. 498–508; Crawfurd's Lives of Officers of the Scotch Crown, 24–6; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, ed. Burnett (Scotch Rolls Series), iv. v.; Registrum Magni Sigilli Scotiæ, ed. Paul, i. (Scotch Rolls Series); Concilia Scotiæ, ed. Robertson (Bannatyne Club), i. lxxxii, &c. ii., Raynaldi, Ann. Eccl. ix. 228, &c.; Theiner's Vetera Monumenta Scotiæet Hiberniæ, 373–5; Spotiswood's Hist. of Church of Scotland (ed. 1677), 114; Buchanan's Historia Scot. l. xi. c. 25; Registr. Episcopatus Glasguensis, ed. Innes; Innes's Early Scotch History; MacGeorge's Old Glasgow, 107, 116, 127.]