| Type: | Bishop |
| David Arnot | |
| Honorific Suffix: | O.S.A. |
| Bishop of Galloway | |
| Church: | Catholic Church |
| See: | Diocese of Galloway |
| Term: | 1509–1526 |
| Predecessor: | James Beaton |
| Successor: | Henry Wemyss |
| Death Date: | 1536 or 1537 |
David Arnot (before 1497 - 1536 or 1537) was a Scottish prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the Bishop of Galloway (Scotland) from 1509 to 1526. He was from the Arnot family of Arnot, Fife.[1]
Arnot was Rector of Kirkforthar, Fife, receiving crown presentation to that parish church on 19 September 1497.[1] He received crown presentation to become Archdeacon of Lothian on 26 October 1498.[2]
Arnot is found to be provost of the collegiate church of Bothwell in a document dating to 20 September 1499, a document recording a grant made to Arnot by the king of a tenement in Linlithgow; it is not known when he attained this position.[3] The last known provost is found as provost no later than 26 January 1468; and although this man, Patrick Leich, did not die until either 1493 or 1494, it is not known if Leich still held this position at his death.[4] Arnot was provost there no later than 30 November 1502, when James Beaton is attested as provost.[4]
After the death of Henry Abercrombie, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, on 29 March 1503, Arnot was provided to succeed him.[5] He is found as abbot-elect on 30 May and then as full abbot on 28 November.[5] Arnot led the Abbey of Cambuskenneth for over five years.[5]
In November 1508, after the translation of James Beaton from Bishop of Galloway to Archbishop of Glasgow, Arnot received crown nomination to the papacy to fill the vacant see of Galloway.[6] He was provided to the bishopric on 29 January 1509, and granted the temporalities of the see on 27 May as "Bishop of Candida Casa [Whithorn] and of the Chapel Royal".[7] Since 1504, the position of Bishop of Galloway and that of Dean of the Chapel Royal at Stirling went together.[8]
Arnot's position was supplemented in 1509, when he received crown nomination to receive Tongland Abbey in commendam, after the resignation of the previous Abbot of Tongland Peter Damian de Falcutiis.[9] Bishop Arnot was provided as Commendator of Tongland on 18 April 1510, for which on 7 May he paid the papacy 50 florins.[10]
Arnot was sent on an embassy on behalf of King James V of Scotland in April 1516 to Henry VIII of England, for which he received a royal letter of protection on 3 April 1516; he was accompanied by, among others, the Bishop of Dunblane, the Bishop of Caithness, the Earl of Cassillis, the Earl of Morton and the Earl of Eglinton.[11]
Arnot witnessed a royal charter on 18 February 1517, and another on 28 March 1522.[1]
Arnot resigned his bishopric on 23/4 January 1526, to Henry Wemyss, with right of return and for a pension.[12] Although Arnot also resigned Tongland for lifelong pension with right of return on vacancy, Arnot may have effectively held on to Tongland for a few more years; repeated crown nominations of Wemyss to Tongland failed, apparently because of Arnot, while William Stewart, a secular canon of Glasgow Cathedral, also got crown nomination until the Pope finally agreed to give Wemyss the commend in 1530, with Stewart resigning his rights.[13]
Arnot is found consenting to a deed of Bishop Henry on 7 June 1535, and to another on 10 July 1536.[1] This was the last time Arnot can be found in the sources; he was dead by 25 August 1537, though he could have died at any time before this and after 10 July 1536.[6]