The Deans of the Chapel Royal and their Lessees v. Robert Hay and Others, Heritors of the Parish of Ettrick

This case was about the allocation of a minister’s stipend in the parish of Ettrick—and more specifically, about how to allocate the stipend between two districts that had different historical ties to the parish. The first district belonged to the old parish of Ettrick. Lord Napier was the titular, and all the heritors there possessed heritable rights to their teinds. The second district was annexed from the parish of Yarrow to the parish of Ettrick in 1650. The teinds from this land formed a portion of the revenues of the Chapel Royal, which were given by the king to three chaplains known as Deans of the Chapel Royal. These teinds were let in tack to the Duke of Buccleuch. When the minister of Ettrick obtained an augmentation of his stipend, the entire augmentation was allocated to the teinds of the Chapel Royal, as opposed to those within the old parish, based on the rule that teinds held in lease must be allocated prior to those held under heritable titles. On appeal, the petitioners argued that because the teinds of the Chapel Royal were for a pious use, they should be allocated after any teinds belonging to lay titulars in the same parish. Moreover, they claimed that because there were two titularities in the parish, the minister’s stipend should be allocated proportionally between them.