SPENS, Thomas Bishop of Galloway, then Bishop Aberdeen, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Right Reverend Mr ¹

  Research Notes:

BODDAM


There are two areas of Aberdeen named Boddam.


Boddam Castle was built in the late 16th century by the Keiths of Ludquharn. It lies in a coastal area of the same name almost fifty kilometers north of Aberdeen.


There are also in the parish of Insch in the Garioch two places called Upper Boddam and Nether Boddam, which can be reached nowadays in about forty five minutes travelling by car north-east from Aberdeen.


The earliest members of the family of Spens/Spence of Boddam were probably associated with the parish of Insch, rather than with the former near Peterhead whose history appears to be more modern.


The old church in Insch originally, before the Reformation, belonged to the Abbey of Lindores. Lindores, possibly more famous now as a distillery, was founded in the 12th century as a daughter house of Kelso, and as such was supported by members of the Scottish royal family which had originally brought the monastic order who served there from France.


One of the Spences of Boddam, James Spence, was a minister of the reformed church in Insch at the beginning of the 17th century. The Lathallan Spenses/Spences, whose roots were in Perthshire and Fife, had close links with the Roman Catholic Church and with the Scottish Crown. They also had links with the Leslie family who were landowners in the parish of Insch and surrounding areas. James Spence, minister at Insch by 1603, for example, was married to a Leslie woman, of the Leslies of New Leslie. His mother-in-law, Margaret, was a daughter of James Cowie or Colville in Newburgh in Lindores and William Leslie "got with her in feu the lands of Inch and Christiskirk."


There are many unknowns in the story of Spens/Spence of Boddam, not least the Spens/Spence male with whom the family line originated. Secondary sources are vague, but according to Burke's Genealogy, the Boddam branch originated in the Lathallan family:

"The Spenses of Bodham, in Aberdeenshire, which still exist, have been free barons ever since the time of James III. and several other Spenses in the same county; also the Spenses of Berryhole, in Fife, &c. &c. are all descended of Lathallan, which their armorial bearing testifies." (Commoners)


Yet the exact origin is never pinpointed. That sort of degree of hiddenness in family history is often on account of illegitimacy. There may be little documentation from the period in question, and later generations may wish to draw a veil over their origins.


Another reason, in Scots history, for hidden information is connected to Roman Catholicism. The Reformation was not only a watershed in Scottish history, it was also culturally destructive in Scotland.


The quotation above asserts that the Spens/Spence family of Boddam became free barons in the reign of King James III of Scots. That would surely put in the frame Bishop Thomas Spens (c1415-1480). He served King James II (1437-1460) and King James III (1460-1488).


Spens was a Roman Catholic cleric who was appointed Bishop in Galloway in 1450 and Bishop of Aberdeen in 1457. He worked for the Scottish Crown in his thirties as a diplomatic messenger; he was Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland in his forties in 1458, then again in 1467 when he was in his fifties. Around this period he acted as ambassador in significant French and English affairs. He frequently attended the Scottish Parliament and was a charitable donor to the poor and to arts. He was a consderable figure. But did he have any children?


In pre-Reformation times vows o poverty and chastity were often broken by Roman Catholic clergy. Wordliness and hedonism were manifest among them, even in the higher echelons. Archbishop Beaton of St Andrews is said to have had at least eight children by his mistress. Bishop Hepburn of Moray had nine. The famous Bishop William Elphinstone, the second-next bishop of Aberdeen after Thomas Spens, was himself the son of William Elphinstone, canon of Glasgow and later Bishop of Teviotdale, a contemporary of Thomas Spens. So it is not unthinkable, or even wholly unlikely that Bishop Thomas Spens had children too, and that these offspring would have been treated as other similar illegitimate offspring were at the time. Acquiring small tracts of land, gathering wealth, making good marriages, these were as desirable for the children of clergy as for children of legitimate unions.


Whether Thomas Spens did own lands of Boddam in Insch, whether he had a son we simply do not yet know for certain. Whether he might have acquired land for a son, or, indeed, whether a son acquired lands in Boddam by an advantageous marriage, is also not known. There is no hard evidence as yet.


At this stage, it is merely an hypothesis, though a potentially compelling one. Circumstantial evidence points to the strong possibility of the Spens/Spence family of Boddam having originated with Bishop Thomas Spens in the 1450s. Perhaps now that the hypothesis has been stated, the hard evidence will emerge, and for this reason the hypothesis has been used on this website. It is difficult to see who other that Bishop Thomas Spens, given the circumstances, might be the common ancestor of the family of Boddam, but since it is a hypothesis users of the website should treat this placing with caution. ^{3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11}

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Bishop: Ordinary, 7 January 1450 until 21 November 1457, of Galloway. ¹²

2. Bishop: Ordinary, 21 November 1457, of Aberdeen. ¹³

3. Ambassador: of King James III of Scots, 28 April 1469, to court of King Edward IV of England. ¹⁴

Thomas had a relationship with someone.