In my self imposed quest to try and unearth the original William Caldwell of that Ilk, prebend of Glasgow and for a short time Chancellor of Scotland I have found another candidate. Also courtesy of Professor GWS Barrow and his useful book "Robert Bruce & The Community of The Realm of Scotland".

I am indebted to Professor Barrow's research and hope that my quotes are long enough to spark interest and short enough to be taken as aids in general research.

I ask for further debate on this subject and suggest that William of Eaglesham and William of Twynhame, at least contemporaries, may have been one and the same person:

Barrow mentions another learned cleric "William of Eaglesham", Eaglesham is close by Caldwell and also not far from Glasgow. So the general location of his name-ancestry is much closer than Twynhame near Kirkudbright on the Solway.

It is possible that several "of" names could be used for the same person as Barrow states elsewhwere "the king's chancellor Bernard, better known as Abbot Bernard of Arbroath, less well known as Abbot Bernard of Kilwinning, least well known of all as Bishop Bernard of Sodor and Man" (page 268).

"We know the identity of the man who was chiefly responsible for the impressive Scottish pleading at the papal court. Shortly after Whitsun (May 21st) 1301, a letter was addressed to Pope Boniface by John de Soules, Guardian of the kingdom of Scotland, by the counsel of the prelates, earls, barons and other nobles of the community of the realm, giving formal authority to a delegation composed of Master William Frere, archdeacon of Lothian and professor of canon law in the university of Paris, Master William of Eaglesham, doctor of canon law, and Master Baldred Bissett." (Page 118)

"Now in 1301 he took his place with Soules and Lamberton as one of the handful of key men who directed the national struggle. Indeed, the first of the only two documents which prove that Balmyle was chancellor shows him in the company of Bishop Lamberton and of two out of the three members of the delegation to Rome, Archdeacon Frere and William of Eaglesham." (Page 120)

"Balmyle, already a canon of Dunblane, was elected by a committee of the chapter which included Bruce's friend, Abbot Maurice of Inchaffray, and Master William of Eaglesham, one of Bishop Lamberton's men and the colleague of William Frere and Baldred Bisset in 1301." (Page 174)

" is lifted virtually verbatim from the brief prepared by Baldred Bisset in 1301. In that year one of Bisset's two colleagues pleading the Scots cause at the papal curia had been Mr. William of Eaglesham. In 1321 Mr. William was archdeacon of Lothian, in which office he had been succeeded between 1324 and 1327 by Mr. Alexander Kinninmonth who, as we shall see, was active in pleading the Scots cause at the papal curia in the summer of 1320. The connexion between these two, both trusted clerks of Bishop Lamberton, is seen also in the fact that in 1322 Kinninmonth succeeded Eaglesham in the Aberdeenshire parsonage of Kinkell. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that both were involved in preparing the Scottish brief for the Bamburgh peace talks. There are several telling echoes of the Declaration of Arbroath in the 1321 brief: the Scots have preserved their pristine liberty under 113 kings without subjection to any foreigner; at the hands of Edward I and his son they have suffered oppressions and tyrannical severity; it would be intolerable for the Scots to accept English overlordship so long as there was within their realm one man who would fight to the death for the liberty of the realm and the clergy; and in defending their independence the Scots might have to make the same sacrifices as the holy Maccabees. .... It would be hard to say whether the brief of 1321 literally echoes the letter of 1320 or whether both documents derive material from a common stock which the Scots intelligentsia had been building up for twenty or thirty years," (Page 241)

Note 32 Chapter 4
"32. Glasgow Registrum, no.239. Ibid., no.238, shows that Master William Lamberton, future bishop of St Andrews, Master Thomas of Dundee, future bishop of of Ross, and Master William of Eaglesham, future Scottish envoy to the papal curia in 1301, were also present at Scone at the time of King John's first Parliament."

Note 27 Chapter 14
"27. A laborious search of all the surviving record might throw some light on the question of which clergy were available to meet at Dundee on February 24th, 1310. Bishop Lamberton of St Andrews and his Official, Master William of Eaglesham, were evidently present at a justiciary court at Lindores on February 19th, 1310 (Lindores Liber, no. 10), and Bishop Lamberton held synods at St Andrews and (possibly) at Holyrood in this year (Raine, North Durham, Appendix, . no.489). Bishop Murray of Moray was at Elgin on March 23rd, 1310 (Moray Registrum, nos. 135-6)."

Also to recap re: "William of Twynholm"

" In the Scottish Church during the war of independence this class of iducated clergy was relatively small. Its members formed a close-knit, interconnected group, moving easily from diocese to diocese, often holding several offices simultaneously in different dioceses, exerting an influence out of all proportion to their numbers. Their common experience of long years of study at one or more of the great continental universities must have given the graduates among them a genuine esprit de corps ... there seems to have been a strong Scottish connexion with Bologna, the centre of legal studies. This connexion dated from long before the outbreak of the war with England and continued into the fourteenth century. Among Scottish clerks found at Bologna University in the late thirteenth century were ... William of Twynholm ..." (Pages 267-8)

Where or not it was the same person it still poses the problem that both William of Twynholm and William of Eaglesham would have been very old men by 1350.

I am posing this as a challenge for others to add to this research - please feel free to prove or disprove my theory.

I am hanging on the fact that it is stated that the educated clergy were a small select "band of brothers" and that William of Eaglesham's name crops up fairly regularly. He is closely associated with Alexander Kininmonth who Barrow thinks may have been the author of the "Declaration of Arbroath" We know that William Caldwell of that Ilk was Chancellor of Scotland and prebend of Glasgow and consequently of that clerical group. We know that the Caldwell's had a very large estate on the Ayrshire/Renfrew border and very close to Eaglesham. He was entrusted on several occasions with high level negotiations (as part of a small team).

William of Eaglesham must have been known as a very loyal and helpful supporter of the Bruce cause and might be given some recognition for this.

Most of the small band of clerical brothers might expect their names to crop up here and there due to their very paucity in numbers.

Walter of Twynholm presumably a relation of William of Twynholm was also a Chancellor of Scotland. (see my earlier post).

Consequently - we have small numbers, a limited number of "William's" to chose from, high service to the king that might bring royal favour and a connection to both the Solway and to the immediate area of Glasgow-Eaglesham-Caldwell.

Pity about the 1350 date

A little bit of smoke and not much fire, cheer me up and find some more information to stir in the pot

Tom