In effect , the sub-commissions , instead of expediting valuation , had actively engaged in collusion with local vested interests to restrict the amount of teind available for redistribution :sx a situation that can be traced directly to the hostile reception accorded to Charles's legal decreet of 18 September 1629 .sx Class Collusion .sx The legal decreet can be separated into five major components affecting the future disposal of superiorities and teinds under the general headings of compensation for surrenders , costing of teinds , limitations on purchase , quantification of teinds and redistribution for pious and other uses .sx Other than costing and quantification where the Commission for Surrenders and Teinds was empowered to make empirical revisions , Charles was content to ratify recommendations already made by the Commission .sx Compensation to the temporal lords for loss of their superiorities was confirmed as 1000 merks for every chalder of victual or 100 merks of free rent :sx that is , ten times the feu-duties hitherto paid by their feuars less the feu-duty paid by the temporal lords themselves to the Crown .sx Superiorities were to be purchased at a price specified as ten years' rental ( that is , free rent ) , an offer initially made to John Maitland , first earl of Lauderdale , but regarded as prejudicial to the nobility when upheld by the Commission on 29 June 1627 .sx The actual mechanism of sale , suggested by the militant vanguard on 10 November 1628 , was not approved formally until 17 July 1630 .sx Feuars who advanced the purchase price for superiorities to temporal lords were to hold their kirklands directly of the Crown as freeholders .sx Their feu-duties , which were now owed to the Crown , were to be retained for up to ten years to recoup monies advanced to temporal lords .sx Thus , by mortgaging the kirklands to existing feuars , temporal lords were to be compensated for their superiorities at no cost to the Crown .sx Not every feuar , however , had a sum equivalent to ten years' rental readily available .sx Nor were all feuars prepared to combine to strip temporal lords of their superiorities .sx Moreover , no change was proposed in apportioning taxation .sx Feuars who bought out superiority were still to pay reliefs to temporal lords who remained responsible for uplifting taxes from kirklands .sx The price at which heritors could acquire control of their own teinds was costed at nine years' purchase for every 100 merks paid annually in money :sx that is , a purchase price equivalent to nine years' valued rent .sx Where teinds were paid in kind , the same costing applied once the valuations were commuted into monetary sums - allowance having been made for regional variations in the quality and quantity of crops designated as teind .sx However , not every heritor was entitled to purchase control over his own teinds .sx Charles ratified his agreement of the previous summer with the royal burghs that teinds assigned to ministers' stipends , educational provision and social welfare could be led by but not sold to heritors - a prohibition on purchase extended to the teinds of universities and hospitals in 1633 .sx Moreover , heritors had to await the expiry of existing tacks before purchasing their teinds from clerical titulars .sx When Charles eventually abrogated this provision on 20 May 1634 , churchmen not heritors were given the first priority to buy out tacksmen and secure the whole teinds of parishes for the permanent use of the Kirk .sx Heritors were also required to pay teinds to tacksmen of temporal lords and lay patrons with no immediate prospect of leading , far less of purchasing , their own teinds .sx For valuations could not be concluded until current tacks - usually long leases - had expired .sx While the right to purchase their own teinds was neither guaranteed nor immediate for some heritors , it was not practicable for others .sx The right to purchase was not so much a standing concession as a singular option .sx The coronation parliament of 1633 went on to impose specific time-limits on this option .sx All heritors whose teinds had already been valued were obliged to make an offer to purchase by the autumn of 1635 .sx Those heritors awaiting valuation of their teinds were given no more than two years to make an offer on the completion of valuation .sx Because of a lack of ready cash , few heritors outwith the ranks of the nobility and leading gentry were able to exercise their option to purchase within two years .sx Heritors were not entirely quit of superiority if they purchased their own teinds .sx The formal contract of sale issued from 1631 required heritors to provide the titular of every parish with a written undertaking not only to pay reliefs for taxation , but to meet their share of parochial teinds apportioned to ministers' stipends , other pious uses and the king's annuity .sx Where the teinds were intermingled with other landholding dues and were thus to be valued conjointly , Charles determined that the quantity to be assessed as teind should be the fifth part of the valued or constant rent :sx that is , a fifth of composite sums paid as feu-duty was to be accounted teind when determining the valued rent of each estate .sx Where the teinds were assessed separately , Charles allowed a deduction of one-fifth of their estimated value to be retained as a personal allowance for the heritor .sx Basically , this personal allowance from the valued rent was afforded because teind quantified separately tended to carry a higher valuation than that where teind was intermingled with other landholding dues .sx The personal allowance was thus a practical corrective to titulars profiteering from the loading of valuation in their favour .sx This personal allowance primarily benefited barons and freeholders who were now guaranteed a minimum share of their own teinds whether or not they exercised their option to purchase .sx Indeed , the personal allowance was the only guaranteed portion of the heritors's teinds not liable to redistribution .sx The legal decreet upheld the revised minimum for ministers' stipends raised by the Commission from 500 merks or 5 chalders of victual to 800 merks or 8 chalders on 30 May 1627 .sx While the amount requiring redistribution within each parish varied , the national minimum was an identified target .sx However , the contribution towards pious uses was not limited by national ratings or current demands , but was elastically geared to future local aspirations for schooling and social welfare .sx Contributions to the king's annuity were fixed nationally but variably in accordance with the Commission's recommendation of 29 May 1627 .sx The rating of 6 per cent to be exacted as annuity applied only to payments of teind in money , not in kind where exactions varied according to the type and quality of victual and fluctuated annually according to local rates of commutation .sx Given that a significant if indeterminate proportion of teind was to be redistributed , the heritors' inducement to purchase was not so much financial as managerial .sx Reflecting on the legal decreet on 24 October 1629 , Charles affirmed that he had provided the necessary guidelines for the surrender of superiorities and teind redistribution " that non of our subjectis interested can have just caus to complain " .sx The presentation of the legal decreet before a Convention of Estates in July 1630 provided no ringing endorsement from the political nation , however .sx The resistance encountered over teind redistribution was such that leading officials were initially averse to moving its ratification " for feir of repulse " .sx Only adroit presentation of the legal decreet as a composite package by the lord president , William Graham , seventh earl of Menteith , ensured acceptance .sx Nonetheless , the gentry , as spokesmen not just for the shires but for the political nation as a whole , called upon the Convention to petition the king to take account of " the great feare " aroused by his efforts to compel compliance with the Revocation Scheme .sx While Charles remained unresponsive to such petitioning , he had already provided the touchstone for the furtherance of class collusion .sx His quantification of teind as a fifth of the valued rent , when intermingled with other landholding dues , was open to manipulation by titulars and lay patrons with the active support of heritors .sx Taking advantage of ties of social deference and the loading of proof against heritors , titulars and lay patrons concocted valued rents that devalued the amounts apportioned as teind .sx The coronation parliament pointed out that valued rents were undervalued by as much as a third in relation to feu-duties where teinds and other landholding dues were paid as composite sums .sx Undervaluing could not be accomplished , however , without the connivance of the sub-commissions who were empowered to scrutinise all landed titles and contractual conditions .sx Thus , collusion was a community enterprise designed to diminish the amount of teind available for redistribution for ministers' stipends , pious uses and , above all , the king's annuity .sx By 1 July 1635 , collusion had become so prevalent that the Commission for Surrenders and Teinds was itself censured by Charles for its routine acceptance of valuations from sub-commissions in which valued rents had been diminished by a third in relation to composite feu-duties .sx An official committee of inquiry into the operation of the Commission reported to Court by the end of December 1636 that " the great ill of undervaluing " was the foremost impediment to comprehensive teind redistribution .sx Moreover , " the farr greater sort " of the teinds were " not yet valued " .sx Limited Accomplishment .sx No more than seven temporal lords had commenced negotiations with the Commission prior to the Convention of Estates in July 1630 , which served to expose the critical weakness of the Revocation Scheme - notably , the king's lack of financial resources to implement the surrender of kirklands , regalities and heritable offices .sx Prior to the implementation of his legal decreet , Charles was already committed to expenditure of around pounds250,000 for the compulsory purchase of four regalities and twelve heritable offices .sx Yet the annual income ordinarily available to the Crown during the first four years of his reign had dropped by pounds27,321-14/4 ( from pounds223,930-7/4 to pounds196,608-13/- ) and his expenditure had moved from a modest surplus of pounds64,838-15/8 to an accumulating deficit of pounds137,640-7/6 .sx Furthermore , the revenues raised from the land tax of pounds400,000 and the 5% tax on annualrents sic !sx voted by the Convention of Estates in 1625 , were earmarked for British expeditionary forces on the continent , national defence and the maintenance of the Scottish establishment at Court and in Edinburgh .sx Although both taxes were renewed by the Convention of 1630 , military and establishment expenditure was still accorded priority .sx Charles's continuing financial embarrassment obliged him to rely on feuars to buy out their own superiorities , a policy impeded partly by legal loopholes arising from transfer of title , but primarily because feuars were unprepared to advance the requisite lump sums .sx Charles took four years to clear up the loopholes arising from his legal decreet .sx As well as prohibiting temporal lords questioning their feuars' titles at law , feuars were obliged to produce documentary evidence that compensation , including any arrears of feu-duty , had been paid in full before they received a charter for their kirklands direct from the Crown .sx Actual , as against threatened , legal action between temporal lords and their feuars was rare .sx Conversely , bands of suspension raised between August 1632 and January 1634 reveal that only the most prominent gentry among feuars of kirklands had sufficient local standing or independent resources to enforce their right to buy out superiority .sx The tendency among most feuars was to collude actively with temporal lords in exploiting legal loopholes .sx Thus , feuars resigned their kirklands in favour of their temporal lords who then registered the resigned lands as their property with the Commission for Surrenders and Teinds .sx On the lands being declared exempt from revocation , they were granted back to the feuars .sx The financial embarrassment of the Crown - which led Charles to suspend negotiated surrenders of regalities and heritable offices in October 1634 - was compounded by temporal lords withholding payments of their feu-duties for over seven years .sx Only eleven temporal lords , less than a third of the total number , had made any meaningful effort to negotiate with the Crown .sx Although no temporal lord was exempted from the scope of revocation , Charles had not enhanced prompt compliance by his blatant favouring of courtiers .sx No more than two temporal lords , both anglicised absentees - James Stewart , fourth duke of Lennox and James Colville , Lord Colville - were prepared to make unconditional surrenders .sx