1152720Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 20 — Gameline1889James Gainsborough Fotheringham

GAMELINE (d. 1271), lord-chancellor of Scotland and bishop of St. Andrews, was one of the ‘Clerici Regis Alexandri II’ and archdeacon of St. Andrews. He was made lord-chancellor in 1250, and in 1254 was appointed one of the chaplains of Pope Innocent IV. In December 1255 he was elected to the see of St. Andrews by the prior and the convent of St. Andrews, the Culdees having been excluded from voting in the election. The appointment was confirmed by the king and council. He was consecrated the same year upon a warrant from the pope to Bishop Bondington of Glasgow. Pope Alexander IV commanded Gameline, December 1259, to prohibit King Alexander III from seizing the property of the church. This command was repeated by the same pope four years after, dated and sent to Gameline from Avignon. The bishop got into disfavour at court, and was banished from Scotland. He went to Rome to lay his case before the pope, who decided in his favour, excommunicated his adversaries, and ordered the sentence to be proclaimed throughout Scotland. A complaint was made by the pope to the king of England against the king of Scotland for encroaching upon the rights of the church and churchmen. Henry III of England ordered the baillies of the Cinque Ports to arrest Gameline should he enter England, saying: ‘Whereas Master Gameline, Bishop of St. Andrews, has obtained, not without great scandal, certain requests at the court of Rome to the prejudice of our beloved and faithful son, Alexander, king of Scotland, who is married to our daughter, on which account we are unwilling to allow him to enter our dominions. … Given at Windsor January 1258.’ Gameline baptised in 1263 the son of Alexander III, who died at the age of twenty. He himself died in 1271, and was buried at the north side of the high altar of his cathedral.

[Chronicle of Melrose, Keith, Fordun, Wynton, Rymer; Gordon's Eccles. Chronicle, i. 162–9.]