Adam Bellenden

[close] Adam Bellenden (c. 1569 – 1647) was a 17th-century Scottish churchman. He served as Bishop of Dunblane, Bishop of Aberdeen and Dean of the Chapel Royal.

Bellenden was the son of Sir John Bellenden of Auchnoul, Lord Justice Clerk, and Barbara Kennedy, daughter of Sir Hugh Kennedy of Girvanmains by his spouse Janet Stewart, daughter to John Stewart, 2nd Earl of Atholl.

Adam graduated from the University of Edinburgh on 1 August 1590, and was ordained a Presbyterian minister on 19 July 1593. In 1608 he was appointed minister of Falkirk, a position he held until 1615.

He was promoted to the bishopric of Dunblane, receiving a Crown provision on 24 September 1615 and was consecrated by April of the following year. Balfour Paul states that he was also appointed, c. 1633, Dean of the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle, and also held, as a personal right, Kilconquhar, succeeding to it upon the death of his nephew James, which was ratified in parliament in 1629. However, it is evident that Bellenden was appointed Dean of the Chapel Royal much earlier than Balfour Paul stated, as in 1621 the Privy Council of Scotland ordered that the widow of the previous Dean, William Couper, Bishop of Galloway, hand over documents relating to the Chapel Royal to Bellenden, and specifically called Bellenden 'deane of his Majesteis Chaippell'.

After holding the Dunblane bishopric for several decades, on 2 August 1635, he was given the more prestigious bishopric of Aberdeen. On 13 December 1638, after the anti-Episcopacy Assembly in Glasgow, described by Spottiswoode as "the wild Assembly", he was deprived of this position and, with many others, excommunicated by the Scottish church.

He retired to England, where, in 1642, he was appointed to a parish in county Somerset.