[Sc. and north. form of CHURCHMAN.]
1. An ecclesiastic; = CHURCHMAN 1. (In later use only Sc.)
c. 1340. [see CHURCHMAN 1].
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xl. (Ninian), 560. In quhat wyse Þe kirkmen did þar seruice.
1440. in Corr., etc. Priory Coldingham (Surtees), 113. Baith temporal lords and kirkmen.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., 255 b. Their Kirkmen preached, that in Englande was neither Masse, nor any service of God.
1638. Act Assembly, in Coll. Conf., II. 115 (Jam.). The civil places and powers of Kirkmen declared to be unlawful.
1733. Neal, Hist. Purit., II. 238. That part of it [the Act] which referred to the Apparel of Kirkmen.
1853. W. Cadenhead, Bon-Accord, 188 (E. D. D.). When nane but Kirkmen daur’d to preach at peril o’ their neck.
2. A member or adherent of the ‘kirk,’ i.e., the Church of Scotland: see CHURCHMAN 4.
1650. Nicholas Papers (Camden), 205. The Kirkmen and their faction adhering still very rigidly to their mad principles.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., 262. The English Presbyterians (who had most basely accepted a canting thing called the Covenant from the Kirkmen of Scotland).
1752. Carte, Hist. Eng., III. 425. A number of the most zealous kirkmen, meeting at Leonard’s Craig near Edenburgh.
1893. Dict. Nat. Biog., XXXIII. 1002. Rothes had never been a fanatical puritan; he was a politician and a patriot rather than a kirkman.
