He acquired his first ecclesiastic appointment, as administrator of Caithness, despite competition with Robert Stewart, brother of the Earl of Lennox.
This see was resigned to the pope in 1551, and he was given a pension and the title archbishop of Athens in partibus, along with the commendam of Inchaffray.
'[4] Alexander sent Mary of Guise a vivid account of the capture of Ferniehirst Castle from the French in February 1549.
[7] A year later, Alexander was a signatory to Ainslie's Tavern Band in April 1567, agreeing to the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots to Bothwell.
John seems to have been illegitimate; his parents married, perhaps clandestinely, only in 1546, before Alexander obtained ecclesiastical preferment.