In 1378 Cardinal Wardlaw petitioned the pope for a canonry of Glasgow with expectation of a prebend for his nephew, who must have been then a mere boy, as he lived for sixty-two years afterwards.

[citation needed] Having helped to bring about the release of James from his captivity in England, he crowned the king in May 1424, and afterwards acted as one of his principal advisers.

[1] The chief blot on his episcopate was the burning of John Resby, an English priest, at Perth in 1407, and of Pavel Kravař, a Bohemian, at St. Andrews in 1432, for teaching the tenets of Wycliffe.

It is no excuse that the spirit of persecution then raged throughout Christendom, and that the Scottish parliament in 1425 enacted that all bishops should make inquisition of Lollards and others considered by Rome to be heretics in their dioceses.

He issued the charter of foundation in February 1411, and the privileges of the new seat of learning were confirmed by a bull of the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII, dated 28 August 1413.