The 16th-century complement at Pluscarden as shown by their signatures on charters shows that there were seven monks in 1500, nine in 1508, thirteen in 1524 and also in 1548, and eleven in 1558. After the Reformation, the rental of the priory in 1561 gives details of the inhabitants – five monks, a chamberlain with two servants, a master-cook, master-baker, porter and a gardener. George Learmonth (1509–29) and Alexander Dunbar (1529–60) were the last two priors before the Reformation who, although they were secular clerics, both wore the Benedictine habit. Dunbar, in a similar manner to his contemporary Bishop Patrick Hepburn at Elgin, carried out large-scale alienation of the priory property – in Dunbar's case, to his own family. Dunbar died in 1560 and the community was made the responsibility of a succession of lay commendatory priors who saw to the monastic revenues and the welfare of those monks that remained. The last monk recorded at Pluscarden was Thomas Ross who along with the commendatory prior, Alexander Seton (later to become the 1st Earl of Dunfermline), both witness a grant of fishings in 1586. After the priory ceased to have a monastic community, the estates were administered by lay priors.