In June 1776 Charles Arbuthnot became abbot. When in 1802 the Perpetual Diet of Regensburg determined, under pressure from Napoleon Bonaparte, to secularize all the church lands of the Empire, the Monastery was uniquely successful in avoiding this fate. Arbuthnot and his influential monk, Alexander Horn, lobbied Macdonald and Lauriston, Scottish Catholic generals in the French army. Horn, as the official British agent in Regensburg, further appealed to the British government. Arbuthnot declared the abbey a Scottish national shrine and the two priests successfully obtained the support of Charles Erskine, cardinal protector of Scotland in Rome. An express exemption was made in favour of the Scots abbey although it was not allowed to take any new novices.