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The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/martyrsofangusmeOOscot 
 
GEORGE WISHART. 
 
 
THE MAR 
 
 OF 
 
 ANGUS AND MEARNS 
 
 SKETCHES IN THE HISTORY 
 of the 
 SCOTTISH REFORMATION r=-r-^ 
 
 ^ — u+± — , 'Of 
 
 [* JAN 14 1911 ■ 
 
 Rev. J. MOFFAT SCOTT 
 
 BY THE 
 
 ARBROATH 
 
 ALEXANDER GARDNER 
 
 PAISLEY; and 12 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 1885 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. — Pre-Reformation Times in Scotland, i 
 
 II. — The Dawn of the Reformation, - 22 
 
 III. — David Stratoun of Whitstoun, - - 71 
 IV. — George Wishart, the Schoolmaster 
 
 of Montrose, ----- 99 
 V. — George Wishart, the Evangelical 
 
 Preacher, - - - - - 131 
 
 VI. — George Wishart, the Martyr, - - 164 
 
 VII. — Walter Myln, the Vicar of Lunan, - 210 
 
 VIII. — Cardinal Beaton (Appendix), - -272 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 George Wishart, the Martyr, - Fiontispiece. 
 
 The Abbey of Arbroath, - - - - 20 
 
 The Last of the Stratouns, - - 70 
 
 The Church of Saint Palladius, Fordun, - 98 
 
 The Cathedral and Tower, Brechin, - - 109 
 
 The Wishart Arch, (Cowgate) Dundee, - 138 
 
 Redcastle, on Lunan Bay, - - - - 224 
 
 Ethie House, ------- 238 
 
I. 
 
 PRE-REFORMATION TIMES IN 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
 " Had not yourself begun the weiris 
 
 Your stepillis had been standand yit ; 
 It was the flattering of your friers 
 That ever gart Sanct Francis flit : 
 Ye grew sa superstitious 
 
 In wickednesse, 
 It gart us grow malicious 
 Contrair your messe." 
 
 — Glide and Godly B dilates. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, Scotland was an ecclesi- 
 astical province of the Holy Roman Empire, 
 governed by princely prelates who received their 
 instructions from the Pope and his Cardinals who 
 sat in conclave in the ancient city of the Cresars.* 
 
 * The principal authorities for the pre-Reformation period are 
 the following: — Wyntoun's "Metrical Chronicle," Bellenden's 
 "Chronicles," Fordun's " Scotichronicon," Sir James Balfour's 
 41 Annals," Lindsay of Pitscottie's " History, " George Buchanan's 
 "History of Scotland," Foxe's "Acts and Monuments," Knox's 
 "History of the Reformation," Keith's "Catalogue of Scottish 
 Bishops," Calderwood's, Spottiswoode's, Petrie's, Row's, Lorimer's, 
 and Cunningham's Church Histories, the Chartularies of the 
 Religious Houses, " (Jrigines Pamchiales," Theiner's " Monu- 
 menta," Robertson's " Concilia Scotise," Sadler's "State Tapers," 
 Lorimer's "Precursors of Knox," and Cosmo Innes's "Early 
 Scotch History" and "Scotland in the Middle Ages." 
 
 
2 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 The ecclesiastical province was broken up into 
 dioceses of different magnitudes, controlled by 
 bishops attached to cathedrals ; and the dioceses 
 were again divided into parishes, superintended by 
 secular priests, or served by stipendiary vicars who 
 were the underlings of the great monasteries. Be- 
 sides the parochial or secular clergy, there existed 
 numerous orders of regulars, inhabiting the great 
 religious houses or " cloistered schools of peni- 
 tence." In the principal towns of the kingdom, 
 and in some of the more picturesque and secluded 
 rural districts, the monasteries were magnificent 
 and opulent, thronged with monks and friars pro- 
 fessing contempt for the vain ambitions and de- 
 lusive pleasures of the world, and bent on disci- 
 plining their souls, subduing their carnal lusts and 
 passions, and developing their moral nature so as 
 to fit themselves for the fellowship of the illustrious 
 intelligences in God's eternal home, and the enjoy- 
 ment of the Beatific Vision. Dominicans and 
 Franciscans, Augustinians and Benedictines, and 
 various other preaching and mendicant orders 
 swarmed throughout the land, and obtained such 
 conspicuous privileges and liberties from the Roman 
 Pontiffs that they became more influential and 
 powerful than the parochial clergy, and frequently 
 displaced them altogether. The splendid Abbeys 
 
P re- Reformation Times in Scotland. 3 
 
 and Priories of Arbroath, Melrose, Dunfermline, 
 St. Andrews, Paisley, and Cambuskenneth pos- 
 sessed numerous parochial charges and vast tracts 
 of fertile country ; and the princely abbots and 
 priors controlled the parish pulpits by filling them 
 with docile and obedient members of their respec- 
 tive brotherhoods, and wielded the social power of 
 wealthy nobles by allotting the extensive farm- 
 lands to their particular friends.* For centuries 
 prior to the Reformation, the Roman Church in 
 Scotland exerted a supreme influence. The 
 ecclesiastical dignitaries were omnipotent : the 
 proudest barons and the most powerful earls were 
 held in leash by them like hunting-dogs. Poli- 
 tically and religiously, they were sovereign rulers 
 and guides. They held the keys of earth and 
 
 * Prior to the Reformation the Religious Houses were very 
 numerous, each containing from fifty to two hundred monks. 
 The Monasteries were not fewer than one hundred and fifty ; the 
 Nunneries did not exceed twenty. The Augustinian Canons pos- 
 sessed about forty-eight houses ; the Benedictines thirty-one ; and 
 the Mendicant Friars, chiefly Dominicans and Franciscians, forty- 
 six. 
 
 Of the seven hundred parishes in Scotland, two-thirds were 
 vicarages belonging to the great Religious Houses, and served by 
 members of the various fraternities. During the single reign of 
 King William the Lion, the Abbey of Arbroath had no fewer 
 than thirty-three parish churches bestowed upon it ; and each of 
 the Religious Houses of Paisley, Holyrood, Melrose, Dunfermline, 
 and Kelso possessed about thirty parish churches. 
 
4 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 heaven. As a sacred and privileged class they 
 claimed exemption from secular jurisdiction and 
 criminal prosecution ; and they professed to be the 
 divinely-appointed guardians of the gates of para- 
 dise and purgatory, having power either to absolve 
 the sinner or to condemn him to " bottomless 
 perdition," whether prince or peasant. Arrogating 
 to themselves the functions of mediating priests 
 and of ecclesiastical and civil lawyers, the clergy 
 occupied a position of absolute supremacy, and 
 consequently they were feared, even when heartily 
 hated and despised. Their word was law, their 
 hostility meant disaster, their anathema death. 
 They compassed human life on every side. They 
 performed the first hallowed services for the living, 
 and the last for the dead. They christened new- 
 born children to insure them against the torments 
 of purgatory if their days were numbered ; they 
 administered extreme unction to those on the 
 brink of the grave to secure their title to a fair 
 immortality. Celibates themselves, the clergy 
 celebrated the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and 
 blessed the honourable bond ; and claiming the 
 churchyards as their peculiar inheritance, they held 
 themselves free to curse the dead or to refuse them 
 sepulture. The last testaments of deceased per- 
 sons required to be proved in their Ecclesiastical 
 
Pre- Re form at ion Times in Scotland. 5 
 
 Courts, and were regarded as invalid without their 
 approval ; and the souls of the departed were 
 supposed to be neither safe nor happy if deprived 
 of their stated mass-prayers. Human life was in 
 their hand. The civil magistrate was generally 
 their cringing slave. If a brave and honest man 
 opposed and defied them ; if a fair-minded and 
 enlightened person denied and resisted their pre- 
 sumptuous claims, or discredited their superstitious 
 creed ; if a strong-headed and indignant reformer 
 denounced rapacious Pope or Cardinal, or exposed 
 profligate monks and friars, they could confiscate 
 his goods, and drag him to the scaffold and the 
 stake, and too frequently they gave striking 
 manifestations of their awful power.* Learned and 
 wealthy, the higher Roman ecclesiastics were 
 politically and socially influential. Their scholas- 
 tic and legal learning admitted them to the courts 
 of princes and the chambers of scholars ; and it 
 was not uncommon for them to act as lawyers and 
 professors, as ambassadors and diplomatists, as 
 counsellors and soldiers. Alexander Myln, Abbot 
 of Cambuskenneth, near Stirling, was the first 
 President of the College of Senators ; Gavin 
 Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, was a Privy 
 
 * See Seebohm's Era of the Protestant Revolution, pp. 9-10. 
 
The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 Councillor ; Patrick Panther, Abbot of Cambus- 
 kenneth, was Secretary of State to James the 
 Fourth and the Regent Albany ; Cardinal Beaton 
 was Lord High Chancellor of the Realm and the 
 Sovereign's Envoy ; and the great Abbots of 
 Arbroath sat in high places of the Scottish 
 Parliament, buckled on their heavy armour in 
 times of national trouble, followed the King to 
 the battlefield, and were the most distinguished 
 and powerful personages in the shire. 
 
 Moreover, the wealth of the churchmen was 
 enormous, and continually increasing. Claiming 
 a tenth of all property for their religious services ; 
 robbing the poor of " corpse presents " when death 
 knocked at the door and stript them of their 
 nearest and dearest friends, and constantly obtain- 
 ing large gifts of fertile land and handsome 
 legacies in gold from expiring nobles, who, doubt- 
 less, hoped to pave a pleasant path to Heaven by 
 enriching the ministers of religion who pretended 
 to hold St. Peter's key, they gradually grew 
 opulent and luxurious. At the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century more than the half of the whole 
 property of the country was in their hands ; and 
 the prelates surpassed in splendour, in magnificence 
 and pomp, the greatest nobles. But wealth and 
 worldly ease speedily ruined the Church as they 
 
P re-Reformation Times in Scotland. y 
 
 have invariably emasculated strong races, and 
 robbed individuals of their youthful energy, enthu- 
 siasm, and conquering power. When the Church 
 was poor and struggling for existence, she was 
 comparatively pure, vigorous, and unworldly. 
 Like Hannibal at Capua, among the rich vine- 
 yards, and beneath the soft genial sky and the 
 relaxing sun of Italy, she lost sight of her lofty 
 ideal and relinquished her heroical faith in the 
 heyday of worldly prosperity and carnal security, 
 and steadily sank into decrepitude and decay. 
 Her primitive simplicity and pure spiritual aims 
 conferred on her Titanic strength and vigour ; the 
 cultivation of worldly ambitions, sensuous tastes, 
 and luxurious social habits, weakened her constitu- 
 tion, and heralded her destruction. 
 
 For nearly a century before the struggle for 
 religious reform was crowned with victory, in 
 1560, the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland had 
 become unspeakably corrupt. Outside of the 
 Universities, ignorance, superstition, and vice 
 prevailed everywhere, covering the land with 
 Cimmerian gloom. The people generally were 
 poor, rude, untutored, and unspiritual, like the 
 Spaniards of the present day ; and their religion 
 was a thing of ceremony, of hollow profession, of 
 mechanical mummery. If the members of the 
 
8 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 Church bowed and crossed themselves devoutly 
 enough when the name of Jesus Christ was. 
 mentioned, or when Mass was celebrated in 
 melancholy tones by the slothful and dreamy 
 priest, still Christianity had no living grasp of 
 their heart and conscience, for it failed to sanctify 
 and ennoble their life and to bind them back on 
 the Eternal. Superstition was rampant because 
 there was no true Gospel light shining in the 
 land, and no warm, simple Evangelical Ministry 
 endeavouring to point out the way of life and 
 peace. Fearful of the future, all classes of the 
 community, but especially the illiterate and 
 imaginative peasantry and tradesmen, were prone 
 to trust the Church in a vague, blind way, to 
 extricate them from the pains of purgatory, or to 
 deliver them from the awful and intolerable horrors 
 of hell. Ignorant of the teaching of the New 
 Testament, they worshipped the Virgin Mother, 
 and on their bended knees invoked the aid of the 
 Apostles, Martyrs, and Saints ; they regarded the 
 Church as the sole dispenser of the blessings of 
 Heaven, and the priests as channels of spiritual 
 life and salvation ; they considered that baptism 
 was the true laver of regeneration, and that in the 
 Eucharist the body and blood of the Redeemer 
 were actually present ; they believed that the 
 
Pie-Reformation Times in Scotland. g 
 
 Sacrament of Penance cleansed the soul from alt 
 sins and crimes committed after baptism, and that 
 the administration of extreme unction prepared 
 the immortal spirit for entering the home of the 
 shining ones and the temple of living light. 
 Ignorance of the Word of God bred superstition, 
 and superstition, then as now, was prone to 
 substitute ritualism for reality, formalism for 
 spirituality, and Christ-like life. 
 
 It is to be deplored that the literature 
 descriptive of social life and manners in this 
 pre-Reformation age is exceedingly scanty, but 
 such as we possess is not fitted to convey the 
 impression that our Roman Catholic ancestors were 
 a high-toned, pure-hearted, and moral race. If the 
 satirical Dunbar, in his " Two Married Women 
 and the Widow," is to be trusted — and he was 
 certainly not a Pharisee — modesty and purity were 
 uncommon virtues. Harlotry found haunts and 
 homes in the famous places of pilgrimage, and 
 gross sensuality abounded in court and castle, in 
 the homestead of the farmer and in the clay hut of 
 the peasant. People of every rank must have been 
 coarse and vicious when they could find enjoyment 
 in singing indecent parodies of the. hymns of the 
 Church, in witnessing mocking and ridiculous 
 imitations of the most sacred rites, and in listen- 
 
io The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 ing to dramas full of indecent scenes and rough 
 and ribald conversations. But the coarse and 
 barbarous spirit of the literature itself is singularly- 
 significant. The books of an age are its truest 
 mirrors. They are not only the offspring of the 
 genius of the times to which they belong, but they 
 reflect the national life, and generally feed and 
 foster it. 
 
 " Like priest like people " is an old and true 
 maxim ; and we have ample means of forming a 
 correct judgment respecting the character and 
 habits of the priesthood in ante-Reformation times. 
 Growing wealthy and worldly, the clergy of all 
 ranks shirked their higher religious duties, and 
 pandered to their carnal lusts and ambitions. 
 Neglecting laborious and noble studies, and slight- 
 ing the ordinance of preaching, they transformed 
 God's house into a place of merchandise, and not 
 unfrequently converted it into a den of thieves. 
 They openly and deliberately auctioned pardons 
 and indulgences, and sold benefices to the highest 
 bidder ; and when a rich abbacy or a great 
 bishopric was vacant, they entered into the 
 keenest competition for it, and did not scruple 
 to revert to the meanest artifices to persuade the 
 king or nobles to elevate them to high and profit- 
 able positions. By means of fawning, flattery, and 
 
Pre-Rej ovulation Times in Scotland. 1 1 
 
 bribery, Court favourites, dice players, strolling 
 bards, and dissolute characters were occasionally 
 presented to benefices. And the illegitimate sons 
 of the bishops, abbots, and priors frequently found 
 themselves in possession of valuable livings, and 
 had leased to them Church lands at nominal rates. 
 Among the clergy, there were unquestionably some 
 good, noble, and enlightened men, like the illustri- 
 ous Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews, and Bishop 
 Elphinstone, the generous founder of the Univer- 
 sity of Aberdeen ; but well-authenticated facts 
 testify plainly and strongly that the overwhelming 
 majority of the ministers of religion were hopelessly 
 corrupt and profligate, sunk in soaking indolence 
 and sottish ignorance, and only roused to energetic 
 action and united effort when stimulated by worldly 
 ambition and haunted by ghostly fears.* Indeed, 
 
 * " But, alas ! the monks, as they had degenerated from the sim- 
 plicity and parsimony of their ancestors, so they had turned them- 
 selves wholly from the culture of their minds to the care of their 
 bodies ; and learning was as much neglected by the rest of the 
 priesthood also ; and especially for this cause, ' that benefices 
 were bestowed on the most slothful, and worst persons of noble- 
 men's families, who were unfit for other employments ; or else they 
 were intercepted by the fraud of the Romanists ; so that a parson- 
 age w 7 as nothing else but a reward for some piece of service, and 
 that sometimes none of the best.' And, besides, there was another 
 mischief which added much to the corrupting of ecclesiastical disci- 
 pline, and that was the order of the begging friars. These friars, 
 at the beginning, pretended greater sanctity of life, and so easily 
 
12 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 the rank and file of the clergy were so dark, de- 
 graded, and unspiritual, that when a brother burn- 
 ing with holy zeal for the glory of God and the 
 salvation of souls ventured to lift up his voice 
 against rampant vice, superstition, and error, it 
 was drowned in ridicule or silenced by angry 
 threats.* 
 
 The inmates of the monasteries, in particular, 
 fell into a state of intellectual imbecility, spiritual 
 torpor, and epicurean licentiousness. Some 
 modern writers of distinctly mediaeval tastes, 
 fascinated by the ideally pure, calm, and studious 
 life of cloistered retreats, have attempted to 
 vindicate the monks and friars against the severe 
 and ferocious invective of the famous ballad- 
 mongers, of Buchanan, and Knox, and the lead- 
 ing Reformers ; but they have utterly failed in 
 their endeavours. No intelligent man can deny 
 that the monasteries, in their early and best days, 
 served important and beneficial purposes. They 
 
 imposed upon the people to hear them rather than their parish 
 priests, who were commonly gross-bodied and heavy-headed 
 fellows." Buchanan's History of Scotland, Vol. II., pp. 172-73. 
 
 * Boece says : — " They devoured the poor plundered people, 
 doing nothing that became good and worthy men, striving to sup- 
 press all kinds of literature, lest the people should develop a better 
 taste, and they themselves should be obliged to change their scand- 
 alous way of life." Book XVI. 
 
Pre-Refonnation Times in Scotland. 13 
 
 fostered learning and religion, they developed the 
 arts and sciences, as they were known at the time, 
 they promoted agriculture and gardening, and 
 the)' sometimes sheltered and refreshed the states- 
 man and the soldier weary of the world's wild 
 strife ; they cultivated peaceful industries, and 
 suppressed the feuds so readily fomented by the 
 jealous and passionate nobles. But like many 
 other institutions, originally good and beauti- 
 ful, and civilizing, they gradually fell into 
 decay, and failed to realize the pure and lofty 
 ideals of their pious founders. The old serpent 
 crept stealthily into' these earthly paradises of 
 religion, scholarship, and art, and the leisure- 
 loving inmates could not resist his seductions. 
 Great religious schools became the haunts of 
 dreamy indolence and of gross ignorance and 
 superstition ; and the sanctuaries of ascetical 
 saints were transformed into hot-beds of licen- 
 tiousness. The monks and friars who embraced 
 Evangelical doctrines at the Reformation were 
 just the individuals who lashed most severely and 
 mercilessly the abuses and corruptions that pre- 
 vailed within the Religious Houses ; and the fact 
 that comparatively few of the Regulars joined the 
 ranks of the Reformers, is not without moral 
 significance. 
 
14 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Moreover, the monastic Registers do not impress 
 us favourably. Those of the proud and opulent 
 Abbey of Arbroath contain no record of a single 
 case of ecclesiastical discipline, and hardly afford 
 us a glimpse into the moral and spiritual con- 
 dition of the Benedictines.* The truth is, these 
 registers are little more than Land-Tenure Memo- 
 randa such as a great noble's factor might 
 make, and retain for future reference in the event 
 of disputes arising among tenants as to the condi- 
 tions of tenure. Here and there indeed we obtain 
 a glimpse of the state of civilization in Angus and 
 the neighbouring counties : we learn that agricul- 
 ture was prosecuted with some skill on the Abbey 
 lands, that roads intersected the ecclesiastical pro- 
 perty, and bridges spanned the rivers, that wind- 
 mills and water-mills were employed to grind the 
 
 * "The duties of the distant rural parish, whether performed by 
 a monk of the convent or by a vicar dependent upon it, and paid 
 with a grudging and grinding parsimony, were always made sub- 
 servient to the interests of the monastery. The incumbent was 
 looked to as the steward for ingathering the profits of the parish, — 
 that is, his own vicarial part — the small tithes, the altar offerings, 
 the Pasque presents, the funeral and baptismal dues ; and the con- 
 vent concerned itself but little as to the manner in which he dis- 
 charged his duties amongst the poor people committed to his 
 charge. Amongst the innumerable disputes recorded between con- 
 vents and their rural vicars, I believe there is not one that turns 
 upon any question as to how the cure of the souls was performed." — 
 Cosmo Innes' Middle Ages in Scotland, p. 133. 
 
Pre- Reformat ion Times in Scotland. I 5 
 
 black oats and the wheat that grew upon the soil, 
 that wherry-boats were used for crossing the estu- 
 ary at Montrose, and the Firth of Tay at St. 
 Andrews ; we discover the names and pedigrees of 
 a few long-forgotten saints, of the nobles of the 
 shire, of husbandmen and tradesmen, of the mis- 
 tresses and illegitimate children of the clergy who 
 obtained leases of Church lands from the princely 
 abbots ; we get some interesting information con- 
 cerning the boundaries of farms and the special 
 terms on which they were granted to their occu- 
 pants ; but we learn nothing about the religious 
 life of the inmates of the House dedicated by 
 William the Lion to Saint Thomas a' Becket, the 
 Martyr. 
 
 And if clerical morals were loose, " the know- 
 ledge that maketh wise unto salvation " was meagre 
 and scanty. Many of the churchmen were deplor- 
 ably ignorant of Biblical truth, and some knew no 
 more of the doctrines of Christianity than what 
 they found in the huge tomes of the metaphysical 
 schoolmen, and in the Roman Missals or Prayer- 
 books. Others were unable to recognise the 
 New Testament when they saw it. George 
 Buchanan, the Historian and Poet, states that some 
 of the priests of Dundee were actually offended with 
 the uncommon title " New Testament," and con- 
 
1 6 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 tended stoutly that the Book had been recently 
 written by Martin Luther, the German heretic, and 
 therefore desired the Old.* Although the coun- 
 try literally swarmed with monks and friars, 
 and priests, or vicars dependent upon the 
 Religious Houses, ministered in every parish, 
 the people perished for want of the Bread 
 of Life. The Church-service was commonly 
 mumbled or chanted in an unknown tongue, 
 the laity were prohibited from reading the 
 Bible, and forbidden the use of Church 
 Catechisms written by the more zealous of the 
 ■clergy, and the few religious ideas possessed by 
 the peasantry and tradesmen were derived from 
 their parents, from rude pictures, from monkish 
 panegyrics on the Saints, or from the rambling 
 conversation of the mendicant friars at the fire- 
 side. So dense was the intellectual and spiritual 
 darkness of the times, that the Lord's Day was 
 secularized, the churches virtually deserted, save 
 on festivals, and sacred edifices transformed into 
 M sanctuaries for malefactors, places of traffic, and 
 
 * History of Scotland, Vol. III., p. 35. 
 
 George Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, boasted that he knew nei- 
 ther the Old Testament nor the New, and declared that he was sa- 
 tisfied with the Breviary and Pontifical. Hence the saying, l> Ye 
 are like the Bishop of Dunkeld, that knew neither the New Law 
 nor the Old." 
 
Pre- Reformation Times in Scotland. \y 
 
 resorts of past-time." Markets and fairs were held 
 on the Day of Rest, and it cost the Reformers a 
 determined struggle to stamp them out long after 
 the Protestant Church was firmly established. 
 After hearing mass in the morning, it was not un- 
 usual for the rustics to adjourn to an ale-house to 
 sell ahorse, or to buy a quantity of meal. Archers 
 tried their skill in the graveyards, and the parish 
 priests or vicars mingled with the crowd, and 
 joked when the popular and roystering game of 
 Robin Hood was played on the day that com- 
 memorates the resurrection of our Lord and 
 Saviour. Not unfrequently the Law Courts sat 
 on the Lord's Day, shops and places of amuse- 
 ment were kept open, as they are at this hour in 
 Malta and Italy. Religious dramas of a blasphe- 
 mous description were performed in the churches ; 
 and when the laity were in a jovial mood, befitting 
 Carnival, it was their practice to elect a Revel- 
 Lord, " who, under the name of the Abbot of 
 Unreason, the Boy-Bishop, or the President of 
 Fools, profaned the holy places by a mock imita- 
 tion of sacred rites ; and sung indecent parodies 
 on the hymns of the Church." * The people 
 
 * See Sir Walter Scott's Abbot, Note ; M'Crie's Knox, pp. 9-14 ; 
 Cunningham's Church History, Vol. I., p. 10S. 
 
 B 
 
1 8 The Martyrs of A ngus and Mearns. 
 
 generally indulged in gross violations of the third 
 commandment. By the great and fearful name 
 of God, by the devil — stick, cummer, roist, or 
 rieve, and such like stupid execrations they swore, 
 as may be seen in a prohibitory Act of Parliament, 
 dated as late as 1 5 5 1. Lords and Bishops were 
 mulcted in twelve pence for swearing ; Barons and 
 Priests fourpence ; and penniless people of the 
 baser sort had their feet thrust into the iron 
 stocks. 
 
 The age was a dissolute and unheroic one. 
 Both the nobles and the people were ignorant and 
 degraded. " If the Court," as a contemporary- 
 historian states, " was dissolved in luxury, and 
 wholly given up to plays and feastings," the 
 common people were destitute of all moral 
 earnestness, steeped in ignorance and supersti- 
 tion, and gave themselves up to the indulgence 
 of their carnal lusts and passions, suffering the 
 reins of self-government to lie upon the neck of 
 appetite. Nor do we wonder at the profligacy 
 of the laity of all classes when we know the 
 worldly and voluptuous character of the clergy. 
 What could be expected of a rude, illiterate people, 
 when the Holy Catholic Church was largely con- 
 trolled by Court favourites and dissolute nobles ; 
 when the illegitimate sons of princes and prelates 
 
Pre- Reformat ion Times in Scotland. 19 
 
 held great bishoprics and splendid abbeys ; when 
 mere boys who had not completed their studies, at 
 the universities drew the revenues of important 
 benefices and ruled priories ; when harlotry was 
 found in cloistered cells and in the painted cham- 
 bers of Episcopal palaces ! When priests, monks, 
 and friars acted like gross epicureans, and more 
 closely resembled sheep-shearers than shepherds ; 
 when a celibate Cardinal like Beaton could live in 
 concubinage with Marion Ogilvie, give his daughter 
 in marriage to the Master of Crawford immediately 
 after he had burned a martyr, and bestow the lands 
 of Baky upon his son and namesake, and flaunt his 
 unlawful amours in the face of the world ; when 
 Hepburn, the factious, gluttonous, and adulterous 
 Prior of St. Andrews, could demand and obtain 
 letters of legitimation for at least nine children by 
 different mothers, and yet be promoted to the See 
 of Moray ; when Chisholme Bishop of Dunblane, 
 and others, could bestow munificent gifts upon sons 
 and daughters born, of course, outside the estate 
 of holy matrimony ; then surely the Church had 
 relaxed the laws of common morality, and set an 
 example of profligacy to the world which could 
 only be degrading and disastrous. 
 
 The times were evil and out of joint when one 
 living in a National Church could write : — 
 
20 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 " For I have sought through all the spiritual state, 
 Which took no compt for to hear me complain ; 
 Their offkiars — they held me at disdain. 
 For symonie he rule — is all that rout, 
 And covetice, that carle gart bar me out. 
 Pride has chased far from them humility ; 
 Devotion has fled unto the friers, 
 Sensual pleasure has banished chastity ; 
 Lords of religion go like seculeres, 
 Taking mair compt in telling their deniers, 
 Nor do they of their constitution ; 
 Thus are they blinded by ambition." 
 
 When it was possible for a layman of deep 
 veracity and unimpeachable character to paint 
 such a frightful picture of the Roman Clergy in 
 Scotland, what wonder that good and earnest men 
 among the more intelligent classes should rise up 
 in passionate indignation, smite the ecclesiastical 
 system with all their might, and demand reform 
 in peremptory tones ! The Church established 
 by Queen Margaret and King David had lost 
 sight of all her grand and lofty ideals, and 
 fallen back into the sloughs of Roman Paganism, 
 when the vicars of the Immaculate Priest re- 
 velled in sensuality, and the preachers of the 
 cross distinguished themselves by their pride and 
 avarice, and slothful indulgence, and when the 
 chief shepherds of the sheep wasted their lives in 
 worldly or frivolous pursuits. The Bride of Christ 
 had indeed become a pitiable and degraded prosti- 
 
Pre-Reformation Times in Scotland. 21 
 
 tute, when monasteries and convents, founded for 
 the cultivation of a superior sanctity, were con- 
 verted into schools of scandal and vice, and the 
 beautiful and noble churches degraded to the level 
 of dreary melancholy mass chapels ; when the 
 parish pulpits were employed mainly for the recita- 
 tion of ridiculous legendary stories of wonder- 
 working saints, and the exhibitions of religious 
 mysteries ; and the palaces of Bishops, and the 
 houses of Abbots and Priors were haunted by 
 shameless courtesans, and crowded with intriguing 
 politicians ! 
 
 But when the night is darkest, the stars of pro- 
 mise and of hope struggle through the overwhelm- 
 ing gloom and shine in the sky. 
 
22 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 II. 
 THE DAWN OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 " The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night, 
 Checkering the Eastern clouds with streaks of light. " 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 " Morn wak'd by the circling hours, with rosy hand 
 Unbarr'd the gates of light." 
 
 — Milton. 
 
 THROUGH the thick darkness of the night of 
 Papal ignorance and superstition, once and 
 again a bright prophetic star shone with dazzling 
 lustre for a short time, and suddenly departed to 
 illumine and gladden another hemisphere ; and 
 occasionally a fiery meteor flashed athwart the 
 murky sky, and vanished ere admiring spectators 
 had an opportunity of measuring its magnitude, or 
 estimating its real importance. As early as the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century, a little company 
 of persecuted Wycliffites found a quiet sanctuary 
 and a home in the western part of Scotland, and 
 by diffusing evangelical doctrines throughout the 
 districts of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, in 
 Ayrshire, they helped to irradiate the overwhelm- 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 23 
 
 ing gloom. The Lollards were unquestionably 
 the clear-shining morning stars of the Scottish 
 Reformation. They carried across the Border the 
 Gospel light and truth which they had derived 
 from John Wycliffe, the good Rector of Lutter- 
 worth, and the most influential and illustrious of all 
 English Reformers. Whether Walter Lollard was 
 a " mythical personage " or an obscure religious 
 thinker of rare force we cannot tell ; whether the 
 Lollards were poor, simple, wandering singers * of 
 the Gospel in Mediaeval times, or stealthy and 
 diligent sowers of lolia or tares, in the cultivated 
 Churchfields of the continent of Europe, cannot 
 now be definitely determined. Certainly the 
 Lollards in Scotland, as in England, were identified 
 with the disciples of Wycliffe, and known as a sect of 
 Bible-loving, enthusiastic Primitive Methodists. 
 With the great English Reformer's Translation of 
 the Bible in their hands, and with the radical 
 religious spirit of the Master in their hearts, they 
 propagated the principles which lie at the root of 
 Evangelical Protestantism, long before the golden 
 age, when the Titanic Luther rose up in his might 
 to hew down the mountains of Papal superstition 
 and despotism, and the illustrious scholar and 
 
 From the German loilcn or fallen, to sing or hum. 
 
24 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 theologian, Calvin, appeared to build up with 
 consummate skill the City of God on purely- 
 Scriptural foundations. The creed of the Lollards, 
 if somewhat narrow and severe, was simple, 
 primitive, and substantially apostolical. Discard- 
 ing all Roman Catholic traditions and the 
 commandments of men, scorning all priestcraft 
 and ecclesiastical ceremonial, they maintained the 
 infallible authority of the Word of God, and 
 regarded it as the only rule of faith and manners. 
 Practically, they said what Chillingworth after- 
 wards averred : The Bible and the Bible only is the 
 Religion of Christians. Like Wycliffe, they 
 specially insisted on the vicarious nature of 
 Christ's death, and rejected the extraordinary 
 dogma of transubstantiation. They vehemently 
 denounced the Romish doctrines of- priestly 
 celibacy and purgatory ; they attacked auricular 
 confession and masses for the dead. They suffered 
 la)- men to preach the simple Gospel, and they 
 regarded the Lord's prayer not only as the prayer 
 that teaches to pray, but as the. most perfect form 
 of prayer. They frowned on art as a demoralising 
 luxury, and, like the Quakers, they strongly 
 protested against capital punishment, military 
 pursuits, and the use of oaths. Gradually and 
 secretly these Primitive Methodists found their way 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 25 
 
 out of Ayrshire, and travelled in a north-easterly- 
 direction till they penetrated the heart of the 
 counties of Fife and Perth, where they discovered 
 not a few earnest people ready to embrace their 
 peculiar doctrines. 
 
 The most distinguished of these primitive 
 Dissenters was James Resby, an Englishman, 
 and one of Wycliffe's " poor priests," who had 
 escaped the fires kindled and fed at Smith field 
 by Archbishop Arundel, the inveterate foe of the 
 Lollards. Bright and joyous as the spring he had 
 come from the South to quicken and gladden a cold 
 and slumbering Church in a dreary and sullen 
 land. About 1390 Resby appeared in Scotland, 
 and the common people heard him gladly as he 
 preached the pure doctrines of grace with a glowing- 
 enthusiasm and a fiery energy beneath the open 
 canopy of heaven, or in lowly and obscure turf 
 huts. Strikingly tall and spare, of military aspect, 
 and with an eye flashing with moral earnestness, 
 he proved a powerful and successful Evangelist, 
 and " enjoyed a very high repute among the 
 simple." But the popularity of Resby was his 
 ruin. The eyes of the Churchmen were fixed 
 on him, and like hungry wolves on a helpless 
 lamb, they pounced upon the successful preachcr 
 of righteousness and truth. Seized at the fair 
 
26 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 city of Perth, — which then bore the name of St. 
 Johnstoun, — by the emissaries of Henry Wardlaw, 
 Bishop of St. Andrews, Resby was flung into 
 prison, and charged with spreading heretical 
 doctrines among the people. Laurence of Lindores,* 
 Abbot of Scone, played the part of Caiaphas in the 
 trial, and he found another Pilate in the Duke of 
 Albany, t who was the Regent of the Kingdom 
 during the minority of James the First. Although 
 the Reformer was accused of teaching forty 
 different heretical doctrines, only two of these are 
 known to us, namely, that the Pope is not de facto 
 the Vicar of Christ ; and that none save a saintly 
 man can be Pope or Vicar of Christ. % These 
 
 * Laurence of Lindores, Abbot of Scone, in 141 1, was the first 
 Professor of Law in the University of St. Andrews. He is 
 described by Walter Bower, Fordun's continuator, and the only 
 original historian who has preserved an account of the trial of 
 James Resby as an Inquisitor "haereticae pravitatis, solidissimo 
 clerico et famoso theologo, vitae sanctitate quamplurimum 
 collaudato," B. XV., Ch. XX. In 143211c was elected Dean of the 
 Faculty of Arts, and styled Rector of Creich, and Inquisitor for the 
 Kingdom of Scotland, etc. 
 
 + Andrew of Wyntoun, Prior of Lochleven, in his Metrical 
 Chronicle, composed about 1420, describes Robert, Duke of 
 Albany, and Governor of Scotland, as a fierce ioe of the Lollards. 
 " He was a constant Catholike, 
 All Lollard he hatyt, and Hereticke." 
 — Vol. II., p. 419. 
 
 X "Jacobus Resby, Presbyter Anglicus de Schola Johannis 
 Wykliff Quarum prima fuit, quod Papa de facto 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 27 
 
 seem very plain conclusions, especially when it is 
 remembered that at this period two Popes existed, 
 each surrounded by a galaxy of dissolute Cardinals, 
 and each fulminating anathemas at the other as 
 if both were incarnate fiends. But they were 
 regarded by the Inquisitor as damnable doctrines, 
 and because Resby refused to recant, he was 
 summarily condemned to death, and burned at 
 Perth in the year 1407. The founder of the 
 University of St. Andrews was responsible for 
 James Resby's death, and the cruelties of the 
 scholarly Ward law ought to teach us the whole- 
 some lessons that the love of learning and the love 
 of truth are not necessarily twin sisters, and that a 
 generous patron of letters may be the bitter foe of 
 religious liberty. 
 
 But Lollard opinions spread in spite of the fires 
 of martyrdom. Soon another remarkable precur- 
 sor of the Reformation appeared. Paul Craw, * 
 a Bohemian physician, was doubtless one of the 
 noble band of students converted under the 
 
 non est Christi Vicarius. Secunda, Nullus est Papa, nee Christi 
 Vicarius, nisi sit sanctus. De consimilibus, vel pejoribus, tenuit 
 quadraginta conclusiones." Fordun's Scotichronicon, Vol. I., p. 441. 
 * " Paulus Crawar Teutonicus .... recommissus per 
 ipsorum literas, tanquam praecellens arte medicinae. Hie in sacris 
 literis et in allegatione Eibliae promptus et exercitatus inveniebatur." 
 Scotichronicon, Vol. II., p. 495. 
 
28 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 winsome and earnest preaching of Hus in the 
 Bethlehem Chapel at Prague. He had drunk the 
 new wine of Bohemia out of the long-forbidden 
 Cup, and impelled by nothing but Evangelistic 
 zeal, he came to Scotland and settled down in St. 
 Andrews, the stronghold of the Papacy. Practising 
 as a physician, he scattered the seed of Evangelical 
 truth as he had opportunity. While professing 
 Hussite opinions generally, he preached chiefly 
 against the Sacrament of the Altar, the adoration 
 of Saints, and auricular confession.* " Prompt and 
 practised in sacred letters, and in adducing the 
 Scriptures," he exhorted a wholesome influence 
 among the educated classes in the old Academic 
 city. "At last," says Bellenden,t in his Chronicle, 
 " he was brought before the theologians, and all his 
 opinions condemned. And because he persevered 
 obstinately to the end of his plea, he was condemned 
 and burnt." 
 
 According to Bower, Paul Craw perished at 
 St. Andrews on the twenty-third day of July, 1433, 
 but Foxe, the marvellous Martyrologist, places his 
 death in the year 143 1, when Thomas Bagley, 
 
 * See Foxe's Acts and Monuments, Vol. III., pp. 600-601 
 (Cattley's edit.) 
 
 tjohn Bellenden, Archdean of Murray, in James the Fifth's 
 reign, was the Translator of Hector Boece's History. 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 29 
 
 Yicar of Monenden, " a valiant disciple and 
 adherent of Wickliff," was degraded and burned at 
 Smithfield. Before the good Bohemian physician 
 received the red crown of martyrdom, he acknow- 
 ledged that he had been sent out of Beam to 
 disseminate the principles and doctrines of Wycliffe 
 and John Hus ; but when he attempted to make a 
 full confession of his faith, and to vindicate the 
 religious opinions for which he had been condemned, 
 the cowardly persecutors gagged his mouth with a 
 ball of brass lest the multitudes that surged around 
 the stake should be infected. Curiously enough, 
 these early Lollard preachers were specially adapted 
 for the peculiar circumstances in which they found 
 themselves placed. If Resby, the poor English 
 priest, ministered with great acceptance and with 
 singular power among the simple and devout 
 peasantry and tradespeople of the counties of Ayr 
 and Perth, Craw, the distinguished medical mis- 
 sionary, was admirably fitted for influencing for 
 good, the youthful and aspiring scholars found in 
 the classic haunts and homes of St. Andrews. 
 Both missionaries were evidently men of stainless 
 life, of great simplicity and nobility of character, of 
 extraordinary moral earnestness and courage. 
 Though silenced by the meanest of all arguments — 
 the bigot's and the coward's fire — the ablest and 
 
3<D The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 haughtiest prelates of Rome could not defeat or 
 degrade them. In pouring fierce and barbarous 
 invective upon their heads, and then thrusting 
 them into the flames, they only crowned them with 
 immortal youth and strength and glory. 
 
 " When Fortune means to men most good, 
 She looks upon them with a threat'ning eye. " 
 
 From the time of Paul Craw's martyrdom till 
 1494, we hear little of the progress of Lollardism ; 
 but in the interval, one prelate of great distinction, 
 and of beautiful character, suffered for his loyalty 
 to conscience and fidelity to duty and truth. In 
 147 1 Patrick Graham became Primate of Scotland 
 and the Pope's Nuncio.* He was a pure and 
 faithful minister of Christ among a thousand 
 dissolute and slovenly hirelings. Heartily ashamed 
 of the abuses and corruptions of the Church, he set 
 himself to promote the cause of reform. Soon, 
 however, his radical measures roused the hostility 
 
 * Fatrick Graham was the son of Lord Graham, and nephew of 
 James I. In 1466 he was translated from the See of Brechin to 
 St. Andrews. Spottiswoode speaks highly of Graham, and thus 
 concludes : — "This end had that worthy man, in virtue and learn- 
 ing inferior to none of his time, oppressed by the malice and 
 calumny of his enemies, chiefly for that they feared reformation of 
 their wicked abuses by his means." See Knox's Works (Laing's 
 edit.), Vol. I., Appendix, p. 499. 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 31 
 
 of the drowsy clergy and conservative nobles, and 
 after being tried and cast by Huseman, the Papal 
 Legate, he was degraded from his high position, 
 imprisoned in the lonely Castle of Lochleven, 
 where he died broken-hearted and demented, 
 in 1478. 
 
 Meanwhile the Lollards were quietly preaching 
 the Gospel of God's grace in the West of Scotland, 
 and notwithstanding the strenuous efforts exerted 
 by the Pope's knights to counteract their influence, 
 they gained fresh converts. As early as the year 
 1416, the founders of the University of St. Andrews 
 had compelled all students bent on taking the de- 
 gree of Master of Arts to swear resistance to the 
 Lollards; in 1425, King James the First had pas- 
 sed an Act of Parliament at Perth requiring bishops 
 to search their dioceses for Lollards, and hunt down 
 the pestilent heretics ; and now in 1494, when 
 James the Fourth reigned, Blackader, the first 
 Archbishop of Glasgow, manifested his zeal for the 
 Church that had enthroned him by prosecuting 
 thirty Lollards, and only spared their lives because 
 the young and gracious Sovereign firmly inter- 
 posed. Knox* has preserved the names of the 
 Lollard leaders, and they well deserve a dis- 
 
 * History, Vol. I., p. 7 (Laing's edit.) 
 
32 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 tinguished place among the noble army of con- 
 fessors. George Campbell, of Cessnock ; Adam 
 Reid, of Barskimming ; John Campbell, of New- 
 milns ; Andrew Shaw, of Polkemmet ; Helen 
 Chalmers, Lady Polkellie ; and [Marion] Chalmers, 
 Lady Stair : — these were the conspicuous Evan- 
 gelicals of Ayrshire who kept the torch of true 
 religion burning in the gloomy night of Papal 
 error and superstition. 
 
 As the morning of the Reformation broke, new- 
 luminaries appeared in the sky heralding the per- 
 fect day. Toward the close of the fifteenth century 
 three universities existed in Scotland, and in spite 
 of Papal inspection and domination men of liberal 
 and enlightened opinions and of humanistic 
 tendencies occupied some of the professorial 
 chairs. Hector Boece in Aberdeen, Gavin Logie 
 in St. Andrews, and John Major in Glasgow were 
 distinguished teachers and liberal theologians, if 
 not distinctly evangelical reformers. From their 
 class-rooms aspiring youths sallied forth into re- 
 mote parts of the country, carrying with them the 
 torch of truth ; and while they enlightened the 
 peasantry, who sat in Cimmerian gloom, they 
 scourged ecclesiastical abuses, denounced flagrant 
 wrongs, and ridiculed Popish superstitions. So 
 clear and strong had the light of the Evangel 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 33 
 
 grown at the close of the first quarter of the fif- 
 teenth century, that all the might of Rome could 
 not extinguish it. The gates of the East opened 
 and sunshine illumined the land. One of Wycliffe's 
 disciples had fled to Germany when intolerance 
 reigned in England, and in the famous old tile- 
 roofed town of Worms, on the Rhine, he had suc- 
 ceeded in printing a strong, racy, idiomatic English 
 translation of the Bible. Notwithstanding all the 
 devices of the Papal Church to seize and destroy 
 Tyndale's Bibles landed at the various ports on the 
 East Coast of Scotland, they quickly found their 
 way among the people, who read them in secret 
 with great avidity and with a wondrous joy. The 
 English Bible was to multitudes a revelation from 
 heaven. It showed th~m that the way of life was 
 a way of peace and safety. It convinced them 
 that the personal living Saviour was the centre of 
 the Christian religion, and that faith in Him, and 
 the imitation of His life, were more essential to 
 salvation than the strictest observance of all the ela- 
 borate rites and ceremonies of the Roman Church. 
 Having tasted of the pure Word of God, the people 
 hungered after it. A great demand arose for 
 English Bibles, and the Churchmen trembled. 
 Accordingly, an Act of Parliament was speedily 
 passed at Edinburgh, in July 1525 threatening 
 
34 The Martyrs of Angus and A/earns. 
 
 with pains and penalties all persons who ventured 
 to bring into the country " any books or works by 
 Luther or his disciples," or " rehearse his heresies 
 or opinions unless it be to the confusion thereof" ; 
 but the skippers trading to Holland and the Low 
 Countries were not easily frightened. Rather than 
 abandon the traffic in Bibles, they were prepared 
 to sacrifice their ships, run the risk of imprison- 
 ment and the confiscation of their goods. At 
 Leith and Dundee, at Montrose and Aberdeen, 
 numerous Bibles in the English tongue were 
 landed, and purchased not only by the working 
 classes, but by friars, priests, burgesses, and nobles. 
 In the solitude of the night, and in quiet secluded 
 places, little companies of pious people met to read 
 the Word of God, or more frequently to hear it 
 read by some intelligent friend or neighbour, with 
 the happy result that whole communities were 
 converted, and that not a few Churchmen began 
 to preach from their pulpits the doctrines of Evan- 
 gelical Christianity. Converted and enlightened 
 priests became the noblest and boldest leaders of 
 ihe Reformation under Knox, and the most 
 eloquent and powerful ministers of the Reformed 
 Church when firmly established. 
 
 But there were other forces operating in favour 
 of the Reformation which must not be overlooked 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 35 
 
 in our rapid survey — forces of a purely literary 
 character. If Tyndale's English Bible quickened 
 and enlightened the religious mind and satisfied 
 the desires of those in quest of the chief good, if 
 Luther's books fostered evangelical sentiments and 
 roused the spirit of liberty, the poems and ballads 
 of William Dunbar and Sir David Lindsay, satir- 
 ising the vices of the clergy and exposing the 
 abuses and corruptions of the Church, brought the 
 Papacy into contempt. In Italy and in England 
 the savage invective of the poets had shaken the 
 people's faith in the Roman creed, and emancipated 
 them from the galling yoke and the debasing 
 servitude of priestcraft. Petrarch and Boccaccio in 
 particular had poured torrents of scorn and wrath 
 upon the insolent, hypocritical, and licentious 
 ministers of religion in Italy ; and the great 
 Florentine, in his " Divine Comedy," had lashed 
 with whips of burning flame the haughty dignitaries 
 of the Church, for their avarice and worldly ambi- 
 tion, and did not scruple to represent popes, 
 cardinals^ abbots, and priests as infamous and 
 unhappy wretches, plunged in the nethermost 
 circles of the glowing Inferno, writhing in penal 
 fires and " tasting the poisonous drugs of hell." 
 Petrarch was not so commanding and powerful a 
 writer as Dante ; indeed, he was destitute of the 
 
2,6 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 moral strength and grandeur, of the sublime and 
 invincible spirit of "the man who had been in 
 hell"; but he was a pure and beautiful character, 
 and furthered in many ways the cause his master 
 had at heart. Ridiculing the vices of the religious 
 orders, and lashing the abuses of the Church, he 
 broke the spell with which Rome had enchained 
 the imagination of the Italian people. Dante had 
 described the pontiffs of his evil day as rulers 
 whose 
 
 "Avarice 
 O'ercasts the world with mourning, underfoot 
 Treading the good, and raising bad men up. 
 Of shepherds like to you, the Evangelist 
 Was 'ware, when he who sits upon the waves 
 With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld." 
 
 And Petrarch had thus depicted the Papal Church : 
 
 " Once Rome ! now false and guilty Babylon ! 
 Hive of deceits ! Terrible prison, 
 Where the good doth die, the bad is fed and fattened, 
 Hell of the living. . . . Cast her out." 
 
 Chaucer, the father of English poetry, and an 
 observant man of the world, had carried on similar 
 destructive work. Moulded in some measure by 
 Wycliffe and his disciples, sympathetic with honest, 
 independent thinkers and liberal movements, and 
 the humorous satirist of the friar and the nun, of 
 the priest and the pardoner, he was a genuine pre- 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 37 
 
 cursor of the Reformation. In the famous "Canter- 
 bury Tales," descriptive of the pilgrimages made 
 by all classes of Londoners to the splendid shrine 
 of Saint Thomas, his attacks upon the representa- 
 tives of Latin Christianity " run nearly the whole 
 gamut of satire." A man of free and penetrating 
 spirit, of wide and generous sympathies, of plain 
 and forcible speech, Chaucer marked the vices and 
 the foibles of the clergy, and embodied them in 
 vivid and humorous pictures that provoked a con- 
 temptuous smile or an outburst of mirthful mockery. 
 If he did not lash the friars and the priests for 
 their envy, pride, sloth, and self-indulgence, like 
 the great Italians who inspired him, he held them 
 up to ridicule, and shot at them shafts of light 
 raillery. If he did not attempt to storm the citadel 
 of Fopery with heavy guns, he quietly and steadily 
 sapped and mined the foundations. What lively 
 mockery is there in the description of the mendi- 
 cant friar ! 
 
 " His wallet lay beforne him in his lappe, 
 Bret-ful of pardon come from Rome al hote. 
 
 He was an esy man to give penance, 
 Ther as he wiste to han a good pittance . 
 And knew wel the tavernes in every toun, 
 And every hosteler and gay tapstere, 
 Better than a lazar and a beggere." 
 
38 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 And what broad satire is in these words that fall 
 from the lips of the Summoner : 
 
 " This Frere bosteth that he knoweth helle, 
 And, God it wot, that is but litel wonder, 
 Freres and Fendes ben but litel asonder." 
 
 But while Chaucer gaily satirised the friars, and 
 exposed the " pardoner " with his caressing voice 
 and hypocritical manners to contempt, he painted 
 a beautiful and charming picture of the good 
 " parson," and showed the people of his time what 
 a Christian minister ought to be. The faithful 
 shepherd was no mercenary, running to London 
 " to seek himself a chantery for souls," putting out 
 " his benefice on hire, and leaving his sheep en- 
 cumbered in the mire," but a man of "holy thought 
 and work," diligent in preaching the pure Gospel 
 and visiting the poor and the sick and the sorrow- 
 ful, ready to rebuke the obstinate sinner and to 
 encourage the true penitent, and as careless of 
 pomp and reverence as of " a spiced conscience." 
 
 In the same way, Dunbar and Lindsay of the 
 Mount advanced the cause of Reformation in Scot- 
 land. The former was a poetical satirist of the 
 secular sort, delighting in puncturing the running 
 sores and exposing the frailties and vices of his 
 countrymen. He had been a Dominican monk 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 39 
 
 and was perfectly familiar with the inner life of the 
 Church : at a later period he had acted as secretary 
 to some of the ambassadors of King James the 
 Fourth, and possessed a pretty intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the habits and tastes of courtiers and 
 statesmen ; and he used his varied knowledge to 
 advantage in his books. Painting dark and lurid 
 pictures of the clergy with the hand of genius, re- 
 presenting priests and friars dancing in the infernal 
 regions with glittering and shameless harlots, he 
 fearlessly stript the religious orders of their cloak 
 of hypocrisy, and exhibited them in all their naked 
 deformity to the execration of the world. De- 
 lineating with a picturesque and sardonic pen the 
 sins and follies of the people generally, he showed 
 them, as in a mirror, repulsive and fantastic 
 pictures of themselves fitted to make the baser 
 sort laugh and the better classes heartily ashamed. 
 Dunbar was rather a caustic cynic than an earnest 
 moralist ; yet his satirical poems accomplished the 
 work of destroying angels. Of all the precursors 
 of the Scottish Reformation, he best illustrates the 
 quaint old adage : " God can strike a straight 
 stroke with a crooked stick." If he cannot be 
 reckoned among the honourable builders of the 
 City of God, he well deserves a place among the 
 besiegers of Babylon. 
 
40 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Sir David Lindsay was a man of a different 
 stamp. Of aristocratic birth, the friend of 
 princes and nobles, a courtier and a scholar, he 
 was a powerful personage, and his great influence 
 and splendid talents were all exerted in favour of 
 righteousness, truth, and liberty. If he was a less 
 brilliant poet than Dunbar, he was a better Christian. 
 A Fifeshire squire of rare veracity, of moral and 
 spiritual insight, of Evangelical principles and 
 deep-seated convictions, he sympathised with the 
 Lutheran movement in Germany, and longed for 
 the regeneration of the Scottish Church. More 
 powerful than polished and refined, more frank 
 and fearless than gentle and retiring in disposition, 
 he smote the Papal Church with a Thor-like 
 hammer. Constituted like the iron Knox himself, 
 gifted with his intense moral earnestness, severe 
 humour, and grand command of the mother- 
 tongue, he dealt out terrible blows to the ecclesi- 
 astical system he despised, because of its flagrant 
 abuses and corruptions. Possessed of an eagle 
 eye and a bold imagination, he imitated the 
 author of the Divine Comedy. Vouchsafed a 
 vision of Pandemonium, he discovered there 
 " many careful cardinals, archbishops in their 
 pontificals, . . . priors and abbots and false 
 flattering friars," and dings of churchmen. Sur- 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 41 
 
 prised and scandalized at the awful sight, he en- 
 quired of Dame Remembrance the cause of the 
 prelates' doom, and was forthwith informed that it 
 was covetousness, lust, ambition, and sheer world- 
 liness. 
 
 " Als, they did nocht instruct the ignorant, 
 Provoking them to penitence by preaching, 
 Eut servit warldly princes insolent, 
 And were promoved by their feigned fleeching, 
 Nocht for their science, wisdom, nor their teiching. 
 By Simony was their promotion, 
 More for deneirs (money), nor for devotion." 
 
 The poet's " Dream, or Marvellous Vision," dedi- 
 cated to James the Fifth, was originally intended 
 to bring the corrupt condition of the Church under 
 the King's notice ; and " The Complaint " which 
 followed was designed to point out to His Majesty 
 the reforms most urgently required. So he 
 wrote : — 
 
 " Cause them mak ministratioun, 
 Conform to their vocatioun ; 
 To preach with unfeinyet intents, 
 And truly use the sacraments, 
 After Christ's institutions. 
 Leaving their vain traditions, 
 Whilk does the silly sheep illude, 
 Whom for, Christ Jesus shed his blood ; 
 As superstitious pilgrimages, 
 Praying to graven images, 
 Express against the Lord's command. 
 
42 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 " The Complaint " was speedily eclipsed by " A 
 Pleasant Satire on the Three Estates, in com- 
 mendation of Virtue, and vituperation of Vice." 
 This great and powerful drama, full of burning 
 invective, was acted first at Cupar- Fife in 1535; then 
 at Linlithgow Palace before the King, Queen, Court, 
 Council, Bishops, and the gentry of the surround- 
 ing districts ; and afterwards in the amphitheatre 
 at St. Johnstoun or Perth, before a distinguished 
 assembly. It was essentially a daring and 
 undisguised attack upon the Roman clergy of 
 all ranks — rating them soundly for oppressing and 
 robbing the widow and the orphan in various ways, 
 especially for carrying off beasts as corpse-presents, 
 and any household article that fascinated their 
 covetous eye — denouncing them energetically for 
 neglecting the preaching of the Gospel, prohibiting 
 the circulation and reading of the Bible, extolling 
 pardons, relics, and imaginary saints, and scorning 
 all measures devised for the furtherance of the 
 welfare of the people — and exposing " the great 
 abominable vices that reigned in cloisters, and the 
 common bordells kept in cloisters of nuns." Nor 
 were nobles and commoners spared. The ambi- 
 tious and plastic courtiers, the dissolute and 
 marauding gentry, constantly engaged in angry 
 and bloody fends, were branded with the lightning 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 43 
 
 of his satiric rage. The satire of the Three 
 Estates was bitter as gall and wormwood to the 
 age, but it wrought like a medicine, producing 
 beneficent results. Shortly after its appearance, 
 the King called upon the Bishops, exhorted them 
 to reform their fashions and manners, declaring, 
 " that unless they did so, he would send ten of the 
 proudest of them unto his uncle in England, and 
 as those were ordered (handled), so he would order 
 all the rest that would not amend." And when 
 Cardinal Beaton, at a later period, proposed to 
 cleanse the land of Lutheran heresy by burning 
 out a hundred reforming nobles and gentlemen, 
 the indignant monarch said : " Pack you, get 
 you to your charges, reform your own lives, 
 and be not instruments of discord between my 
 nobility and me, or else, I avow to God, I will 
 reform you, if ever I hear such motion of you 
 again." But the King and his courtiers were 
 not the only persons influenced by the poems of 
 Lindsay. Written in the mother-tongue of the 
 common people, full of sparkling wit, of pawky 
 humour, of bitter invective and picturesque per- 
 sonalities, the poems were eagerly read by " every 
 man, woman, and child." Row, in his History of 
 the Scottish ChurcJi has preserved an amusing 
 and instructive anecdote, showing how the poems 
 
44 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 of the satirist gradually moulded the religious 
 opinions of the people, and fostered an intelligent 
 interest in the reformed doctrines. During the 
 season of Lent, a friar, preaching in a Church 
 at Perth, attended by three hundred scholars of 
 the celebrated schoolmaster, Andrew Simson, 
 " began to relate some miracles and to inveigh 
 against the new Hugonot preachers, who then 
 were beginning to teach God's truth in the fields 
 because they got not liberty to speak in the 
 Church, and people went out to them and 
 delighted much to hear God's truth plainly spoken." 
 However, when the friar waxed vehement in his 
 denunciation of the new preachers, Simson's 
 scholars became indignant and irrepressible, hissed 
 and cried out against him, and he in terror rushed 
 out of the pulpit and returned no more. On the 
 Sabbath following a strange friar appeared in the 
 pulpit, complained bitterly to the magistrates of the 
 insolence and ill-treatment his brother had received,, 
 and demanded that the hissing delinquents should 
 be discovered and punished. The schoolmaster 
 being a zealous Papist, diligently searched the 
 school for the offenders, and at length learned that 
 the son of a craftsman, familiar with Lindsay's 
 poems, had been the ringleader of the opposition 
 and the chief cause of the disturbance and uproar. 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 45 
 
 When the frenzied schoolmaster was about to 
 punish the youth, he stoutly denied that Lindsay's 
 MonarcJiies was a heretical book, and frankly 
 volunteered to produce it for inspection. Simson 
 immediately perused the book, embraced the 
 principles which it enforced, screened the youth 
 from the rage of the Town Council, and warned 
 the friars against denouncing the new preachers 
 who had won the sympathy and admiration of his 
 scholars. Eventually the Perth schoolmaster 
 espoused the cause of the Reformation, married a 
 daughter of Archbishop Adamson, became minister 
 of Dunnine and Cargill, in Perthshire ; and by an 
 order of the General Assembly in 1564, was 
 translated to Dunbar.* 
 
 * "But as for the particular means whereby many in Scotland got 
 some knowledge of God's truth, in the time of great darkness, 
 there were some books set out, such as Sir David Lindesay, his 
 poesie upon the Four Monarchies, completed in 1552, under the 
 title, A Dialogue betwixt Experience and a Courtier of the Miser- 
 able Estate of the World, and printed at St. Andrews in 1554, where- 
 in many other treatises are contained, opening up the abuses among 
 the clergy at that time ; Wedderburn's Psalms and Godly Ballads 
 changing many of the old Popish songs unto Godly purposes ; a 
 Complaint given in by the halt, blind, and poor of England, against 
 the prelates, priests, friars, and other such kirkmen, who prodigally 
 wasted all the tithes and kirk-livings upon their whores and other 
 .unlawful pleasures, so that they could get no sustentation nor relief 
 as God had ordained." — Row's History of the Kirk of Scotland, 
 P . 6. 
 
46 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Among other literary influences which weakened 
 the power of the Roman Church in Scotland, and 
 strengthened the cause of the struggling Reformers 
 were the Glide and Godly Ballads, changed out of 
 profane songs for avoiding of sin and harlotry. 
 The title graphically describes the character and 
 design of the sacred poems that leavened the 
 masses with evangelical doctrines. " The air, 
 the measure, the united line, or the chorus of the 
 ballads most commonly sung by the people at that 
 time, were transferred to hymns of devotion. 
 Unnatural, indelicate, and gross as this association 
 appears to us, these spiritual songs edified mul- 
 titudes in that age." The authors of these songs 
 were the brothers Wedderburn of Dundee, who 
 were enthusiastic Reformers, and lent their power- ' 
 ful influence to establish the Reformed Church on 
 the banks of the Tay. James Wedderburn had 
 " drunk at St. Leonard's Well " while studying at 
 St. Andrews, and while prosecuting his calling as 
 a merchant in Dundee he cultivated the gift of 
 poesie, and wrote caustic satires on the clergy. 
 He composed a Tragedy on the Martyrdom of 
 fohn the Baptist, "wherein he carped roughly the 
 abuses and corruptions of the Papists." It was 
 acted at the West Port of the town, and pro- 
 duced a great sensation. The Tragedy was fol- 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 47 
 
 lowed by a Comedy, entitled Dionysius the 
 Tyrant, in which the Papacy was ridiculed and 
 the Clergy lampooned. Threatened with imprison- 
 ment by the irritated priests, he fled to France in 
 1540, and died at Dieppe.* John Wedderburn, 
 Vicar of Dundee, and Robert, were younger 
 brothers of the satirical poet, and they too 
 were accomplished scholars and devout Christians. 
 Fired on the continent of Europe with evangeli- 
 cal zeal, they were the principal translators of 
 Luther's Hymns and the Psalms of David, sung 
 in Protestant Assemblies prior to the Establish- 
 ment of the Reformed Church of Scotland. 
 They were also the writers of the Godly Ballates, 
 which quickened and refreshed the little com- 
 panies of evangelical Christians that struggled for 
 religious reform. Old John Jonston, in one of 
 his Latin Poems on the Martyrs and Confessors 01 
 Scotland, pronounces a lofty eulogium on these 
 three brothers, and testifies warmly in favour of 
 their noble character and pure Christian zeal. 
 " Brotherly souls," says he, " clear shining lights of 
 the nation, three equal in learning and in piety! 
 Happy the parents who bore you, and the land 
 which gave us hostages so rare ! Begotten in 
 
 * See Maxwell's History of Dundee, p. 
 
48 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Heaven, renowned Alectum (Dundee) presented 
 you to the earth ; whence I suppose it has the 
 name Dei-Donum (the gift of God)." Speedily the 
 spiritual songs of the Wedderburns obtained a wide 
 circulation, and steadily rose in popular favour. 
 Travelling chapmen hawked them through the 
 remotest districts in the land, and sold them to the 
 peasantry, to tradesmen, to shopkeepers, and to 
 schoolmasters. James Melville, in his Autobio- 
 graphy, informs us that when he was attending the 
 School of Thomas Anderson, in Montrose, a 
 carrier first shewed him ' Wedderburn's Songs,"* 
 which he learned by heart, " with great diversitie 
 of toones." So the Protestant doctrines spread 
 through the land, and numbers were daily added 
 to the band of resolute Reformers. 
 
 * John Scott of Dundee was the printer of Wedderburn's songs, 
 and a brave and good printer he was. He first carried on the 
 business of printing in Dundee, then in St. Andrews, and afterwards 
 in Edinburgh. Though frequently molested and prosecuted by the 
 Romanists, the strong shield of John Scrymgeour, the Con- 
 stable of Dundee, was thrown around him. Standing in the 
 presence of the Lords of the Council on April 5, 1547, the 
 Constable alleged that he had "socht for Johne Scot and could 
 nocht find him ;" and when commended peremptorily to search 
 more diligently and exactly within the bounds, under pain of being 
 regarded " as art and part takar with him in his evil deeds," he 
 renounced in their presence "his office of Provestrie of the Burgh 
 of Dundee." 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 49- 
 
 But whatever beneficent influences were exerted 
 by the poets and hymn-writers of the period, the 
 Martyrs, by their holy lives, firm faith, courageous 
 conduct, and bold apostolical preaching, surpassed 
 all other agents in forwarding the work of God. 
 Among the noble Confessors of Scotland, Patrick 
 Hamilton was the foremost. Born, probably, at Stone- 
 house,*in the diocese of Glasgow, about the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century,f he was of noble lineage, 
 and closely connected with several illustrious 
 Scottish families. His father, Sir Patrick, was an 
 illegitimate son of Lord Hamilton, who married 
 the Princess Mary, daughter of James the Second ; 
 and his mother was Catherine Stewart, daughter of 
 Alexander, Duke of Albany. Early devoted to the 
 sacred service of the Church, Patrick Hamilton was 
 appointed Titular Abbot of Fearne, in Ross, when a 
 mere boy of thirteen ; and soon after obtaining this 
 dignity, he proceeded to the Continent for the 
 purpose of cultivating his mind and enlarging his 
 knowledge. In the year 1520 he studied at the 
 
 * Lorimer, in his Life of Patrick Hamilton, has almost conclu- 
 sively proved that the Reformer was born at Stonehonse, in the 
 diocese of Glasgow, and not at Kincavil in Linlithgowshire, p. 5, 
 Note, B. 224. 
 
 t Francis Lambert of Avignon informs us that Hamilton was 
 twenty-three in the summer of 1527, and consequently he must have 
 been born about 1504. 
 
 I> 
 
50 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 University of Paris, and imbibed from some of his 
 Humanistic companions the opinions of moderate 
 Reformers, like Erasmus and Reuchlin. Return- 
 ing to Scotland in 1523, young Hamilton frankly 
 avowed himself a disciple of the Humanists, and 
 boldly advocated the doctrines of Martin Luther. 
 As time fled, Lutheran opinions spread and rooted 
 themselves deeply in the noblest minds in Scot- 
 land. Alarmed at the rapid diffusion of heretical 
 doctrines, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, deter- 
 mined to extirpate them by striking a heavy blow 
 at the liberal scholar and Abbot ; but ere he 
 could accomplish his purpose, Hamilton had 
 crossed the German Ocean and found an asylum 
 in the Home of Protestantism] Settling first at 
 Wittemberg, and afterwards at Marburg, he held 
 intimate fellowship with the most illustrious of 
 the German theologians and reformers. Luther, 
 Melanchthon, and Francis Lambert discovered in 
 him a youth of great promise and genuine piety, 
 and took pains to instruct him more perfectly in 
 the doctrines of grace. Eager to preach the pure 
 doctrines of the Gospel to his own friends and 
 countrymen he returned to Kincavil, in Linlith- 
 gowshire, at the close of 1527, married, as 
 Alexander Alesius tells us, "a young lady of 
 noble rank," and then marched forth to attack 
 
The Dazvn of the Reformation. 51 
 
 the Roman Catholic Church in her principal 
 stronghold. After ministering for a month 
 in St. Andrews, James Beaton, the Archbishop, 
 alarmed at his popularity, decoyed him into 
 the Castle, arraigned him before a tribunal 
 of Bishops and Theologians, charged him 
 with disseminating heretical, albeit evangelical, 
 doctrines, and summarily condemned him to 
 death.* Execution was immediate. Ere the 
 leaden clouds of the last dark day of February 
 
 * Hamilton was really a martyr to the Pauline doctrine of 
 Justification by faith alone. When interrogated by Alexander 
 Campbell, his accuser, he insisted on the lawfulness of reading the 
 New Testament, and vindicated the position that all men might 
 ' amend their lives by faith and repentance, and come to the 
 mercy of God by Christ Jesus.' He denied that it was lawful 'to 
 worship Imagery,' and to pray to Saints, to ' the Blessed Virgin, or 
 John, James, Peter, or Paul, as Mediator to God for us.' He 
 held it vain to sing soul-masses, Psalms and Dirges for the 
 relaxation of souls in Purgatory, and contended that the Blood 
 of Jesus Christ alone could purge the souls of men. — See Lindsay 
 of Pitscottie's History, pp. 133, 134. (Edit., 1728.) 
 
 "These articles following were the very articles for which he 
 suffered. 1. Man hath no free will. 2. A man is only justified 
 by faith in Christ. 3. A man, so long as he liveth, is not without 
 sin. 4. He is not worthy to be called a Christian, who believeth 
 not that he is in grace. 5. A good man doth good works : good 
 works do not make a good man. 6. An evil man bringeth forth 
 evil works : evil works, being faithfully repented, do not make an 
 evil man. 7. Faith, hope, and charity be so linked together, that 
 one of them cannot be without another in one man, in this life." — 
 Foxe's Acts and Monuments, Vol. IV., p. 560. (Cattley's Edit., 
 i8 3 7-) 
 
52 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 1 5 28, enshrouded the Lomond Hills, Patrick Hamil- 
 ton was burning in the fire kindled in front of St. 
 Salvator's College. As the wood was green and the 
 gunpowder scarce, the fire burned slowly, but though 
 the martyr suffered terribly, he never winced nor 
 manifested any sign of anger. Quickly a baxter 
 named Myrton ran and brought an armful of 
 straw and flung it into the fire. The wind blew 
 violently, and the flames leapt high and strong, 
 scorching the cowl of the Dominican friar who 
 had played the part of accuser in the trial, but 
 literally roasting the fearless confessor. A soli- 
 tary voice rose out of the breathless awe- 
 stricken crowd, demanding a sign of his steadfast- 
 ness in the faith for which he suffered. Three 
 fingers of his scorched, half-consumed hand, were 
 stretched out, and held in one position till his 
 gentle and strong soul found a home in the bosom 
 of God ! Calmly he died, with these pathetic 
 words on his lips : " How long Lord shall darkness 
 overwhelm this realm? How long wilt thou 
 suffer the tyranny of men ? Lord Jesus, receive 
 my spirit." Hamilton was a wonderfully beautiful 
 and attractive character, and his memory is 
 embalmed in the heart of every patriotic Scotsman. 
 His youth, his conspicuous virtues and scholarly 
 attainments, his holy bravery, his unswerving faith, 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 
 
 and fearless tongue, created the liveliest sympathy 
 among the people of his own times, and roused a 
 fierce and determined hostility against the murder- 
 ous Beaton and his minions. In burning Hamilton 
 the Roman Catholics forgot the famous adage of 
 Tertullian : " The blood of the martyrs is the seed 
 of the Church ;" and they did not foresee that the 
 blazing f/es of martyrdom would illumine the whole 
 of Scctland. What a significant comment on the 
 brutal deed is that of Calderwood's : "The cruelty 
 executed upon Master Patrick Hamilton, in the 
 beginning of King James the Fifth's reign, moved 
 many to inquire into the truth of the articles for 
 which he suffered, and to call in doubt these points 
 which before they held for undoubted verities. 
 Within few years both Grey and Black Friars and 
 Channons, began to declaim publicly against the 
 pride and idle life of the Bishops, the abuses of the 
 whole ecclesiastical estate, the foolish traditions 
 and errors of the kirk ; and therefore were pursued, 
 and either fled or suffered. The favourers of the 
 truth increased to many thousands before the 
 death of King James the Fifth, notwithstanding of 
 his opposition."* 
 
 * Calderwood 's History of the Church of Scotland, p. 2. (Edit. 
 1680.) 
 
54 The Martyrs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 " The reek of the fire that consumed Patrick 
 Hamilton infected all on whom it blew," said John 
 Lindsay to James Beaton ; and the statement was 
 amply verified by the sudden appearance of 
 numerous bold evangelicals, pleading for reform, 
 immediately after the year 1528. Gavin Logie, 
 Principal of St. Leonard's College, in St. Andrews, 
 favoured the new movement, inculcated liberal 
 opinions among the students, and was long 
 regarded with suspicion by his conservative 
 brethren. Before the close of 1535 he was 
 compelled to flee for his life, and the Papists 
 pointedly indicated their opinion of his character 
 and tendencies when they spoke of subsequent 
 Evangelicals as " having drunk out of St. Leonard's 
 Well." John Winram, sub- Prior of the Monastery, 
 was a somewhat timid and cautious man, but he 
 quietly leavened the novices under his care with 
 Lutheran principles, secretly sympathised with per- 
 secuted heretics, and ultimately became Superinten- 
 dent of Fife when the Protestant Church was estab- 
 lished. Among the friars William Arth was the most 
 zealous and satirical. Mounting the pulpit of the 
 great Church in Dundee he, like a true son of 
 Savonarola, denounced the lazy and licentious 
 Bishops, spoke vehemently against " the abuses of 
 cursing and miracles," and alleged that the Civil 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 55 
 
 Magistrates ought to deprive the vicious Church- 
 men of their benefices. Buffetted and insulted by 
 the jackmen of the Bishop of Brechin, Arth 
 complained to Doctor John Major, Provost of the 
 Old College, and an oracle in St. Andrews, com- 
 municated to him the principal heads of the 
 sermon alleged to be heretical, and found that he 
 entirely agreed with him. But this friar lacked the 
 courage of his opinions. At the instigation of his 
 brethren who were afraid of losing the benediction 
 of the Bishops, — "the malt and meal, and the 
 appointed pension," — he fled into England, where 
 he was imprisoned. 
 
 Now men were beginning to speak out with an 
 alarming freedom and fearlessness, and the digni- 
 taries of the Church resolved to make a great 
 bonfire to frighten the Protestant leaders. Between 
 the years 1530 and 1540 not a few excellent and 
 earnest Christian men were burned, and many 
 were driven into exile. Among others, Henry 
 Forrest, a Benedictine Monk, and " a son of the 
 mason who built the wall around the Palace of 
 Linlithgow," perished in the flames at the North 
 Church stile of the Abbey of St. Andrews 
 for expressing sympathy with the Lutherans, 
 adjudging Hamilton a martyr, and possessing a 
 copy of the New Testament in English. David 
 
56 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Stratoun of Whitstoun, in the Mearns, had em- 
 braced Protestant principles ; Norman Gourlay, 
 a Secular Priest, and " a man of reasonable 
 erudition," had married after he returned from 
 the continent ; both suffered at the Rood of 
 Greenside, in the suburbs of Edinburgh, in 1534. 
 About 1538.. Sir Duncan Symson, chaplain ; friars 
 Kyllour and Beveridge of Stirling ; and Robert 
 Forrester, gentleman, brother of the Laird of 
 Arngibborne, were publicly burnt on the Castle 
 Hill of Edinburgh for inveighing against the 
 persecuting Prelates, and attending the wedding of 
 their friend and neighbour, Thomas Cocklaw, 
 Vicar of Tullybody near Alloa, and eating flesh in 
 Lent at the marriage feast. Not long after this, 
 Thomas Forret, Vicar of Dollar — a village beautifully 
 situated on the banks of the " clear winding Devon," 
 at the roots of the Ochill hills — was arraigned for 
 heresy. He belonged to the ancient House of 
 Forret, in Fife, obtained his education at Cologne, 
 and was a Dean and Canon-Regular of St. Colm's 
 Inch, in the Frith of Forth. In studying the works 
 of St. Augustine, he, like Luther, found the Truth, 
 and became a bold defender of the doctrines of 
 grace. An able and accomplished scholar, 
 Forret prosecuted his parochial work in Dollar 
 with great diligence and extraordinary success. 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 57 
 
 He rose at six o'clock in the morning and studied 
 till twelve, committed three chapters of the Bible 
 to memory daily, and repeated them at night to his 
 servant, Andrew Kirkie, composed a Catechism in 
 English for his parishioners, visited them syste- 
 matically for the purpose of instructing them in 
 Christian doctrine, and preached from a Gospel or 
 Epistle every Sunday, — a very uncommon feat 
 in those days of darkness and ministerial 
 inefficiency. When the Pope's Indulgence-mongers 
 entered his parish, Forret stoutly opposed them, 
 denounced them as deceivers of the people, and 
 plainly affirmed that the pardon of sins could 
 " come, neither from Pope nor any other, but only 
 by the blood- of Christ." Ere long his pastoral 
 zeal, his purity of life, and his devotion to 
 evangelical truth, provoked the jealousy and 
 hatred of his slothful and greedy brethren. Mal- 
 icious informers were at hand, and Crichton, Bishop 
 of Dunkeld, summoned him to his palace, and 
 remonstrated with him. " My joy, Dean Thomas," 
 said the Prelate, " I would you took your cow and 
 your uppermost cloth, as other Churchmen do ; or 
 else it is too much to preach every Sunday: for in 
 so doing you may make the people think that we 
 should preach likewise. . . . We are not 
 ordained to preach. ... I thank God that ^ 
 
58 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 never knew what the Old and the New Testament 
 was ; therefore, Dean Thomas, I will know nothing 
 but my portuese and my pontifical. Go your way, 
 and let be all these fantasies ; for if you persevere 
 in these erroneous opinions, ye will repent 
 it, when you may not amend it." Forret went 
 his way, but continued his earnest ministry till he 
 was suddenly interrupted by a summons from 
 Cardinal Beaton and the Bishop of Dunkeld. 
 John Lauder, a notorious theological bully, acting 
 as public accuser, charged him with saying " that 
 it was not lawful for kirk-men to take their tithes, 
 offerings, and cross-puts ;" with " learning his par- 
 ishioners to pray unto God the Pater Noster in Eng- 
 lish, and also teaching them the Belief and Ten Com- 
 mandments in English, which is contrary to our 
 Acts ; " and with reading the Bible, " which is 
 heresy, and makes all this plea and cumber in the 
 holy kirk, and among the prelates thereof." 
 Whereupon Forret replied that he had actually 
 said " it was not lawful for kirkmen to spend the 
 teinds and the patrimony of the kirk, as they do, 
 on harlots and whores, delicate clothings, riotous 
 banquetting, and wanton playing at cards and dice; 
 and the kirk riven, and the pulpit down, and the 
 people not instructed in God's Word, nor the Sacra- 
 ments duly ministrate to them, as the scripture of 
 
The Dazvn of the Reformation. 59 
 
 Christ commands." "Moreover," he averred, "that 
 his parishioners and congregation were so rude and 
 barbarous that they understood no Latin, and that 
 he was forced, on his conscience, to teach them and 
 learn them the words of their salvation in English." 
 For the purpose of verifying a quotation from the 
 writings of St. Paul to prove that it was better to 
 " speak two words to the understanding and edifi- 
 cation of the people, than ten thousand words in a 
 language which they understood not," the Dean 
 was about to pull a Bible out of his sleeve, when 
 the accuser said : " Heretick, thou canst not deny 
 but the New Testament in English is contrary to 
 our Acts, and forbidden by the Pope, and is 
 enough to burn thee, Thief."* Then "the Council 
 of the clergy gave sentence on him to be burnt for 
 using of the same book." He passed through the 
 fiery ordeal triumphantly in March 1538, and 
 found a home among the heroes. " After this 
 cruelty was used in Edinburgh, upon the Castle 
 Hill, to the effect that the rest of the Bishops 
 might show themselves no less fervent to suppress 
 the light of God than he of St. Andrews was, there 
 were apprehended two in the diocese of Glasgow." 
 
 * Pitscotties History, pp. 150-152. Foxe's Acts and Monuments, 
 vol. V., p. 622. 
 
60 The Martyrs of Angus and Meams. 
 
 These were young men of stainless character, of 
 gentle spirit, and of fine scholarship. Jerome 
 Russel was a Cordelier friar, "a young man," says 
 Knox, " of a meak nature, qwyk spreat, and good 
 letteris." For some time he had preached the 
 Gospel in Dumfries with great earnestness and 
 success, and had won for himself the reputation of 
 " a well-learned man." At the instigation of the 
 Bishops he was seized by Lord Maxwell, thrust 
 into heavy irons, brought to Glasgow, and arraigned 
 before Archbishop Dunbar. His companion in 
 tribulation was Thomas Kennedy, a native of Ayr, 
 " who passed not eighteen years of age, one of ex- 
 cellent injyne in Scottish poesyne." Both were 
 faithful Christians, and displayed a beautiful Chris- 
 tian spirit during their trial. Russel, however, 
 manifested greater steadfastness, courage, and 
 dignity than his companion. But Kennedy, 
 though at first " faint," obtained dying grace for 
 the dying hour ; and with a cheerful countenance, 
 and a joyful voice said, upon his knees : " Thou by 
 Thine own hand hast pulled me from the very 
 bottom of hell, and makest me to feel that 
 heavenly comfort which takes from me that 
 ungodly fear wherewith before I was oppressed. 
 Now I defy death ; do what you please ; I praise 
 my God I am ready." The godly and learned 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 61 
 
 Jerome, railed upon by merciless tyrants, said : 
 " This is your hour and the power of darkness : 
 now sit ye as judges ; and we stand wrongfully 
 accused, and more wrongfully to be condemned ; 
 but the day shall come when our innocency shall 
 appear, and that ye shall see your own blindness, to 
 your everlasting confusion. Go forward and fulfil the 
 measure of your iniquity." Beholding the youths 
 waiting for the red crown of martyrdom, the Arch- 
 bishop of Glasgow was deeply moved, and wished 
 to spare them. But Beaton's savage and relent- 
 less inquisitors — Lauder, Oliphant, and Maltman, 
 — turned upon him, and told him that if he did not 
 punish the heretics he would thereby condemn the 
 Cardinal, and injure the Church. " At which words 
 the faithless man, afraid, adjudged the innocents 
 to die, according to the desire of the wicked." 
 Meanwhile Jerome Russel comforted and encour- 
 aged Kennedy with strong words of promise and 
 of hope : " Brother, fear not ; more potent is He that 
 is in us than he that is in the world. The pain that 
 we shall suffer is short, and shall be light ; but our 
 joy and consolation shall never have end : and 
 therefore let us contend to enter in unto out- 
 Master and Saviour, by the same strait way which 
 he trod before us. Death cannot destroy us ; for 
 it is destroyed already by Him for whose sake we 
 
62 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 suffer." And then they passed to the place of 
 execution, in front of the Cathedral of Glasgow, 
 "and constantly triumphed over death and Satan, 
 even in the midst of the flaming fire." * 
 
 But while these men were honoured to wear the 
 imperishable crown of martyrdom, and impelled to 
 lay down their lives on the sacrificial altar for the 
 cause of truth and liberty, there were many who 
 only escaped the fires of persecution by seeking an 
 asylum in England and in continental countries. 
 We can only mention the most illustrious of these 
 fugitives.! Alexander Alane, or Alesius, a Canon 
 of St. Andrews, who had been converted to 
 Protestantism in attempting to reclaim Patrick 
 Hamilton, roused the suspicions of the dignitaries 
 of the Church by censuring the vices of the Clergy 
 in a Latin oration, delivered before the Ecclesiastical 
 Synod, and was flung into prison in 1531. After 
 a year's confinement, he escaped to Frankfort in 
 Germany, but on the invitation of Cromwell he 
 returned to England in 1535, and occupied the 
 Chair of Theology at Cambridge for some time. 
 Returning to Germany in 1540, he was ap- 
 
 * Knox's History of the Reformation, vol. I., pp. 65, 66. 
 
 t The best accounts of the exiles are to be found in David Laing's 
 appendix to Knox's History, in the Notes at the end of M'Crie's 
 Life of Knox, and in Lorimer's Precursors of Knox, 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 63 
 
 pointed Professor of Divinity at Leipzig, where 
 he wrote Commentaries on the Psalms, on the 
 Gospel of St. John, on the Epistle to the Romans, 
 and the Pastoral Epistles, and laboured with 
 untiring industry till 1565, when he died, crowned 
 with honours. John Macalpine, or Maccabaeus„ 
 Prior of the Dominican Monastery at Perth, had 
 identified himself with the Lutheran cause about 
 1534 ; and when the fierce fires of persecution were 
 kindled he fled to England, and sought a quiet 
 sanctuary at Salisbury. Nicolas Shaxton, the 
 Bishop of Salisbury, received him kindly, and 
 presented him to a Canonry in his splendid 
 Cathedral in 1538. Eventually he went to Witten- 
 berg, where he was honoured with the friendship 
 of Luther and Melanchthon ; and at their recom- 
 mendation he proceeded to Denmark, accepted the 
 Chair of Theology in the University of Copenhagen, 
 and by his sagacity, piety, learning, and strenuous 
 efforts to place the reformed religion on a solid 
 basis, won the esteem and affection of Christian 
 the Second. John Mackdowal, sub-Prior of the 
 Black Friars' Monastery, Glasgow, was a prudent, 
 scholarly, and godly man ; and, like Macalpine, he 
 fled from the bloody hand of the persecutor, and 
 found a refuge within the diocese of the good 
 Bishop of Salisbury. Shaxton generously wel- 
 
64 The Martyrs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 corned him, appointed him one of his chaplains, 
 and set him in the Cathedral pulpit to assail 
 the doctrine of the Pope's supremacy. From 
 England he went in 1540 to Holland, where 
 " he was elected Burgomaster of one of the 
 Stadts." About 1538, John Mackbriar or Mack- 
 bray, Canon of Glenluce in Galloway, " forsook the 
 country for religion, and became a preacher in the 
 English Church ; but in the time of Queen Mary's 
 persecution he fled to Frankfort, and served the 
 English congregation as Minister." At a later 
 period he became pastor of a congregation in Lower 
 Germany, but on the accession of Queen Elizabeth 
 he returned to England, and died Vicar of the 
 Church of St. Nicholas in Newcastle, in 1584. In 
 Strype's Annals he is described as " an eminent 
 exile," and Bale states that he was the author of 
 several works, and " wrote elegantly in Latin." In 
 the same year, Sir Robert Richardson, '• a Canon- 
 Regular and Sacrist of the Holy Cross," St. 
 Andrews, in 1520, and a Canon of Cambuskenneth 
 Abbey on the Forth, in 1530, fled to England for 
 fear of persecution. Being a distinguished scholar 
 and an eloquent preacher he was despatched by 
 Henry VIII. to Scotland in 1543, and commended 
 to the Regent Arran, when he was favourably 
 disposed to the work of reformation. Bent 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 65 
 
 on promoting the new movement, the Regent ap- 
 pointed Richardson to preach throughout the 
 kingdom, and, according to the English ambassa- 
 dor, he did his work "very honestly and diligently." 
 But as soon as the wily Cardinal vanquished 
 the Regent, and dragged him into his net, 
 Richardson was compelled by the threatening 
 thunderstorm to abandon his evangelical work 
 in Scotland, and to escape a second time into 
 England. 
 
 Robert Logie, another Canon Regular of Cam- 
 buskenneth, and the instructor of the novices; and 
 Thomas Cocklaw, Vicar of Tullibody, had likewise 
 embraced the new sentiments; and both accom- 
 panied Richardson to England, where they re- 
 mained for many years and preached the Gospel 
 in all its simplicity and purity. 
 
 George Buchanan, the distinguished Latin poet, 
 and historian, the tutor of princes, and the friend 
 of kings, had espoused the cause of Reformation, 
 and satirized the brotherhood of St. Francis in 
 severe and polished language. Regarded with 
 implacable hatred by the Roman Catholic clergy 
 the king himself was unable to shield him from 
 their fury, and he was captured and thrown into 
 the prison of St. Andrews in 1539. Whilethe keepers 
 slept he fortunately managed to creep through 
 
66 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 the narrow window of the dungeon, and fled into 
 France, where he resided till the Reformed Church 
 was firmly established. Sir John Borthwick of 
 Cinery, a gentleman and soldier of immense eru- 
 dition, was accused in 1 540 of propagating heretical 
 opinions, and of having in his possession such 
 heretical books as "the New Testament in Eng- 
 lish, Oecolampadius, Melanchthon, and several 
 treatises of Erasmus." In his absence he was con- 
 demned by the Cardinal, excommunicated, and 
 burnt in effigy, and dispossessed of all his lands. 
 Sir Alexander Seyton, youngest son of the Laird 
 of Touch and Tullibody, in Stirlingshire, a Domin- 
 ican friar, and confessor to King James V., was 
 an eloquent evangelical preacher, and a famous 
 scholar. Throughout a whole Lenten season he 
 preached the pure doctrines of grace with remark- 
 able power at St. Andrews, and denounced the 
 bishops as dumb dogs. Highly indignant at the 
 bold Dcminican, Beaton traduced and maligned 
 him, and when Seyton saw that the king's coun- 
 tenance fell, and that the bishops were leagued 
 against him, he escaped to England, where he 
 found employment as domestic chaplain to the 
 Duke of Suffolk. 
 
 About the same time another illustrious re- 
 former crossed the Border. Few Scottish names 
 
The Dawn of the Reformation. 6j 
 
 are more worthy of remembrance than that of 
 John Willock. An Ayrshire man, and a friar,* 
 Willock appears to have imbibed at an early 
 period the spirit and the principles of the Lollards 
 of the West. Dreading martyrdom he escaped to 
 London, and soon obtained great celebrity as a 
 preacher in the church of St. Katherine Colman's.f 
 Able, grave, and learned, he succeeded Seyton as 
 chaplain to the Duke of Suffolk, and returned to 
 Ins native land in 1558. During the decisive- 
 struggle for Reformation he played a great and 
 honourable part. Than Willock no minister was 
 more beloved and admired by Knox, the captain 
 of the conquering host, and certainly few proved 
 more serviceable to him when the battle raged 
 most furiously. Full of courage, he stood his 
 ground, and encouraged the army of reformers in 
 the " gray metropolis of the north," when the hero- 
 champion had to withdraw from the field. And 
 he lived to share the honour and the glory of final 
 
 * Bishop Lesly says he was a Dominican friar ; Spottiswoode 
 says he was a Franciscan friar in the town of Ayr. 
 
 f When Queen Mary ascended the English throne, and the fires. 
 <>f persecution blazed, Willock fled to the city of Embden, in the 
 province of East Friesland, in Westphalia, where he practised as a 
 physician. Between the years 1555 and 1558 he paid two visits to 
 Edinburgh as the envoy of the Countess of Friesland to the Queen 
 Regent of Scotland. — Scott's Reformers, pp. 54-57. 
 
68 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 victory with Knox, and to undertake the work of 
 planting and fostering the Reformed Church in 
 Ayrshire. As the " Superintendent of the West," 
 he rendered invaluable services to the Church. The 
 people loved, trusted and revered him. He was 
 regarded as the most distinguished and able man 
 in the shire. The descendants of the Lollards 
 counted him greater than Knox, and described him 
 as " the Primate of their religion in the Scottish 
 realm.'' 
 
 Such are some of the more eminent persons 
 who embraced the principles of evangelical Protes- 
 tantism, and suffered for their convictions, before 
 John Knox sounded the trumpet that shook the 
 foundations of the Papal Church, and rallied round 
 his standard the noblest and best in the land, to 
 fight the battle of religious freedom. 
 
 It is notable that Dundee and Stirling, intimately 
 connected with the Abbeys of St. Andrews and 
 Cambuskenneth, stand out conspicuously as the 
 homes of the early clerical martyrs and reformers. 
 And it is equally interesting to observe that the 
 districts of Angus and Mearns, on the East coast, 
 and the shires of Galloway and Ayr, in the West 
 of Scotland, contained the greater number of the 
 small proprietors who espoused the new opinions. 
 Nor is it difficult to account for these striking facts. 
 
The Daicn of the Reformation: 69 
 
 By means of the Frith of Forth and the Frith 
 of Tay, Stirling and Dundee were constantly 
 brought into contact with continental life, and at 
 the period of the German Reformation the inhabi- 
 tants could not escape the healthful and invigor- 
 ating influences of the strong tide of Lutheran 
 opinion. And when we know that some of the 
 Professors in St. Andrews, and one or two of the 
 greatest of the Abbots of Cambuskenneth were 
 enlightened and liberal men, sympathetic with the 
 Humanistic and Religious Revival on the continent 
 of Europe, it is not difficult to understand how 
 many people about them fell under their spell and 
 disseminated the new doctrines. Then the West 
 of Scotland " was an ancient receptacle of God's 
 truth," and while the Lollard fires slumbered 
 godly men never died out. Moreover, the Earl 
 of Glencairn, on his return from England, where 
 he had come under the influence of Cranmer, 
 seems to have fanned the fires that slumbered in 
 his native district into a blaze. In Angus and 
 Mearns, John Erskine of Dun, was the great 
 torch - bearer and lamp-lighter. At an early 
 Ege he had travelled into Germany, formed a 
 friendship with the Reformers, and returned to 
 Scotland " marvellously illuminated for those 
 times." To him the Wisharts of Pitarrow, the 
 
yo The Martyrs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 Melvilles of Baldovy and Dysart, the Stratouns 
 of Laurieston and Whitstoun, were indebted for the 
 light of life and the Protestant principles which 
 impelled them, in the face of persecution and death, 
 to witness a good confession for Christ, and nerved 
 two of them to accept the crown of martyrdom. 
 And their fiery crown, like the old fiery cross, not 
 only illumined their native district, but roused the 
 hearts of all good and honest men, and stimulated 
 them to wage a war against Papal tyranny, and to 
 prosecute it with unflinching courage till their 
 efforts were crowned with victory. 
 
THE LAST OF THE STRATOUNC 
 
David Stratoun of Wkitstoun. ji 
 
 III. 
 DAVID STRATOUN OF WHITSTOUN. 
 
 " They never fail who die 
 In a great cause ! The block may soak their gore ; 
 Their heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs 
 Be strung to city gates and castle walls ; 
 But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years 
 Elapse, and others share as dark a doom, 
 They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
 Which overpower all others, and conduct 
 The world at last, to Freedom." 
 
 — Byron. 
 
 The Religious Reformation during the sixteenth 
 century was one of the most fruitful and beneficent 
 events in the History of Scotland. Indeed, it is 
 impossible to exaggerate its importance as a great 
 movement in the direction of Human Progress — as 
 a movement making for the emancipation of the 
 mind, and the enthronement of conscience as 
 king of man's soul, and aiming at the recognition 
 of the supremacy of the Word of God, of the 
 priesthood of all genuine believers, and of the 
 complete and absolute efficacy of the work of 
 Redemption, regarded as the ground of salvation. 
 To view the Reformation simply as a reformation 
 
/ z 
 
 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 of discipline is to underestimate its importance, 
 and to misapprehend its real significance. Un- 
 questionably the Reformation was a grand pro- 
 test against the abuses and corruptions of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, and a noble vindication 
 of the rights of private judgment against the 
 crushing and degrading tyranny of a priestly 
 Hierarchy ; and, as a matter of fact, reformers like 
 Wycliffe, Luther, and Knox, effected a great 
 ecclesiastical purgation, and made a heroic stand 
 for freedom, clarifying and sweetening the ecclesi- 
 astical atmosphere, heightening the standard of 
 holy living, and by deepening the sense of 
 personal responsibility to God, lifted men to a 
 loftier moral platform. But the Reformation was 
 far more than a resolute protest against the errors, 
 superstitions, and vices of the Papacy. It was an 
 Evangelical Revival of a deep and broad character, 
 and the result of a determined effort on the part of 
 newly enlightened and terribly earnest men to 
 reconstruct the Church on the lines of Apostolical 
 simplicity and purity ; to substitute the un- 
 adulterated Word of God for ecclesiastical tradition 
 and authority ; to supplant the Sacrificial Altar by 
 the pulpit and the Gospel preacher ; penances 
 and pilgrimages, protracted vigils, and the 
 pains of purgatory by the vicarious atone- 
 
David Stratoun of Whitstoun, 73 
 
 ment of the Divine Redeemer ; to displace the 
 mechanical doctrine of the Sacraments by the 
 scriptural doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy 
 Spirit ; and to destroy priestcraft in every form 
 by giving due prominence to the " One Mediator 
 between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," and 
 His continual intercession. Hence the Reforma- 
 tion was not a superficial movement, but one of 
 the deepest, noblest, and most radical. It sprang 
 out of profound and strong convictions wrought in 
 the souls of sorrowful men by the Spirit of God ; 
 and just because the leaders of the movement, — 
 feeling that the living God alone could satisfy their 
 hungry souls and quench the longings of their 
 thirsty spirits, — were earnestly endeavouring to 
 get straight back to Him, they steadily aimed 
 at the removal of every obstacle that hindered 
 communion, whether pretentious priest, glorified 
 saint, gorgeous image, or meritorious service, and 
 at the unearthing and exaltation of those doctrines 
 of grace commonly identified with Evangelical 
 Christianity. 
 
 The truth is, the Reformation was a Spiritual 
 Awakening, crowned by a glorious Resurrection. 
 After the long, dreary, winter of Medieval- 
 ism, smiling spring appeared with her vitalizing 
 forces, and warm generous impulses ; and just as 
 
74 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 vernal life in Nature pushes off the crisp brown 
 leaves that have survived the biting frosts of winter, 
 and bursts old bonds and leaps forth into glorious 
 liberty, making the wilderness blossom as the rose, 
 so the Spirit of God working in human souls 
 threw off the corruptions of the cold dead Church, 
 broke the fetters of Ritualism and Superstition, 
 and piled up in all the joyous freedom of a fresh 
 creative Power, a beautiful spiritual temple, majes- 
 tic in its simplicity, and lustrous in its purity. 
 And no class of men did more to further the new 
 movement than the martyrs and confessors, fired 
 with evangelical zeal and enthusiasm, and em- 
 boldened by the Spirit of Truth. They died indeed 
 to deepen its life and to give it permanency. 
 With truth and beauty, it has been said, that the 
 pillars of the Evangelical Church of Scotland were 
 planted in the graves of the Martyrs. 
 
 One of the earliest witnesses for the Faith, on 
 the East coast of Scotland, was David Stratoun of 
 Whitstoun * or Woodstone, in the Mearns ; and he 
 appears in history not only as a staunch protester 
 against the rapacity of the Roman Churchmen of 
 
 * Whitstoun house stands among some fine old trees on the hill- 
 face, about a mile west of Laurieston Castle, and commands a 
 noble view of the German Ocean, while it almost overlooks the 
 village of St. Cyrus. 
 
David Stratoun of- Whitstoun. 75 
 
 his time, but as a convert to Evangelical Christi- 
 anity, and a devout student of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. He belonged to an ancient and honourable 
 family of the Anglo-Saxon name of Stratton, or 
 Stratoun, that flourished for about four centuries 
 in the seaboard parish of Ecclescreig* or Saint 
 Cyrus, lying at the south-eastern extremity of 
 Kincardineshire. Alexandre de Stratton is the 
 first distinguished member of the family of whom 
 we have any authentic knowledge. Possessing 
 the lands of Glenchungole and the Burgh Mill of 
 Glenbervie, he seems to have been a gentleman of 
 considerable political influence, and of good social 
 position. To King Edward the First he swore 
 fealty at Aberdeen on the 15th of July, 1296, and 
 he was present at the famous Parliament which 
 met in the great Abbey of Arbroath in 1320, and, 
 under the brave and chivalrous Bruce, vindicated 
 the rights and liberties of the Scottish people. It 
 is impossible to tell precisely when the Stratouns 
 obtained possession of the beautiful and picturesque 
 
 * Ecclescreig means the church of Ciric or Cyricus, who was king 
 of the Picts in S77. William the Lion granted the Church-lands 
 of Ecclescreig, with the chapel of Saint Rule, and all the serfs on 
 the ground, to the monks of St. Andrews. 
 
 The ancient church occupied a romantic site on the shore, ni 
 the foot of the highest rocks, locally called the Steeples, and here 
 the parishioners worshipped till 1632. 
 
/6 TJie Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 lands and fortress of Laurieston ; but it is unques- 
 tionable that Alexander St rat on de Laurenston fell 
 with many noble knights and stalwart burgesses of 
 Forfar, Kincardine, and Aberdeen, at the disastrous 
 battle of Harlaw, at the roots of the Grampians^ 
 in 141 1, which effectually checked the progress 
 of the Highland host, bent on pillaging the 
 homesteads and harassing the inhabitants of the 
 Lowland districts of Angus and Mearns. The old 
 ballad, describing the decisive battle, particularly 
 mentions "the stalwart laird of Laurieston," and 
 pathetically bewails his sudden death as a grievous 
 loss. 
 
 " And then the knicht of Laurieston 
 Was slain in his armour schene." 
 
 During the sixteenth century the Stratouns 
 of Laurieston were one of the most powerful 
 families in the shire ; and some of the mem- 
 bers exerted a beneficent influence in the 
 Councils of Church and State. Sir George sat in 
 Parliament for the county, and championed the 
 cause of Reformation. Sir Alexander proved 
 himself a statesman of great wisdom, enlighten- 
 ment, and tact, and stood so high in the 
 estimation of his countrymen and his king 
 that he was appointed one of the Commissioners 
 
David Stratoun of Whitstoun. yy 
 
 for promoting the union of Scotland and 
 England, and Royal Commissioner to the mem- 
 orable General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
 land convened at Aberdeen in 1605. In recognition 
 of his valuable and prolonged services to the State, 
 " the blench deutie " of the Lordship of Scone, 
 amounting to one thousand merks annually, was 
 assigned to Alexander.* But if the Laurieston 
 family gave politicians to the State it likewise 
 gave ministers to the Church. At the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century several Stratouns filled 
 parochial cures in the vicinity of the place of their 
 nativity. Master Walter Str atone was Rector of 
 Dunottar, and on the resignation of Robert Martyn, 
 in 1502, he was presented by the Abbot of 
 Arbroath to the Vicarage of Garvock. In 150S 
 Master Gilbert Stratou was Vicar of the parish of 
 Innerkelor, in Forfarshire, and he appears to have 
 resided for many years in the old vicarage, com- 
 manding a fine view of the valley of the Lunan.f 
 The old Castle of Laurieston obtained its name 
 
 * See Jer vise's Memorials of Angus and Mearns. New Stat. 
 Account of Kincardineshire, p. 283. Reg. de Panmure MSS. 
 I. 241. 
 
 tin the Black Register of Arbroath the Stratouns are also 
 designed of Criggy or Cragy and Rynde, pp. 115, 208. For 
 notices of the ministers see the Reg. Nig., pp. 343, 371. 
 
78 The Marty is of Angus and M earns. 
 
 from St. Laurence, the patron of the Church that 
 once stood at Chapelfield ; and it occupied a 
 charming position in the romantic and idyllic dell 
 of Finella, in the parish of Ecclescreig, about seven 
 miles north-east of Montrose. Nothing of any 
 importance, save a picturesque square tower and 
 battlements, hoary with years, and rising from the 
 verge of a rugged and shelving rock in the deep- 
 wooded ravine, and a few fragments of an ancient 
 Chapel, connect the modern mansion of Laurieston 
 with the " old fortress," and the beloved home of 
 the Stratouns of famous memory. 
 
 In this ancient house, David Stratoun, the 
 Martyr, was born about the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century. His father, Alexander Stratoun 
 de Lauraustoun (of the Barony of Stratoun), and 
 his mother, Agnes Ogilvy, were alive in 1509, as 
 appears from the Register of the Great Seal ; and 
 his elder brother, Andrew Stratoun, with Isobel 
 Lindsay, his spouse, and George, their son and 
 heir, occupied Laurieston in 1539.* As a younger 
 son, David Stratoun inherited the small property 
 of Whitstoun, adjoining the estate of Laurieston, 
 and settled there, combining the occupations of 
 
 * See Laing's Notes to Knox's History of tJic Reformation, Vol. 
 *•> PP- 5?, 59- 
 
David Stratoun of Whitstoun. 79 
 
 gentleman-farmer and salmon-fisher.* He seems 
 also to have possessed some property in the 
 Muraygate of Dundee, for the Lord Treasurer's 
 Hook, preserved in the Register House, Edinburgh, 
 contains an entry, from which we learn, that on the 
 1 oth March, 1538, the King granted a tenement, 
 which had fallen to him on the death of " David 
 Stratoun, in Ouhitstoun, condemned for certain 
 heretical crimes," to David Gardyne and Mariote 
 Erskyn.f 
 
 The Stratouns, says the old Statistical Account 
 of the Parish of St. Cyrus, " were a race of men 
 remarkable for size and strength ;" they were a 
 broad-featured, large-limbed family, with brown 
 
 * The Rev. George Anderson of St. Cyrus, informs me that 
 " Whitstone is still the common name for Woodstone, and that the 
 estate embraces part of St. Cyrus village, including the Church 
 with the Braes and Fishings. . . . The Fishings would go 
 with the Property, and are very valuable. It was at the mouth of 
 the river (the North Esk), opposite the Kirkside portion of the 
 Property that the famous scene took place. Kirkside is a continua- 
 tion of Woodstone, and has always been in the possession of the 
 Straiton P'amily. Its Fishings, lying at the mouth of the river, 
 bring a greater revenue than the Land." 
 
 t " Et de xx h in completam solutionem compositions vinius 
 tenementi jacen. infra burgum de Dunde, pertin. domino Regi per 
 decessum David Straitoun in Qithilstoun, justificati ad mortem pro 
 certis criminibus heresieos concess. Dauid Game et Mariote 
 Krskyn. Compot. Thesaur." 
 
<So The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 hair and blue eyes, just and upright, stubborn 
 and passionate, resolute of purpose, invincible 
 in energy, and, withal, kindly and lovable. Nor 
 did David Stratoun belie the character of his 
 ancestors. He was indeed a typical Stratoun, and 
 a true son of the Mearns.* Of a remarkably robust 
 physical frame, of strong masculine intellect, of a 
 hot temper, and a rough and ready humour, he was 
 a formidable man, although almost entirely igno- 
 rant of book-lore, and inclined to treat fine scholars 
 and their classical attainments with something like 
 contemptuous scorn. A sort of gentleman-farmer, 
 and the owner of a salmon-fishery, he constantly 
 mixed and mingled with the rude hinds and 
 illiterate fishermen he employed, and conse- 
 quently grew not unlike them in their habits and 
 tastes. Nominally attached to the Roman Church, 
 offering no opposition to its common dogmas, 
 he, nevertheless, manifested no vital interest in 
 religion, had no firm grasp of the fundamental 
 doctrines of Christianity, and rather despised the 
 
 * The ancient name of the county of Kincardine is probably de- 
 rived from Mermia (brother of Kenneth the second), the Mormiar 
 of the district. 
 
 The familiar phrase, "Men o' the Mearns," has long been used 
 in the county to denote men of energy and strength ; and hence the 
 proverb — "I can dae fat I dou*>: the men o' the Mearns can dae 
 nae mair." 
 
David Stratoitn of Whitstoun. 81 
 
 priests as greedy sheep-shearers of the great sheep- 
 master at Rome. Destitute of religious convictions, 
 blind to spiritual realities, and all unconcerned 
 about personal salvation, he deliberately avoided 
 the company of the godly, and despised the read- 
 ing of devotional books. He was, in short, a man 
 of the world, " living at ease in Zion." But this 
 man of iron will, of free and reckless spirit, and of 
 worldly life, was destined, like Augustine and Bun- 
 yan and John Newton, to pass through deep and 
 dark spiritual experiences, and to enter the King- 
 dom of God as a little child. A time came when 
 He who is " wonderful in counsel and excellent in 
 working " vouchsafed him a vision of sin, of judg- 
 ment, and of eternity ; and the strong man was 
 brought low. Clouds and thick darkness enwrap- 
 ped his drooping, bleeding spirit, and a heavy 
 crushing burden of guilt lay on his conscience, and 
 like an eagle with broken wing, or with an arrow 
 rankling in his heart, he concealed himself among 
 the ragged rocks, and pined and mourned. But at 
 last God spake the great word of forgiveness, 
 and laid His healing hand upon him ; the 
 morning broke and the shadows fled away, and 
 crowned with loving-kindness and tender mercies', - 
 he emerged from the solitudes, witnessed a good 
 confession for Christ before many witnesses, and 
 
 F 
 
82 The Martyrs of Angus and 31 r earns. 
 
 then, as on the fiery wing of the Seraphim, he 
 mounted into the clear sunlight of the Eternal 
 Presence. 
 
 The influences that operated in favour of David 
 Stratoun's conversion were of a peculiar nature, 
 and sprang out of the relations subsisting between 
 the proprietor of a fishery and the occupant of an 
 ecclesiastical benefice. For many centuries the 
 fisheries established along the coast of the parish 
 of St. Cyrus have been very valuable, and some 
 indeed have yielded more money than the lands to 
 which they are attached. We have no means of 
 estimating the exact value of these fisheries in 
 ancient times, but in 1837 the proprietors of the 
 estates in the parish obtained the sum of ^2991 
 for their fishings in the sea and in the North Esk 
 river. And from a Report read in the House of 
 Commons it appears that no fewer than three hun- 
 dred fish — salmon, grilse, and trout — were caught 
 in one day in July 1835. 
 
 Even in pre-Reformation times the fisheries 
 belonging to the estates of Whitstoun and 
 Kirkside were sufficiently important to interest 
 a small proprietor like David Stratoun, and to 
 attract the attention of the Vicar of Ecclescreig. 
 We cannot tell with what success Stratoun 
 prosecuted the fishing, but we know that 
 
David Stratoitn of WJiitstoun. 83 
 
 Master Robert Lawson, as the Vicar of the Parish, 
 and factor for Patrick Hepburn, the dissolute and 
 voluptuous Prior of St. Andrews, demanded a tithe 
 or tenth of all the fish captured by the Laird of 
 Whitstoun's hired servants. Stratoun was indig- 
 nant at what he regarded as an unjust exaction, 
 and at first peremptorily refused to accede to 
 Lawson's demand. Already prejudiced against 
 the churchmen, whom he looked upon as hirelings 
 and weaklings, he now began to hate them and 
 defy them. The Laird of Laurieston, however, 
 was more politic and cautious than his younger 
 brother. He knew the terrible power wielded by 
 the clergy in the days of James the Fifth, when the 
 nobles were stript of their influence ; and he urged 
 David to comply with their demands notwith- 
 standing its glaring injustice. He thought it 
 better to part with the choicest temporal posses- 
 sions than to run the risk of excommunication and 
 death, — better to fling all the fish of the sea into 
 the Prior's drag-net than to expose oneself to the 
 priest's anathema, to the hangman's noose, and the 
 fiery furnace. But, like many headstrong and 
 determined men, infuriated by a sense of oppres- 
 sion and wrong, the Laird of Whitstoun would not 
 listen to the wholesome advice of his sagacious 
 brother. Sitting sullenly in the Castle of Laurie- 
 
84 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 ston he drank " a cup of good French wine," 
 and after musing awhile he sprang to his feet. 
 A happy thought had flashed across his brain. 
 He had solved the difficulty of the hour, but with 
 all the perverse ingenuity of an unconquerable 
 heretic. He would, indeed, pay the teind to the 
 rapacious ecclesiastics, but on the very ground 
 where he got the stock. Forthwith he instructed 
 old Hugh Peters and his boatmen to cast every 
 tenth fish caught into the sea, at the river's mouth, 
 and then told Robert Lawson, the Vicar, that if the 
 Prior insisted on rigorously exacting the fish-teind 
 he must arrange to receive it on the spot where the 
 harvest of the sea was gathered in.* 
 
 The voice of local tradition affirms that the 
 fishermen were prosecuting their work at the 
 mouth of the North Esk river, among the gravel 
 banks and sandy shallows, when Stratoun spoke 
 
 * "The Bishop of Murray (then being prior of Sanctandross) 
 and his factouris, urged him for the teind thairof. His answer was, 
 if they wald haif teynd of that which his servandis wane in the sea, 
 it war but reassoun that thei should come and receive it whare hie 
 gatt the stock ; and so, as was constantlye affirmed, he caused his 
 servandis cast the tenth fische in the sea agane." — Knox's Hist., 
 Vol. I. p. 58. 
 
 " And because, when Master Robert Lawson, vicar of Eccles- 
 grig, asked his tithe-fish of him, he did cast them to him out of the 
 boat, so that some of them fell into the sea ; therefore he accused 
 him, as one that should have said that no tithes should be paid." — 
 Foxe's Acts and Monuments, Vol. IV., p. 579. 
 
David Stratoun of Whitstoun. 85 
 
 the grimly jocular word that heralded his dreadful 
 doom. And it is of some interest to learn that at 
 this day* numerous salmon-nets maybe seen drying 
 on the rough bent and golden broom and whin 
 which grow profusely around the romantic and 
 lonely churchyard on the shore, where the descen- 
 dants of the Martyr lie at rest ; and that the last 
 of the Stratouns can still survey from the door of 
 Kirkside House, perched on the top of the cliffs, 
 the old pre-Reformation scene almost unchanged. 
 When David Stratoun's reply reached the 
 haughty and vindictive Hepburn at St. Andrews 
 his anger was kindled, and he proceeded 
 to excommunicate the defiant man of the 
 Mearns. " Process of cursing," says Knox, " was 
 led against him, for non-payment of such teinds ; 
 which when he contemned, he was delated to 
 answer for heresy." In Mediaeval times cursing 
 was considered among the heaviest of Church cen- 
 sures, excluding people, as it did, from all the 
 privileges of the Church, and consigning them to 
 the hands of the devil. But it was by no means 
 an uncommon punishment reserved for great 
 and incorrigible sinners. Even those who had 
 " tynt a spurtill," " stollin ane flaill from them be- 
 yound the burne," or " tynt a home spune," were 
 
 *June, 1885. 
 
86 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 cursed on Sundays from the parish pulpits. Nor 
 were "ecclesiastical persons exempted from such 
 censures.'' In 1533-4, the Abbot of Melrose, and 
 the Lady Prioress of North Berwick and Eccles, 
 were cursed for non-payment of their taxes. Of 
 course the frequency with which the process was 
 served on people for trifling offences and delin- 
 quencies robbed it of its terror, and fostered con- 
 tempt for it. And there is good reason for 
 believing that it was not simply the Prior's cursing, 
 but the threat to arraign him for heresy that 
 clouded the brow of David Stratoun, and rendered 
 him grave and serious and devout. " Delated to 
 answer for heresy,'" writes the historian of the Re- 
 formation, "he was troubled vehemently, and 
 therefore began to frequent the company of such 
 as were godly ; for before he had been a man very 
 stubborn, and one that despised all reading 
 (chiefly of those things that were godly), but mira- 
 culously, as it were, he appeared to be changed." 
 Conscience-stricken and depressed in spirit, the tur- 
 bulent and scornful man became an anxious in- 
 quirer concerning the way of life and peace. In 
 his distinguished neighbour, John Erskine of Dun, 
 and in his nephew, George Stratoun, he found 
 sympathetic friends and wise guides. Erskine 
 rtimself had in his youth exhibited a violent tern- 
 
David Stratoun of Whitstonn. 87 
 
 per, slain a priest in a brawl in the bell-tower of 
 the church of Montrose, and fled to the Continent. 
 Haunted by fear, and burdened with grief, he had 
 sought the society of the leading Reformers in 
 Germany and in France, embraced evangelical 
 opinions, and entered upon a life of piety. Hence- 
 forth he always manifested the keenest interest in 
 the propagation of the new doctrines that had con- 
 soled him in his sore trouble. For this purpose he 
 encouraged the importation of English Bibles from 
 the Low Countries, and the teaching of the Greek 
 language in the Grammar School of Montrose. As 
 for George Stratoun, son and heir of the Laird of 
 Laurieston, he was an enthusiastic disciple of 
 Luther. He had studied at St. Andrews, and he 
 had drunk at St. Leonard's life-giving spring. The 
 Laird of Dun and young Laurieston* were thus ad- 
 mirably fitted to act as evangelical masters in the 
 school of Christ ; and David Stratoun sat humbly 
 at their feet while they read the Holy Scriptures 
 in the English tongue, and expounded the glorious 
 
 * It is clear from Knox's account that George Stratoun, son and 
 heir of Andrew, was the instructor of David Stratoun. "Upoun 
 a day, as the lard of Lowristoun, that yit lyveth, then being ane 
 young man, &c," says Knox. Now the " History of the Refor- 
 mation" was not commenced before 1559, and George Stratoun was 
 laird of Laurieston in 1547, and survived till 1576, as appears from 
 the Register of the Great Seal. 
 
:<8 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 doctrines of grace.* The reading of the New Tes- 
 tament was like the opening of Heaven to him. 
 The story of the Saviour's life and passion filled 
 him with wonderment ; and the Pauline doctrines 
 »f justification by faith alone, and the vicarious 
 atonement of Christ, brought the peace and joy of 
 early summer into his soul. To him the Word of 
 God was a priceless treasure, " more to be desired 
 than gold, yea, than much fine gold ; sweeter 
 also than honey and the honeycomb." " He 
 delighted in nothing but in reading (albeit 
 himself could not read), and was a vehement ex- 
 horter of all men to concord, to quietness, and to 
 the contempt of the world." In the History of 
 the Reformation the greatest of Scotsmen intro- 
 duces a touching little episode, affording us a 
 glimpse into Stratoun's inner life when the clear 
 light was shining after the rain, and the old order 
 had yielded place to the new. Two men appear 
 upon the scene, "a certain quiet place in the fields," 
 adjoining Whitstoun. The one is a strong volcanic 
 yoeman, of the better sort, somewhat rough and 
 unkempt in outward appearance, but wonderfully 
 mellowed and refined by the purifying influence of 
 
 * " He frequented much the company of the Laird of Dun, whoin 
 God in those days had marvellously illuminated." — Knox's Hist., 
 Vol. I. p. 59. 
 
David Stratoun of Whitstoun. 89 
 
 the Gospel, and the spirit of Christ ; the other is a 
 young gentleman, polished and cultivated for the 
 times, morally earnest, bent on promoting liberal 
 religious opinions, and forwarding the cause of 
 Reformation in the Mearns. 
 
 Far away from the tumults of society and the 
 busy haunts of men, the young scholar proceeds 
 to read the New Testament in English to his con- 
 verted relative. He selects the eighth chapter of 
 St. Mark's Gospel, containing the great passage in 
 which the Master foretells His rejection by the 
 chief priests and scribes, and enforces the duty of 
 patient and courageous suffering in persecution fi >r 
 the Truth, by the consideration that fidelity alone 
 ensures the Saviour's royal welcome, and the im- 
 mortal crown on the day of final retribution. And 
 when he has read aloud the striking sentences, 
 breathing of battle : " Whosoever will come after me 
 let him deny himself, and take up his cross. . . . 
 Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the 
 Gospel's, the same shall save it. . . Whosoever 
 shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this 
 adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall the 
 Son of Man be ashamed, when he cometh in 
 the glory of his Father, with the holy angels," 
 it is evident that the solemn, severe, and 
 pointed words have, like arrows, transfixed his 
 
go The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 uncle's heart. Greatly agitated and excited, 
 David Stratoun appeared for a moment " as one 
 ravished;'' then he cast himself upon his knees, 
 and extending both hands and visage constantly 
 to heaven a reasonable time, burst forth in these 
 words : " O Lord, I have been wicked, and justly 
 may Thou extract thy grace from me. But, Lord, 
 for thy mercy's sake, let me never deny thee, nor 
 thy truth, for fear of death, or corporal pain." The 
 die was cast, the great decision was made : the 
 disciple was ready to follow his Master to Calvary! 
 This touching scene in the field reminds us of one 
 still more famous in the garden at Milan, when 
 Augustine the Rhetorican, hovering, as it were, 
 between Heaven and Hell, heard the mysterious 
 voice, "Tolle, lege; Tolle, lege:" Take up and read ; 
 Take up and read. And then, rushing to the side 
 of Alypius, seized the Book lying beneath the fig- 
 tree, and read with tearful emotion the passage in 
 the Epistle to the Romans : " The night is far 
 spent, the day is at hand : let us therefore cast off 
 the works of darkness, and let us put on the 
 armour of light. Let us walk honestly as in the 
 day ; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in cham- 
 bering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 
 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make 
 not provision for the flesh," — words that pierced his 
 
David Stratoun of Whitstoun. 91 
 
 soul and stuck fast there, till he broke with a sensual 
 and enthralling world, and with a heroism worthy 
 of one of Hannibal's Invincibles, fought the good 
 fight of faith, and died with his armour on. Like 
 " the Doctor of Grace " David Stratoun made the 
 great decision beneath the open canopy of heaven, 
 as soon as he was illuminated and quickened by 
 the Word of God. And he made the decision not 
 a day too soon. The day of fiery trial was at 
 hand. When he prayed for moral courage he was 
 praying unwittingly for dying grace. The grace 
 he sought was obtained as " the issue declared." 
 Already the persecutor stood at the door of Whit- 
 stoun, and a fire was being kindled at Edinburgh 
 to frighten Lutheran heretics. 
 
 Meanwhile Scotland was quiet, but the young 
 King James was in the hands of the Beatons and 
 the chief priests. Having quarrelled with the 
 nobles the king was compelled to ally himself with 
 the ecclesiastics for the purpose of carrying on the 
 business of the State, and securing the support of 
 Francis, and the French. Possessing the king's 
 favour the Papists enlisted the royal influence in a 
 determined attempt to stamp out Protestantism. 
 To rivet their hold on the king while they re- 
 sorted to desperate measures for suppressing here- 
 tics they coaxed and flattered him. They 
 
92 The Martyrs of Angus and Meams. 
 
 promised him promotion to the proud position of 
 Defender of the Faith, forfeited by his schismatical 
 uncle, Henry of England. The Pope bestowed 
 upon him his benediction, and despatched " a cross 
 and sword, consecrated on the night of the nativity 
 of our Saviour," as a reward " of his valour, and 
 many Christian virtues." Thus flattered and sur- 
 rounded by the Roman clergy, who acted as his 
 counsellors and guides, James became a servile son 
 of the Papal Church, and carried out their cruellest 
 behests, " more perhaps from political views than 
 from his native superstition." * 
 
 Forthwith the most conspicuous Lutherans in the 
 land were summoned before an ecclesiastical coun- 
 cil held in Holyrood, Edinburgh, in August 1534. 
 Among others, James Hamilton, Sheriff of Linlith- 
 gow (brother of Patrick Hamilton the Martyr), 
 and his sister Catherine, dreading death, escaped 
 into England. But Master Norman Gourlay and 
 David Stratoun promptly appeared to answer the 
 charges laid against them. King James, " clad in 
 scarlet," James Hay, Bishop of Ross, acting as the 
 Commissioner of James Beaton, Archbishop of St. 
 Andrews, and John Spence, lawyer, were the prin- 
 cipal prosecutors present in the Abbey Church. 
 
 * Pinkertori 's History, Vol. II. p. 329. 
 
David Stratonn of Whitstoun. 93 
 
 Norman Gourlay was charged with denying the 
 existence of Purgatory, and teaching that the Pope 
 was not a true Bishop, and had no jurisdiction in 
 Scotland ; and curiously enough David Stratoun 
 was accused of holding and inculcating similar 
 opinions, " with saying there was no purgatory, but 
 the passion of Christ, and the tribulations of the 
 world . . and that no tithes should be paid." 
 Both men were repeatedly and urgently entreated 
 to recant and abjure their Lutheran opinions, and 
 to burn their bill as a token of penitence unfeigned. 
 But both stood firm as anvils against every attack.* 
 Believing that the Roman dogma of Purgatory was 
 utterly unscriptural ; that purification by suffering, 
 after death had fixed character, was impossible ; 
 and that the anguish of Gethsemane and Calvary, 
 and the fiery discipline of life, were the only true 
 Purgatory, they stood steadfast and immovable, 
 and quitted them like strong men. To them, as to 
 us, Purgatory was an unknown and ghostly terri- 
 tory, which the Pope had annexed to his ecclesias- 
 tical dominions for the purpose of frightening the 
 
 * " Upoun the xxvj day of August Mr. Normond Goorlay wes 
 first abjurit, syne callit, and thairefter degradit for heresie ; and 
 ane David Strathque wald not objure, bot was constant, who was 
 brynt with the said Normond." — Diurnal of Occurrents, pp. 
 18, 19. 
 
94 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 timid and superstitious, and of extorting from the 
 simple and sympathetic fees for masses, supposed 
 to be the only means of deliverance from realms 
 of suffering and misery. And to them, as to their 
 spiritual children, the Pope himself was an auda- 
 cious usurper, destitute of all genuine claims to be 
 regarded as the Vicar of Christ, and of all moral 
 right to overrule kings, to trample freedom under 
 foot, and to levy taxes for purely selfish ends, 
 without the consent of the people, or in defiance of 
 their revealed will. What right had the Pope or 
 any man to interfere with a brother's religious 
 opinions and convictions when they did not disturb 
 the peace or endanger the safety of the State ? 
 What right had the Roman High Priest, or his repre- 
 sentatives, to compel a salmon-fisher or his servants, 
 to tithe the fish caught in the river and in the sea, 
 to which none can have any real proprietory title ? 
 Certainly the dogma of Purgatory had no root in 
 Scripture, and if the Jews gave a tenth of all they 
 possessed for religious purposes, that was no sound 
 reason for compelling a Christian to contribute a 
 single mite for the maintenance of a corrupt 
 priesthood. 
 
 But while David Stratoun "stood most con- 
 stantly to the defence of the truth, and gave great 
 encouragement to Norman Gourlay," his fellow- 
 
David Stratoun of W hitstoun. 95 
 
 sufferer, "he alleged that he had not offended " in 
 refusing to pay tithes, as he had only insisted on 
 the Churchmen receiving them where the stock was 
 taken. Great efforts were made by the King and 
 Bishops to get Stratoun to recant, but all in vain. 
 So " in the end he was adjudged unto the fire," 
 and sentenced to death by the Bishop of Ross. 
 Perceiving his awfully solemn position- — realizing 
 that he was a fisherman on the shore of 
 eternity, and in immediate danger of being 
 pushed among the breakers, " he asked grace of 
 the King," and James would readily have 
 granted his request if he had been his own master. 
 But here again the professedly religious men, the 
 pharisaical priests, exhibited a temper more savage 
 and relentless than Pilate, and they actually 
 rebuked James for his clemency. Proudly the 
 Bishops declared that the " King's hands were 
 bound in the case, and that he had no grace to 
 give to such as by their leave were condemned." 
 Thus Stratoun and the King alike were silenced 
 and confounded, and the executioners commanded 
 to do their work. The lands of Greenside, lying at 
 the foot of Calton Hill, on the way to Leith, had 
 been granted by James the Second to the citizens 
 of Edinburgh " for holding public sports and tour- 
 naments," and hanging criminals of the blackest 
 
96 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 sort. Here the funeral pyre was erected " to the 
 intent," says John Foxe, " that the inhabitants of 
 Fife, seeing the fire might be struck with terror 
 and fear, and not to fall into the like heresies." 
 After dinner, on the twenty-seventh day of August 
 1534, Gourlay and Stratoun were conducted from 
 Holyrood Palace to the Cross of Greenside, " and 
 there they were both hanged and burned according 
 to the mercy of the Papistical Kirk." 
 
 So died David Stratoun, the first man of his 
 order who suffered for the cause of Reformation in 
 Scotland. He was unquestionably a Martyr for 
 the truth of God. He had violated no law of his 
 country, he had injured no man, he had done 
 nothing worthy of bonds ; and yet he was treated 
 by Roman prelates with inhuman barbarity. Like 
 a man he had ventured to stand erect, to think 
 and act for himself, to obey the sovereign dictates 
 of conscience and the Word of God ; and because 
 he happened to differ in his opinions from the 
 representatives of the Roman Church they denied 
 him the privilege of life. Nay, they were guilty of 
 the atrocious cruelty of thrusting him into Purga- 
 tory and its awful torments, and of keeping him 
 there, when they might have liberated him by 
 saying a few Paternosters and chanting some cheap 
 masses ! The intolerance, the inhumanity of the 
 
David Stratonn of Whitstoun. gj 
 
 Papal church "has made countless thousand- 
 mourn," and surely charity, loving-kindness, and 
 tender mercy are as true marks of the Church of 
 Christ as either purity or universality. 
 
 From all that history relates concerning David 
 Stratoun we are fully warranted in affirming that 
 he died unjustly at the hands of persecuting priests. 
 But he died like a hero, and " a portion of his 
 spirit " fell upon George Wishart, his friend and 
 neighbour, who fought the battle of freedom right 
 nobly, and leavened the people of Scotland with 
 those evangelical principles which undermine the 
 thrones of tyrants. Let it be ours, then, to culti- 
 vate the spirit of toleration, the large, loving, 
 gracious spirit of Him who did not break the 
 bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. What- 
 ever our religious opinions or convictions be, let 
 us respect the beliefs of all honest and earnest 
 men ; and when called into the field of controversy 
 let us scorn every carnal weapon, and wield 
 the sword of the Spirit, and the hammer of 
 Truth. But while breathing the free and 
 generous spirit of toleration, let us cling ten- 
 aciously to the pure doctrines of the Christian 
 faith ; let us be loyal to the voice of conscience 
 and of duty ; and should frowning and imperious 
 tyranny threaten our spiritual independence, let us 
 
98 The Martyrs of Angus and Meams. 
 
 hold fast our profession without wavering, like the 
 noble arm}' of martyrs, knowing that the most 
 honourable man is the truest man, and believing 
 that if we suffer with Christ we shall also reign 
 with Him. 
 
 " They say who know the life Divine, 
 And upward ga/.e with eagle eyne, 
 That by each golden crown on high. 
 Rich with celestial jewelry, 
 Which for our Lord's redeem'd is set, 
 There hangs a radiant coronet, 
 All gemm'd with pure and living light, 
 Too dazzling for a sinner's sight, 
 Prepared for virgin souls, and them 
 Who seek the martyr's diadem." 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 99 
 
 IV. 
 GEORGE WISHART, 
 
 THE SCHOOLMASTER OF MONTROSE. 
 
 " I It- was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; 
 Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading ; 
 Lofty and sour to them that loved him not ; 
 But to those men that sought him sweet as summer." 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 GEORGE Wishart, the most illustrious of the 
 Scottish Martyrs, was the scion of an ancient 
 family in Kincardineshire. The Guiscards, Vis- 
 charts, or Wisharts, were of French extraction, 
 and appear to have settled in the " Howe of 
 the Mearns " as early as the twelfth century, 
 distinguishing themselves in later years as States- 
 men, Ecclesiastics, Soldiers, and Lawyers.* John 
 of Wishart was the first conspicuous member of 
 the family, and his name appears in the Foun- 
 dation Charter of the Maison-Dieu of Brechin. 
 
 * Veins Regislrum de Aberbrothoc, pp. 97, 179. 19S. Tervise's 
 Memoiials of Angus and Mearns, pp. 385-7. 
 
IOO The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 dated 1264. William Wishart was evidently a man 
 of great sagacity and administrative power, for he 
 rose to the dignity of Chancellor during the 
 reign of Alexander the Third, and he occu- 
 pied and adorned first the See of Glasgow, 
 and afterwards that of St. Andrews till his 
 death, which occurred at Morebattle in 1278. 
 After the death of King Alexander, Robert 
 Wishart was appointed one of the Governors of 
 the Kingdom of Scotland, and proved himself 
 an able and trustworthy Statesman ; and when 
 the English King, Edward, terminated his trium- 
 phal march through the realm at Elgin, in July, 
 1296, Jo/in Wyschard of the Mearns appeared 
 among the territorial magnates and ecclesiastical 
 dignitaries, and paid him homage. It is not till 
 the year 1442 that we hear of Sir John Wishart 
 of Pitarrow ; but then he is granting out of the 
 lands of Redhall and Balfeith the sum of ten 
 merks, for the maintenance of the Chapel of St. 
 Thomas in Brechin Cathedral. In 1471 James 
 Wishart of Pitarrow held the Constable lands of 
 Brechin, lying near Bearehill ; and in 1499 John 
 Wishart of Pitarrow forfeited, for some cause 
 unknown to us, the lands of Balgillo in Fife. 
 
 The father of the Martyr was Sir James Wishart 
 of Pitarrow, an able lawyer and a liberal church- 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 101 
 
 man. He held the office of Lord Justice-Clerk 
 between 15 13 and 1524; and he was a member 
 of the great Council convened at Perth, in Novem- 
 ber, 1 5 1 3, to negotiate with the Ambassadors of 
 the French King concerning a political alliance, 
 while the flower of Scottish chivalry withered on 
 the dreary field of Flodden, and the National 
 heart was paralyzed with grief and fear. Sir 
 James was twice married, first to Janet Lindsay, 
 in October 15 10, and afterwards, in April 15 12, 
 to Elizabeth Learmont, a daughter of the Laird 
 of Balcomie and Dairsie, in Fifeshire,* and closely 
 related to several illustrious men who espoused 
 the cause of Reformation, and shielded the early 
 Protestants. Of this second marriage George 
 Wishart seems to have been the only son. No 
 authentic record remains to tell the place of his 
 birth, but it is almost certain it was Pitarrow, 
 
 * Sir James Learmont, or Leirmonth, of Balcomie and Dairsie, 
 was the son of David Learmont of Clatta. He was a man of great 
 influence, and of liberal evangelical opinions. He was Master of 
 the Household in James the Fifth's reign, and Provost of St. 
 Andrews from 1532 to 1547. Beaton detested him, inscribed his 
 name on the black roll of doomed noblemen and gentlemen pre- 
 sented by the Cardinal to the King in 1542, and plotted his ruin. 
 Sir James died in 1547, and was succeeded by a worthy son, 
 Patrick, who, while Provost of St. Andrews, and Bailie of the 
 Regility, refused "to meddle with the innocent servants of God, 
 and preachers of His word," and defended old Walter Myln of 
 Lunan when he was condemned in 1858. 
 
102 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 the family-residence in the Mearns, about two 
 miles from the beautiful and classical village of 
 Fordun, where Saint Palladius settled in the fifth 
 christian century, and founded a celebrated church. 
 And though no register of his birth exists it is 
 probable he was born in 15 13, as there is a fine 
 old picture of the Martyr in possession of a distant 
 relative bearing the date M.D. XLIII., Aetat. 30. 
 The old Castle of Pitarrow was demolished in 
 1802, and its site is now occupied by a farm- 
 steading, more useful than picturesque.* But the 
 
 * "When the old mansion-house of Pitarrow," says Dr. 
 Leslie, "was pulled down in 1S02, there were discovered on 
 the plaster of the great hall, to which access was had by a flight 
 of steps, some paintings in a state of high preservation, the walls 
 having been wainscoted, at what period is not known. The air 
 and dust having thus been excluded, the colours in the paintings 
 were as vivid as if they had been done only a year before. The 
 only one of the paintings that may be noticed here, was that which 
 represented the City of Rome, and a grand procession going to St. 
 Peter's. The Pope, adorned with the tiara, in his full robes of 
 State, and mounted on a horse or mule, led by some person of dis- 
 tinction, was attended by a large company of Cardinals, all richly 
 dressed, and all uncovered. . . . Beyond this was the magnifi- 
 cent Cathedral of St. Peter, the doors of which seemed to be open 
 to receive the procession. Below the picture was written the fol- 
 lowing lines : — 
 
 In Papam 
 
 Laus tua, non tua fraus : virtus non gloria re rum, 
 
 Scandere te fecit hoc decus eximium ; 
 
 Pauperibus sua dat gratis, nee munera curat 
 
 Curia Papalis, quod more percipimus. 
 
 Haec carmina potius legenda cancros imitando." 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 105 
 
 ancient wall and garden are still visible, and some 
 stones inserted in the modern structure bear the 
 initials of the Wishart family. Within compara- 
 tively recent years a fine avenue of venerable trees 
 ran alongside the garden wall, and when the hoary 
 sentinels were hewn down by merciless Vandals, 
 and the plough driven through the soil, old 
 black-bearded oats sprang up, the seed of which 
 had probably been sown before the Reformation. 
 And while the garden was being trenched some 
 time ago, a plain gold marriage-ring was dis- 
 covered, with the pithy and pious couplet inscribed 
 thereon — 
 
 "' In ( iod most Just 
 Is all my Trust," 
 
 words singularly appropriate for a ring worn on 
 the forefinger of a family counting among its 
 members a Judge of great integrity, and a 
 Preacher of Righteousness, who laid down his 
 life for the Truth.* 
 
 Doubtless George Wishart received his early 
 education in the School held in the Mensal Church 
 of Fordun, and frequently quenched his thirst at 
 " Paldy's Well " on the Mount of Finclla, and 
 
 I am indebted for this information to the accomplished Free 
 Church Minister of Fordun— the Rev. John Philip. 
 
io4 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 found a never-ceasing source of pure delight in the 
 rapid-rolling Luther that gladdens and brightens 
 the quiet pastoral valley. From the School of 
 Fordun George Wishart proceeded to King's Col- 
 lege, Aberdeen, where a famous Angus man, Hec- 
 tor Boyce, or Boece, discharged the duties of 
 Principal with remarkable distinction, and suc- 
 ceeded in inspiring the youth entrusted to his 
 care with a fervent love for classical studies, and 
 liberal theological opinions.* But while Boece, 
 who was educated in Paris, among the Humanists, 
 probably knew Greek, he did not teach it. Indeed, 
 there was but one Greek Schoolmaster in Scotland 
 
 * Hector Boece, Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, in 
 1494, a celebrated classical scholar, and a Reformer before the 
 Reformation, was intimately connected with the district of Angus. 
 Panbride or Ballinbride, signifying the House of Bridget, was 
 occupied during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by the family 
 of Boyce or Boece, — Latinized Boethius. To this family the Scot- 
 tish Livy belonged, and to the Barony of Ballinbride he succeeded 
 after his appointment to the Principalship of Aberdeen. He was a 
 great road-maker, and the road in the vicinity of Arbirlot -Moor, 
 known as Heckenbois-Path, is doubtless one of the old roads con- 
 structed by Hector Boece. 
 
 Educated first at Dundee, and afterwards at Montaigu or Mon- 
 tacute College, Paris, he was brought back to Scotland by the 
 famous Bishop Elphinstone to found the University of Aberdeen, 
 where he speedily won the admiration of crowds of eager stu- 
 dents. After filling the office of Principal of King's College for 
 forty years with great distinction, he was succeeded by William 
 Hay, who was also a native of Angus. 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 105 
 
 at this period, and he was not resident within the 
 walls of any of the Universities. 
 
 In 1534 John Erskine of Dun, an able and 
 accomplished country gentleman, of enlightened 
 views, of genuine piety, and of public spirit, — who 
 subsequently became one of the most conspicuous 
 leaders of the Reformation, and the first Superin- 
 tendent of the Reformed Church in Angus and 
 Mearns, — introduced the study of Greek language 
 and literature into the Grammar School of Mon- 
 trose. While travelling on the Continent of 
 Europe the Laird of Dun had discovered the 
 supreme importance of the knowledge of the 
 Greek language, as an instrument for perfecting 
 a liberal education, and especially for bringing 
 students destined for the work of the ministry 
 into direct and immediate contact with the Word 
 of God, as contained in the New Testament 
 Scriptures. Fired with an enthusiasm for the 
 study of Greek literature, this generous pat- 
 ron of learning induced an accomplished 
 Frenchman, named Pierre de Marsiliers, to 
 accompany him to Scotland, and to com- 
 mence the teaching of Greek in the Grammar 
 School of the town in which he, as Provost, 
 took a deep interest. Attracted by the 
 fame of Marsiliers, and thirsting for the new 
 
io6 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 learning which had wrought a revolution on the 
 Continent, George Wishart appeared at Montrose 
 and prosecuted his studies with ardour. At the 
 Grammar School he speedily gained such a mas- 
 tery of the melodious Greek tongue that he 
 soon became the assistant or successor of his 
 master. In 1538, Wishart — a young man of 
 five-and-twenty — was patiently and lovingly en- 
 deavouring to give the generous and enquiring 
 youth about him a clear view of the naked 
 Truths of Christianity, through the precious Greek- 
 original.* But the devoted Grecian was not suf- 
 fered to prosecute his classical labours long without 
 molestation. More ardent and religious than the 
 Frenchman, he was suspected of favouring the 
 dreaded Lutheran opinions. His own Bishop, John 
 Hepburn of Brechin, however, was not his worst 
 foe. Hepburn seems to have been a quiet, tolerant 
 man, and not disposed to play the odious part of 
 Inquisitor. But one whom all men feared and 
 many hated had become Inquisitor-General of the 
 Kingdom, and he had an eagle's eye, and an 
 
 * " Mr. Wishart was a son of Pitarrow in the Mearns. He had 
 been in his younger years master of the Grammar School at Mon- 
 trose, and had afterwards studied at Cambridge. He is reclamed 
 to have been the worthiest person of all those who supported the 
 new doctrines in this kingdom." Bishop Keith's History of the 
 Affairs of Church and State in Scotland, Vol. I., p. 103. 
 
George Wisjtart of Montrose. 107 
 
 eagle's talons for a heretic. Though David 
 Beaton, Abbot of Arbroath, could wink at the 
 grossest cruelty and the most audacious profli- 
 gacy, though he could practise the basest worldly 
 arts and live in open sin, he would not tolerate 
 a Lutheran, or suffer one of his clergy to deal 
 leniently with any teacher suspected of disloyalty 
 to the Papal Church.* Not that he was a reverent 
 or a conscientious man. He had no religion ; and 
 ambition was the charioteer of his soul. The heavi- 
 est blows that he struck in defence of the Church 
 were distinctly intended to promote his own ad- 
 vancement and glory. He knew that the stronger 
 
 * Prelatical writers, anxious to screen Beaton, have asserted that 
 he was married, and the father of several children, before he entered 
 into priest's orders ; but there is not a particle of legal evidence to 
 support this statement. Indeed, in all the documents where Beaton's 
 children are mentioned they are distinctly described as natural. 
 Chambers, in his Picture of Scotland (Vol. II., p. 234) says : — 
 " He is well known to have had six illegitimate daughters, besides 
 
 sons, almost all by different mothers It would appear 
 
 that the Cardinal . . . concerned himself very little about the 
 concealment of these breaches of decorum, since in 1545 he passed 
 to Finhaven, and there, in a style of the most ostentatious magnifi- 
 cence, married one of his daughters to the Master of Crawford."' 
 The Editor of Keith's History (Vol. I., p. 113) states "that three 
 of the Cardinal's sons were legitimated, according to the Scottish 
 law, during his lifetime. These were James, Alexander, and John 
 Beaton, and in the Act of Legitimation they are styled the natural 
 sons of the right Reverend, etc." Alexander became Archdene of 
 Lothian, and at the Reformation joined the Protestant Church. 
 
io8 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearni 
 
 the Church was in Scotland the mightier a Bishop 
 would he be. And he thought, like all worldly-wise- 
 men, that the best way to strengthen the Church 
 is to throttle dissent, and to strangle independent 
 opinion. With the Montrose Schoolmaster in his 
 eye, Beaton reminded Hepburn of Brechin of his 
 duty. Accordingly the Bishop of the Diocese 
 summoned the Greek Schoolmaster before him 
 under a charge of heresy. In those dark degene- 
 rate times heresy just implied all the light and 
 truth that militated against the authority and 
 supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church. If 
 it had meant obstinate opposition to the re- 
 vealed Will of God. then the Prelates of 
 Rome might have been warranted in dealing 
 sharply with offenders, in the hope of bringing 
 them to a better state of mind. But how un- 
 reasonable to attempt to arraign and condemn 
 a learned and distinguished young man because 
 he has ventured to instruct in the Greek Testa- 
 ment a few earnest scholars in a classical school ! 
 If the dignitaries of the Church of Rome dreaded 
 the results of Greek scholarship, and especially 
 of the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures in the 
 original, then they hated the light of truth, and 
 convicted themselves of being children of the 
 night and not of the day. As a matter of fact 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 109 
 
 they were afraid of the light of Greek learning. 
 They knew that the study of Greek had already 
 produced an intellectual revival and a religious re- 
 volution on the Continent. Erasmus and Luther, 
 Melanchthon and Zwingle, had drunk deeply from 
 the Greek New Testament, and had renounced 
 many of the distinctive tenets of the Roman Church, 
 and embraced principles that sapped and mined her 
 very foundations. With the Greek New Testa- 
 ment in their hands, they had discarded Mediaeval 
 superstitions and errors, and found light and peace 
 and strength in the eternal priesthood of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, in the omnipresence of the Holy 
 Spirit, and in the doctrine of the full and free 
 forgiveness of sin through the one sacrifice offered 
 on the Cross of Calvary. And so, the Roman 
 Prelates, terrified lest similar results might spring 
 from the teaching of Greek in Scotland, resolutely 
 endeavoured to extinguish the torch borne aloft by 
 the young schoolmaster of Montrose. But the 
 torch-bearer was not to be arrested and suppressed 
 in a day. He knew that " the more a torch is 
 shook it shines." Nor was he as yet prepared to 
 lay down his life for the Gospel. Fleeing from the 
 hand of the persecutor, he concealed himself for a 
 time in some of the obscure parishes of his native 
 land. Then he travelled stealthily into England, 
 
no The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 where the ecclesiastical atmosphere was clearer and 
 balmier, and the sky calmer and brighter. 
 
 In 1539 he is found preaching in Bristol, on the 
 banks of the sweeping Severn. Bristol was then 
 but a Deanery in the Diocese of Worcester ; and 
 the Bishop of Worcester was one of the stoutest 
 and staunchest of English Reformers. Who does 
 not know and love old Latimer? Of all English 
 Churchmen he is the most admirable and lovable, 
 as he is the most homely, quaint, and eloquent. 
 His moral strength and fearless courage, his stain- 
 less and generous character, his firm grasp of the 
 great evangelical doctrines of the Bible, his cham- 
 pionship of the Reformers and their distinctive 
 tenets, his picturesque, forcible, and humorous style 
 of speech, commend him to all honest and godly 
 men. No preacher has risen up in England so like 
 Martin Luther as Hugh Latimer, the heroical 
 Bishop, who boasted of being " the son of a hus- 
 bandman of right good estimation."' And it was 
 just Latimer of Worcester who took in the wander- 
 ing Scottish exile, decorated him with some small 
 ecclesiastical orders, and licensed him to lecture in 
 the churches of Bristol. 
 
 But while enjoying the favour of Latimer, 
 Wishart failed to win a just celebrity in his new 
 sphere. In point of fact he fell into error and 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 1 1 1 
 
 disgrace. From an entry in the " Mayor's 
 Calendar " * of Bristol, we learn that Gecrge 
 Wysard, in a lecture delivered at Saint Nicholas' 
 Church, on the 15th May, set forth "the most 
 blasphemous heresy, openly declaring that Christ 
 nother hatJi nor coulde merite for him, nor yet for us ; 
 which heresy brought many of the commons of 
 this town into great error, and divers of them were 
 persuaded by that heretical lecture to heresy."! 
 Accused by Sir foJin Kerell, Dean of Bristol, 
 Wishart was brought before the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury and the Bishops of Bath, Norwich, 
 and Chichester, and tried for heresy ; and after 
 
 * Dated 30, Henry VIII. 
 
 t Among the Cromwell Papers in the Rolls' Office, Mr. Fronde 
 found and Dr. Lorimer copied the following letter, which throws 
 some light on Wishart's life in Bristol, and confirms the statement 
 in the Mayor's Calendar : — 
 
 " Pleaseth it your honourable lordship to be advertised, that 
 certain accusations are made and had by Sir John Kerell, Dean of 
 F5risto\ve, deputy of the Bishop of Worcester, our ordinary, and by 
 divers others, inhabitants of Bristowe foresaid, against one George 
 Wischarde a Scottishman born, lately being before your honourable 
 lordship. Which accusations the said Dean and other inhabitants 
 aforesaid have presented before me the Mayor of Bristowe, and 
 justices of peace ; and the same accusations I have received, send- 
 ing the same unto your said honourable lordship ; and furthermore, 
 the Chamberlain and the Dean of Bristowe shall signify unto your 
 honourable lordship, the very truth in the premises, unto whom we 
 
 shall desire you to give credence At Bristowe, 
 
 the ix. day of June, Anno Regis Henrici, xxxi. (1539). By me 
 Thomas Jeffryis, Mayor of Brystowe." 
 
ii2 The Martyrs of Angus and Meams. 
 
 examination, convicted and condemned. The 
 penalty was more humiliating than severe. Wishart 
 was commanded " to bere a faggot in St. Nicholas' 
 Church," on the 13th July, and in Christ's Church, 
 on the 20th July, which, like a sincere penitent 
 convinced of doctrinal error, he strictly obeyed. 
 We cannot doubt the justness of the charge 
 brought by the Dean of Bristol against our 
 countryman ; for the prelate who condemned 
 him was no relentless persecutor of the type 
 of Beaton, but Cranmer, the first Protestant 
 Archbishop in England. Indeed, the sentence 
 pronounced against Wishart was fully justified by 
 his penitence and submission. He manfully 
 abjured the unscriptural doctrine he had taught 
 ignorantly, and he did so in the very Churches 
 where he had inculcated it. Some modern writers 
 have asserted that Wishart had preached at Bristol 
 against the worship and intercession of the Virgin 
 Mar)-,* and they have reproached the Reformers 
 for being guilty of the weakness and the sin of 
 recanting an article of the Christian Faith. But 
 Wishart merits none of their condemnation and 
 pity. Like an honest man, fearing error more 
 
 * Thus the celebrated Dr. M'Crie and the accomplished David 
 Laing, — confounding notker or neither with mother. 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 1 1 3 
 
 than a sense of shame and humiliation, he publicly 
 renounced the lieretical tenet of which Cranmer 
 and his friends in council had found him guilty. 
 But what wonder that a young disciple like 
 Wishart, who had just emerged from the thick 
 darkness of the Roman Church, should fall into 
 error ! While preaching at Bristol he was but a 
 novice ; the full, strong stream of Gospel light had 
 not yet penetrated the gloom which surrounded his 
 soul. When a religious man renounces an old 
 Faith, his temptation is to run to extremes. It is 
 only in converts with a clear intellect and 
 a mature experience that the golden mean 
 we call moderation is to be found. A great 
 passionate soul, on discovering error, is generally 
 too indignant to see the whole truth which always 
 lies between opposite poles of thought. The 
 visionaries of the German Reformation, — wild 
 and reckless spirits like Nicholas Storch, Marcus 
 Stiibner, and Martin Cellarius, — materially injured 
 the cause of God and Luther, which they meant to 
 advance, simply because they, in their blind fury, 
 failed to discover a particle of good in the Romish 
 Church, or a germ of truth in the Roman Creed, and 
 thought that God's work was best promoted by the 
 advocacy of views most antagonistic to the teach- 
 ing of the Papists. Trutli lies between extremes, 
 
1 14 The Martyrs of Angus and Meams. 
 
 and it would be well if all reformers and their friends 
 remembered this adage. For it was unquestionably 
 because Wishart forgot this maxim that he, in de- 
 nouncing the Romishdoctrineof the Virgin Mother's 
 mediation, renounced and condemned the fundamen- 
 tal Christian dogma of the vicarious atonement. To 
 say that Christ " nother hath nor coulde merite for 
 him, nor yet for us," was heresy of the deadliest 
 kind. But let it be said to the honour of the Refor- 
 mer that while he could suffer exile for the^Protes- 
 tant faith, aye, and death itself, like his Master, the 
 King of Truth, he could recant the real heretical, 
 because unscriptural, doctrine he had ignorantly 
 taught in the diocese of Worcester. 
 
 " It is a great sin to swear unto a sin ; 
 But greater sin to keep a sinful oath." 
 
 That man alone is fool who does not change his 
 mind for the better, when the true light shines. To 
 love the darkness and reject the light is the sin 
 that forfeits heaven, and prepares men for the 
 lampless world. 
 
 In 1540 George Wishart left England for Ger- 
 many and Switzerland for the express purpose of 
 deepening his own religious life and obtaining a 
 profounder knowledge of the pure doctrines of 
 the Reformed Church. Henry Bullinger, William 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 115, 
 
 Farel, and John Calvin, were the bright and shin- 
 ing lights of Switzerland at this period, and Wish- 
 art seems to have fallen under their spell, and to 
 have embraced their distinctive beliefs. And when 
 we know that this seeker after Truth translated 
 the Swiss Confession * into his native language, 
 we may conclude that he was more of a Calvinist 
 than a Lutheran. Like his future friend and 
 pupil, John Knox, and, indeed, like all the great 
 Scottish Reformers, the Creed of the mountaineers 
 and patriots of Switzerland seems to have captiva- 
 ted him chiefly because of the supremacy it gave 
 to the Word of God, and of the clear and 
 intelligible statements it contained concerning the 
 Sacraments. In other years Wishart proved 
 himself a true disciple of the Swiss Reformers ; 
 for he maintained the supremacy of the Bible as a 
 rule of faith and a directory of life, renounced all 
 Popish doctrines regarding the voice of Tradition 
 and the Church, and, at the same time, dis- 
 claimed the Lutheran dogma of consubstantiation, 
 and taught that while the bread and wine of the 
 Lord's Supper are symbols of the body and blood 
 
 *The First Helvetic Confession was translated by Wishart, and 
 printed after his death in 1548. Reprinted in the Wodrow Mis- 
 cellany, Vol. I., pp. 1-23. 
 
n6 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 •of the Redeemer, and aids to faith, Christ is not 
 physically but really and spiritually present in the 
 Holy Sacrament. 
 
 During his sojourn on the Continent, Wishart 
 met many pleasant friends who soothed his 
 sorrows and " expounded unto him the way of 
 God more perfectly," as Aquila and Priscilla did 
 to the eloquent Apollos of Alexandria. But he 
 likewise encountered some stubborn, sharp-witted 
 Jews, who taught him wholesome and profitable 
 lessons he never forgot. Sailing down the Rhine 
 amid beautiful scenery, studded with innumerable 
 castellated rocks, he entered into friendly converse 
 with a son of Abraham, who speedily manifested 
 the pertinacity of his marvellous race. The 
 Reformer, evidently bent on converting the Jew 
 to the Christian Faith, enquired at him why " he 
 did not believe that the true Messiah was come, 
 considering that they had seen all the prophecies 
 which were spoken of him, to be fulfilled ; more- 
 over, the prophecies taken away, and the Sceptre 
 of Judah." Wishart tells us that he vanquished 
 his fellow-voyager by quoting Scripture testimonies, 
 " to approve that Messiah was come." But the 
 Jew was not to be so easily conquered as Wishart 
 had imagined. If he could not overthrow the 
 Christian traveller's arguments from the Old 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. \\j 
 
 Testament, he was ready with some biting ques- 
 tions which were not to be answered offhand. 
 " When Messiah cometh/' said the Jew, " He shall 
 restore all things, and He shall not abrogate the 
 Law which was given to our fathers, as ye do. For 
 why ? We see the poor almost perish through 
 hunger, yet you are not moved to pity towards 
 them ; but among us Jews, though we be poor, 
 there are no beggars found. Secondly, it is for- 
 bidden by the Law to faine any kind of imagery 
 of things in heaven above, on the earth beneath, or 
 in the sea under the earth, but one God only 
 to honour ; but your sanctuaries and churches are 
 full of idols. Thirdly, a piece of bread baken upon 
 the ashes ye adore and worship, and say that it is 
 your god."* The stinging criticisms of the Jewish 
 voyager made a deep and lasting impression on 
 W r ishart ; for when he was arraigned by his 
 persecutors at St. Andrews, in 1546, he repeated 
 the conversation for the purpose of showing the 
 priests of the Church of Rome what balefui 
 influences their inconsistent conduct, dark supersti- 
 tions, and idolatrous practices, exerted on the 
 minds of unbelievers ; and during the closing years 
 of his life he himself exhibited a wonderfully 
 
 * Knox's History of the Reformation, Vol. I., p. 159. 
 
1 1 8 The Martyrs of A ngus and Mearns. 
 
 generous and charitable spirit, labouring with 
 untiring zeal among the poor and plague-stricken 
 of Dundee, and ministering to them and to all 
 liberally of his substance. 
 
 Returning to England in 1542-3, Wishart found 
 a resting place, and a quiet sanctuary for a while in 
 the academical town of Cambridge. Here he entered 
 Corpus Christi College, commonly known as Ben- 
 net's ; and among noble edifices devoted to learning, 
 and " in shady bowered retreats " he cultivated his 
 own mind, and helped to educate others also. In this 
 proud academical centre the Reformer met many 
 devout and earnest Grecian scholars whose com- 
 pany solaced him in exile, and he, as College 
 Regent, attracted the admiration and won the 
 love of not a few pupils. One of these, Emery 
 Tylney, has left us a charming pen-portrait of 
 the Martyr as he appeared at Cambridge. He 
 describes his master and friend as a wonderfully 
 beautiful, pious, and charitable character. Physi- 
 cally, he was tall, polled-headed, black-haired, 
 long bearded, of "melancholy complexion," and 
 " comely of personage." Well-travelled and "well- 
 spoken after his country of Scotland," he was 
 " courteous, lowly, lovely, glad to teach, desirous 
 to learn." He wore constantly " a mantle, frieze 
 gown to his shoes, a black Milan fustian doublet, 
 
George ] Vis hart of Montrose. 119 
 
 and plain black hosen, coarse new canvas for his 
 shirts, and white falling bands and cuffs at the 
 hands, all the which apparel he gave to the poor ; 
 some weekly, some monthly, some quarterly, as he 
 liked, saving his French cap, which he kept the 
 whole year of my being with him." Moreover, 
 Tylney informs us that Wishart was a Godfearing, 
 temperate, modest man, hating covetousness, — 
 forbearing " one meal in three, one day in four for 
 the most part, except something to comfort 
 nature," sleeping on " a puff of straw " and in 
 •' coarse new canvas sheets, which, when he 
 changed, he gave away." With earnestness and 
 gravity he taught his scholars, " so that some of his 
 people thought him severe, and would have slain 
 him, but the Lord was his defence." And the 
 youthful disciple of the Cambridge Regent con- 
 cludes his graphic description with a wail of 
 regret more significant than any highly-wrought 
 panegyric : — " O that the Lord had left him to 
 me, his poor boy, that he might have finished 
 that he had begun. ... If I should declare 
 his love to me and all men, his charity to the poor 
 in giving, relieving, caring, keeping, providing, yea, 
 infinitely studying how to do good unto all and 
 hurt to none, I should sooner want words than 
 just cause to commend him."' This picture. 
 
120 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 drawn by a familiar friend, who could never have 
 dreamt of the future career of Wishart, or of the 
 supreme interest of his life of suffering and moral 
 splendour, is extremely precious. It exhibits a 
 scholar of thirty in a most attractive light. In 
 him learning and piety, modesty and courage, 
 humility and charity, were united ; and the gravity 
 of his demeanour and the mild asceticism of 
 his domestic habits were not incompatible with 
 great kindliness of heart and urbanity of manners. 
 If he was grave, he was not surly ; if devout and 
 earnest-minded, he was not gruff and ungracious ; 
 if pure and unworldly, he was not proud and 
 haughty ; if learned and fond of study, he was 
 neither cynical nor uncharitable. 
 
 In the Summer of 1543, Wishart quitted the 
 academic retreats of Cambridge, and proceeded to 
 London to meet a party of his countrymen who 
 had repaired to the English capital to settle some 
 affairs of State. Having satisfactorily adjusted 
 two treaties, one for an amicable alliance with 
 England and France, the other for the marriage 
 of King Henry's son, Prince Edward, to the 
 Queen of Scots, the Commissioners returned 
 to Edinburgh in July, and brought Wishart in 
 their train.* As soon as he found himself on 
 
 * The Scots Commissioners were Sir James Learmont of 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 121 
 
 Scottish soil, the Reformer hastened to Montrose, 
 where he had laboured for some time as a 
 classical schoolmaster. Numerous old friends and 
 pupils received him with open arms, and flocked 
 " to a private house, next to the Church, except 
 one," to hear him expound the Ten Command- 
 ments, the Apostle's Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. 
 Unquestionably his preaching was followed by the 
 happiest results ; for though no Records of the 
 time are preserved to tell the names of the towns- 
 people quickened and enlightened through his 
 ministrations, we know that hereafter the people 
 of Montrose and the surrounding district became 
 staunch friends of the Reformation cause, and laid 
 down their lives for the truth. Walter Myln, the 
 Vicar of Lunan, was the last of the Mar- 
 tyrs ; and the Straitouns of Laurieston, the 
 Erskines of Dun, the Wisharts of Pitarrow, and 
 the Melvilles of Baldovy and Dysart, were the 
 strength and glory of the Reformed Church. 
 
 Leaving Montrose, the lighthouse of Angus, 
 Wishart went south-west to Dundee, which, even 
 
 Balcomie and Dairsie ; Sir William Hamilton of Sanquhar ; 
 and Henry Balnaves of Halhill, in Fife, Secretary. They left 
 Edinburgh in March, 1543, and returned in July of the same year. 
 During the month of May they were joined, in London, by the 
 Earl of Glencairn and Sir George Douglas. 
 
122 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 in pre-Reformation times, was a seaport of 
 considerable size and importance, possessing monas- 
 teries thronged with friars Black and Grey, a 
 Convent of the Sisters of Saint Clare, and 
 numerous churches and chapels.* 
 
 Here the new preacher achieved celebrity, and 
 exerted a commanding influence. 
 
 * Prior to the Reformation, Dundee was a great ecclesiastical 
 centre, and one of the seven famous places of pilgrimage in 
 Scotland. It possessed numerous churches, chapels, and monas- 
 teries. The Churches of St. Clement, St. Mary, St. Paul, and St. 
 Nicholas were old, opulent, and celebrated. Chapels dedicated to 
 St. Thomas, to St. Serf, and to St. Salvator were founded and 
 endowed by the princely and pious Scrymgeours of Dudhope. 
 The Chapel of St. Mary stood at the foot of the Rotten Row or 
 Hilltown ; the Chapel of the Holy Rood or Cross was situated on 
 a rock called the Hill-craig ; and the famous Chapel of St. 
 Rocque occupied a position between the Den Bridge and the east 
 end of Seagate. St. Rocque's Lane is still known as Semi-rookie. 
 
 The Monastery of the Franciscans, founded by the Lady 
 Devorgilla, mother of John Baliol, in 1260, stood in the grounds of 
 the Houff ; the Monastery of the Dominicans, founded by Andrew 
 Abercromby, a munificent citizen, was separated from the Great 
 House of the Franciscans by Friar's or Burial Wynd ; the 
 Monastery of the Muskerines or Red Friars was founded, in 1392, 
 by James Lindsay, Vicar- General of Scotland, and stood on the 
 site of the Hospital at the foot of South Tay Street ; and the 
 celebrated Convent of St. Clare, supported by the illustrious St- 
 Clares of Roslin, is situated at the head of the Methodists' Close in 
 the Overgate, and is now better known as " Mill Hill's Lodging." 
 At the west end of the town there was also a cloister for penitent 
 Magdalenes, and the first station on the railway to Perth is still 
 known as Magdalene Green. — See Historical Description of the 
 Town of Dundee, by Charles Mackie. Glasgow, 1836. 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 123 
 
 " Singularly learned in godly knowledge as well 
 as in all honest, humane science," says Knox, 
 " Wishart's Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans 
 won great admiration of all that heard him in 
 Dundee." Indeed, the preaching of the Reformer 
 fairly roused the inhabitants, and fired them with 
 a noble enthusiasm and a righteous indignation. 
 In their furious zeal to testify against the corrup- 
 tions and abuses of the Romish Church, they, like 
 the people of Crail, under the influence of Knox's 
 eloquence, a few years later, destroyed the Houses 
 of the Black and Grey Friars, sacked the Abbey 
 of Lindores, drove out the lazy and greedy monks, 
 and threatened to overthrow the Kirk of Aber- 
 brothoc* 
 
 Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Scotland was 
 governed by the Regent Arran. At the beginning 
 of his public career he had captivated the hearts and 
 inspired the hopes of the best and most enlightened 
 of his countrymen, by devising liberal measures, 
 and lending his powerful influence to the friends of 
 peace and evangelical religion. But, as time 
 showed, he was radically weak and timid, fickle 
 
 * " In this time there was a great heresy in Dundee ; there they 
 destroyed the kirks, and would have destroyed Aberbrothoc Kirk 
 were it not the Lord Ogilvie." — Diurnal of Occurren/s in Scotland, 
 p. 29. 
 
1 24 TJie Martyrs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 and vacillating.* The strength and courage of 
 the true soldier was not in him. Gradually the 
 astute and wily Cardinal got complete mastery 
 of him, and used him for the furtherance of 
 his own plans and purposes. Ultimately the 
 Regent became a keen Romanizer, exerted him- 
 self to suppress the Reformation movement, 
 and in Parliament exhorted " all prelates and 
 ordinaries, each one within his own diocese and 
 jurisdiction, to enquire upon all such manner of 
 persons, and proceed against them according to 
 the laws of holy kirk." Once and again the 
 Regent had commanded Wishart to abandon his 
 ministry in Dundee, but for some months the 
 Reformer defied the creature of the Cardinal arid 
 continued to preach with extraordinary fire and 
 fervency to enraptured multitudes. For centuries 
 no such preacher had visited the district of Angus, 
 and the people hung on his lips, and hungered 
 for the Word of God. However, the relentless 
 Inquisitor, supported by a host of armed men 
 and numerous large pieces of artillery, drawn 
 by eighty powerful horses, was standing at the 
 
 + Mary of Guise, said of Arran : "He is assuredly a simple, 
 and the most inconstant man in the world, for whatsoever he 
 determineth to-day he changeth to-morrow." — Sadler State Pafers, 
 Vol. I., p. 115. 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 125 
 
 gate, and the preacher was compelled to hide 
 himself for a season. Beaton and his satellites 
 had undertaken a visitation of the district watered 
 by the Tay for the express purpose of trampling 
 out with the iron heel of despotism the goodly 
 work of Reformation. They had invaded Perth 
 on the 25th January, 1544, and wreaked their 
 fury on some unprotected and humble citizens. 
 Robert Lamb, merchant, William Anderson, malt- 
 man, James Hunter, flesher, and James Ronaldson, 
 skinner, were charged with interrupting friar 
 Spence on All-Hallow-Day, and with "holding an 
 assembly and convention in Saint Anne's Chappell, 
 in the Spey-Yards, upon Sanct Andrewes day 
 last by past, conferring and disputing there upon 
 the Holie Scriptures," and were summarily con- 
 demned and hanged forthwith. The wife of James 
 Ranoldson was shamefully and brutally treated. 
 Among all the cases of bloody martyrdoms in 
 Scotland, none is invested with such pathetic and 
 tragical interest as hers, and the brief story of 
 it ought to be sufficient to melt every Scottish 
 heart and to inspire every mother with a whole- 
 some dread of the Popish Church. Helen Ranold- 
 son, it would appear, had not invoked the aid of 
 the Virgin, or rendered unto Mary the homage 
 usually accorded by Romanists, when her child 
 
126 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 was born. Consequently she was accused by the 
 prelates of dishonouring the Virgin Mary, and 
 with her sucking babe in her arms, was condemned 
 to death by drowning. The constancy and courage 
 of this woman was amazing. She was made of 
 the stuff that form the heroines. Joan of Arc, the 
 immortal maid of France, was not braver than the 
 good woman of Perth. When her husband was 
 led to the scaffold she followed, and when he 
 mounted the ladder she persisted in following 
 him, and entreated the executioners to hang her 
 from the same beam. But her wish was not 
 granted. Still, she waited beside her husband to 
 the last, encouraging him to be of good cheer, and 
 concluded by saying: "I shall be with Christ along 
 with you, in a few hours."* Thereafter, this 
 mother in Israel, with her babe on her breast, was 
 flung like a dog into the Tay that runs through 
 the fair city. 
 
 " And man whose heaven-erected face 
 The smiles of love adorn, 
 Man's inhumanity to man 
 
 Makes countless thousands mourn." 
 
 * In the city library of Hamburg, Dr. Lorimer found a letter 
 from Alexander Alesius, S.D., addressed to Philip Melanchthon, 
 and dated from Leipzig, April 23, 1544, containing a touching 
 account of the Martyrs of Perth. — The Scottish Reformation, 
 pp. 112-113. 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 127 
 
 At the same time, suspicion fell on Sir Henry 
 Elder, and on Walter Piper, and they were 
 obliged to flee into England for protection. 
 Laurence Pullar, and John Elder, a burgess, 
 purchased exemption by paying a considerable 
 sum of money, the former forty pounds and the 
 latter two hundred pounds. Having completed 
 their work of cruelty in Perth, the Cardinal and 
 his retinue proceeded to Dundee in search of 
 heretics, but they found none saving John Rogers, 
 " a Godly, learned Black Friar, who had fruitfully 
 preached Christ Jesus to the comfort of many in 
 Angus and Mearns ;" and him they despatched to 
 St. Andrews, where he was flung into the lowest 
 and darkest dungeon of the Sea-tower of the 
 Castle, and secretly murdered. His body was 
 ultimately thrown over the Castle-wall, and found 
 a grave in the hungry German ocean ; but Beaton 
 declared "That the said Johnne, seeking to flic, 
 had broken his awin craig." " Thus," says Knox, 
 "ceased not Satan, by all means, to maintain his 
 kingdom of darkness, and to suppress the light of 
 Christ's Evangel." 
 
 In February, 1544, the Pope's knights occupied 
 Dundee, and then proceeded northwards in search 
 of prey. No sooner had they left the town than 
 Wishart and his friends made their appearance, 
 
128 The Martyrs of Angus and Af earns. 
 
 and pursued their calling, under the patronage of 
 the powerful and pious family of the Scrymgeours 
 of Dudhope.* Sir James Scrymgeour had proved 
 the constant friend and protector of Alexander 
 Alesius, who had been converted to the Protestant 
 faith by Patrick Hamilton ; and his son, Sir John, 
 was not a less staunch supporter of the Reforma- 
 tion. As Constable and Provost of the town, and 
 patron of the chapelries, he wielded great influence, 
 which he did not fail to exert on behalf of the Re- 
 formers. So long as he could, he shielded Wishart 
 from the violent hands of the Popish party, but 
 when peremptorily ordered by the Queen and 
 Governor of the realm to expel Wishart from the 
 town he felt it would be dangerous to disobey. 
 
 At this crisis the Constable's feelings were saved. 
 A renegade did his work. 
 
 * The Scrymgeours or Scrymseoures of Dudhope Castle, Dundee, 
 •were an old and honourable family. Alexander Scrymseoure was 
 the friend and fellow-soldier of Sir William Wallace, who made 
 him Constable of Dundee after he had wrested the Castle of Dun- 
 dee out of the hands of Morton, one of King Edward's captains, 
 and Royal Standard-bearer in 1298. From Alexander to John, Earl 
 of Dundee, 1661, there were twelve Scrymseoures who held the 
 office of Constable of Dundee. 
 
 Dudhope Castle is situated upon a beautiful terrace on the south 
 side of the Law Hill, commanding a noble view of the Tay and the 
 county of Fife. It originally consisted of a lofty square keep, 
 with two extensive wings. 
 
George Wishart of Montrose. 129 
 
 The Reformer was preaching in the old church 
 of Dundee to a large and influential congregation, 
 when " Robert Myll, then one of the principal men 
 in Dundee, and a man that of old had professed 
 knowledge, and for the same had suffered trouble, 
 gave, in the Queen's and Governor's name, inhibi- 
 tion to the said Master George that he should 
 trouble their town no more, for they would not 
 suffer it." After musing for a while the preacher 
 looked sorrowfully at the accuser and the people, 
 and gravely said : " God is my witness, that I never 
 minded your trouble, but your comfort ; yea, your 
 trouble is more dolorous unto me than it is unto 
 yourselves. But I am assured that to refuse God's 
 Word, and to chase from you his messenger, shall 
 not preserve you from trouble ; but it shall bring 
 you into it. For God shall send unto you mes- 
 sengers who will not be afraid of horning, nor yet 
 for banishment. I have offered unto you the Word 
 of Salvation, and with the hazard of my life I have 
 remained among you. Now ye yourselves refuse 
 me, and therefore, man, I leave my innocency to 
 be declared by my God. Yet if it be long prospe- 
 rous with you I am not led by the Spirit of truth." * 
 Having thus spoken sorrowfully he quickly des- 
 
 Knox's History, Vol. I. p. 126. 
 I 
 
130 The II arty rs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 cended from the "preaching place," and though 
 William Keith, fourth Earl Marishall, and other 
 noblemen present endeavoured to persuade him to 
 remain in Dundee, or to accompany them into the 
 country, he passed with all " possible expedition to 
 the Westland," where he hoped to find peace and 
 liberty among the descendants of the Wycklifites. 
 
George Wishart, the Preacher. 131 
 
 V. 
 
 GEORGE WISHART, THE EVANGELICAL 
 PREACHER. 
 
 "And I speak of him, as the Labourer, 
 Whom Christ, in His own Garden, chose to be 
 His help-mate. Messenger he seemed, and friend 
 Fast knit to Christ ; and the first love he showed 
 Was after the first counsel that Christ gave." 
 
 — Dante. 
 
 Among all the towns of Scotland, few are more 
 beautifully situated, and none are of greater 
 historic interest to a loyal-hearted Protestant than 
 Dundee, Lying beneath the shadow of the Law 
 Hill that stands sentinel over the richest valley in 
 the land, laved by the full flood of the stately and 
 magnificent Tay near its confluence with the 
 German ocean, and commanding an extensive and 
 noble view of water and woodland, of slumbering 
 villages and shining villas, of fruitful pastoral 
 plains, of green undulating hills, and distant 
 mountain-ranges, whose summits tower into 
 the clouds, it well deserves the ancient name 
 
132 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 of Bonnie Dundee. * And, considering the rare 
 enthusiasm and intense devotion which many 
 of its noblest families, stoutest burghers, and 
 ablest priests manifested in the Reformation 
 movement at the earliest period, it is of singular 
 interest to all who appreciate a pure Christianity 
 in a living Church. To Dundee belongs the 
 signal honour of being the first Scottish burgh 
 that openly declared for the Reformation and 
 courageously supported the Reformed Church 
 when established under Knox. Hence it has been 
 appropriately described as the Second Geneva. 
 Nor is it difficult to account for the influences that 
 disposed the inhabitants of Dundee to welcome the 
 new movement as the breath of spring. Alexander 
 Alane, John Rogers, and James Hewat were 
 among the first clergymen who embraced the 
 new doctrines and fearlessly proclaimed and 
 disseminated them ; and they were fortunate in 
 leavening influential families like the Scrymgeours 
 of Dudhope, the Halyburtons — the hereditary 
 Provosts — and the classic Wedderburns, with Pro- 
 testant principles. Under the sheltering arm of 
 these powerful families, the early Reformers 
 
 * Boece, the old historian of Scotland, says that the original 
 name of Dundee was Alcctum — The Beautiful. 
 
George Wishart, the Preacher. 133 
 
 found opportunities for attacking the abuses and 
 superstitions of the Roman Church, and preaching 
 the pure Gospel, such as were not to be obtained 
 at the time elsewhere. 
 
 George Wishart, in particular, exerted a deep 
 religious influence on all classes of the com- 
 munity. His intimate connection with many 
 of the best families in Angus and Mearns, his 
 scholarly tastes and erudition, his evangelical zeal 
 and burning eloquence, his terrible earnestness and 
 amazing fortitude made him a great intellectual 
 and moral force in Dundee. Though com- 
 pelled to leave the town at the instance of the 
 weak and fickle Governor of the Kingdom, over- 
 awed by the imperious Cardinal, multitudes 
 lamented his departure, and nobles coveted his 
 friendship and fellowship. 
 
 On leaving Dundee, where he had ministered 
 with singular success for some months, Wishart 
 proceeded to Ayrshire, found a powerful friend and 
 protector in Lord Glencairn, and received a hearty 
 welcome from the descendants of the old Lollard 
 race. For a while he appears to have preached in 
 the town of Ayr with manifest tokens of favour 
 and without serious molestation. But the lynx- 
 eyed Cardinal was closely observing his movements ; 
 and at his instigation the Archbishop of Glasgow 
 
1 34 The Martyrs of A ngus and Mearns. 
 
 with his jackmen and pompous retinue, swept 
 down upon the town with the intention of 
 silencing and capturing the evangelical preacher. 
 The influence of Lord Glencairn and his friends, 
 however, was too powerful in Ayr to permit 
 Dunbar to lay violent hands upon the Reformer, 
 and it might even have been strong enough 
 to exclude the Archbishop from the parish 
 church, had Wishart not interfered to prevent 
 a contest. But he did not grudge Dunbar 
 the use of the church. He knew the charac- 
 ter and qualifications of the Archbishop, and 
 he quietly said to his personal friends and 
 followers : " Let them alone ; his sermon will not 
 much hurt ; let us go to the Market Cross." 
 Accordingly the Archbishop mounted the parish 
 pulpit, and altogether ignorant of the art of 
 preaching and of the doctrines of Scripture, he 
 delivered a rambling address to " the old bosses of 
 the town " and his own jackmen, the sum of which 
 was : " They say that we should preach : why not ? 
 Better late thrive than never thrive : hold us still 
 for your bishop and we shall provide better for the 
 next time." At the Market Cross Wishart took 
 his stand, " where," says Knox, " he made so 
 notable a sermon that the very enemies themselves 
 were confounded." 
 
George Wis/iarf, the Preacher. 
 
 Having discomfited the Romanists in Ayr the 
 evangelist accepted the hospitality of John Lock- 
 hart of Barr, and frequently preached with great 
 fervour in the old church of Galston. After repeated 
 solicitations to preach in the church of Mauchline 
 he consented to do so ; but when the Sheriff of the 
 County, Hugh Campbell of Loudoun, heard of his 
 coming, he speedily despatched the Campbells oi 
 Mongarswood, Read of Daldilling in Sorn, and 
 Crawford of Templeland in Auchinleck, to hold 
 the church, fearful lest a beautiful and costly 
 tabernacle, ornamenting the altar, might be shat- 
 tered and destroyed in case of tumult. But there 
 were other Campbells determined to advance the 
 cause of Reformation, and prepared to force an 
 entrance to the parish church. Hugh Campbell, 
 of Kinzeancleugh, a cadet of the house of Loudoun, 
 was distinguished by a rare enthusiasm for the 
 new doctrines, and would have waged war with his 
 relatives on the other side if the Reformer had not 
 counselled peace, saying persuasively : " Brother, 
 Christ Jesus is as potent upon the fields as in the 
 kirk ; and I find that He himself more frequently 
 preached in the desert, at the sea-side, and other 
 places judged profane, than He did in the temple 
 at Jerusalem. It is the word of peace that God 
 sends by me : the blood of no man shall be shed 
 
136 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 this day for the preaching of it." Having pacified 
 his friend and admirer, Wishart led the excited 
 crowd to a dyke, skirting a broad moor which lay 
 on the south-west side of Mauchline. Like many 
 a steel-grey Cameronian in later days the preacher 
 mounted the dyke, and delivered from the rustic 
 pulpit in the vast temple of nature a noble 
 sermon, productive of the most blessed spiritual 
 results. The day was " pleasing and hot ; " the 
 hungry people thronged about him, some stand- 
 ing, others leaning on the fail dyke, and many 
 sitting on shaggy tufts of heather and the wild grass 
 of the wilderness. For more than three hours 
 Wishart preached, says Knox, and God wrought 
 so wonderfully with him " that one of the most 
 wicked men in that country, named Laurence 
 Rankin, Laird of Sheill (in the parish of Ochiltree) 
 was converted. The tears ran from his eyes in 
 such abundance that all men wondered. His con- 
 version was without hypocrisy, for his life and 
 conversation witnessed it in all times to come." 
 
 It is a touching scene this on the edge of 
 Mauchline moor. A tall, refined and learned 
 preacher stands upon a rough fail dyke ; strong- 
 featured, weather-beaten farm-labourers mostly, 
 and some shop-keepers and trades-folk, gaze into 
 the flashing eyes and hang upon the burning lips 
 
George Wishart, the Preacher. 137 
 
 of the messenger of Christ who delivers a message 
 of grace, mercy, and peace, with a terrible, heart- 
 subduing earnestness and power. The old Gospel 
 sounds in their ears like a fresh clear-voiced 
 trumpet. Hard hearts are broken, and tears 
 plough the cheeks of stout and stubborn men. 
 Sinners of the darkest type sob in penitence, em- 
 brace the truth as it is in Jesus, and, breaking with 
 the wicked past, turn unto God with full purpose of 
 heart, and begin a noble life. That scene is worth 
 remembering. It is the first great field-preaching 
 mentioned in Scottish history, — the first of a long 
 series of memorable religious gatherings that have 
 materially helped to quicken the life of the Scot- 
 tish people, especially in dark degenerate days, 
 when unpatriotic and unsanctified hirelings occu- 
 pied the pulpits of the Scottish Church. 
 
 "While this faithful servant of God was thus 
 occupied in Kyle, word came that the plague of 
 pestilence was risen in Dundee, which began 
 within four days, after that the said Master George 
 was inhibited from preaching, and was so vehement, 
 that it almost passed credibility to hear what 
 number departed every four-and-twenty hours," 
 writes the historian of the Reformation. It is 
 difficult to determine exactly the date of the 
 terrible plague that devastated Dundee during the 
 
138 The Martyrs of Angus and J/earus. 
 
 sixteenth century, but the traditional period is 
 1 544. Of its real nature we know nothing, although 
 it seems to have succeeded a time of famine. 
 How long it scourged and ravaged Dundee 
 cannot be ascertained ; although it is pretty 
 certain it had reached an appalling strength about 
 August, 1545, as an old Diurnal of Occurrcnts 
 states that " in this time the pest was wonderfully 
 great in all burgh towns of this realm, whereby 
 many people died with great want and scant of 
 victuals." The moment the field-preacher learned 
 that the hand of God lay heavily on Dundee, he 
 prepared to leave Ayrshire, and refused to listen 
 to the urgent remonstrances of his friends and 
 followers. He felt that the preacher of the Gospel 
 ought to be prosecuting his sacred vocation among 
 the sick and dying. Hastening to the doleful and 
 ghastly scene, Wishart declared his intention of 
 preaching, and the faithful rejoiced exceedingly. 
 At this period, the town of Dundee was surrounded 
 by a double wall with lofty gates. For the pur- 
 pose of isolating and protecting the citizens, the 
 plague-stricken were sheltered in temporary booths 
 erected outside the walls. The " sick-yards " were 
 located beyond the East Gate or the Cowgate 
 Port ; and in order to address the whole within 
 and the sick without, Wishart mounted the Portal, 
 
THE WISHART ARCH (COWGATe), DUNDEE. 
 
George Wishart, the Preacher. 139 
 
 which still stands as a monument of his courage 
 and philanthropy, and spoke from the words of the 
 107th Psalm : — " He sent his word and healed 
 them, and delivered them from their destructions." 
 Knox has preserved a summary of the sermon ; 
 and from it we learn that the preacher treated of 
 the dignity and utility of God's Word, of the 
 punishment that comes from contempt of it, of the 
 promptitude of God's mercy to such as truly turn 
 to Him, and of the great happiness of them whom 
 God saves from misery, "even in His own gentle 
 visitation." 
 
 The text from which the Reformer discoursed 
 was exceedingly appropriate, and its significance 
 was enhanced by the nearness of the temporary 
 pulpit to the old chapel of St. Roque,* the patron 
 and friend of all plague-stricken and afflicted 
 people. The shrine of Saint Roque stood a little 
 beyond the Cowgate, and the booths for the sick 
 were doubtless erected in this particular district, 
 
 * See Lorimer's Scottish Reformation, p. 128. Sir David 
 Lindsay, in describing various altarages during the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, writes: 
 
 " Sainct Roch, well seased, men may see, 
 A byle new-broken on her thie : 
 Sainct Eloy, he doth stately stand, 
 A new horse-shoe into his hand." 
 
140 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 that the suffering might be enabled to direct their 
 languid eyes and their fervent prayers to the 
 image of the saint. But Wishart knew that the 
 canonized saints were neither intercessors nor 
 healers. And so he directed the poor emaciated 
 sufferers to the strong and all-wise Physician. The 
 burden of his sermon was : " O Lord, it is neither 
 herb nor plaster, but thy Word that healeth all." 
 Nor was Wishart the religious fanatic that some 
 modern historians have fancifully depicted. Like 
 his Divine Master he was a healer as well as a 
 teacher, a sympathetic self-sacrificing brother as 
 well as a fearless prophet. Lowly and tender- 
 hearted, courageous and unselfish, he walked and 
 worked unweariedly among the sick and dying, 
 and bent all his energies to help the helpless, to 
 solace the sorrowful and inspire the despairing 
 with hope. " He spared not to visit them that lay 
 in the deepest extremity ; he comforted them as 
 he might in such a multitude ; he caused minister 
 all things necessary to those that might use meat 
 or drink ; and in that point was the town wonder- 
 fully beneficent ; for the poor was no more 
 neglected than the rich." * 
 
 During those dark days of terror in Dundee 
 
 * Knox^s Works, Vol. I., p. 130. 
 
George \V 'is hart, the Preacher. 141 
 
 Wishart manifested the spirit of the Good Samari- 
 tan, and the Divine Philanthropist ; and yet 
 Rome hunted him down like a beast of 
 prey. In the excitement of the feverish time, 
 the Reformer had forgotten that he was an out- 
 law, and encompassed by deadly foes. The 
 claims of humanity had completely engrossed 
 his attention, and love for suffering men had 
 made him blind to self-interest. Endeavour- 
 ing to heal the sick, to comfort the afflicted, to 
 minister to the dying, he forgot the very existence 
 of treacherous prelates and fanatical priests, who 
 were thirsting for his blood. But a hired traitor 
 was lurking in the crowd, waiting an opportunity 
 to take away a precious life. The Reformer had 
 concluded his sermon on a particular occasion, and 
 the people were leaving the East Port, suspecting 
 no danger, when lo ! a desperate priest, named Sir 
 John Wightone, appeared at the foot of the steps, 
 <( his gown loose, and his whinger drawn into his 
 gown." Wishart, "sharp of eye and judgment," 
 marked him, and as he came dangerously near he 
 said : " My friend, what would ye do ? " and there- 
 upon Wishart suddenly seized the murderous hand 
 and wrested the gleaming dagger from it. The priest, 
 abashed and paralysed, fell at the feet of Wishart, 
 confessed his murderous purpose, and barely 
 
142 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 escaped with his life ; for when the assembled 
 people realised what had been attempted they be- 
 came furious and cried for vengeance. " Deliver 
 the traitor to us, or else we will take him by force," 
 they shouted angrily, and then burst through the 
 gate, bent upon the fanatic's destruction. The 
 injured man, however, became the traitor's shield. 
 Throwing his arms around the miscreant he said 
 with a nobility of mind worthy of the ambassador 
 of the Prince of Peace and the thorn-crowned 
 King : " Whosoever troubles him shall trouble me ; 
 for he has hurt me in nothing, but he has done 
 great comfort both to you and me, to wit, he has 
 let us understand what we may fear in times to 
 come." 
 
 Surely the preacher who was capable of such 
 great magnanimity, long-suffering, and gentleness, 
 could not be guilty of plotting the destruction of 
 his worst enemy, or entering into a league with 
 misguided conspirators to compass the death of 
 Cardinal Beaton ! To suspect a man who actually 
 took a viper into his bosom when he might have 
 shaken the deadly creature into the fire of fanatical 
 rage, — to suspect him of playing the part of a 
 murderous traitor is, we think, quite unreasonable. 
 We do not wonder when fierce and unscrupulous 
 partisans, like Dempster in his Ecclesiastical History, 
 
George Wishart, the Picac/ier. 143 
 
 or Mackenzie in his Lives of Scots Writers, endea- 
 vour to blacken the reputation of our Reformer by 
 gratuitously assuming that he was the notable 
 "Wysshart" mentioned in the State Papers as 
 conspiring with certain gentlemen in Lothian and 
 with King Henry the Eighth, to entrap the 
 Arch-Inquisitor in Scotland ; but it is astonish- 
 ing that modern historians should seem dis- 
 posed to imitate them. The truth is, there is 
 not a particle of positive evidence to prove that 
 George Wishart the Reformer and Martyr was a 
 conspirator, or privy to the assassination of 
 Beaton. The grounds on which the serious charge 
 against George Wishart rests are these : — From 
 the State Papers* it appears that in May, 1544, 
 " a Scottishman named Wysshart " brought letters 
 from Alexander Crichton of Brunston, in the 
 parish of Pennycuik, in Mid-Lothian, to the Earl 
 of Hertford at Newcastle, and to Henry VIII. at 
 Greenwich, revealing a scheme for the killing of 
 the Cardinal, and requesting the protection of the 
 English King for the conspirators if they should 
 succeed in their desperate attempt. Moreover, it 
 appears from the Hamilton Papers that the 
 English Council despatched a message to Hertford, 
 
 "State Papers (Henry Mil.), V. 377. 
 
144 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 couched in the following terms : " Your lordship 
 shall understand that Wishart which came from 
 Brunston hath been with his Majesty . . . and 
 hath received for answer, touching the feat against 
 the Cardinal, that, in case the lords and gentlemen 
 which he named shall enterprise the same earnestly, 
 and do the best they can, to the uttermost of their 
 powers, to bring the same to pass in deed — and 
 thereupon not being able to continue longer in 
 Scotland, shall be enforced to fly into this realm 
 for refuge — his highness will be contented to accept 
 them, and relieve them as shall appertain." * 
 
 Now, if it could be clearly shown that 
 George Wishart was identical with the " Scottish- 
 man named Wysshart " in the State Papers, the 
 reputation of the Martyr would be seriously 
 tarnished, and our interest in him materially 
 abated. But the keenest Roman Catholic partisans 
 have failed to identify the Reformer with the 
 stealthy Diplomatist ; and modern research has 
 made that work still more difficult, inasmuch as it 
 has discovered that during the Reformation period 
 there were no fewer than three Scotsmen of position 
 bearing the name of Wishart, any one of whom 
 
 * Hamilton Papers, 96. Quoted by Burton in his Histo?y of 
 Scotland, Vol. III., p. 259. 
 
George Wishart, the Preacher. 145 
 
 might have been implicated in the conspiracy 
 to kill Beaton. One was a bailie in Dundee ; the 
 second a brother-germain of JoJin Wishart of 
 Pettarrow ; and the third a procurator in a matter 
 concerning Georgius Wischart, Armiger Cruris re- 
 gis Gallics* 
 
 Nor is there the slightest evidence that the 
 Reformer crossed the Tweed in 1544, while there 
 is much to confirm the opinion that he spent the 
 whole of that year in Angus and Ayrshire. 
 Although Tytler in his History affirms that the 
 martyr was employed as an Envoy to England in 
 May, 1 544, he does not hesitate to state that " from 
 the time of his arrival in the summer of 1543, for 
 more than two years Wishart appears to have 
 remained in Scotland." It is clear that if the 
 Reformer was put to the horn and outlawed, he 
 could not have ventured on the perilous task of 
 travelling into England with letters of conspiracy ; 
 and it is equally plain that if Wishart had been 
 guilty of treachery some pointed allusion would 
 have been made to it at his trial. 
 
 Mr. J. Hill Burton, the Historian, has treated 
 George Wishart as a political conspirator, and 
 
 " :: " See Laing's admirable Note in the Appendix to Knox's Works, 
 Vol. I., pp. 536-7. 
 
 K 
 
146 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 regarded him as an indispensable figure in a 
 group of infuriated men who looked upon 
 the Cardinal as a messenger of Satan, and 
 who hated him like soot. " To the observer from 
 without," says he, " Wishart the Martyr is part of 
 the group occupied in the affair ; removing him 
 from the group breaks it up almost more than the 
 removal of any other — of Leslie, Ormiston, or 
 Brunston."* But George Wishart never appears 
 among the group of political conspirators. There 
 is no proof that he knew anything of the Lothian 
 group until he went to preach in Haddington, at 
 the close of 1345. The '" Scottishman named 
 Wysshart " who entered so readily into the dread- 
 ful project of " killing the Cardinal," and carried 
 letters between Brunston and Hertford at New- 
 castle, and obtained an audience of King Henry, 
 was busy intriguing in the spring of 1544. Nor 
 could the Reformer have played the part of con- 
 spirator while he was resident in Cambridge ; for 
 it is unquestionable that the Scots Commissioners, 
 with whom he travelled home, actually returned to 
 Edinburgh in July, 1543. 
 
 Mr. Froude deals more fairly with the charac- 
 ter of the Martyr than does his Scottish con- 
 
 * History of Scotland, Vol. III., pp. 257-61. 
 
George Wiskart, the Preacher. 147 
 
 temporary. But if Burton is neither just, 
 generous, nor patriotic, the Historian of Eng- 
 land is disposed to treat Wishart in a some- 
 what cavalier fashion. " Wishart," says he, " was 
 a common name in Scotland, and the evidence, 
 therefore, can amount but to a vague probability. 
 I see no room to believe, however, that the martyr 
 of St. Andrews was so different from his Protes- 
 tant countrymen as to have been unlikely to have 
 been the messenger of Hertford, or to have sym- 
 pathized cordially in the message." * And then 
 he attempts to vindicate the conduct of the con- 
 spirators by such considerations as these : The 
 general anarchy and wild justice of the times ; the 
 application of Old Testament principles to the 
 desperate situation, and the imitation of the Ehuds, 
 the Jaels, and the Jehoiadas, who fearlessly smote 
 down oppressors in Israel, and were accounted by 
 their co-religionists faithful servants of the true God ; 
 and the approval of assassination as an expedient 
 in difficult circumstances by the best men of all 
 persuasions in the sixteenth century ! It must 
 be admitted that this defence of Wishart is 
 bold and ingenious ; but it is based on an 
 entire misconception of the Reformer's character 
 
 * History of England, Vol. IV., pp. 28, 29, 180. 
 
I _|i> The Marty is of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 iieorge Wishart was a man far in advance of his 
 times ; and he was animated by a purely Christian 
 spirit, and dominated by distinctly Christian prin- 
 ciples. Knox had not a little in common with the 
 old Hebrew judges and deliverers, but George 
 Wishart was an apostolical man, and indeed a 
 Pauline Christian. He began his eventful career 
 with the study of the Greek New Testament, and 
 throughout he seems to have manifested the spirit 
 of Jesus, and to have inculcated the doctrines of 
 the great writer of the Epistles. Wherever we 
 catch a glimpse of him he is gracious, charitable, 
 peaceable ; when he preaches he almost in- 
 variably selects a text from the Gospels, or 
 expounds an Epistle. He is not a man of war, 
 but a son of peace. If Knox bore the sword, 
 Wishart carried the healing balm. Fury was not 
 in the Martyr ; like the Great Master he forgave 
 and protected the miscreant who sought his life ! 
 
 As soon as the ravages of the plague had abated 
 in Dundee the Reformer travelled northwards to 
 Montrose, and found a sanctuary in the heart of 
 familiar and constant friends. Exhausted by his 
 diligent ministrations and protracted vigils in 
 Dundee he seldom preached, and spent most of 
 the time in secret meditation, and celestial contem- 
 plation. He was never more to visit the scenes of 
 
George WisJiart, the Preacher. 149- 
 
 his boyhood and youthful labours: he seems to 
 have had a presentiment of his approaching death ; 
 for he converted the haunts of his school-master 
 days into homes of prayer, and sanctuaries of 
 spiritual discipline. Though he knew it not, death 
 stood literally at the door — nearer than he could 
 have anticipated. The wily, sleepless Cardinal 
 was closely watching his movements, and plotting 
 his destruction. Crafty and unscrupulous, Beaton 
 persuaded one of his minions to write Wishart a 
 letter in the name of his familiar friend, John 
 Kinnear of Kinnear, in the parish of Kilmany, 
 desiring him to hasten unto his bedside, as he was 
 stricken down " with a sudden sickness." The 
 boy who carried the missive at midnight had 
 brought a horse to expedite the journey of the 
 Reformer to Fife. Mounting the steed Wishart 
 left the town in the morning, accompanied by 
 " some honest men ; " but he had not gone far 
 on the road when he suddenly halted. Musing 
 for a moment, he quickly turned his horse's head 
 toward Montrose. He had seen a vision of death ! 
 " I will not go," said he to his wondering compan- 
 ions ; " I am forbidden of God ; I am assured 
 there is treason." And treason there was. Within 
 a mile and a half of the town three score of the 
 Cardinal's jackmen and spearmen lay in ambush, 
 
150 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 ready to spring upon the rider, and despatch him 
 with all possible diligence. Hunted like a bird of 
 prey, Wishart was convinced he was doomed ; but 
 his hour had not yet come. Though scared he was 
 not intimidated. In spite of the earnest remons- 
 trances of the Laird of Dun he shortly afterwards 
 proceeded to Edinburgh on business. Passing- 
 through Angus he halted at the hamlet of Inver- 
 gowrie, pleasantly situated on the banks of the 
 Tay, two miles beyond Dundee. Here he lodged 
 for the night in the house of " a faithful brother, 
 named James Watson," and, like a greater teacher 
 on the road to Calvary, he rose a while before day, 
 stole into a quiet country lane, and prepared for 
 martyrdom. That country lane was a sort of 
 Gcthsemane. There the holy man wrestled, and 
 wrestled long and sorely, and prevailed. John 
 Watson and William Spaldin secretly observed 
 his movements ; and they informed Knox that he 
 went up and down the lane sobbing and groaning, 
 fell upon his knees and groaned more deeply, and 
 then fell upon his face and wept and prayed for 
 nearly an hour. If his voice had been loud and 
 his words articulate he might have been heard 
 saying with the Man of Sorrows : " O my Father, 
 if it be possible, let this cup pass from me : 
 nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." 
 
George Wiskart, the Preacher. 151 
 
 He had conquered ; and though there was no 
 good angel present to comfort him he grew 
 calm, and arose from the ground and went quiet- 
 ly to his chamber. Questioned by those who 
 had seen his agony and heard his bitter cries, he 
 said : " I will tell you that I am assured my 
 travail is near an end, and therefore call to God 
 with me, that now I shrink not when the battle 
 waxes most hot." The heavy news discouraged 
 and distressed the godly men, and while they wept 
 for sorrow the good soldier of the Cross endea- 
 voured to comfort them. And his words of con- 
 solation were words of hope and promise : " God 
 shall send you comfort after me. This realm shall 
 be illuminated with the light of Christ's Evangel as 
 clearly as ever was any realm since the days of 
 the Apostles. The house of God shall be builded 
 in to it. Yea, it shall not lack . . the very 
 copestone. Neither shall this be long. There 
 shall not many suffer after me, till the day of God 
 shall evidently appear, and shall once triumph in 
 despite of Satan." We need not claim for George 
 Wishart supernatural gifts or graces, but he cer- 
 tainly possessed the deep prophetical eye of the 
 ecclesiastic and statesman. He had insight and 
 foresight, and a firm faith in the providence of 
 God. He had felt the pulse of the people ; he 
 
. 5- The Martyrs of Angus and 3 learns. 
 
 had calculated the direction and strength of politi- 
 cal and religious currents ; he had seen men of all 
 ranks and classes drinking in the Reformed 
 doctrines, and manifesting signs of impatience 
 with the Pope's knights, and all instruments of 
 tyranny ; and, like a seer, he could easily prognos- 
 ticate the future. None knew better than he that 
 the path of suffering is the path of victory. The 
 ascension follows the sacrifice of the Cross, and 
 after the ascension, the Spirit of God, through the 
 instrumentality of apostolic men, builds up Zion 
 
 From Invergowric the Reformer proceeded 
 through the rich Goshen land to Perth, and from 
 Perth he journeyed through Fife to Leith, for the 
 purpose of communing with the Earl of Cassilis 
 and the gentlemen of Kyle and Cunninghame who 
 were favourably disposed to the Reformation. 
 When he arrived at Leith and discovered that his 
 friends had not arrived, he concealed himself from 
 the lurking foe for a day or two ; but his spirit 
 drooped in the shade, and he longed to resume 
 active work. Bent on proclaiming the Word of 
 Truth, he declared himself ready to preach if his 
 friends were not afraid to hear : " Dare ye and 
 others hear, and then let my God provide for me 
 as best pleaseth him." Fifteen days before Christ- 
 mas he expounded the Parable of the Sower, in 
 
George Wishart, the Preacher. 
 
 Leith, and afterwards marched to the strong- 
 holds of the gentlemen in Lothian known to be 
 friendly to the Reformation. The Governor and the 
 Cardinal were daily expected in Edinburgh ; and 
 Crichton of Brunston, Douglas of Longniddry, 
 and Cockburn of Ormiston, threw their strong 
 shields around him, and showed him hospitality. 
 Full of zeal, Wishart preached on the following 
 Sunday in the Church of Inveresk, about six miles 
 from Edinburgh, where " there was a great con- 
 fluence of people, among whom was Sir George 
 Douglas " of Pittendreich, brother of the Eai 1 of 
 Angus. Douglas was " a man of spirit and 
 talent ;" of much political sagacity ; distinguished 
 for his courtly manners and address ; enlightened 
 and powerful. Hitherto he had not manifested 
 much sympathy with the Reformers, but the preach- 
 ing of Wishart made a deep impression on his 
 mind, and roused his slumbering courage. At the 
 close of the service he openly showed his colours, 
 and said to his friends : " I know that my Lord 
 Governor and Cardinal shall hear that I have been 
 at this preaching. Say unto them that I will avow 
 it. and will not only maintain the doctrine I have 
 heard, but also the person of the teacher to the 
 uttermost of my power." So far well. But even 
 at Inveresk, under the protection of powerful 
 
154 The Martyrs of Angus and Mcarns. 
 
 friends, the Reformer was not quite safe. During 
 the service two Grey Friars stood at the church 
 door whispering. The preacher at first thought 
 they had come to learn, and courteously requested 
 the people to make room for them. However, it 
 soon became apparent that they had come to 
 curse and not to pray ; for they ostentatiously 
 sneered at the preacher and troubled the people 
 who were near them. While Wishart was 
 vehemently denouncing idolatry and superstition, 
 he chanced to notice their indecorous and insulting 
 conduct, and turning upon them " an awful counte- 
 nance," he severely denounced them as sergeants 
 of Satan and deceivers of souls. " Depart," said 
 he, "and take this for your portion, — God shall 
 shortly confound and disclose your hypocrisy ; 
 within this realm ye shall be abominable to men, 
 and your places and habitations shall be desolate.*' 
 That speech was made in anger, but it was truly 
 prophetical. The day was near when God's great 
 servant was to sound the bugle that roused the 
 Scottish people, inspired them with a noble and 
 dauntless spirit, which strove and struggled till the 
 Church was thoroughly cleansed from all impurities 
 and errors, and earnest reformed pastors occupied 
 e pulpits of the drivelling and lackadaisical 
 s ! From Inveresk, Wishart went to Tranent, 
 
George Wisliart, the Preacher. 155 
 
 where he ministered to large enthusiastic con- 
 gregations, speaking at times very solemnly and 
 pathetically of his own approaching death, and of 
 the nearness of judgment and eternity. 
 
 " The holy days of Yule " were festive, and 
 crowds of people were wont to throng the great 
 church of Haddington at that peculiar season. 
 Wishart, watchful of rare opportunities of doing 
 good, and diffusing Gospel light, was desirous of 
 occupying the parish pulpit during the festivities. 
 Obtaining permission from the men in power, he 
 accepted the hospitality of David Forres, a good 
 burgher of the town, who afterwards became 
 General of the Mint ; and on the forenoon of the 
 last Sunday of the year he preached to an audience 
 " reasonably large." The afternoon attendance, 
 however, was miserably small, and the " auditure " 
 on the day following was so slender and insignifi- 
 cant, that many wondered. Soon the secret crept 
 out. The Earl of Bothwell, powerful in these parts, 
 and a close friend of the Cardinal, had inhibited the 
 people of Haddington, threatening them with his 
 displeasure if they dared to countenance the new 
 preacher. At the close of his second day's work, 
 Wishart slept in the ancient House of Lething- 
 ton, a strong old tower, more picturesque than 
 beautiful, standing about a mile south of the 
 
156 The Martyrs of Angus and A I cams. 
 
 county town. Though occupied by Sir Richard 
 Maitland, who had no decided religious opinions, 
 still Wishart found his host civil and obliging. In 
 the morning, Maitland and his guest walked to the 
 Parish Church in a somewhat sorrowful mood. As 
 Wishart entered the church, a boy from the West- 
 land handed him a letter, which he hastily opened. 
 It contained bad news. The Gentlemen of Ayr- 
 shire could not keep diet at Edinburgh as they had 
 promised. The Reformer's heart sank within him, 
 and his countenance fell. Dejected, he must have 
 been tempted to say : 
 
 " Men, like butterflies, 
 Show not their mealy wings but to the summer." 
 
 Summoning Knox, his faithful attendant and 
 armour-bearer, he conversed with him, and declared 
 that he " wearied of the world because he perceived 
 that men began to weary of God." It was the 
 Elijah-like speech of dark disappointment and de- 
 ferred hope. As the hour of sermon drew nigh, 
 Knox left the preacher to his meditations, but 
 observed him from a distance pacing restlessly and 
 moodily behind the high altar. He passed to the 
 pulpit with " a countenance more in sorrow than 
 anger " ; the small audience was depressing ;. 
 there was but a voice crying in the wilderness! 
 
George Wishart, the Preacher. 157 
 
 The subject of discourse was the Second Table of 
 the Law, but he spoke very little about it. Deeply 
 wounded in spirit, and not a little indignant, per- 
 haps, he thundered against the people, rebuking 
 them for despising the Word of God, and neglect- 
 ing their own salvation ; threatened them with sore 
 plagues if they continued contemptuous, and with 
 the invasion of enemies if they knew not the day 
 of their merciful visitation ! For an hour and a 
 half, says Knox, who was present, he vehemently 
 denounced the callous people of Haddington, and 
 " declared all the plagues that ensued, as plainly as 
 after our eyes saw them." Concluding with a 
 short paraphrase of the Second Table of the Law, 
 with an exhortation to patience, to the fear of God, 
 and to works of mercy, he made " his last testa- 
 ment, as the issue declared, that the spread of 
 truth and a true judgment were both in his heart 
 and mouth." 
 
 During this period Wishart seems to have met 
 Knwx for the first and last time ; and there can 
 be no reasonable doubt that the spirit and the 
 mantle of the eloquent and fervid preacher of 
 Angus fell upon the Haddington tutor. If 
 
 ' Knox was not converted by Wishart he was 
 at least inspired and educated by him. At 
 
 \ Longniddry, situated in Gladsmuir Parish, near 
 
 \ 
 
158 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 the shores of the Frith of Forth, they seem to 
 have fascinated each other. The house of Long- 
 niddry was the residence of Hugh Douglas, a 
 zealous friend of the Reformation ; and Knox, 
 rescued from Roman Catholic error by the famous 
 Dominican monk, Thomas Williams of Athalstane- 
 ford, had entered the house as family tutor and 
 domestic chaplain. When Wishart found shelter 
 and hospitality in the old country house in East 
 Lothian, he found what he could never have ex- 
 pected — a disciple, able, learned, resolute, and in 
 every way capable of carrying on the work that 
 lay closest to his heart, and of fighting the battle 
 he had begun with a skill, with a valour, with a 
 determination and a commanding genius that 
 have won the admiration of all loyal-hearted and 
 patriotic Scotsmen. It is delightful to think of 
 Wishart and Knox communing together at Long- 
 niddry, beautiful to picture to the mind's eye the 
 Reformer marching on to martyrdom, with the 
 Longniddry tutor and chaplain accompanying him, 
 carrying the sword provided for his protection after 
 the discovery of the assassins on the road beyond 
 Montrose. If Wishart was the Scottish Melanch 
 thon,* Knox became the Scottish Calvin, the 
 
 * " He is said to have been the worthiest and most pacific of all 
 those who at first supported the new doctrines in this kingdom, 
 
George Wis hart, the Preacher. 159 
 
 founder of the City of God in our land, and the 
 grandest champion of civil and religious liberty. 
 Having finished his work at Haddington, Wishart 
 said farewell to all his comrades, and parted from 
 Hugh Douglas with feelings of affection and grati- 
 tude. As he was about to proceed to Ormiston 
 with John Cockburn, Knox wished to accompany 
 them, but Wishart, recognising the mighty in- 
 tellect and heart that lay behind the rugged ex- 
 terior of his devoted disciple, said : " Nay, return 
 to your bairns, and God bless you. One is suffi- 
 cient for a sacrifice." Thereupon he took the two- 
 handed sword from Knox, "who, albeit unwilling- 
 lie, obeyit, and returned with Hew Douglass to 
 Langnudrye." The winter evening was frosty and 
 vehemently cold, and the party of Reformers 
 walked on to Ormiston House. After supper, 
 Wishart talked sweetly and tenderly of the death 
 of God's children, and then said : " Methink that 
 I desire earnestly to sleep." Before retiring, he 
 conducted family-worship, and sang the noble 
 fifty-first psalm, in Scottish metre, as rendered by 
 the Vicar of Dundee : — 
 
 and may, for his learning and modesty, he called the Melanchthon 
 of Scotland, though from all the accounts we have of him in the 
 histories of those times, it is not easy to learn whether he was in 
 any degree of holy orders or not." Skinner's Eccl. Hist., Vol. II., 
 p. 20. 
 
1 60 The Martyrs of A ngus and Mearns. 
 
 " Have mercy on me, O gude Lord, 
 
 Efter thy greit mercy 
 My sinfull life does me remord, 
 
 Quhilk sair hes grevit thee : 
 Bot thy greit grace hes me restore!, 
 
 Throw grace, to libertie : 
 To thy mercy with thee will I go." 
 
 Earlier than usual he went to bed with the 
 words upon his lips : " God grant quiet rest." But 
 his prayer was not answered. Wicked men 
 wrought stealthily in the dead hour of night. The 
 Governor and Cardinal had scented the prey, and 
 lay in wait in Elphingstone Tower, about a mile 
 distant. The Earl of Bothwell, Lord of Liddes- 
 dalc, and High Sheriff of the County, was their 
 pliant tool. According to Sir Ralph Sadler, he 
 was " a vain and insolent man of the world, full of 
 pride and folly, nothing at all esteemed ;" and the 
 English Ambassador's estimate of the Earl's charac- 
 ter was confirmed by his treatment of the Reformer. 
 He played the part of Judas well ; he betrayed the 
 innocent into the hands of the chief priest with a 
 lie upon his lips. Knocking at the gate of 
 Ormiston House, Bothwell called for the Laird, 
 and demanded Wishart. Fearing the presence of 
 armed men, Cockburn refused to open the gates, 
 and held parley with Bothwell as he stood 
 without. The Earl, smoothe^r-tongued and utterly 
 
George Wishart, the P readier. 161 
 
 unprincipled, promised on his honour as Sheriff of 
 the County to protect the Reformer against ah 
 " harme or skaith." Cockburn knew the character 
 of the traitor, and was disposed to keep him on the 
 other side of the barred and bolted gate. But 
 Wishart, overcome by fair words, or tired of post- 
 poning the evil hour he had long foreboded, ex- 
 claimed : " Open the gates ; the blessed will of God 
 be done." The gate was flung open, and the Laird 
 received Bothwell and his sneaking companions. 
 Suddenly Wishart confronted them. While 
 expressing his conviction that the gentlemen 
 would suffer nothing to be done contrary 
 to the law, he added these significant words : 
 " I am not ignorant that their law is nothing but 
 corruption, and a cloak to shed the blood of the 
 saints ; but yet I less fear to die openly than 
 secretly to be murdered." Again Bothwell 
 assured him that he would preserve his body from 
 all violence, and shield him from the Governor and 
 Cardinal ; and that he would "retain him in his own 
 hands and in his own place," till he should free 
 him or restore him to the Laird of Ormiston. On 
 these express conditions, and with hands struck in 
 confirmation of the promise made, Master George 
 was delivered up to the Earl, who transported him 
 in the dark, like a partridge in the net of a poacher, 
 
1 62 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 to Elphingstone Tower, and presented him to the 
 Arch-Inquisitor. 
 
 It was well, as it transpired, that George Wishart 
 was quietly handed over to the treacherous Both- 
 well. No resistance could have effected his deliver- 
 ance. The enemy was strong ; 500 soldiers lay 
 at Elphingstone Tower, ready to seize the Re- 
 former by force if the Earl failed to accomplish 
 his purpose by stealth. Indeed, immediately 
 after Wishart had been secured, the noise of 
 horsemen was heard at Ormiston. On the star- 
 less morning of the seventeenth day of January, 
 1546, the soldiers of the Cardinal and Governor 
 burst open the gates of Ormiston, rushed in 
 among the astonished and bewildered servants, 
 and called peremptorily for the Laird. Cockburn 
 and young Sandilands of Calder quickly appeared 
 upon the scene, and demanded their commission. 
 " To bring you two and the Laird of Brunston 
 to the Governor ! " Entreating the soldiers to 
 refresh themselves and "bait their horse," Ormis- 
 ton and Calder withdrew. Meanwhile, Brunston, 
 alarmed and terrified, fled secretly through Ormis- 
 ton wood, and escaped. But his two companions 
 were less fortunate ; they were seized, bound, 
 carried to Edinburgh, and imprisoned in the Castle. 
 
 In company with his friends, Wishart was at 
 
George WisJiart, the Preacher. 163 
 
 first transported to Edinburgh ; but to save the 
 honour of Bothwell, the conspirator, it would 
 appear, he was eventually brought back to Hailes 
 Castle, which stood in a sequestered retreat on the 
 banks of the Tyne, in Prestonkirk Parish. But the 
 Reformer was not detained long in the Earl's 
 castle. Conquered by the Cardinal's gold, and the 
 bigoted Queen's blandishments and flatteries, Both- 
 well soon surrendered his prisoner to the Popish 
 party, and thus even formally broke his word of 
 honour and belied his fair promises.* The Popish 
 party rejoiced at the capture of Wishart, and in a 
 few days they triumphed ; for the detested preacher 
 lay in the horribly dark and loathsome sea-tower of 
 the Cardinal's castle at St. Andrews, waiting a 
 mock-trial, and preparing for martyrdom ! 
 
 * " The Laird refused to deliver him till the Earl of Bothwell 
 came and was cautioner, upon his faith and honour, to keep him 
 skaithless. Nevertheless, this facile Earl was enticed by the Car- 
 dinal to render him into his hands ; who carried him to St. 
 Andrews, and imprisoned him in the sea-tower. But from this 
 time forth, the Earl Bothwell prospered never, neither any of his 
 affairs. — Lindsay of ' Pitscottie 's History, p. 188 (Edit. 1728). 
 
1 64 The Martyrs of A ngus and Mearns. 
 
 VI. 
 GEORGE WISHART, THE MARTYR. 
 
 " But what the guilt that on the dead a fate so fearful drew? 
 A blameless faith was all the crime a Christian martyr knew ; 
 And where the crimson current flowed upon the barren sand, 
 Up sprung a tree, whose vigorous boughs soon overspread the 
 land." 
 
 — Hamilton Buchanan. 
 
 History repeats itself because human nature 
 never changes. Caiaphas the Jew, and Pilate the 
 Roman, are representative characters : the one is 
 the embodiment of priestly fanaticism and intoler- 
 ance, the other of worldly wisdom, of political 
 expediency, and moral cowardice. The High 
 Priest of Israel, blinded by pride and prejudice, 
 confounds the Messiah with a dangerous fanatic 
 and daring blasphemer, and thirsts for his blood. 
 The Roman Governor of Judea, stoically just and 
 calm, scornful of all religious partisans and sect- 
 arian jealousies, discovers in Jesus of Na;:areth a 
 faultless man. But the crafty and cruel Priest 
 triumphs over the Governor, by appealing to his 
 selfish motives and worldly ambitions, and per- 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 165 
 
 suades him to deliver the Galilean Teacher into 
 his hands. Fifteen centuries later, Caiaphas and 
 Pilate reappear in Cardinal Beaton and the Earl 
 of Arran — High Priest and Governor in Scotland 
 during the first quarter of the year 1 546. Full of 
 fanatical zeal and hatred, perhaps animated by 
 fear too, the Priest hounds Wishart to death; while 
 the Governor, conscience-stricken and vacillating, 
 is desirous of protecting the innocent man from his 
 terrible foe. But ultimately the Churchman over- 
 comes the Civil Magistrate by urging the old- 
 fashioned, worldly-wise, yet thoroughly mean and 
 contemptible plea : " If thou let this man go, thou 
 art not Caesar's friend." 
 
 Thus, cast into Beaton's net, the evangelical 
 preacher soon found himself in the east sea-tower 
 of the Castle of St. Andrews — a sullen bottle- 
 shaped dungeon hewn out of the solid rock, whose 
 dreariness was only deepened by the lapping of 
 the lazy wave, or the booming of the stormy 
 billows. The castle, situated on the bare and 
 breezy headland, north of the city, is now a 
 grim, weather-beaten, and dilapidated tower, 
 affording the visitor no proper idea of what the 
 home of the great prelates was in the days of Papal 
 supremacy. But so long as the crumbling ruin 
 stands, it must be an object of curious interest to 
 
1 66 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 every patriotic Scotsman. For here King James 
 the First was educated ; and here King James the 
 Third was born. Here Patrick Hamilton was im- 
 prisoned before he marched forth with quick firm 
 step to the bonfire and the crown of martyrdom ; 
 and here, too, George Wishart lay bound in irons, 
 from the end of January to the first day of March, 
 1546. 
 
 Thirsting for the blood of the captive, Beaton 
 frequently attempted to secure " a commission and 
 a judge-criminal to give doom on Master George 
 if the clergy found him guilty ;" but he failed in 
 all his endeavours. All men knew what the clergy 
 would do when the Cardinal sat upon the tribunal. 
 Would they not bully, silence, condemn, hang and 
 burn the Evangelist ? Even the Governor of the 
 Kingdom grew cautious and timid when Beaton 
 spoke of a lay-commission. Although he had 
 weakly and criminally delivered Wishart into the 
 Cardinal's hands, he revolted at the idea of 
 Wishart's blood lying upon him, and crying to 
 Heaven for vengeance. In Sir David Hamilton 
 of Preston the Regent found a wise adviser, 
 who powerfully supported him in the hour of 
 temptation. " I marvel, Sir," said Hamilton, 
 " for what reason you thus consent to the 
 murder of the preachers of Christ's Evangel 
 
George Wis hart, the Martyr. 167 
 
 whereof you have been a professor yourself ; 
 yea, seeing you yourself have commanded and 
 desired all men to read and exercise the Old 
 and New Testaments, which is the only Dittay 
 against Mr. George Wishart. You are now, by the 
 Grace of God, advanced to the place of a king in 
 Scotland ; you ought, therefore, to honour God 
 who hath honoured you, by procuring a free 
 passage to His Word through this Realm ; which, 
 if you neglect, trust not to have so good success in 
 your affairs as before you have found. Remember 
 how God rent the kingdom from Saul, and gave it to 
 David, for his disobedience."* But Beaton was too 
 haughty and imperious to be thwarted and defeated 
 in his plans by one so irresolute as the Regent 
 Arran. If the Civil Magistrate refused to share 
 the responsibility of burning the heretic, the 
 Churchmen would bear their own burden. Solicit- 
 ing aid from the Archbishop of Glasgow, the 
 Cardinal made him a partaker of his guilt. 
 Hitherto Beaton and Dunbar had been at enmity ; 
 but they forgot past feuds in their common ardour 
 to purge the Church. Fompous and jealous of his 
 honour and dignity, the Archbishop, " Good Guk- 
 stone Glaikstour," had openly quarrelled with the 
 
 * Lindsay of Pitscottie's History, p. 188 (Edit. 1728). 
 
1 68 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Cardinal over the paltry question of priority in a 
 splendid procession in the Cathedral of Glasgow. 
 As Primate and the Pope's Nuncio, Beaton had 
 certainly the right of ecclesiastical precedence ; but 
 Dunbar, " proud as a peacock," in his gorgeous 
 vestments and tinsel finery, insisted on heading the 
 procession and conducting it out of the choir door 
 of his own Church. Indignant at the Western pre- 
 late's presumption, the Cardinal refused to follow 
 with his gilded cross, and strife ensued. The 
 broken bonds of friendship, however, were welded 
 together in the fires of a common hatred. Dunbar 
 had not forgotten the preacher who invaded his 
 Diocese, captivated the people of Ayr by his 
 eloquence, and drew the multitudes into the fields 
 to worship ; and so he readily accepted the 
 Cardinal's invitation, hastened to St. Andrews, 
 occupied a prominent seat on the tribunal, voted 
 first against Wishart, then subscribed the deed of 
 of death, and finally gloated over the barbarous 
 spectacle of the martyrdom. 
 
 The trial of George Wishart is invested with 
 singular interest, and we shall examine its details.* 
 
 * Lindsay of Fitscottie and Foxe the Martyrologist are the best 
 authorities on the subject of Wishart's trial and martyrdom. Foxe 
 acknowledges that he borrowed his information regarding most of 
 the Scottish Worthies from written testimonies of Scotsmen on the 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 169 
 
 The tribunal of Bishops was constituted in the 
 Abbey Church of St. Andrews on the twenty- 
 eighth day of February ; and the preacher was 
 conducted from the dungeon to the church by the 
 Captain of the Castle and his men of war, armed 
 with jack, knapsal, splent, spear, and axe. Like a 
 lamb, the Reformer went to the slaughter ; and at 
 the close of his career manifested the Christian 
 virtues and graces which distinguished him at 
 Cambridge and Dundee. His last act was an act 
 of charity. As he entered the Abbey Church he 
 flung his purse to a poor lame man, " vexed with 
 great infirmities." 
 
 The proceedings of the memorable day were be- 
 
 ground (Ex Scripto Testimotiio Scotorum), but his account of 
 Wishart's accusation was quoted from a printed work (Ex Histor: 
 Impressa). This work seems to have been a tractate entitled 
 " The Tragical Death of David Beato, Bishoppe of Sainct 
 Andrevves in Scotland ; Whereunto is joyned the Martyrdom of 
 Maister George Wyscharte, Gentleman, for whose sake the afore- 
 said bishoppe was not long after slain Imprinted at 
 
 London, by John Day, and William Seres, dwelling in Sepulchres 
 Parish at the sign of the Resurrection, a little above Hoburn Con- 
 duct." The Tragedy of Beaton is printed in small letter ; the Trial 
 of Wishart in large black letter. It is without a date, but it must 
 have been published before 1560, as it was very dear and scarce 
 when Knox wrote his history. The Actes and Monumentes was 
 originally published at London by John Daye in 1564, and il 
 would appear that Knox copied his account of Wishart's trial from 
 this early edition of Foxe. See M'Crie's Life of Knox (Notes), p. 
 400; Knox's Hist., Vol. I., pp. 170, 171 (Laing's edit. ). 
 
I/O The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 gun with a sermon, and the preacher was John 
 Winram, Sub-Prior of the Abbey. A reformer at 
 heart, he was not disposed to deal harshly with 
 Wishart. Discoursing on the thirteenth chapter 
 of Matthew's Gospel, he described the good seed 
 of the kingdom as the Word of God, and the evil 
 seed as heresy. He justly defined heresy as " a 
 false opinion defended with pertinacity, clearly re- 
 pugning the Word of God," and declared that the 
 cause of heresy in the realm was " the ignorance 
 of them that have the cures of men's souls." After 
 enforcing the importance of a true knowledge of 
 the Scriptures, he proceeded to note the qualifica- 
 tions of a good bishop ; and when he quoted St. 
 Paul's words to Titus : " A bishop must be fault- 
 less, as it becometh the minister of God, not stub- 
 born, nor angry ; no drunkard, no fighter, not 
 given to filthy lucre, but harbourous; one that lov- 
 eth goodness ; sober-minded, righteous, holy, tem- 
 perate, and such as cleaveth unto the true word of 
 doctrine, that he may be able to exhort with 
 wholesome learning, and to disprove that which 
 they say against him," many of the clergy must 
 have felt the arrow of rebuke rankling in their 
 breast. Then he clearly showed how heresies 
 might be infallibly tested and known : " As the 
 goldsmith knoweth the fine gold from the imper- 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. i/i 
 
 feet, by the touchstone, so likewise may we know- 
 heresy by the undoubted touchstone ; that is, the 
 true, sincere, and undefiled Word of God." And, 
 finally, he inculcated a doctrine peculiarly Romish, 
 but distinctly opposed to the plain sense of his 
 text. "Heretics," said he, "should be put down in 
 this present life by the civil magistrate and law;" 
 but Christ in the Gospel said : " Nay ; lest while ye 
 gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with 
 them. Let both grow together until the harvest." 
 As soon as Winram descended from the pulpit, 
 Wishart mounted it to hear " his accusation and 
 articles." Master John Lauder was the public 
 prosecutor. He was a man of some importance in 
 his day, and had won distinction in the Church by 
 the flaming zeal which he manifested in the 
 suppression of preachers who exposed the errors of 
 Rome.* Of violent temper, of coarse tastes, and of 
 hard flinty heart, he was a blustering, blundering 
 priest, a facile instrument in the hands of the 
 bishops, and always ready to perform any dis- 
 
 * Lauder was a licentiate of St. Andrews in 1508, and he must 
 have been a pretty old man when he acted as Wishart's accuser. 
 He filled many ecclesiastical offices. He was, at different times, 
 the Agent for the Beatons at Rome, Parson of Morebattle, Arch- 
 deacon of Teviotdale, Notary Public at St. Andrews, and the 
 Secretary of Archbishop Hamilton. 
 
172 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 agreeable service for them. While playing the 
 part of accuser in Wishart's trial, he showed him- 
 self in his true colours. His conduct was that 
 of a cowardly bully. In addressing the Re- 
 former his object was to terrify him into submis- 
 sion and silence, and so he heaped threats and 
 maledictions on his head, and " hit him so spite- 
 fully with the Pope's thunder, that the ignorant 
 people dreaded lest the earth then would have 
 swallowed him up." Patiently and serenely 
 Wishart listened to his babbling. The calm face 
 of the accused man roused his passionate 
 anger. Frenzied, the sweat ran down his cheeks, 
 and the froth foamed at his mouth. Then 
 he insolently spit in Master George's face, and 
 shouted : " What answerest thou to these say- 
 ings, thou runnagate, traitor, thief! which we 
 have duly proved by sufficient witness against 
 thee." Falling on his knees, the good soldier 
 of Jesus Christ prayed for wisdom and strength, 
 and then proceeded to answer for himself. 
 After declaring that many of Lauder's statements 
 were abominable to him, he besought a patient 
 hearing that they might know the real nature of 
 the doctrine he believed. He desired to be heard 
 quietly for three reasons : First, " because, through 
 preaching of the Word of God, his glory is made 
 
George WisJiart, the Martyr. 173 
 
 manifest " ; Secondly, because " health springeth 
 of the Word of God, for he worketh all things by 
 his Word " ; and Thirdly, because " it is just and 
 reasonable that your discretions should know what 
 my words and doctrines are, and what I have ever 
 taught in my time in this realm, that I perish not 
 unjustly, to the great peril of your souls." 
 
 " Meantime I shall recite my doctrine without 
 any colour. First and chiefly, since the time I 
 came into this realm, I taught nothing but the Ten 
 Commandments of God, the Twelve Articles of the 
 Faith, and the Prayer of the Lord in the mother 
 tongue. Moreover, in Dundee I taught the Epistle 
 of St. Paul to the Romans." Suddenly the 
 passionate Lauder interrupted the speaker: "Thou 
 heretic, runnagate, traitor, and thief! it was not 
 lawful for thee to preach. Thou hast taken the 
 power at thine own hand, without any authority of 
 the Church. We forethink that thou hast been a 
 preacher too long." The assembled prelates sup- 
 ported their spokesman, saying : " If we give him 
 license to preach, he is so crafty, and in the Holy 
 Scriptures so exercised, that he will persuade the 
 people to his opinion, and raise them against 
 us." Discerning their malicious disposition and 
 purpose, Master George appealed from the Car- 
 dinal to the Governor, in the hope of obtaining 
 
1/4 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 justice from an impartial judge ; but he was in- 
 stantly silenced by the thunder and lightning 
 of Lauder's satanic rage, and the derision of 
 the people. " Is not my Lord Cardinal the 
 second person within the realm, Chancellor of 
 Scotland, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Bishop of 
 Mirepoix, Commendator of Aberbrothock, Legatus 
 natus, Legatus a latere ? And so, reciting as 
 many titles of his unworthy honours as would have 
 laden a ship, much sooner an ass, "Is not he," 
 quoth John Lauder, " an equal judge apparently 
 unto thee ? Whom else desirest thou to be thy 
 judge ?" 
 
 Then the Cardinal read the articles against him 
 " that the people might not complain of his 
 wrongful condemnation ;" and Wishart answered 
 the various charges as fully as he was permitted to 
 speak. As will be seen, they deal mainly with the 
 sacraments. 
 
 [. Charged with being a deceiver of the people, 
 a despiser of holy Church, and particularly with 
 persisting in preaching after the Governor had 
 commanded him to desist, and the Bishop of 
 Brechin had cursed him, and delivered him into 
 the hands of the Devil, Wishart replied that it 
 was " not lawful to desist from the preaching of 
 the Gospel for the threats and menaces of men. 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 175 
 
 Therefore, it is written, We shall rather obey God 
 than man. I have also read in Malachi, 'I shall 
 curse your blessings, and bless your cursings, saith 
 the Lord.' " 
 
 II. "Thou, false heretic! didst say, that the priest, 
 standing at the altar, saying mass, was like a fox 
 wagging his tail in July." " My lords ! I said not 
 so," replied Wishart. " These were my sayings : 
 ' The moving of the body outward, without the in- 
 ward moving of the heart, is nought else but the 
 playing of an ape, and not the true serving of 
 God. For God is a secret searcher of men's 
 hearts : therefore who will truly adore and honour 
 God, he must in spirit and verity honour him.' " 
 
 III. Accused of preaching against the Sacra- 
 ments, and denying that they were seven in num- 
 ber ; the Reformer answered that he had " never 
 taught of the number of the Sacraments, whether 
 they were seven or eleven. So many as were 
 instituted by Christ he professed openly. The 
 evangel was his Directory."* 
 
 IV. Charged with denying that Auricular Confes- 
 
 * Alexander Alesius, in his answer to Bishop Stokesley in the 
 House of Convocation (1537) put the argument well: "Sacra- 
 ments be seals ascertaining us of God's good will. Without the 
 Word there is no certainty of God's good will. Therefore without 
 the Word there be no sacraments." 
 
176 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 sion was one of the sacraments, and with teaching 
 that men should confess to God, and not to the 
 priest in the confessional-box ; he averred that 
 auricular confession could not be a Sacrament 
 since it had no promise of the Gospel, and argued 
 that while St. James said : " Acknowledge your 
 faults one to another, and pray for one another } 
 that you may be healed," the Psalmist David 
 wrote : " I thought I would acknowledge mine in- 
 iquity against myself unto the Lord, and he for- 
 gave the punishment of my sin."* 
 
 The bishops and their accomplices were indig- 
 nant when they heard Wishart's answer. It was 
 weighty and incontrovertible. " Grinning with 
 their teeth," they said : " See ye not what colours 
 he hath in speaking, that he may beguile and 
 seduce us to his opinion ? " 
 
 V. Accused of teaching that it was important 
 and necessary for all who presented children for 
 Baptism to understand the nature of the sacra- 
 ment, and the vows to be taken thereupon, he 
 shrewdly replied that as there was none "so 
 unwise as to make merchandise with a Frenchman, 
 or any other unknown stranger, except he knew 
 and understood first the condition or promise 
 
 * James v. 16. Psalm xxxii. 5. 
 
George Wiskart, the Martyr. ijj 
 
 made by the Frenchman, so likewise I would that 
 we understood what thing we promise in the name 
 of the infant unto God in baptism." The homely 
 but convincing analogy staggered Master Blecter, 
 the chaplain. Unable to find a good argument to 
 confute the defender he substituted a fresh accusa- 
 tion to afford an outlet for the boiling lavas of his 
 wrath. " He hath a devil within him, and the 
 spirit of error," said Blecter ; but a child standing 
 by exclaimed : "The devil cannot speak such words 
 as yonder man doth speak." 
 
 VI. Then the prosecutor charged him with 
 rejecting the dogma of Transubstantiatioii, and 
 saying "that the sacrament of the altar was but 
 a piece of bread baked upon ashes, and no other 
 thing else ; and all that is there done is but a 
 superstitious rite." To this accusation Wishart 
 replied that he had never taught anything against 
 the Scripture, and that he would rather die than 
 sacrifice the truth of God. The lawful and 
 scriptural' use of the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper was acceptable to God, and the abuse of it 
 detestable. Moreover, the doctrine of Transub- 
 stantiation, involving the bodily presence of Christ 
 on earth in innumerable places of worship at the 
 same moment, was a stumbling-block toearnestmen. 
 Sailing down the Rhine he had encountered a Jew 
 
 M 
 
178 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 who had chid him for tolerating idols in the 
 church, and worshipping " a piece of bread baken 
 upon the ashes " as a god ! Here he was suddenly 
 checked and insulted : shaking their heads the 
 bishops spat on the earth contemptuously, and 
 refused to permit him to expound his views con- 
 cerning the Lord's Supper. Receiving with a 
 blind and childish credulity the awful dogma of 
 Transubstantiation, the bishops regarded the Pro- 
 testant and Calvinistic dissenter as a rationalizing 
 and dangerous infidel, whose words were the very 
 poison of asps. 
 
 VII. Accused of denying that Extreme Unction 
 was a genuine sacrament ; he simply asserted that 
 he had never ventured to express an opinion on 
 the subject. 
 
 viii. Charged with affirming that "Holy Water 
 was not so good as wash " and that the " cursings 
 of the Church availed nothing ;" he replied that he 
 had never spoken of the strength of holy water or 
 condemned conjurings and exorcisms that were 
 sanctioned by the Word of God. 
 
 IX. Enraged and disappointed, the public pro- 
 secutor now pounced upon the " false heretic and 
 runnagate," and accused him of teaching that 
 every layman was a priest, and that the Pope teas 
 no more powerful spiritually than any other man. 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 179 
 
 Wishart calmly stated that St. John and St. Peter 
 plainly inculcated the doctrine of the priesthood of 
 all true believers ; and, furthermore, he affirmed 
 that no man, whatever his estate or order, 
 could bind or loose, who was not in possession of 
 the instrument of binding or loosing — namely, the 
 Word of God. This answer of the Reformer 
 tickled the bishops, for they laughed and mocked. 
 Clearly they regarded him as a presumptuous 
 and visionary fanatic ; but he was nevertheless 
 a noble and learned Biblical theologian, one who 
 substituted the pure doctrines of Christianity 
 for the irrational traditions and superstitions 
 of pharisaical priests. Indignant at the frivolous 
 and mocking bishops, Wishart administered to 
 them a gentle but dignified rebuke. " Laugh ye, 
 my lords ? Though these sayings appear scornful 
 and worthy of derision to your lordships, neverthe- 
 less they are very weighty to me, and of great 
 value, because they stand not only upon my life, 
 but also the honour and glory of God." Beholding 
 the patience of the Reformer, and contrasting it 
 with the ferocious cruelty of the bishops, "godly 
 men mourned and lamented," says Foxe ; but 
 no tear of sorrow, no wail of anguish touched the 
 hard and flinty hearts of the frenzied Church- 
 men. They had assembled not to convert an 
 
1 80 The Martyrs of A ngus and Mearns. 
 
 erring brother, but to condemn him ; and, conse- 
 quently, they would listen to no scriptural argu- 
 ment or plaintive entreaty. 
 
 X. Now the theologians become metaphysicians, 
 and, like Milton's angels, "reason on foreknowledge, 
 freewill, and fate." 
 
 Charging Wishart with teaching Necessitarianism, 
 with holding that the human will has no freedom 
 of choice, and that all desire is of God ; the 
 Reformer argued that all Christians possess the 
 freedom wherewith the Son maketh his brethren 
 free, and that all unbelievers are the bondservants 
 of sin. " If the Son make you free, ye shall be 
 free indeed," but he that sinneth is bound to sin.* 
 
 XI. Descending from high speculations on the 
 freedom of the will, to babblings concerning the 
 childish and ascetical practices of the Romish 
 Church, the prosecutor charged the Reformer 
 with asserting that it was quite as lawful to eat 
 Jfesh upon Friday as on Sunday. The accused 
 had become a Bible-Christian, and he had grown 
 as catholic and broad in his opinions and sym- 
 pathies as the Apostle of the Gentiles. He 
 had learned from the Epistles that " to the 
 pure all things are pure," that to the faithful 
 
 * John viii. 
 
George VVishart, the Martyr. 181 
 
 man " all things are sanctified by the Word of God 
 and prayer :" and consequently he argued that the 
 kingdom of God did not consist in meat and drink, 
 but in righteousness and peace and love ; and that 
 while a creature cannot sanctify an impure man, a 
 faithful man, clean and holy, can sanctify, by the 
 Word, the creature of God.* 
 
 Wishart's answer maddened the ritualistic bish- 
 ops. Unspiritual and shallow-souled, their reli- 
 gion was a thing of external ceremonies. Possessed 
 of no noble passion for truth and righteousness, des- 
 titute of that "jubilant pining and longing for God 
 which is the balsam and wine of predestinate wills," 
 hungering for no Bread of Everlasting Life, they 
 substituted, like the sanctimonious and grovelling 
 Pharisees of old, the husk of religion for the ker- 
 nel, form for substance, the letter for the spirit, re- 
 ligious observances for a life of faith and fellowship 
 
 * To a Member of the Privy Council of England, Sadler the Am- 
 bassador at Holyrood Palace wrote : " I have no good-will here of 
 the bishops and priests, nor any of their band, which is yet too strong 
 for the other side, as far as I can see. They raised a bruit here, " that 
 I and all my folks did eat flesh here as hereticks and Jews ; " and 
 thereupon open proclamation was made by commandment of the 
 Cardinal, in all the churches within the diocese, " that whosoever 
 should buy an egg, or eat an egg, within those dioceses, should for- 
 feit no less than his body to the fire, to be brunt as an heretick, and 
 all his goods confiscate to the king." — Sadler State Papers, Vol. I. 
 pp. 47, 4& 
 
1 82 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 with the divine and the personal God. And so 
 when the reformer slighted their perfectly harm- 
 less, but unscriptural and unwarrantable custom of 
 abstaining from flesh on Friday, when Christ died 
 upon the Cross, they regarded him as a heinous 
 sinner fit only for burning. " What needeth us 
 any witness against him ? " said the dignitaries 
 who sat as spiritual judges. " Hath he not here 
 openly spoken blasphemy ? " 
 
 xii. Satisfied that the reformer was the foe of all 
 the ascetical practices and traditional doctrines of 
 the Church, the prosecutor forthwith tested him on 
 questions of faith. 
 
 The first question pertained to the lawfulness 
 and efficacy of prayers to departed saints. Charged 
 with proclaiming the futility of such prayers Wishart 
 boldly affirmed that the Scriptures, on which he 
 took his stand, inculcated the doctrine of Christ's 
 alone intercession, while they distinctly discounte- 
 nanced any tenet such as the invocation of saints. 
 Praying to God through the one great Mediator 
 and High Priest, they were assured of being heard 
 and answered ; but they were uncertain whether 
 the saints could even hear an unsafe invocation. 
 The one way was sure, the other unsafe ; and he 
 exhorted all men to choose the sure way. 
 
 xill. Accused next of preaching against the 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 183 
 
 Romish doctrine of Purgatory, and of calling it a 
 feigned thing ; he answered that although he had 
 read over the Bible divers times he had found no 
 such doctrine or term as Purgatory. And then he 
 turned upon Master John Lauder, the prosecutor, 
 and said : " If you have any testimony of the 
 Scripture, by which you may prove any such 
 place, show it now before this auditory." "But the 
 dolt," says Foxe, was "as dumb as a beetle in that 
 matter." 
 
 XIV. Returning to the attack, Lauder accused 
 Wishart of preaching against the lawfulness of 
 monastic vows, and of agitating for liberty for 
 priests to marry wives. The Reformer at once de- 
 clared his admiration of chaste men, who had 
 voluntarily become eunuchs for the Kingdom of 
 Heaven's sake, but he plainly affirmed, after 
 St. Paul, that marriage was honourable in all, and 
 necessary for the incontinent. 
 
 XV. Asked whether he would obey general and 
 provincial councils ; he replied that he would not 
 disagree with anything that agreed with the Word 
 of God. Then the ravening wolves turned unto 
 madness and said : " Wherefore do we let him 
 speak any further? Read forth the rest of the 
 articles and stay not upon them." Among these 
 cruel tigers there was one called John Scot, stand- 
 
184 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 ing at Lauder's back, urging him to read rapidly 
 the rest of the articles, and forbidding him to 
 tarry upon Wishart's witty and godly answers. 
 " For wc may not abide them," quoth he, " no 
 more than the devil can abide the sign of the 
 cross when it is named." 
 
 XVI. Proceeding hastily, the prosecutor charged 
 the prisoner with teaching that it is " vain to build 
 to the honour of God costly churches, seeing that 
 God remaineth not in churches made with men's 
 hands, nor yet can God be in so little space as be- 
 twixt the priest's hands" (alluding to the wafer in 
 the mass). Wishart's reply was admirable. Hav- 
 ing expatiated on the greatness and incompre- 
 hensibility of God, and having appositely quoted 
 the sublime and beautiful sayings of Job and 
 Solomon on the subject, he flatly denied the main 
 charge, and declared that churches should be sus- 
 tained for the purposes of preaching the Word of 
 God, and of celebrating the Sacraments in a lawful 
 manner, and concluded by asserting that though 
 God could not be comprehended in any place, 
 He was present wheresoever two or three were 
 gathered together in His name. 
 
 XVII. Charged with contemn ing _/#•$•////{,'•,• he re- 
 plied that fasting was enjoined in the Gospel, and 
 that it was beneficial for the health of the bod v. 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 185 
 
 XVIII. And finally, when he was accused of pro- 
 mulgating the heretical doctrine of the sleep of the 
 soul, he affirmed that the souls of believers in Christ 
 should never sleep, but should daily grow until 
 they were crowned with immortal strength and 
 beauty ! 
 
 Notwithstanding Wishart's scriptural and admir- 
 able answers to all the charges, the Cardinal and 
 Prelates adjudged him a heretic worthy of death, 
 and sentenced him to the burning. Conducted 
 back to the castle, Wishart waited patiently and 
 calmly for death by fire, on the following day. 
 Meanwhile Beaton despatched Friar Scot and his 
 companion to the Castle to hear Wishart's last 
 confession ; but he would have nothing to do with 
 them. He thought of Dean Winram, the preacher 
 of the day, and he signified to his visitors his readi- 
 ness to " open his mind to the godly man." On 
 the appearance of Winram, the Reformer was 
 comforted. The Dean wept with many tears, 
 acknowledged Mr. George's innocence, and in- 
 quired whether he would have his sacrament. 
 " Yea, gladly, if I might have it as Christ insti- 
 tuted it." Returning to the Prelates, Winram 
 urged Wishart's innocence, and pleaded for his de- 
 liverance. But the Cardinal was obdurate, and, 
 hinting at the pleader's reforming tendencies and 
 
1 86 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 influence upon the noviciates entrusted to his care 
 in the Priory, said : " Well, sir, and you, we know 
 what a man you are seven years ago." Then 
 Winram asked permission to administer the last 
 sacrament to the man who was waiting for 
 death, but he was told that a condemned heretic 
 could have no benefit of the Church. "With 
 this answer," says Pitscottie, " the Sub-Prior 
 returned to Mr. George ; and, having promised 
 to pray each one for the other, they parted 
 with shedding of tears." But if the Cardinal 
 refused to allow the Reformer the last con- 
 solations of the Christian religion, the Captain 
 of the Castle, and the gentlemen who were with 
 him, manifested real sympathy with theprisoner,and 
 showed him not a little kindness. Inviting him to 
 dine with them, Wishart gladly consented. "With 
 a good will," said he, " and more gladly than 
 ever heretofore, because I perceive ye are good 
 men and godly, and that this shall be my 
 last meat on earth. But I exhort you that you 
 would give me audience, with silence for a little 
 time, while I bless this meat, which we shall eat as 
 brethren in Christ ; and thereafter I will take my leave 
 of you." The table was covered ; the bread was 
 placed thereon ; and for half an hour Mr. George 
 discoursed on the death and passion of the 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 187 
 
 Saviour, exhorting all to love and charity, as the 
 members of Christ Jesus. Having blessed the bread 
 and wine he ate and drank himself, and then gave 
 the elements to those about him. He was going 
 to taste a bitter cup, and that because of his 
 fidelity to the truth, and zeal for the glory of God, 
 and so he said : " Pray ye for me and I for you, 
 that our meeting may be in the joys of Heaven, 
 with our Father, since there is nothing in earth 
 but anxiety and sorrow." When he had said this 
 " he gave thanks to God and retired to his devo- 
 tion." 
 
 While Wishart was praying and contemplating 
 the eternal splendours, the Cardinal's men were 
 busily engaged in the erection of a scaffold 
 "without the castle-gate against the west block- 
 house, where the bishops might ly on the wall-heads, 
 and see the sacrifice." Fearing lest the friends of 
 the Reformer might attempt to rescue him, the 
 Cardinal "commanded to bend all the ordnance 
 of the Castle right against that part, and comman- 
 ded all the gunners to be ready and stand beside 
 their guns, until such time as he was burned." 
 When the scaffold was erected, and the artillery 
 charged, and the wall-heads of the Castle " spread 
 with cushions and green cloths," and armed men 
 stood around, Wishart, with his hands bound be- 
 
1 88 The Martyrs of Angus and Meant s. 
 
 hind his back, marched under guard to the place 
 of execution. As he was about to step upon the 
 scaffold some beggars assailed him for alms, but as 
 his hands were bound he was permitted only to 
 give them his benediction, and to implore "the 
 merciful Lord, of his benignity and abundance of 
 grace," to bestow upon them all that was good 
 for their souls and bodies. Escaping thus from 
 the beggars, who are tli2 natural satellites of 
 Rome, he was confronted by two friars, who 
 exhorted him " to pray to our lady " that she might 
 intercede for him, but he meekly answered : 
 " Cease, tempt me not, my brethren ! " With a 
 rope round his neck, and a chain of iron about his 
 waist, he was led to the fire, and he went submis- 
 sively and courageously. When he came to the 
 stake he fell on his knees, and thrice said : " O thou 
 Saviour of the world ! have mercy on me. Father 
 of Heaven ! I commend my spirit into Thy holy 
 hands." 
 
 After prayer he turned to the crowd, and be- 
 sought them right manfully " not to be offended 
 in the Word of God, for the afflictions and torments 
 which they saw prepared for him." Then he ex- 
 horted them to love the Word of God, and to suffer 
 patiently and with a comfortable heart for it. " For 
 the Word's sake," said he, " I suffer this day by 
 
George Wiskart, the Martyr. 189 
 
 man, not sorrowfully, but with a glad heart and 
 mind : for this cause I was sent, that I should suf- 
 fer this fire, for Christ's sake. Consider and behold 
 my visage, ye shall not see me change my colour. 
 The grim fire I fear not. And so I pray you to do, 
 if an)' persecution come unto you for the Word's 
 sake; and not to fear them that slay the body, and 
 afterwards have no power to slay the soul. Some 
 have said of me that I taught that the soul of man 
 should sleep until the last day. But I know surely, 
 aud my faith is such, that my soul shall sup with 
 my Saviour Christ this night (ere it be six hours), 
 for whom I suffer this." Having thus addressed 
 the assembled people, he, in the spirit of Christian 
 charity, prayed for his persecutors : " I beseech 
 Thee, Father of Heaven ! to forgive them that 
 have of any ignorance, or else have of any evil 
 mind, forged any lies upon me: I forgive them with 
 all my heart. I beseech Christ to forgive them that 
 have condemned me to death this day ignorantly." 
 And finally, he uttered these words of warning and 
 entreaty : " I beseech you, brethren and sisters, to 
 exhort your prelates to the learning of the Word 
 of God, that they at the last may be ashamed to 
 <io evil, and learn to do good. And if they will 
 not convert themselves from their wicked error, 
 there shall hastily come upon them the wrath of 
 
igo The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 God which they shall not eschew ! "* These words, 
 it will be observed, are perfectly general, and they 
 are as truly christian in sentiment as those spoken 
 by our Lord Himself when he foretold the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem. It is easy, of course, for partisans 
 who have rushed to the premature conclusion that 
 the Martyr was a political conspirator, to discern in 
 them a prophecy based on secret knowledge of a 
 deep-laid and dark plot to compass Cardinal 
 Beaton's death ; but to unbiassed writers, who dis- 
 pense with coloured spectacles, they appear simply 
 to embody a general principle frequently enforced 
 in Scripture, That " the way of the wicked 
 is as darkness." How natural for a religious man, 
 
 * It is notable that the more minute and picturesque prophecy 
 fastened upon the Martyr is neither found in Foxe's Acts and Monu- 
 ments, nor in the early editions of Knox's History of the Reforma- 
 tion. It is found in the edition of Knox's History, published by 
 David Buchanan in 1644. The passage is certainly spurious, and 
 we have consequently omitted it in the text. It runs : — "Then M. 
 Wischarde, looking towards the Cardinal, said, He who in such 
 state, from that high place, feedeth his eyes with my torments, 
 within few days shall be hanged out at the same window, to be 
 seen with as much ignominy as he now leaneth there in pride. Then 
 with this, the executioner drawing the cord, stoet his breath ; pre- 
 sently after, the fire being great, he was consumed to powder." 
 We may safely conclude that this prophecy was never uttered by 
 Wishart, inasmuch as Knox, who was in the castle with the men 
 who assassinated Beaton, does not mention it. Nor is it repeated 
 by the author who supplied Foxe with his information, nor yet by 
 Sir David Lindsay, who wrote The Tragedy of the Cardinal. 
 
George WisJiart, the Martyr. 191 
 
 profoundly conscious of his own innocence and of 
 the ignorance and blindness of the prelates who 
 had condemned him to death, to implore his 
 " brethren and sisters to exhort their prelates to 
 the learning of the Word of God" ! How fitting 
 that one standing on the verge of the eternal world 
 should warn his persecutors of the wrath of God 
 that cometh on the children of darkness and dis- 
 obedience, and call them to repentance ! Surely a 
 dying man cannot be blamed if he manifest intense 
 earnestness, and use language of extraordinary 
 strength and vividness. To burn a human being, 
 a brother man, because he holds fast by what he 
 in the deeps of his soul believes to be eternal truth, 
 is red-handed murder ; and what wonder if the 
 helpless victim of fanatical hate and intolerance 
 should at the last express his opinion of his 
 enemies in violent language, and invoke the ven- 
 geance of Eternal Justice ! But George Wishart 
 exhibited no vindictive spirit, and his words were 
 not words of threatening but of warning and en- 
 treaty. Indeed, the amazing fortitude, the extra- 
 ordinary patience and long-suffering and meekness 
 he displayed in the face of terrible temptations, 
 have endeared him to all his more serious country- 
 men, and have entitled him to rank among the 
 foremost of the Scottish Worthies. 
 
19- The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Having spoken his last word to the crowd 
 around the stake, he turned to the poor, miserable 
 hangman, who, on bended knee, implored his for- 
 giveness. "Come hither to me," said the Martyr; 
 and when the trembling wretch approached him, 
 the good soldier of Jesus Christ, full of tender 
 affection and compassion, fell on his neck and 
 kissed him. " Lo ! here is a token that I forgive 
 thee. My heart, do thine office." Now the Mar- 
 tyr calmly looked death in the face. He leapt 
 upon the pyre as though Elijah had come to take 
 him home in his fiery chariot. Bound to the stake 
 with chains, he possessed his soul in patience and 
 never quailed. Ah ! these were the heroes. Just 
 as the executioner applied the fire to the powder 
 and wood a wild storm burst upon the inhuman 
 scene, which terrified the spectators, and befriended 
 like an angel of mercy the doomed man. With 
 " a vehement blast of wind from the sea," says 
 a contemporary historian, stone walls were 
 overthrown, and those who sat upon them 
 beholding the tragedy of the hour were hurled 
 into the Bishop's Yard, and some fell into 
 the draw-well, whereof two were drowned. But 
 if the stormy wind wrought havoc among the 
 crowd, it brought a blessing to the sufferer 
 in the fire. Fanning the fire into a bounding 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 193 
 
 blaze, it hastened the termination of his torments." 
 When " burnt all beneath the middle," a spectator 
 requested him to give some sign of his constancy 
 in the Faith. To the joy of his friend, and to the 
 astonishment of his foes, " he leapt up a foot high 
 in the fire." His sufferings were unmitigated by a 
 single act of charity, or strong word of consola- 
 tion. Regarding him as a son of perdition, 
 the clergy threatened with cursing all who should 
 venture even to pray for him. But as soon as the 
 people saw him " burned to powder," the tide of 
 generous feeling rose in their breasts. Melted into 
 tears, "they bitterly complained of the slaughter of 
 this innocent lamb." 
 
 "The martyrdom," says the old chronicler, "was 
 committed the first of March, one thousand five 
 hundred and forty-six ; whereof the clergy were 
 highly puffed up with pride and insolence, which 
 shortly turned to mischief." 
 
 So died George Wishart at the age of thirty- 
 three.* He was a great gift to Scotland. Next 
 to Knox, our greatest Scotsman, whom he moulded 
 
 * In the old churchyard of Fordun, overlooking the valley of the 
 Luther, a granite obelisk, crowned with an urn, stands, bearing 
 the following inscription: — "This monument is erected to the 
 memory of one of Scotland's first and most illustrious martyrs, 
 George Wishart of Pitarrow, in this Parish ; and as a testimony of 
 gratitude to the great Head of the Church, for the work of the Re- 
 
 N 
 
1 94 The Martyrs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 and inspired, Wishart did more than any other 
 man to advance the cause of the Reformation ; 
 and the Reformation was the spring of our 
 country's greatness. As a scholar, evangelist, 
 and confessor, he rendered incalculable services 
 to our country. 
 
 He was an accomplished scholar* Dempster, 
 the unscrupulous and blind advocate of the 
 Roman Church, boldly affirms that "he was a man 
 of no letters, but of great forwardness and im- 
 pudence," and Mackenzie, the biographer of 
 Scots Writers, follows him ; but no statement 
 could be more groundless. The son of a 
 gentleman and a scholar, carefully educated at 
 Aberdeen under men trained at Paris, George 
 Wishart was the first Scotsman who taught Greek 
 in his native land, and helped earnest students to 
 
 formation, on behalf of which his servant suffered. He was born 
 in 1 5 13, and was burned at St. Andrews, 1st March, 1546." "The 
 righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance." The obelisk 
 was erected in 1850. 
 
 *" Dempster tells us that Mr. Wishcart wrote a book against 
 Quintin Kennedy, Abbot of Cross-Regal, and uncle to the Lord 
 Cassils, and another upon the Lord's Supper, from the writings of 
 Luther; and Knox says he wrote some things in prison which his 
 enemies destroyed. But we have nothing now extant of his that I 
 know of, but some Extracts of Sermons, and Conferences in Fox's 
 Martyrology, Knox his History, and our other Historians." — 
 Mackenzie's Lives of Scots Writers, Vol. III., p. 18 (edit. 1722). 
 
George Wis/iart, the Mattyr. 195 
 
 read the New Testament in the language in which 
 it was originally written. Sadler, the English 
 Ambassador, tells us that the Roman Catholic 
 Bishops in Scotland could not decipher the 
 Greek motto on his men's livery, and he 
 makes merry over the fact that they read MONO 
 ANAKTI DOULEUO, " I serve the king only," as 
 if it had been MONACHULUS, "a little monk." 
 And if this be so it ill becomes any Popish 
 champion to charge an accomplished Grecian 
 scholar with the crime of ignorance. But 
 Wishart possessed other literary accomplish- 
 ments than the mastery of Greek. He had 
 translated the Helvetic Confession from the Latin 
 into the mother tongue, and he had obtained that 
 large knowledge of men and things which is insep- 
 arable from foreign travel, and familiar intercourse 
 with the cultivated and thoughtful. He had wan- 
 dered for a considerable time on the Continent, and 
 he had held fellowship with the men of light and 
 leading in Switzerland ; he had sojourned at Cam- 
 bridge, one of the most splendid seats of learning 
 in England, and he had acted as a College Regent 
 there ; and consequently nothing but gross ignor- 
 ance or malicious jealousy could describe him as "a 
 man of no letters." Some modern writers, more or 
 less hostile to Protestantism, and especially those 
 
196 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 who are bent on cultivating an aesthetic ritualism of 
 a showy, pretentious, and worldly character, have 
 endeavoured to prove that the Reformation was 
 forwarded mainly by the illiterate classes in the 
 community, by vulgar tradesman, bovine husband- 
 men, and coarse hungry peasants. But such a po- 
 sition cannot be maintained in the face of the 
 plainest facts. Strong-headed, highly-cultivated, 
 and capable noblemen like Lord Glencairn, the 
 Earl of Argyll, Erskine of Dun, and Douglas of 
 Longniddry, were prominent Reformers ; and 
 many of the ablest and most popular ministers of 
 the Reformed Church were formerly priests, and 
 ordained priests, occupying influential and com- 
 manding positions in the Church of Rome. The 
 name of George Wishart alone, however, would suf- 
 fice to show that the Reformation was neither the 
 work of poor untutored men, nor incompatible 
 with genuine learning, great ability, and fine taste. 
 Prior to the Reformation there was no scholar 
 among the priestly companies in the Scottish 
 Universities who had such a mastery of the lan- 
 guage in which the cardinal doctrines of Christi- 
 anity are embedded as Wishart the Martyr. It was 
 Greek learning that revived an interest in the Gos- 
 pel. Diligent students of the Greek Testament re- 
 opened the old wells that had been choked for 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. igj 
 
 centuries with the rubbish of Papal traditions and 
 superstitions, and drew forth the clear living water. 
 A comparison of the doctrines of the unadulterated 
 Word of God with the dogmas of the Roman 
 Church startled scholars, and convinced them that 
 the Pope's ministers were neither true successors of 
 the Apostles, nor fair exponents of the fundamental 
 doctrines that they preached. Hence the revolt of 
 scholars from the corrupt Church in which they had 
 been suckled. 
 
 Then George Wishart was an earnest and po- 
 pular Evangelist. He was the first layman in 
 Scotland who imitated the apostolic preachers in 
 the freedom with which they prosecuted evangelis- 
 tic work. After his painful but profitable religious 
 experiences in the City of Bristol, and after deep- 
 ening and extending his theological knowledge on 
 the Continent, under the guidance of the leaders of 
 the Reformation, he had a firm grasp of the doc- 
 trines of grace and the principles of a living piety, 
 and as soon as he returned home he lost no oppor- 
 tunity of proclaiming widely the blessed truths 
 that had enlightened and gladdened his own soul. 
 As Socrates abandoned the painted porch and the 
 academic haunts of Athens, and revelled in explod- 
 ing popular fallacies and superstitions, and promul- 
 gating true philosophical principles among the 
 
198 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 common people on the streets ; as St. Paul desert- 
 ed the sacred Temple of Jerusalem and proclaimed 
 the novel and radical doctrines of Christianity not 
 only in Jewish synagogues but in the thorough- 
 fares of Pagan cities, and such places as the pri- 
 vate house of Lydia, the school of Tyrannus, and 
 the upper chamber at Troas, so Wishart preached 
 the living gospel, in all its simplicity and spiritua- 
 lity, in every place where he could obtain a hear- 
 ing. Attaching no peculiar sacredness to formally 
 consecrated edifices, repudiating all ritualistic no- 
 tions of local sanctity, and believing that the 
 Shechinah dwelt in the midst of all penitent and 
 prayerful souls, he delivered the message of eter- 
 nal life as readily in the streets of Dundee, in pri- 
 vate houses in Montrose, and in the fields and 
 moors and market places of Ayrshire, as in the old 
 established churches that were flung open to him 
 by sympathetic friends. To him as to every g enu- 
 ine Protestant the vast stretch of barren moor, the 
 bustling and crowded thoroughfare of the town, 
 the humble turf-hut of the labouring man, or the 
 stately castle of the noble, was as much the audi- 
 ence-chamber of God as the hoariest cathedral or 
 the gloomiest parish church, with its groined roof 
 and long-drawn aisles. Consequently he confined 
 his ministry to no local sanctuary or circumscribed 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 199 
 
 parish, but went out into the world, free and un- 
 trammelled, and sowed the good seed of the Word 
 beside all waters. As a peripatetic evangelist, he 
 was the pioneer of the Reformation, and the har- 
 binger of a deep religious revival. Labouring in a 
 wide uncultivated field, he was an influential if ir- 
 regular minister. A strong, fresh living voice in 
 the midst of the moral wilderness, he brightened 
 and gladdened it with the sound of the gospel 
 of grace and peace. He touched all classes, and 
 awakened them from their spiritual slumber. He 
 roused them to a sense of their sin and misery, 
 and pointed them to the Peace-giver and the 
 Star of Hope. He spoke not of penance but of 
 contrition of heart, not of works of salvation but 
 of faith in Jesus Christ. He showed spiritually 
 awakened men that the knowledge of Christ was 
 the sum of saving knowledge ; that Christ, and 
 Christ alone, was the object of faith, and the sure 
 and solid ground of a sinner's hope of everlasting 
 life ; and that the ministers of the gospel were nei- 
 ther sacrificial priests nor confessors, but messen- 
 gers of God, whose function it was to direct the 
 wcunded and wandering soul to the Blessed One 
 who giveth health and solacement and perfect rest. 
 Like St Paul, like Luther, and the preachers who 
 have emancipated the world, and hewn down 
 
200 The Martyrs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 mountains of superstition and error, Wishart pro- 
 claimed the doctrine of a full and free forgiveness 
 through faith in the crucified Christ. All men 
 were lost, lost to God, lost to all that was pure and 
 good and beautiful and blessed-making ; and Christ 
 was the alone Saviour who could restore them to 
 the dignity and position of sons of God, and priests 
 of God, who could set them in the heavenly places, 
 and put a new song into their mouth and a crown 
 of eternal glory on their head. That teaching was 
 novel, but it fell upon dry hearts as the gentle dew 
 upon the parched grass of the desert. Weary men 
 were refreshed and made glad. Gathering in little 
 companies around some prominent religious man, 
 they formed the first Protestant congregations in 
 Scotland, which, by their own inherent vigour, 
 gradually overshadowed and destroyed the old 
 Popish institutions. 
 
 Once and again prelatical writers have found 
 fault with Wishart for daring to preach the Gospel 
 and dispense the Sacraments, when he had not 
 obtained ordination and consecration at the hands 
 of the Popish Bishops. In the Church, as in every 
 other society, discipline and order are most impor- 
 tant and necessary, because conducive to the con- 
 centration of energy and the more efficient dis- 
 charge of duty. There is union and strength in 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 201 
 
 discipline and order, and discipline and order 
 spring out of submission and obedience to a 
 higher will. As for the grace flowing through 
 the Apostolical succession, and communicated 
 mechanically by the imposition of the Bishops* 
 hands, we deem it nothing more than a chimera 
 of the imagination of mystical and mediaeval 
 ecclesiastics, and regard it as unnecessary for 
 the proper discharge of clerical duties as a 
 stream of blue blood in the veins, or a touch 
 of melancholy in the drooping eye. The grace 
 that makes a man a real Christian minister is 
 communicated not by any company of spiritual 
 or priestly men, but by the immediate in- 
 spiration and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 
 Although George Wishart had been ordained 
 a priest by all the dignitaries of Rome ar- 
 rayed in their most gorgeous robes, and assem- 
 bled beneath the mighty dome of St. Peter's, 
 he could not have obtained a richer gift 
 of genuine grace than he possessed. The 
 most gracious man, and the royalest priest, 
 is the one who is most thoroughly and com- 
 pletely endued and imbued with the Spirit of 
 Holiness. The individual who is best equipped 
 for fulfilling God's benign purposes, and con- 
 ferring blessings on his fellow men, is not the 
 
202 The Martyrs of A ngns and Mearns. 
 
 religiose professional brother, or the high and 
 mighty prelate who regards himself as a reposi- 
 tory of grace, but the simple humble believer in 
 Christ who has drunk most deeply of the Saviour's 
 spirit, lived most in His presence, and become, by 
 moral conflict and varied spiritual experience, 
 strong and pure and wise. But even though 
 Episcopal ordination and consecration were really 
 helpful to a Christian minister, how unreasonable 
 and unwise to insult the memory of the great 
 Scottish Evangelist because, forsooth, he ventured 
 to proclaim the eternal truth of God which maketh 
 wise unto salvation without taking pains to obtain 
 the imprimatur oi the Romish Church, and the bene- 
 diction of her consecrated priests ! Can reasonable 
 men expect reformers, who have risen up in holy 
 wrath with the object of hewing down superstition 
 and error and vice, to accept ordination at the 
 hands of their enemies ? And is it not ridiculous 
 to suppose that the priests of Rome would con- 
 descend, in their humility and charity, to ordain 
 and consecrate a preacher who had not only 
 defied their authority but had sapped and mined 
 the foundations on which it rested ? The times 
 were out of joint. Lawlessness reigned. The 
 Church was worm-eaten. Most of the clergy were 
 dissolute, blind, and impenitent. The bishops sus- 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 203 
 
 pected earnest priests of heresy and disloyalty, and 
 persecuted the men who toiled to advance the 
 Reformation. How then could a man like Wishart 
 work in the regular ranks, or hope to obtain any 
 of the ecclesiastical decorations of Rome? In 
 revolutionary times, born of tyranny and oppres- 
 sion, the wisest and the most loyal-hearted men 
 are forced to maintain a position and to commit 
 deeds that are indefensible in a reign of peace. 
 Necessity has no law ; and when law stands in the 
 way of righteousness and truth the sooner it is 
 ignored or abolished the better. The flag of 
 Freedom always streams like a thunder storm 
 against the wind. When good and earnest men 
 fight, they contend against the established order 
 of things ; and that always means revolution. 
 But in a time of revolution, men do not move in 
 old ruts like a gin-horse ; and they dispense with 
 ritualistic observances and ceremonial orders when 
 they fight desperately against tremendous odds, 
 for the triumph of truth and liberty. Doubtless 
 soldiers generally fight better in their military 
 attire ; but some, like the stripling David, can 
 fight the giant most successfully in rough hodden 
 grey, and with a sling and a stone. 
 
 And Wishart was a noble Martyr. A man of 
 faith, he was brave as a lion, and gentle as a lamb. 
 
204 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 The greatest of the world's heroes is Death, and he 
 conquered him, because he believed in the Eternal, 
 and had obtained glimpses into the Everlasting 
 Empire of Spirit. God's bosom was his home, and 
 he feared not death because he knew that it would 
 only bring him nearer to the goal of life. Ignorant 
 or malicious persecutors and intolerant partisans, 
 are the most irritating of tormentors, yet Wishart 
 patiently endured the cross, despising the shame, 
 because he possessed the spirit and the immortal 
 hopes of Him who trod the rough road to Calvary ! 
 Our country is rich in heroes, and their dust is 
 dear. How many have laid down their lives for 
 great ideas and great enterprises ! But it is im- 
 possible to mention one who has lived a more pure, 
 beautiful, and disinterested life, or died in a noble 
 cause more nobly than George Wishart. From the 
 truth he believed, he never swerved amid manifold 
 temptations. In him conscience, enlightened by 
 the Word of God, was king, and the promise of 
 deliverance from death failed to tempt him to dis- 
 loyalty. He loved truth more than he feared 
 death. He preferred the red crown of martyrdom 
 to any dignity purchased at the price of dishonour. 
 And when he stood upon the scaffold, how nobly 
 did he bear himself! He kissed the hangman, 
 whose heart had been melted by his burning 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 205 
 
 words ; he forgave his murderers, he encouraged 
 his fainting followers, and then he confronted 
 death with the calm courage and serene counten- 
 ance of Stephen, the soldier-deacon and proto- 
 martyr of the Christian Church. 
 
 The consequences of the martyrdom of George 
 Wishart were fruitful, and on the whole beneficent. 
 <l After the death of this blessed martyr of God," 
 says Knox, " began the people, in plain speaking, 
 to condemn and detest the cruelty that was used. 
 Yea, men of great birth, estimation, and honour, 
 at open tables avowed that the blood of the said 
 Master George should be revenged, or else they 
 should cost life for life. Among whom John Les- 
 ley, brother to the Earl of Rothes was the chief ; 
 for he, in all companies, spared not to say that the 
 same whingar (showing forth the dagger) and that 
 same hand should be priests to the Cardinal." * 
 Nor was the angry and vindictive mood of the 
 people soothed and conciliated by the behaviour 
 of the clergy. Extolling in heated and extrava- 
 gant language the conduct of the Cardinal : com- 
 mending him for slighting and defying the 
 authority of the timid and procrastinating Regent, 
 and lauding him as the bold defender of the whole 
 
 * The History of the Reformation, Vol. I., pp. 171-2. 
 
2c6 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 ecclesiastical order, and the curber of popular in- 
 solence, they irritated the minds of the common 
 people and roused the violent passions of " some 
 great and noble persons too." " They fretted," says 
 Buchanan, "that things were come to that pass by 
 their own pusillanimity and cowardice ; and now 
 they thought some bold thing or other was to be 
 attempted and hazarded, or else they must remain 
 slaves for ever. Led by this same motive more 
 company came in to them, whose grief forced them 
 to break out into complaints against the Cardinal. 
 So they encouraged one another, to rid the Cardinal 
 out of the way, and either to recover their liberty 
 or lose their lives. For what hope of thriving, said 
 they, can there be under so arrogant a priest, and 
 so cruel a tyrant, who makes war against God as 
 well as man, and those not his enemies only, as 
 were all such as had estates, or were any way 
 pious ; but for a small grudge he will drag a man 
 as a hog out of the stye, to be sacrificed to his 
 lusts."* The bold tiling that the people and nobles 
 were meditating was the killing of the Cardinal. 
 Unfortunately it was actually attempted, and 
 carried out swiftly and successfully. On the 
 morning of the twenty-ninth day of May, 1546, 
 
 * History of Scotland, Vol. III., p. 42. 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 207 
 
 William Kirkcaldly, of Grange, John Lesley, 
 and his nephew the Master of Rothes, with 
 some others, suddenly seized and despatched the 
 porter of the Castle of St. Andrews, sprang within 
 the gates, mounted the long winding stair, entered 
 the bed-chamber of Beaton, and stabbed him to the 
 heart ! The murder of George Wishart was swiftly 
 and terribly avenged. Maddened by oppression 
 and cruelty the foes of the Cardinal slew him, and 
 resisted every appeal for mercy. While their con- 
 duct was wholly indefensible, and to be regarded 
 with profound regret by all true Protestants, it 
 must be confessed that it hastened the downfall 
 of the Roman Church in Scotland, and materially 
 advanced the cause of Reformation. The sins and 
 crimes of Beaton were dark, detestable, and multi- 
 tudinous : he was the most merciless of tyrants, 
 the most selfish, sensual, ambitious, and unscrupu- 
 lous of churchmen, and the worst enemy of his 
 country ; and the verdict of every impartial student 
 of history must be that the doom of death was his 
 due. But vengeance lieth with God alone ; 
 and no Christian man will attempt the defence of 
 a band of nobles who committed a foul deed, even 
 if it could be shown that they were animated by 
 disinterested motives. If, however, their conduct 
 cannot be wisely defended it can easily be extenu- 
 
2o8 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 ated. Not for the purpose of avenging personal 
 wrongs, or of seizing great spoils, did they kill 
 Beaton, but with the object of revenging the 
 murder of a good and earnest reformer, and of 
 ridding the land of a priest who ruthlessly and 
 lawlessly trampled down men possessed of deep 
 religious convictions, and who strenuously opposed 
 every political measure that tended to further the 
 best interests of the Scottish people. The times 
 were lawless ; and Beaton was all-powerful. The 
 harassed people could obtain redress for their 
 grievances in no legitimate way. Might was right. 
 The weak were insulted or roughly trodden down 
 by the iron heel of arrogance. The Regent, who 
 ought to have protected the people against the 
 sword of ecclesiastical despotism, and to have rec- 
 tified their wrongs, was a craven coward, and the 
 Cardinal's crouching slave. What could the 
 wronged and infuriated people do in these circum- 
 stances ? They could not openly revolt ; for the 
 Church was strong, and the State was engaged to 
 defend the Church. The).' could not bridle the 
 Cardinal or thrust him into prison ; for they were 
 badly organised, and destitute of a leader of com- 
 manding power and genius. They might indeed 
 have manifested " the patience of the saints," but 
 it is difficult for the grace of patience to bloom 
 
George Wishart, the Martyr. 209 
 
 amid protracted storms of lawlessness and hate. 
 What wonder that men in these circumstances 
 should attempt to do by stealth what they could 
 not compass by fair dealing or open warfare ! 
 
 With Beaton's death the Papacy in Scotland re- 
 ceived its death-blow. The Cardinal was its 
 greatest ornament, its most resolute defender and 
 champion, and when he passed away the pillars of 
 the Roman Church began to totter and fall. No 
 masterly spirit survived to lead the forlorn hope. 
 Weakened and discouraged by the sudden loss of 
 their leader, the Romish party slackened their 
 fiery crusade. Not a few of the clergy joined the 
 rising band of influential Protestants, and during 
 the exile of Knox fanned the fires of evangelical 
 life in Scotland. At last Knox was emancipated, 
 and when he appeared he marshalled and educated 
 the hosts of Protestantism with the skill of a soldier 
 and the wisdom of a great statesman ; and he con- 
 tinued the battle against Rome until he conquered, 
 and raised on the ruins of Romanism a glorious 
 Protestant Church, evangelical in spirit, apostolical 
 in doctrine and practice, and purely Scriptural in 
 worship and discipline. 
 
210 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 VII. 
 
 WALTER MYLN, VICAR OF LUNAN. 
 
 " Stand like an anvil," 
 
 said Ignatius to the dying Polycarp. 
 
 " ' Stand like an anvil ' when the sparks 
 Fly far and wide, a fiery shower ; 
 Virtue and truth must still be marks, 
 Where malice proves its want of power. 
 ' Stand like an anvil ' when the bar 
 Lies, red and glowing, on its breast ; 
 Duty shall be life's leading star, 
 And conscious innocence its rest. 
 ' Stand like an anvil,' noise and heat 
 Are born of earth, and die with time ; 
 The soul, like God, its source and seat, 
 Is solemn, still, serene, sublime." 
 
 — Bishop Doane. 
 
 Parentage and Birthplace. 
 
 Of the Parentage and Birthplace of the last martyr 
 of the Scottish Reformation, nothing of a definite 
 character is known. In the age prior to the Refor- 
 mation of 1560, biographical literature was ex- 
 tremely meagre, and the means of diffusing know- 
 ledge of every sort were comparatively limited. 
 There were no argus-eyed reporters and steno- 
 graphers in Scotland in the mediaeval times, on 
 
Walter J\Ijlu, Vicar of Lunan. 21 l 
 
 teeming printing press * to chronicle the minute 
 events that transpired in obscure and remote 
 districts of the country. Consequently it is now 
 exceedingly difficult to get down to the roots of 
 pre-Reformation history, and to obtain solid and 
 reliable information concerning the early life, social 
 circumstances, and geographical surroundings of 
 the Reformers and Martyrs. Patrick Hamilton 
 and George Wishart were our foremost witnesses 
 for the Protestant Faith, and although they were 
 scions of ancient and honourable families holding 
 a good social position, it is difficult to ascertain 
 with anything like perfect precision either the date 
 or place of their birth. We know that Hamilton 
 belonged to the House of Kincavil, and that 
 Wishart was intimately connected with the family 
 of Pitarrow in the Mcarns, and while modern 
 historians have accomplished not a little in the 
 way of making us better acquainted with the early 
 life and career of these noble men, they have failed 
 to discover any documents that settle the precise 
 date and the particular place of their birth. 
 Walter Myln of Lunan was a much less con- 
 
 * The first printing press in Scotland was established in Aberdeen 
 by the great and good Bishop William Elphinstone. On 15th 
 September, 1507, the King granted to Chepman and Millar the 
 privilege of printing Elphinstone's Legends of the Scottish Saints. 
 
212 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 spicuous man than these ; indeed, it was only 
 "persecution that dragged him into fame;" and, 
 as might be expected, his parentage and early life 
 are involved in deep obscurity. If, however, Myln's 
 parentage, birthplace, and birthday cannot be de- 
 finitely ascertained, it is possible, with our present 
 knowledge, to throw considerable light upon the 
 subject, and to hazard a guess that may approxi- 
 mate truth. 
 
 Among the most reliable sources of pre-Refor- 
 mation History are the Registers of the great 
 Religious Houses ; and the ancient books of 
 Arbroath Abbey are the most perfect of their 
 kind. From the Black Book of Arbroath we 
 learn much that is interesting about the old 
 families of Angus, much about those who have 
 fallen, and those who have risen, and we learn that 
 the name of Myln, in particular, was not an un- 
 common one in the district where our Martyr 
 lived, and laboured, and fought a good fight for 
 twenty years. The old and extremely small parish 
 of Ethie, or Athy, was separated in the days prior 
 to the Reformation from Lunan by the beautiful 
 parish of Inverkeilor ; and these three seaboard 
 parishes were therefore contiguous, lying com- 
 pactly together, midway between the old aristo- 
 cratic town of Montrose and the more famous 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of La nan. 213 
 
 monastic town of Arbroath, in Angus or Forfar- 
 shire. Little Ethie, with its bold and commanding 
 cliff scenery and its thickets of stunted wood 
 blighted and blasted by the wild storms of the Ger- 
 man Ocean, is now merged in the parish of Inver- 
 keilor ; but when it was independent, and the pre- 
 decessors of James Ged * were the parochial vicars, 
 haughty prelates of the diocese of Saint Andrews, 
 and the princely Abbots of Arbroath occupied 
 the great House of Ethie, and an old family of 
 the name of Myln farmed some of the best land 
 in the parish, and followed sundry occupations. 
 The Black Book of Arbroath contains several 
 entries in which the My Ins are distinctly men- 
 tioned and described as the tenants of the monks 
 of the Abbey, and living almost under the shadow 
 of Ethie House. The Mylns appear to have lived 
 in pretty comfortable circumstances, combining 
 trade with husbandry. In the year 15 10 George 
 Hepburn, a scion of the great House of Bothwell, 
 and the chivalrous Abbot who fell with the Scot- 
 tish King on the disastrous Field of Flodden, 
 assigned to Jo/in Myll, cartwright, and to Robert 
 
 * James Ged was Vicar of Athy in 1534, and succeeded Murdoch 
 Lecky (Leky), who died, Vicar of Ir.verkeilor in 1536. 
 
2 1 4 The Martyrs of A ngits and If earns. 
 
 Myll, his son, the mill near the Bruntone of A thy, 
 commonly called Raysis Myl, with all its belong- 
 ings.* From another entry in the same ancient 
 book, dated 15 12, we discover that John My 11, the 
 cartwright, and his wife, Elizabeth, residing at 
 Bruntone, obtained a new lease of Raysis Myl ; 
 and in a charter conveying the lands of Bruntone 
 of Athy to Mariotte Ogilvy, David Beaton's 
 favourite mistress, it is stated that John Myll 
 and his spouse were tenants of the Mains of Ethie 
 (" Manis de Athe") in 1528. Four years later 
 numerous changes had taken place in Ethie, but 
 the cartwright and his family were still in favour 
 with the Monks. The register of 1532 furnishes 
 us with the information that John Myll, cartwright, 
 and Marion Lychton,f his wife, occupied the farm- 
 house of Estyr Greyn, and further, that the Abbot, 
 David Beaton, assigned to them, and their son 
 Thomas, for life, the mill of Raysmill, with its 
 lands and multure, and other privileges. % 
 
 * Reg. Nigrum de Aberbrothoc, p. 4.02. 
 
 t Her father, George Lychton, and her mother, Alison Boys, 
 were in the Mains of Athy in 151 2. Reg. Nigrum, p. 420. His 
 grandfather and grandmother, Walter Lychton and Agnes his 
 spouse, occupied the Mains of Athy as early as 1485. 
 
 X [In 1532.] Abbas assedat pro vita Tohanni Myll, carpentario, 
 Marjorie Lychton, sue spouse, et Thome Myll, eorum filio . 
 Molendinum de Raysmyll vocatum cum suis terris et multuris vna- 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan. 215 
 
 Nor are the Records of the district destitute 
 of inscriptions, leading to the conclusion that the 
 family of Myln sent several sons into the Church, 
 both before and after the period of the Reformation. 
 In 1494 Alexander Myl studied at the Univer- 
 sity of Saint Andrews ; and it was doubtless the 
 same man who acted as Notary of the Abbey of 
 Arbroath, and styled himself a Bachelor of Arts in 
 1496.* In 1560 Andrew Myll represented Mon- 
 
 cum illis duabus partibus ville de Estyr Greyn vocate quas Johannes 
 occupat. Soluendo pro molendino quinquaginta tres solidos et 
 quatuor denarios monete Scocie ad terminos usuales et duodecim 
 capon es. — Reg. Nig. de Aberbrothoc, p. 509. 
 
 * Alexander Myln was a man of high character, of splendid 
 ability, and extraordinary attainments. He was a moderate and 
 liberal Churchman, and, though he never seceded from Rome, he 
 was fully conscious of the defects and errors of the Papacy, and 
 wrought for the promotion of religious reform. 
 
 The place of his birth is unknown, but from his early connection 
 with the Abbey of Arbroath it is probable he belonged to the 
 district of Angus. In 1494, he was a Determinant at St. Andrews; 
 in 1495-6, he was Notary of the Abbey of Arbroath ; in 1505, he 
 was .Scribe and Notary of the Cathedral of Dunkeld, and Rector of 
 Lundeif ; afterwards, he was successively Canon of Aberdeen and 
 Dean of Angus ; in 1515, he was Prebendary of Monithie in the 
 Cathedral of Dunkeld, and at that time wrote a Latin work, entitled 
 Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld ; in 15 16, he was made Abbot of 
 Cambuskenneth, and fulfilled the arduous duties of his high office 
 with commendable zeal and remarkable ability ; and in 1532 he 
 became the first President of the College of Justice. He died about 
 the close of the year 154S. 
 
 See Brunton and Haig's Historical Account of the Senators of the 
 College of Justice. 
 
216 The Martyrs of Angus and Jl learns. 
 
 trose at the first General Assembly of the Reformed 
 Church ; and in 1569 he was minister of Feteresso, 
 and kept a classical school at Montrose. He was 
 a celebrated teacher, and moulded the mind of 
 James Melvill, who filled the Chair of Theology in 
 Saint Andrews with great honour for many years. 
 His distinguished pupil has described him as a 
 kind, honest, learned man, and a diligent and skilful 
 schoolmaster. Andrew Myll was unquestionably 
 a man of extraordinary power, and commanding 
 influence ; for he was a member of ten of the 
 twenty-four Assemblies convened between 1581 
 and 1600, and one of the ten ministers selected by 
 the brethren in 1589 for defending the Scottish 
 Church when the State threatened to deprive her 
 of her liberties, The Parish of Garvock in the 
 Mearns is not far from Feteresso, and the Reader 
 there in 1 569 was Robert Myln. At the Reforma.- 
 tion, David Myln held the same office in Saint 
 Murdoch's Chapel, in Ethie. During the years 
 that succeeded the Reformation struggle, numerous 
 ministers of the name of Myln filled the parish 
 pulpits within the bounds of Angus and Mearns, 
 and it is not improbable, but indeed almost certain, 
 that many of them were descended from the family 
 that held for generations Raysmill and Bruntone 
 in Ethie, — places whose names are still familiar in 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lit nan. 217 
 
 the neighbourhood of Arbroath, and a family that 
 has still representatives in the old haunts, if not in 
 the old homes. 
 
 Thus we see that the Mylns were old tenants of 
 the Abbots of Arbroath, being at once farmers, 
 millers,* and cartwrights. And what more pro- 
 bable than that a member of the family at Ethie, 
 inflamed with a passion for learning and ecclesi- 
 astical pursuits, fostered by close proximity to 
 the Abbey of Arbroath, and by familiar inter- 
 course and fellowship with the monks and priests, 
 should proceed to Saint Andrews, across the 
 Frith, and study for the Church, and at length 
 be settled in the neighbouring Parish of Lunan? 
 Tradition tells that Walter Myln was "one of 
 the monks of the Abbey of Arbroath," and 
 this story strengthens the conviction that he was 
 
 * As early as the thirteenth century wheat was grown in this part 
 of Scotland, and " wheaten bread used on holidays." But corn 
 was cultivated everywhere, and mills driven by water and by wind 
 were used for grinding corn for cakes or bannocks. 
 
 " Adjoining the Grange [the principal house of the Abbey Barony] 
 was a mill, with all its pertinents and appearance and reality of com- 
 fort, and a hamlet occupied by cottars, sometimes from thirty to 
 forty families in number. The situation of these was far above the 
 class now known by that name. Under the monks of Kelso each 
 cottar occupied from one to nine acres of land, along with his cot- 
 tage. Their rents varied from one to six shillings yearly, with ser- 
 vices not exceeding nine days' labour. — Cosmo Innes' Early Scotch 
 History, pp. 138, 139. 
 
2 1 8 The Martyrs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 a native of the district. Indeed, it seems most 
 probable that he was a brother of John Myll, 
 farmer, miller, and cartwright, who resided in 
 Ethie Parish ; and in all likelihood he was born 
 at Bruntone, in the year 1476, as he perished 
 at Saint Andrews in 1558, when he had reached 
 the advanced age of eighty-two. 
 
 Walter Myln doubtless received his early educa- 
 tion at the conventual school of Arbroath. In 
 the Middle Ages in Scotland two classes of 
 schools were maintained by the great Religious 
 Houses — the burghal and conventual — in which 
 all the learning of the time was cultivated. The 
 House at Kelso, for instance, had superior Burghal 
 schools in Roxburgh, and the magnificent House 
 of Dunfermline had richly endowed schools in 
 Perth. In the burghal schools a purely rudimen- 
 tary education was obtained, such as may now be 
 got at a public school in any village in Scotland ; 
 whereas, in the conventual schools pupils of good 
 birth and superior rank, or students looking forward 
 to the priesthood, were drilled in the principles of 
 Music, of Grammar, and of the Latin tongue, and 
 instructed in all knowledges that fitted them for 
 the proper discharge of duties in the higher walks 
 of life. Many of these conventual schools formed 
 the foundations of our present grammar schools. 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan. 219 
 
 Concerning the conventual school at Arbroath we 
 know little, but from its close connection with a 
 great Religious House and with the University of 
 St. Andrews, it must have been a superior school. 
 One of the earliest of the conventual schoolmasters 
 in Arbroath was Mr. Archibald Lamy, and his 
 salary was as large as that of many of the parish 
 priests in the diocese, namely, ten marks, and his 
 daily portion at the common table of the brethren. 
 At the conventual school of Arbroath, Walter 
 Myln would acquire sufficient knowledge to enable 
 him to enter the College of St. Salvator across the 
 Tay. Tradition, indeed, says that he studied at 
 King's College, Aberdeen, where two distinguished 
 Angus men, who had played together as school- 
 boys at Dundee, were occupying professorial chairs. 
 But it is not probable that the Arbroath novice sat 
 at the feet of Principal Boece or Professor William 
 Hay. The University of Aberdeen was not 
 founded by Bishop Elphinstone till 1496, and its 
 oldest records bear the date of 160 1. If Myln 
 studied somewhat late in life, he may have enjoyed 
 the prelections of the liberal teachers in the Nor- 
 thern seat of learning, but there are strong grounds 
 for believing that the College of St. Andrews was 
 his alma mater. The matriculation roll of St. 
 Salvator's College does not shed a very steady 
 
220 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 light on the subject ; for while it contains an 
 entry, — Wa. Mallyne, — dated 15 12, there is some 
 doubt whether this name has not more kinship 
 with Melvin than with Myln* Still, Walter Myln 
 was 'connected with St. Andrews both geographi- 
 cally and ecclesiastically. In his time the Abbey 
 boat went statedly across the Frith of Tay to the 
 Oxford of Scotland. And what more natural than 
 that a humble student should attend the nearest 
 college, especially when it was unrivalled in splen- 
 dour and in reputation ? Would not the church- 
 men of Arbroath, too, be ready to persuade any 
 aspirant to the priesthood to enter the home of 
 
 * No trace of Myln's name is to be found in any other College 
 register in Scotland. While we cannot obtain sufficient evidence 
 to prove that the name — U r a. Mallyne — on the old register of St. 
 Andrews is identical with that of Walter Myln, we are strongly of 
 opinion that it is the Martyr's. We have been unable to discover 
 any other professional man, in the period, bearing the name ; and 
 as a matter of fact, the country people of Angus still pronounce 
 the local name of Myln in such a way that an amanuensis, 
 judging only from the sound, might write, with the registrar of 
 St. Andrews, Mallyne instead of Myln. It must be remembered 
 that it was the registrar who inscribed the names of students on the 
 college register, and he spelt just as the entrants pronounced them. 
 Mr. Maitland Anderson, the Librarian of St. Andrews University, 
 informs us that "the spelling of names in the old University lists is 
 very irregular ;" and he adds that "this may arise from the fact that 
 they are not usually signatures but inscriptions by an official. Very 
 likely he took down the names from dictation, and spelt them as he 
 thought fit." 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lit nan. 221 
 
 learning, which was the glory of their diocese ? In 
 pre-Reformation times St. Andrews and Arbroath 
 were as intimately related as mother and daughter. 
 The Abbot of Arbroath was only inferior to the 
 Bishop of St. Andrews, and occasionally the 
 Metropolitan held the Abbacy. All the influences 
 about the student tended to lead him to the Fife 
 University. Moreover, the fact that Myln was 
 presented to the parish of Lunan by the Abbot of 
 Arbroath is significant. For then, as now, it was 
 customary for ecclesiastical patrons to present to 
 vacant parishes men reared and educated within 
 their own dioceses and colleges. 
 
 It is difficult to state, with any degree of pre- 
 cision, the various subjects studied in the Arts 
 curriculum at the University of St. Andrews in 
 1 5 12; but it is well known that during pre- 
 Reformation times generally a complete course 
 in Arts extended over seven years. During their 
 first year students were drilled in the Latin 
 Grammar, and were instructed in Terence and 
 Ovid. In their second year students were ex- 
 pected to master the famous and universal Logic 
 text-book of the times — the Summulae ; and when 
 they proceeded to the study of Aristotle they 
 and their teachers alike were dependent on the 
 Latin commentaries of Duns Scotus and Alexander 
 
222 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Hales. Greek was an unknown tongue in St. 
 Andrews till the celebrated Andrew Melville 
 appeared and lent lustre to the University by 
 the splendour of his classical and literary acquire- 
 ments. After Logic was mastered students pro- 
 ceeded to study Music and Geometry. Perspective 
 and Astronomy crowned the course. As printed 
 books were unknown, and manuscript volumes 
 scarce and dear, the students of the time were 
 almost entirely dependent upon professorial lec- 
 tures, and consequently possessed but a limited 
 and superficial knowledge of the subjects pursued 
 Thus equipped, and perhaps with some slight 
 knowledge of Patristic Theology, Walter Myln left 
 the University of St. Andrews and found a home 
 for a few years in the Abbey of Arbroath. 
 
 The Old Parish of Lunan. 
 
 Lunan, Lonan, or Lownane, is a Gaelic word, 
 signifying the River of the Marshes or Lakes,, 
 and the Scottish parish which bears this name 
 obtains it from the clear-winding stream which 
 skirts its southern side, and separates it from 
 Inverkeiior. Nor is the stream inaptly named 
 the Lunan : for, rising in a marsh in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Forfar, it flows through the two small 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Luiiau. 223 
 
 sedgy lochs of Rescobbie and Balgavies, and after 
 pursuing a serpentine course for thirteen miles, 
 and irrigating a quiet beautiful valley, falls 
 into the grey German Ocean, south-east of the 
 parish church of Lunan, and almost at the 
 base of the famous old tower of Redcastle. 
 Lunan is a seaboard parish, lying between 
 Arbroath and Montrose, and it is one of the 
 smallest and most tranquil in Forfarshire, if not 
 in Scotland. Oblong in form, about two miles 
 in length and one in breadth, it is purely rural, 
 though it can hardly be said to be far away from 
 the tumults of society and the busy haunts of 
 men. On the east it is bounded by the wild and 
 stormy German Ocean, or more accurately, by that 
 portion of it known as Lunan Bay ; on the west by 
 the parish of Kinnell ; on the north by the lands 
 of Maryton and Craig ; and on the south by Lunan 
 Water. The Bay of Lunan is one of the finest and 
 most spacious on the east coast,and while almost un- 
 known to the hungry tourist, it is a silent sanctuary 
 and a delightful resting-place for weary and wor- 
 ried men. Shaped like a horse-shoe, and forming 
 a segment of about five miles, the bay is deep and 
 well-sheltered, and indeed a calm inland haven where 
 the stateliest ships may safely ride at anchor in the 
 wildest storms. The head of the bay is low, sandy, 
 
224 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 destitute of stones or pebbles, with a background of 
 rough and rampant bent, and fantastic hillocks of 
 sand ; but its sides consist of steep, inaccessible, 
 and ragged rocks, and occasionally these rise into 
 rude picturesque columns of one hundred and fifty 
 feet in height. Here for centuries the lonely sea- 
 birds have built their nests, and found a safe 
 stronghold in the gloomy day and tempestuous 
 night ; and though the steam engine now disturbs 
 their repose, and shrieks louder than their wildest 
 cry, they manifest no tokens of fear, no signs 
 of preparation for departure. A considerable 
 part of this magnificent bay lies within Lunan 
 parish ; and the small, unpretentious church, 
 surrounded by a clump of shady trees and the 
 graves of many generations of rude plough- 
 men and humble tradesmen, stands near the 
 stream as it plunges into the sea. The situation 
 of the church is very beautiful, and it must always 
 have been so ; for the stream, and the sea, and the 
 cliffs, are everlasting ornaments, unchanged by the 
 vicissitudes of fortune and the march of time, lend- 
 ing life, and strength, and an air of picturesque 
 grandeur to the lovely scene. And then the old 
 square tower of Redcastle* must have sentinelled 
 
 * Redcastle, finely situated on a rising knoll on the shore of 
 Lunan Bay, was a seat of the De Berkeleys who conferred the 
 
=. ^==- to 
 
Walter My hi, Vicar of Lnnan. 225 
 
 the church for ages, and rilled the hearts of the 
 vicar and his parishioners with a sense of security 
 in the lawless times when piratical rovers swept 
 the coast, and plundered many an unprotected and 
 solitary homestead. From the church the ground 
 gradually rises northwards till it reaches the height 
 of 400 feet above sea level ; and at this point 
 stands the farm house of Dysart, occupied in 
 Walter Myln's time by John Melvill, brother of 
 Richard Melvill of Baldovy, and uncle of the 
 justly celebrated Andrew Melvill, scholar, re- 
 former, and statesman. Prior to the Reforma- 
 tion the parish of Lunan was broken up into 
 small farms or crofts tilled by a poor, patient and 
 illiterate peasantry, and it doubtless possessed 
 a few simple tradesmen who made and mended 
 rude agricultural implements, rough hodden grey 
 garments, and stout shoes. The houses of the 
 peasantry were built without lime, roofed with 
 turf, floored with bent or rashes, while a cow's 
 hide was the substitute for a door. " The corn- 
 
 lands of Inverkeilor upon the Abbey of Arbroath, and it ultimately 
 fell, in the thirteenth century, into the hands of the Balliols of 
 Barnard Castle, in Yorkshire. Near Barnard Castle John Wycliffe 
 was born and reared : under the shadow of Redcastle Walter 
 Myln, a spiritual son of the great English Reformer, lived for 
 twenty years ! 
 
 P 
 
226 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 monality had abundance of fish and flesh, but 
 ate bread as a dainty." Not one of them was able 
 to read or write. 
 
 At the close of the fifteenth century the annual 
 rental of the Church Lands of Lunan* was 14 
 bolls of wheat; 102 bolls of beer; and 132 bolls 
 of meal. 
 
 The Vicars of Lunan. 
 
 Immediately before the Reformation in Scotland, 
 Andrew Whitehead, Patrick Blair, David Christi- 
 
 * The lands of Inverlunan have a curious history. In 1189 King 
 William the Lion bestowed upon the monks, serving God and 
 Saint Thomas A'Becket at Aberbrothoc, the territory of Ethie, and 
 the patronage and tithes of numerous churches and lands in Angus 
 and Mearns, and among others those of Inverlunan. Of the occu- 
 pants or lessees of the lands of Inverlunan, and of the vicars of the 
 parish we hear nothing more till the year 1496. But from the 
 Black Book of Arbroath we learn that the lands of Inverlunan were 
 then let by the Abbot, Sir David Lichtone, to Robert Guthrie for 
 nineteen years ; that in 15 12 they were assigned by Abbot Hepburn 
 to James Guthrie for nineteen years ; and that in 1526 they were 
 assigned by Abbot David Beaton to John Guthrie and his son, 
 Hercules, for nineteen years. In 1544 the lands of Inverlunan 
 were given in feu by the Commendator and Chapter of the Abbey 
 of Arbroath to John, Lord Innermeath, and Elizabeth Beaton, his 
 spouse, upon payment of a small annual feu-duty. By the Annexa- 
 tion Act in 1587, the lands reverted to the Crown. Then they, with 
 other Monastic lands, were erected into a temporal lordship in 
 favour of James, Marquis of Hamilton. From Hamilton they 
 passed into the possession of the Earls of Panmure ; and in the 
 
Walter Mj'lu, Vicar of Lunan. 227 
 
 son, and Walter Myln were the Vicars of Lunan 
 Parish, and they were all presented by the Abbots 
 of Arbroath. From the Black Book of Arbroath 
 we learn that on the 23rd day of September, 1485, 
 Abbot David Lichtone assigned to Master Andrew 
 QitJiytheide, Vicar of ' Lownane, certain ecclesiastical 
 privileges and the tithes of the lands of Inver- 
 lunan ; * and that Master David Cristeson (pre- 
 sented to the parish of Monifieth on the resigna- 
 tion of JoJin Yallozver, on the 28th day of May, 
 
 1525, and to the parish of Abirkirdour, in the 
 \ 
 
 year of the great rebellion they were forfeited to the Crown. After- 
 wards they were purchased by the York Buildings Company ; then 
 they were sold to a late Earl of Panmure ; and finally they were 
 disponed in 1767 to William T. Imry, Esq., whose lineal 
 descendant holds them at this hour. 
 
 * " N os David [Lychtone] abbas . . . de aberbrothoe . . . 
 assedamus . . . Waltero Ramsay de Limbanny et domino 
 Andree Quhytheide vicario de Lownane herdeibusque suis et assig- 
 natis dummodo assignati de consensu nostro admittantur . . . 
 decimas garbales ecclesie nostre de Lownane decimis de Innerloiv- 
 nane exceptis pro terminis decern et septem amorum . . . ter- 
 mino introitus . . . incipiente in festo Sancti Petri adiuncula 
 datam presencium immediate sequente. Soluendo . . . decern 
 hollas mundi et puri frumenti tres celdras et octo bollas boni et sicci 
 ordii et quatuor celdras et duas bollas farrine mensure fori currentis 
 ad terminos victualia soluendi consuetos. Et si dicti ... in 
 solucione . . deficerint . . ad terminos . . licebit nobis 
 . . de . . ecclesia et decimis ad . . bibitum . . dis- 
 ponere. . . . Apud . . capitulum xxiii . die mensis Sep- 
 tembris anno domini 1485." Registrum de Aberbrothoe, Nigrum,. 
 p. 227. 
 
22& The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 diocese of Moray, on the ist December, 1525), 
 was presented by the Abbot, David Beaton, to the 
 perpetual vicarage of the parish church of Lownau, 
 in the diocese of St. Andrews, vacant by the death 
 of Master Patrick Blayr, on the 29th June, 1526.* 
 Then, it seems probable that Walter Myln, " born 
 of parents who were in reputable circumstances, 
 and one of the monks of the Abbey of Aberbro- 
 thoc," succeeded Christison some time in 1526; 
 but although we have searched the Registers 
 of the Abbey, we have failed to discover any 
 notice of Myln's presentation to Lunan, or that of 
 any of his successors. The truth is, these old 
 ecclesiastical records are largely occupied with 
 secular affairs, and chiefly with leases and the trans- 
 ference of lands. The monks of Arbroath appear 
 to have made more strenuous endeavours to per- 
 petuate the names of the lessees of their lands, 
 and to fix the conditions of tenure, than to im- 
 mortalize any of the priests who served God, ad- 
 ministered the Holy Sacraments, and laboured to 
 bless their fellowmen. The only apology which 
 can be fairly offered for their neglect is that the 
 
 * "Idem presentat dominum Dauid Cristeson presbitcrum ad 
 vicariam perpetuam ecclesie parochialis de Lownan Sanctiandree 
 dyocesis vacantem per obitum magistri Patricii Blayr, 29 Junij, 
 11526." Reg. Nigrum, p. 455. 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Lunan. 229 
 
 majority of the priests of that time were quite un- 
 worthy of notice. Some of them, indeed, were 
 good earnest men, loving God and their brethren, 
 anxious to regenerate the world and to purify the 
 Church, spending nights in agonizing prayer for 
 the dawning of brighter and better days, and cry- 
 ing with the warrior saints of old — " How long, 
 Lord, wilt thou hide thyself? How long shall the 
 wicked triumph? How long shall the land mourn 
 and herbs wither?" But most of them were 
 steeped in ignorance and superstition, and spent 
 poor, shallow, and ignoble lives, now chanting a 
 mass for the dead, now drinking with rough and 
 fleshly companions in an alehouse, occasionally 
 reading the Church's Service for the sick and 
 dying, preaching a rambling sermon, or pro- 
 nouncing some extravagant and not very highly- 
 wrought panegyric on departed saints whose 
 names occupied a distinguished place in the 
 Roman Calendar. 
 
 In the spiritual and moral condition of the rural 
 parish the Abbots seem to have taken no interest. 
 They regarded the parish as entirely subservient 
 to the interests of the Monastery ; and so long as 
 the Vicar played well the part of steward, and 
 gathered in the tithes, they concerned themselves 
 very little as to the manner in which he dis- 
 
230 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 charged his sacred duties among the poor ignorant 
 cottars entrusted to his care. 
 
 Walter Myln was appointed to the cure of 
 Lunan in 1526, and performed the duties of 
 parish vicar for twenty years. At his induction he 
 must have been forty-eight years of age, as he 
 perished in the flames at St. Andrews in 1558, 
 when he had reached the advanced age of eighty- 
 two. The Rev. Robert Barclay of Lunan, who 
 wrote the New Statistical Account of the parish, 
 published in 1843, blundered when he stated that 
 his celebrated predecessor ministered within the 
 bounds for forty years ; and the author of the 
 inscription on the small white marble tablet in- 
 serted in the wall of the parish church, fell into a 
 similar error when he wrote : — 
 
 " Sacred to the Memory of Walter Mill, 
 
 For upwards of forty years pastor of this Church, 
 
 And the last Scottish Martyr 
 
 For adherence to the Protestant cause." 
 
 We do not know on what authority these writers 
 founded their statements, but a slight acquaintance 
 with the ecclesiastical history of their country 
 would have prevented them from doubling the 
 years of the Martyr's ministry in Lunan. Old 
 Lindsay of Pitscottie, in his quaint picturesque 
 Chronicle, states that Myln declared in the presence 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Lnnan. 231 
 
 of his persecutors at St. Andrews, that he " had 
 served the cure of Lunan twenty years with the 
 approbation of all the parishioners " ; and this 
 historical statement of a contemporary can be 
 substantially corroborated. The Black Book of 
 Arbroath contains an entry in which Sir David 
 Christison is represented as enjoying the privileges 
 and discharging the duties of the Vicar of Lunan, 
 on the twentieth day of May, 1526; and conse- 
 quently Myln could not have acted as Vicar of 
 Lunan before that time. Then, as Beaton, 
 who had suspected Myln of teaching heretical 
 doctrines, and had driven him into exile, was 
 murdered in his own castle by men maddened 
 by intolerable oppression and red-handed tyranny 
 in 1546, Myln could not have resided in the parish 
 after that date. But the period between Christi- 
 son's occupancy of the cure of Lunan, and Myln's 
 flight before the Cardinal, is roundly twenty years. 
 It is pretty certain, then, that Walter Myln 
 settled in the parish of Lunan sometime in the 
 year 1526, but unfortunately we possess no reli- 
 able and authentic record of his clerical life prior 
 to this period. Before his presentation to the 
 rural parish by the Abbot, he was employed as 
 a monk in the Religious House of Arbroath, 
 and he may have ministered in that noble 
 
232 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 edifice where assembled the famous Parlia- 
 ment whose members stoutly defied the Pope, 
 and told him that if he lent his influence to 
 England in his attempt to subjugate Scotland 
 he would be held "guilty in the sight of the 
 Almighty of the loss of lives, perdition of souls, 
 and all the other miserable consequences which 
 might ensue from the continuance of war between 
 the two nations." * Like many a farmer's son in 
 the present day, Myln must have studied for the 
 Church at a mature age ; and although he found 
 no parochial work or permanent charge till he 
 was on the verge of forty-nine, his career as a 
 probationer, if we may so speak of a man who 
 was a monk in a monastery, cannot have ex- 
 tended over many years. 
 
 The period of Myln's settlement at Lunan was 
 a most eventful and stirring one. Indeed, 1525-6 
 marks the day-dawn of the Scottish Reformation, 
 and the birth of enlightened political opinion, and 
 liberal religious sentiment. Then John Tyndale's 
 famous Translation of the Bible was being clan- 
 destinely conveyed from Antwerp and Hamburg 
 into Montrose and Dundee and the towns on the 
 east coast of Scotland by the skippers of trading 
 
 Kerr's Bruce, Vol. II.. p. 238. 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan. 
 
 vessels. Then the popular evangelical books and 
 tracts of Luther and his companions were being 
 smuggled into St. Andrews, the stronghold of the 
 Papacy, and exciting profound interest and lively 
 discussion among the liberal students of St. 
 Leonard's College, and the more intelligent and 
 cultivated of the citizens. Then the Principal 
 of King's College, Aberdeen, was denounc- 
 ing the indolence and the profligacy of the 
 churchmen, and calling loudly and indignantly 
 for religious reform, while the prelates were vainly 
 endeavouring to stamp out Lutheran heresies, and 
 suppress the circulation of Tyndale's translation 
 of the Bible and Evangelical books by Parliamen- 
 tary Acts. Then, too, Patrick Hamilton was 
 preaching the doctrines of grace, and commencing 
 that brief, chequered, but most noble career which 
 terminated with the crown of martyrdom. And 
 about this very period distinguished gentlemen in 
 the vicinity of Lunan such as John Erskine of Dun, 
 the Straitouns of Lauriston, the Wisharts of Pitar- 
 row, and the Melvilles of Baldovy and Dysart, were 
 espousing the cause of Reformation. With these en- 
 lightened and evangelical neighbours Walter Myln 
 held intimate fellowship, and what wonder if he 
 fell under their spell and shared their light and con- 
 solations and joys ! For, if Walter Myln was not 
 
234 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns, 
 
 an accomplished Greek scholar like his neighbour 
 George Wishart, the schoolmaster of Montrose, 
 and of gentle birth and blood like the Melvilles 
 who resided on the frontiers of his parish, he was 
 as intelligent and thoughtful as any of them, and 
 eager to drink in the pure Word of God. However, 
 it was the terrible fate of young Hamilton that 
 shocked the Vicar of Lunan, and completely altered 
 his religious career. Burned in a slow fire in front 
 of the old pedagogy of St. Andrews, in 1528, for 
 denying the existence of Purgatory, discrediting 
 the virtue of pilgrimages to the shrines of the saints, 
 and such like doctrines, Hamilton was a martyr 
 for the Truth, and " serious people within the 
 realm," says Knox, "began to enquire and question 
 whether it was necessary to accept such articles 
 under point of damnation. And so within short 
 space many began to call in doubt that which before 
 they held for a certain verity." Gavin Logye, 
 Principal of St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, 
 was one of these inquirers, and so was his old friend 
 and fellow-student Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan. 
 Studying Tyndale's Bible in the solitude of his 
 seaboard parish the earnest priest gradually 
 followed in the steps of Patrick Hamilton. 
 Drinking from the undefiled well of Protestantism 
 he discovered that many of the doctrines and 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Lunan. 235 
 
 practices of his Church were corrupt and poison- 
 ous, and felt that the Church stood in need of a 
 thorough cleansing. True to his deepest convic- 
 tions, he forthwith denounced the indolence, profli- 
 gacy, and worldliness of the Bishops, exposed their 
 ignorance and errors, and rated them soundly for 
 neglecting preaching, and the spiritual oversight of 
 their flocks. Pilgrimages to the shrines of saints 
 were decried. Compulsory celibacy was condemned 
 as an unscriptural ordinance. The celebration of 
 the idolatrous mass was abandoned, and sacra- 
 mental views akin to those now commonly called 
 Calvinistic were inculcated. The bread and the 
 wine of the Lord's Supper were not miraculously 
 transformed into the very body and blood of 
 Christ ; the sacrifice of the Cross offered up by the 
 only High Priest of men could not be repeated, as 
 it crowned and consummated all sacrifice ; Christ 
 Jesus was physically present in Heaven and could 
 only be apprehended in the Sacrament by faith ; 
 and worthy communicants had a right to receive 
 the Sacrament in both kinds. Such doctrines held 
 and taught by Myln were more evangelical than 
 those propagated by Luther himself. Living and 
 labouring in an obscure and thinly-peopled rural 
 district, and possessing few opportunities of speak- 
 ing in high places, the humble priest pursued the 
 
236 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 even tenour of his way, and remained unmolested 
 for many years. Like Chaucer's parish priest, he 
 was rich of holy thought, and 
 
 "A clerk 
 That Christes gospel trewely would preche. 
 His parishens devoutly would he teche ; 
 Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, 
 And in adversity full patient. 
 
 He dwelt at home, and kepte well his fold, 
 So that the wolf ne made it not miscarie ; 
 He was a shepherd and no mercenarie ; 
 And though he holy were and virtuous, 
 He was to sinful men not dispitous, 
 Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne, 
 But in his teching discrete and benigne, 
 To drawen folk to heaven with fairenesse, 
 By good example was his businesse." 
 
 The Book of Life alone will tell what souls he 
 cured, and what broken hearts he healed. But it 
 is unquestionable that he held high the torch of 
 evangelical truth in Lunan and pointed out with 
 unmistakeable clearness the plain man's pathway 
 to heaven. If he was " a priest none of the most 
 learned," he was at least gifted with strong common 
 sense, quiet bubbling humour, extraordinary moral 
 courage, and conquering faith, as the last act in 
 the drama of his life showed ; and such a minister 
 must have left a deep spiritual impression upon his 
 parishioners. But at last the reformed pastor had 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan. 237 
 
 to abandon his quiet home, and to leave his few 
 sheep in the wilderness to the care of the Good 
 Shepherd. 
 
 In 1546, Cardinal Beaton had completed a grand 
 march through Angus and Mearns with the object 
 of hunting down heretics, and he rested for some 
 time in Ethie House, now a dilapidated mansion 
 standing among old trees, near the tall inaccessible 
 cliffs breasting the German Ocean, familiarly known 
 as the Red Head, and not far from the Mussel-crag 
 of the Antiquary. Few Scotsmen have earned for 
 themselves such an infamous immortality as David 
 Beaton. Destitute of a spark of patriotic fire and 
 enthusiasm, selfish, luxurious, ambitious, and 
 •despotic, ready to serve the worst of masters for 
 the advancement of personal interests, his terrible 
 name still haunts like a sheeted ghost the woods 
 and dens and the gaunt chambers of Ethie. 
 Though a Scotsman, he has always been re- 
 garded by the people of Angus as a hireling 
 and a profligate priest. He constantly played 
 into the hands of France, and would willingly 
 have sold the liberties of the Scottish people 
 to promote the interests of the Papal Church. 
 He did not scruple to forge a royal Will, or to 
 enter into a dark conspiracy to slaughter many 
 of the greatest nobles in the land, in order to in- 
 
238 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 crease his power, to exalt his fame, and to further 
 his ambitious designs. Honest, conscientious, and 
 pious men he burned because they ventured to 
 depart from the teaching of the Church that glori- 
 fied him, and to oppose the policy he pursued to 
 his own worldly advantage. If there is one thing 
 Scotsmen value and love above all else, it is liberty 
 and truth ; and the Cardinal has forfeited the 
 respect of his countrymen, because he proved a 
 merciless oppressor, and played the part of a cool, 
 calculating, audacious Sadducee, in the splendid 
 garb of a sanctimonious Pharisee. The Romish 
 Church has described Beaton as "an apostolical 
 minister," but he bore a more striking resem- 
 blance to the haughty and malignant Caiaphas 
 
 • 
 than to the penitent Peter, or the pure and loving 
 
 John. He was indeed an accomplished scholar, 
 a refined and polished courtier, an astute and 
 wily statesman, and a prelate fond of pomp 
 and splendour ; but he possessed none of the 
 moral qualities that distinguish a messenger 
 of grace. If he was a staunch supporter of the 
 Church of Rome, he was destitute of Christian 
 principle and common morality. Though he could 
 not tolerate a Protestant he did not scruple to 
 break his solemn vow of chastity and celibacy, and 
 flaunt his unlawful amours in the face of the world. 
 
ETHIE HOUSE. 
 
Walter jIIj/u, Vicar of Lanan. 239 
 
 If he would not suffer a poor priest who denied the 
 dogma of Transubstantiation to breathe, he could 
 live with harlots, and show his " lordly liberality in 
 banqueting", playing at cards and dyce, and spare 
 not to play with King or knight ten thousand 
 crowns of gold upon a night." Beaton was doubt- 
 less an orthodox prelate, bnt he was a licentious 
 man. Practising the vices of a prodigal, he did not 
 scruple to act as a censorious Pharisee.* 
 
 No sooner had Beaton learned that the Vicar of 
 Lunan was deviating from Roman Catholic thought 
 and practice than he watched him closely, pounced 
 upon him like an eagle on a dove, and condemned 
 htm to the flames, as a dangerous heretic, along 
 with his friend and neighbour John Petrie, of 
 Inverkeilor, chaplain to Lord Innermeath.t 
 
 * See Note A at the end of the book. 
 
 t It does not appear that Petrie was a Vicar of Inverkeilor. The 
 noble family of the De Berkeleys granted the Church of Inverkclidor 
 to the Monastery of Arbroath ; and the Church of Inverkeler is called, 
 in a Charter of King William the Lion, the " Church of St. 
 Macconoc of Inverkeler." It is probable that this church was 
 dedicated to Saint Canech or Kenny, the contemporary of Columba, 
 who visited him at Hy or Iona, the first great missionary institution 
 in Scotland. The first perpetual Vicar of Ennirkelor of whom we 
 know anything was James Bridy, and he seems to have commenced 
 his ministry about 1464. Gilbert Straiton was Vicar of the parish 
 in 150S. James Scrymgeour succeeded him, and was translated in 
 1524 to Kymarnyn in the diocese of Aberdeen, where he died on 
 13th September 1533. In the year 1524 James Boswell was Vicar 
 
240 The Martyrs of Angus and Meavns. 
 
 Fortunately, Walter Myln escaped out of his 
 hands, and hid himself in the south of Scotland. 
 As he found opportunity, he preached in the wilds 
 of Galloway, and for some time he seems to have 
 found a sanctuary among the descendants of the 
 Lollards of Kyle. But when the fires of persecu- 
 tion blazed higher and fiercer, and inquisitors 
 scoured the dark recesses of the land, he was 
 obliged to seek a sanctuary on the German Ocean. 
 
 " How happy they 
 Who from the toil and tumult of their lives, 
 Steal to look down where nought but ocean strives." 
 
 Tradition says that he acted as the skipper of a 
 trading vessel for a time, but it is more probable 
 that he was befriended and protected by some 
 Dundee or Montrose captain who happened to be 
 a native of his old parish, or to have some intimate 
 relations with it. Abandoning the sea, he 
 travelled into Almain or Germany,* and found 
 
 of Inverkeillor ; John Stevenson resigned the charge in 1527, and 
 was succeeded by David Haliburton, who retired in 1529. 
 
 Alexander Stewart, Presbyter of Kyncoldrum, in the diocese of 
 Brechin, was presented to the Parish of Innerkelour, in the diocese 
 of St. Andrews, in 1529 ; Murdoch Leky, Vicar, died in Inverkeilor 
 in 1536 ; and James Ged, the last Vicar of Athy, was Parish Priest 
 of Innerkeldour in the same year. 
 
 * The Rev. John Skinner, in his Ecclesiastical History of Scot- 
 land, (Vol. II, 72), states that Walter Myln in his younger years 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan. 241 
 
 friends and sympathizers among the Lutherans, 
 and embraced the more distinctly Protestant 
 doctrines. Various writers have hazarded the 
 statement that he sat at the feet of some of the 
 more conspicuous of the Swiss Reformers, but 
 of this we have no authentic record. However, 
 there were many persons of great interest in Swit- 
 zerland about the time Myln travelled on the 
 Continent. The mighty Calvin was there in 1554, 
 ruling a city of God, expounding the Scriptures 
 with marvellous insight and skill, and moulding 
 the minds of distinguished Scotsmen who were 
 destined to play a leading part in connection with 
 the establishment of the Reformed Church in their 
 native land. John Knox was there enjoying the 
 friendship and profiting by the teaching of the 
 spiritual Dictator, drinking in the spirit of freedom 
 with the bracing air that streamed down from the 
 sky - cleaving mountains, preparing himself for 
 fighting the good fight of faith, and disseminating 
 
 had travelled into Germany ; but the statement does not seem to be 
 based on good authority. In all likelihood Skinner has misread 
 and misinterpreted the vague passage in Foxe's Acts and Monu- 
 ments, (Vol. V. p. 644): "Walter Mille, who in his youth had 
 been a papist, after he had been in Almain, and had heard the 
 doctrines of the Gospel, returned again into Scotland ; and setting 
 aside all papistry and compelled chastity, married a wife, which 
 thing made him unto the bishops of Scotland, to be suspected of 
 heresy." 
 
 Q 
 
242 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 the pure doctrines of grace at home. And if the 
 priest of Lunan travelled as far as Geneva, it is 
 certain he found in Calvin and Knox wise counsel- 
 lors, and congenial, helpful friends. 
 
 Returning to Scotland in 1556, Myln discovered 
 that the work of reformation had made rapid and 
 substantial progress, and that large numbers of the 
 nobles and gentry had identified themselves with 
 it, sheltering the evangelical preachers, and circul- 
 ating the Bible among the people. But the Queen- 
 Regent, Mary of Lorraine, stimulated and guided 
 by her wily and ambitious brothers in France, 
 occasionally showed signs of papistical bigotry and 
 intolerance, notwithstanding all her courtly bland- 
 ishments and fair speeches ; and consequently the 
 aged priest, weary of a wandering life, was compelled 
 to visit secretly his old haunts, and to preach the 
 living gospel in quiet sequestered homes, sometimes 
 in the dead hour of night. In 1556 he was already 
 married, and the father of some children ; but 
 whether he entered the honourable estate of matri- 
 mony in Germany or in his native land, it is im- 
 possible to tell. Possibly he married after 1 546, 
 when he left Lunan and retired to the south-west 
 part of Scotland, as he had several children in 1558. 
 That he broke the Romish vow of celibacy is quite 
 certain, and that his wife and children survived his 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Liu i an. 243 
 
 martyrdom is unquestionable. From the Collector- 
 General's accounts of the Thirds of Benefices in 
 J 573 ^ appears that Walter Myln's widow was in 
 receipt of a yearly pension. The following entry 
 settles the matter : — " To the relict of umquhile 
 Walter Myln, according to the allowance of the old 
 comptis, £6 . 13 . 46." 
 
 After the Reformation was effected, the enormous 
 wealth and extensive property of the Romish 
 Church were valued by commissioners appointed by 
 the Privy Council, and divided into three parts. 
 One third of the spoils went to the crown " for 
 entertaining and setting forward of the common 
 affairs of the country," another third was assigned 
 to the Ministers of the Evangel and their successors, 
 and the " excrescence and surplus " remained in 
 the hands of the old and original possessors. The 
 Laird of Pitarrow paid the stipends of the ministers 
 for many years, the sums varying from one hundred 
 to thee hundred marks annually ; but Wishart was 
 evidently a close-fisted and parsimonious cashier, 
 as Knox in his own humorous and scathing way 
 thus taunted him : "Who would have thought that 
 when Joseph ruled Egypt, his brethren should have 
 travailed for victuals, and have returned with empty 
 sacks unto their families ? " It was then from the 
 Thirds of Benefices that Myln's widow derived a 
 
244 The Martyrs of A ngus and M earns. 
 
 yearly allowance, but it is impossible to say who 
 she was, where she resided, or when she died. 
 
 At the beginning of 1558, Walter Myln, deceived 
 by the temporary clemency of the Queen-Regent, and 
 the prelates, ventured dangerously near the strong- 
 hold of the Papacy in Fife. To all appearance the 
 churchmen were cultivating a tolerant and concilia- 
 tory spirit. The reformers among the Scottish 
 nobles were steadily gaining influence, the iron 
 hand of persecution was concealed beneath a soft 
 bewitching glove, and the fugitive priest naturally 
 concluded that 
 
 " Storm and peril were overpast, 
 And hounding hatred shamed and still." 
 
 During his temporary residence in Scotland in 1556, 
 Knox had so quickened and stimulated the 
 Protestants that they had ventured to form 
 themselves into congregations ; to appoint godly 
 and intelligent men to read the Scriptures and to 
 conduct devotional exercises ; and to elect elders 
 for the maintenance of discipline, and deacons 
 for the collection of money for the poor. At 
 an Assembly of reforming nobles and barons, 
 held at Edinburgh, in December 1557, two 
 liberal resolutions were adopted, and with some 
 modifications, carried into effect. First, it was 
 agreed that King Edward the Sixth's Prayer 
 
Walter My hi, Vicar of Lunan. 245 
 
 Book, containing lessons from the Old and New 
 Testament, should be read in every parish on Sun- 
 days and Festivals, by the curates or other persons 
 within the bounds best qualified for the sacred 
 work ; and secondly that the Reformers should 
 teach and preach only in private houses till the 
 Parliament granted them liberty to minister in 
 public. If the Church at large did not use the 
 English Prayer Book, it is certain the Protestant 
 congregations did so for several years ; and if the 
 Government did not permit the Reformers to teach 
 in private, it is unquestionable that the barons and 
 gentry sheltered the Evangelical preachers, and 
 employed them as domestic chaplains. Among 
 others the Earl of Argyle protected John Douglas, 
 a reformed friar, who seems to have denounced the 
 vices of the time with terrible energy. Hamilton, 
 Archbishop of St. Andrews, and the prelates about 
 him, saw that the cause of Reformation was rapidly 
 and surely advancing ; but as they were worldly- 
 wise men they suppressed their rage and refused to 
 strike the heretics for a time, hopeful that by 
 means of persuasive lauguage and fair blandish- 
 ments they might win back men of commanding- 
 ability and high character. The lull in the storm 
 of persecution deceived Walter Myln. He thought 
 the storm had changed into a calm, and imagined 
 
246 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 he had but to enter the quiet haven. He 
 was greviously mistaken. Failing after many- 
 earnest endeavours to withdraw the sym- 
 pathy and support of the nobles and barons 
 from the reformed preachers the infuriated and 
 disappointed prelates threw off the mask of con- 
 ciliation and manifested a readiness to wreak 
 their vengeance upon the poor and the weak. If, 
 in their cowardice, they dared not strike powerful 
 friends of the Reformation like the Earl of Argyle, 
 Lord Glencairn, and Erskine of Dun, who had 
 harboured " pestilent heretics," and listened with 
 interest to their sermons directed "against all 
 manner of abuses and corruption of Christ's sin- 
 cere religion," they were determined to burn the 
 recreant priests within their power. At this crisis, 
 when the crafty Queen-Regent and the treacherous 
 and wily Primate were waiting for an opportunity 
 of kindling their terrifying bonfires, Myln ap- 
 peared at Dysart, in Fife, prosecuting the work of a 
 humble but faithful minister of Christ. The Papal 
 spies silently watched his movements till they were 
 ready to spring upon him and thrust him 
 into their net. Sir George Strachan, Vicar of 
 Dysart (who afterwards became a salt-manu- 
 facturer, and died in 1587), and Sir Hugh Turry 
 or Curry, " an ignorant minister and imp of Satan 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan. 247 
 
 and the Bishops," * who had shortly before harassed 
 Adam Wallace, the martyr, in his prison, threaten- 
 ing that " he would gar deils come forth of him ere 
 evening " — these were the men who revived the 
 legal process originated by the Cardinal twelve 
 years before, and apprehended the aged priest. 
 Discovered " in a poor wife's house teaching her 
 the commandments of God, and learning her how 
 she should instruct her bairns and her household, 
 and bring them up in the fear of God," Myln was 
 transported to St. Andrews, and flung into the dun- 
 geon of the Castle. Many a good and brave martyr 
 has lain in irons in that old fortress of Rome, and 
 if it had a living voice it could tell many a tragic 
 tale of suffering and woe, of heroic moral strug- 
 gles, and victories over fierce temptations ; but 
 among all the men of faith who found in it a Pat- 
 mos none were nobler than the last and the most 
 venerable of the martyrs. He witnessed a good 
 confession, and while he never winced under 
 barbarous treatment, he preserved his genial and 
 jocular disposition to the last. Sufferers in the 
 grandest of causes have sometimes indulged in 
 rash and vindictive language, and shown an awful 
 
 Foxe's Acts and Monuments, Vol. V., p. 644. 
 
248 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 countenance, hissing out defiance ; but in the midst 
 of sore tribulation Walter Myln manifested the 
 spirit of the gentle and strong Jesus. While lying 
 in a loathsome den, like a criminal of the darkest 
 dye, he was persistently attacked by the priests 
 and besought to recant his religious opinions, but 
 he refused to burn his faggot and abjure the Faith. 
 They threatened him with bodily torments, but he 
 stood firm as a rock. They offered him a monk's 
 portion in the great Abbey of Dunfermline, if he 
 would return to the bosom of the Church ; but he 
 remained steadfast and immoveable, despising 
 their threatenings and scorning their fair promises. 
 George Buchanan describes the martyr as "a priest 
 none of the most learned, of weakly constitution of 
 body, and extremely poor ;" but if Myln was 
 neither a great classical scholar nor the companion 
 of princes and nobles, like the Historian, he was a 
 Christian of dauntless courage, of unswerving 
 fidelity to the truth, of deep religious convictions, 
 and withal a sound theologian ; and if he had to 
 contend with infirmities inseparable from old age 
 and poverty, he possessed a robust intellect, a 
 generous spirit, and the riches that are unsearchable. 
 His trial proved him a man of extraordinary 
 moral strength and grandeur. 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Lunan. 249 
 
 Trial and Martyrdom. 
 
 On the twentieth day of April, 1558, Walter 
 Myln was arraigned in the Abbey Church of St. 
 Andrews, where the Ecclesiastical dignitaries had 
 assembled. The Primate of St. Andrews, the 
 Bishops of Moray, Brechin, Caithness, and 
 Athens ; * the Abbots of Lindores, Dunferm- 
 line, Balmerino, and Cupar ; Greson and Winran, 
 Doctors of Theology ; Cranston, Provost of the 
 Old College, and Friars black and grey, and others 
 of like sort were present on the occasion. Weak 
 and frail the venerable confessor could not climb 
 into the lofty pulpit without aid ; and those v, ho 
 looked on thought he would not be able to make 
 himself heard in the great church. To the asto- 
 nishment of all, and to the consternation of his foes, 
 the grand old man spoke boldly, and " made the 
 church ring and sound again." 
 
 The public preacher was Friar Maltman, whose 
 "sermon was far from the meaning of Scripture 
 and Spirit of God, which, when Walter Myln 
 heard, he fell on his face, and cried out, Alas! 
 This Friar is not ashamed to lie." t 
 
 * Alexander Gordon, who bore the fancy title of Archbishot- of 
 Athens, became Bishop of Galloway in 1558. The classical title 
 was conferred on Gordon by the Pope when he was defeated in his 
 candidature for the See of Glasgow in 1547. 
 
 t Pitscottie's History, p. 200. (Edit. 1728.) 
 
250 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 The prosecutor was Master Andrew Oliphant. 
 He had won some notoriety as an unscrupulous and 
 officious servant of the Papal Church, and he was 
 well acquainted with all the arts of bullying here- 
 tics. Beginning clerical life as Vicar of Foulis 
 and Innertig, he was subsequently employed by 
 Beaton and Hamilton as their confidential agent 
 at Rome, and once and again he had played' the 
 part of accuser at the trials of the reformed brethren. 
 When Oliphant* began the prosecution Myln was 
 kneeling in the pulpit, engaged in silent prayer. 
 Without ceremony and with not a little rudeness he 
 commanded him to arise, saying : " Sir * Walter, 
 arise, and answer to the articles ; for you hold my 
 lord here over-long." Whereupon Walter, after he 
 had concluded his prayer, answered : " We 
 ought to obey God more than men. I serve 
 one more mighty, even the Omnipotent Lord. 
 And whereas ye call me Sir W'alter, call me W r alter, 
 and not Sir Walter : I have been over-long one of 
 the Pope's knights. Now say what thou hast to 
 say."t 
 
 * Sir was a title applied to those students who had taken their 
 Bachelor's Degree ; Master to all who had taken their Degree of 
 Master of Arts. Wishart, for example, is commonly called Maister 
 George by Knox. 
 
 t Ads and Monuments, Vol. V., p. 645. (Cattley's Edit. 1838.) 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Lunan. 251 
 
 Questioned by Oliphant : 
 
 I. Concerning the Marriage of Priests, he 
 answered that he held marriage a blessed bond ; 
 that Christ himself maintained it, and made it free 
 to all men. Then he charged the priests with 
 breaking their solemn vow of chastity, with violat- 
 ing " other men's wives and daughters," and boldly 
 affirmed that " God never forbade marriage to any 
 man, of what state or degree soever he were." 
 
 II. Concerning the Sacraments, Myln maintained 
 there were but two and not seven, as the Church 
 of Rome taught. Baptism and the Lord's Supper 
 alone were sacraments instituted and appointed by 
 Christ : there was no Scriptural warrant for regard- 
 ing matrimony, orders, penance, confirmation, and 
 extreme unction as sacraments. Though sacred 
 acts, and capable of being viewed as symbolical of 
 spiritual truths, they were not seals of the covenant 
 of grace, and they did not directly represent Christ 
 and the benefits flowing from the work of 
 Redemption. 
 
 Pithily and pertinenently the confessor said to 
 his accusers : " If there be seven why have you 
 omitted one of them, to wit, marriage, and give 
 yourselves to slanderous and ungodly whoredom ? " 
 
 III. Charged with affirming that the Mass zuas 
 idolatry, he answered : " A lord or a king sendeth 
 
252 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 and calleth many to a dinner ; and when the 
 dinner is in readiness he causeth to ring the bell 
 and the men come to the hall and sit down to be 
 partakers of the dinner, but the lord, turning his 
 back unto them, eateth all himself, and mocketh 
 them ; so do ye." Here he referred to the sinful 
 and shameful custom of the Roman Catholic Clergy 
 in withholding the Cup from the laity, and suffer- 
 ing them to partake of the Bread only. 
 
 4. Charged with denying the Sacrament of the 
 altar to be the very body of Christ really in flesh 
 and blood, he shrewdly replied that the Scripture was 
 not to be interpreted literally but spiritually, and 
 that as Christ had been "once offered on the Cross 
 for man's trespass " He thereby ended all sacrifice. 
 Having drunk at Wycliffe's well he was satisfied 
 that " the substance of material bread and wine do 
 remain the same after consecration that they were 
 before ; " and that " the body and blood of Christ 
 are not essentially, nor substantially, nor even 
 bodily, but figuratively or tropically ; so that Christ 
 is not there truly or verily in his own proper bodily 
 person." 
 
 5. Accused of denying the office of a Bishop, 
 he straightly charged the bishops with neglect of 
 pastoral duty, with the love of sensual pleasure, of 
 honour and dignity. 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Lunan. 253 
 
 6. Charged with speaking against Pilgrimages 
 to the shrines of the saints, he affirmed that pilgri- 
 mage was not enjoined in Scripture, and that the 
 shrines were places of temptation. " There is no 
 greater whoredom in any plaee than at your pil- 
 grimages,* except it be in common brothels." 
 
 7. Accused of preaching privately in houses, 
 and openly in the fields, he answered somewhat 
 sarcastically : " Yea, man, and on the sea also, 
 sailing in a ship." We can almost see the wit 
 sparkling in the eye of the venerable man totter- 
 ing on the verge of Eternity. 
 
 Such is Foxe's account of the trial of Walter 
 Myln, and it was sent to him at Basil by eye- 
 witnesses. Robert Lindsay t supplies us with 
 some additional and interesting facts. 
 
 " Heretick," said Oliphant, "why didst thou pass 
 about through sundry houses seducing the people 
 to heresy ; and teaching them charms and enchant- 
 ments, to hold them from God's service ? " 
 
 " Verily, brother," said Myln, " I held no man 
 from the kirk, but contraryways, exhorted all men 
 
 * Dundee, Melrose, Paisley, and Scone, were the principal places 
 of pilgrimage in Scotland. Thither malefactors, and all guilty of 
 misdemeanours, proceeded to do penance at the various shrines and 
 altars. 
 
 t History, pp. 220, 201. 
 
254 Th e Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 to the service of God ; and that they might under- 
 stand the work of their salvation, I taught them the 
 Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and the Ten Command- 
 ments." 
 
 " But, seeing thou art a priest, why hast thou 
 forsaken the Mass. Thou hadst the Cure of the 
 parish of Lunan, in Angus, beside Redcastle, from 
 which thou fledst, and one with thee, Sir John 
 Pctry, servant to Lord Innermeath;* and you 
 and he were condemned by my late Lord Car- 
 dinal of heresy, and ordained to be burnt wherever 
 ye might be apprehended, so that we need no fur- 
 ther accusation against you at this time." 
 
 " Brother," said the accused, " indeed I served 
 the Cure at Lunan twenty years, with the appro- 
 bation, to this day, of all the parishioners, who 
 never heard me teach erroneous doctrine, especially 
 my Lord Innermeath himself. But when the 
 furious Cardinal persecuted me, and many more, 
 for the preaching of God's Word, I was constrained 
 to keep myself quiet, and go about asking for 
 God's sake, reproving vices, and instructing people 
 
 * The Barony of Redcastle was acquired by Sir Robert Stewart, 
 of Innermeath, from Sir Andrew Campbell in 1366-7, and the 
 Stewarts occupied Redcastle till the close of the 16th century. 
 John Stewart, Lord Innermeath, was one of the Senators of the- 
 College of Justice. He was married in 1530 to Elizabeth Beaton, 
 daughter of Sir John Beaton or Bethune, of Creich in Fifeshire. 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Luna n. 255 
 
 in the grounds of religion ; for the which I am 
 now taken and brought to this place." 
 
 The Bishop said ; " Wilt thou burn thy faggot, 
 and thy life shall be safe ? " 
 
 "That," said he, " I will not do, to confess my- 
 self to be a heretick. I am a poor indigent man, 
 not caring for this world, but assured that my re- 
 ward is in Heaven. I am also of great age, and 
 have not cause to fear death. Do with me as you 
 think best. But it were better for you to give 
 something for the relief of my wife and poor 
 children." 
 
 Stoutly refusing to recant, Walter Myln was 
 condemned to the stake. With the spirit of the 
 heroes he said, after sentence was pronounced : 
 "Quod facis fac citius '' (What thou doest do 
 quickly). " Ye shall know that I will not recant 
 the truth, for I am corn ; I am no chaff; I will 
 not be blown away with the wind, nor burst with 
 the flail, but I will abide both." 
 
 Whereupon Oliphant delivered him to the tem- 
 poral judge to be burned. But the temporal judge 
 was at heart a reformer, and the manly bearing 
 and defence of the aged priest had greatly moved 
 him. Let it be told for a memorial that Patrick 
 Learmont, Laird of Dairsie, and Provost of St. 
 Andrews, refused to execute the sentence of the 
 
256 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 savage prelates, and scorned the cruel behests of 
 Archbishop Hamilton.* " I will do anything 
 
 * John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, was an illegitimate 
 son of the first Earl of Arran. After pursuing his studies at Glas- 
 gow and Paris he was appointed in 1525 to the Abbacy of Paisley, 
 and sat in the Parliaments of 1535 and 1540. His close connexion 
 with the Governor of the Kingdom secured his rapid promotion to 
 the highest offices in the Church and State. After occupying the 
 positions of Lord Privy Seal, High Treasurer, Senator of the 
 College of Justice and Bishop of Dunkeld, he was nominated by 
 the Governor to the Archbishopric of St. Andrews, on the death of 
 Cardinal Beaton. So long as he held the Abbacy of Paisley he 
 bore a good reputation, and was called, "chaster than any maiden ;" 
 but when he became Primate he sullied his fair fame by various 
 mesalliances, particularly with Lady Grizell Sempill, by whom he 
 had several children, two of whom — John and William Hamilton — 
 were legitimated in 1551. "I have seen copies of charters," says 
 Mai tine in his Reliquia Divi Andrea:, "to William, John, and 
 James Hamilton, his three natural sones born of this Grizzel Sem- 
 pill ; and they are designed her natural sones, but they came all to 
 be forfeited." (See Laing's Notes in Knox's History of the Refor- 
 mation, Vol. I., pp. 124-5.) 
 
 Buchanan had formed a favourable opinion of Hamilton, and 
 states in his History (Vol. III., p. 86) that "he rather coveted the 
 money than the blood of his enemies, and was seldom cruel, but 
 when it was to maintain his plunder and his pleasures." We are 
 disposed, however, to pronounce a more severe judgment on the 
 Ecclesiastic, whose first public act after his elevation to the Primacy 
 was to burn a simple zealous harmless man like Adam Wallace of 
 Fail, in Ayrshire, and whose last conspicuous act was the martyrdom 
 of Walter Myln of Lunan. Notwithstanding his cruelty and im- 
 morality, Hamilton seems to have been a zealous Churchman ; for 
 he published in 1552 a theological Catechism in the mother tongue, 
 containing a brief Exposition of the ten Commandments, the Creed, 
 the Lord's Prayer, and the Magnificat. Commonly called The 
 Twopenny Faith, it was on the whole a creditable performance, as 
 it was an exceptional one in pre-Reformation times. 
 
Waher Myln, Vicar of Luna n. 257 
 
 that pertains to my office, according to justice," 
 said the Provost ; " but for the innocent ser- 
 vants of God, and preachers of His Word, I will 
 not meddle with them." Then said the Primate : 
 " Provost, you are Bailie of my Regality, and 
 ought to judge all such as transgress within my 
 bounds." " Yes," answered the Provost, " and if 
 your lordship please I will take him and give him 
 a fair assize of temporal men, who perhaps will 
 absolve him ! " Nor was the Provost the only 
 person who manifested a hearty detestation of 
 the unjust and inhuman conduct of the pre- 
 lates. The Archbishop's chamberlain, "being 
 therewith charged, would in no wise take upon 
 him so ungodly an office as that of ecclesiastical 
 judge ;" and so highly indignant were the people 
 of the town that they refused to help the 
 executioners to accomplish their execrable and 
 barbarous task. The merchants closed their 
 booths, and refused to sell the " bloody butchers " 
 a cord to bind the martyr to the stake, or a 
 tar-barrel to burn him. At last the executioners 
 were compelled " to cut the cords of their master's 
 own pavillion, to serve their turn ; " and " a servant 
 of the Bishop's, more ignorant and cruel than the 
 rest, called Alexander Somervaile* enterprising the 
 
 Alexander Somerville was of Tafbrax, near Carnwaih in I.an- 
 R 
 
258 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 office of temporal judge in that part, conveyed him 
 to the fire, where, against all natural reason of man, 
 his boldness and hardiness did more and more in- 
 crease, so that the Spirit of God, working miracu- 
 lously in him, made it manifest to the people that 
 
 arkshire. He was a dissolute profligate, and an unworthy member 
 of the old family of Somerville who occupied the ancient castle of 
 Cowthally, situated on the verge of the moor lying to the north of 
 the village of Carnvvath. Robert Lindsay knew the character of the 
 man, who won for himself an infamous immortality by pronouncing 
 the sentence of death on the last martyr of the Scottish Reformation. 
 For thus he writes : "The Bishop being frustrate in this manner 
 sought up and down a long time for one to be judge, till at length 
 he took one of his own court, named Alexander Somervel, a man 
 void of all honesty, religion, or fear of God, who sat in judgment 
 and condemned him to death. But the merchants, for the love of 
 this poor servant of God, had hid all Tows and all other things 
 which might serve for his execution. He was burnt on the north 
 side of the Abbey Kirk." — Pitscottie's History, p. 201. 
 
 "In the year 1558, the Lord Somervill was much afflicted with the 
 bad report that he heard of his cousine Alexander Somervill of 
 Trabrax, who haveing dilapidated most of his fortune, wodselt the 
 ruume of Trabrax to one Thomas French. The Laird of Cambus- 
 nethan being superior, as he held the same of the Earle of Doug- 
 lasse, that roume being a part of the barronie of Dunsyre, Cam- 
 nethan, for a time withstood that right ; but by the mediatione of 
 James, Lord Somervill, all differences were composed at Cowthally, 
 the twentieth and third of September, 1556; about which tyme 
 this gentleman, Alexander Somervill, by the Lord Somerville's 
 interest with the Bishope of Saint Andrewes, obtaines that service, 
 believing it might be a mean to preserve the remainder of his 
 brocken fortune; but that unhappy act of condemneing Walter 
 Milne as ane heretick to the fyre, he himself being noe temporall 
 judge for the time, but officiouslie intrudeing himself in that office, 
 to ingratiate himself more in his master's favour, lost quyte his owne 
 reputatione in the countrey, the good will of all his friends, particu- 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Lunan. 2$g 
 
 his cause and articles were most just, and he inno- 
 cently put down." 
 
 A band of armed men led the decrepit priest to 
 the stake planted on the high ground north of the 
 Abbey Church, overlooking the sea. Oliphant bade 
 him mount the pyre ; but he refused to break the 
 Sixth Commandment. " Nay," said he, " wilt thou 
 put me up with thy hand, and take part of my 
 death ? Thou shalt see me pass up gladly : for by 
 the law of God I am forbidden to put hands upon 
 myself." Then Oliphant pushed up the brave 
 and joyous saint. He ascended, saying : " In- 
 troibo ad altare Dei " — / will go to the altar of 
 God ; and when he had taken up his position at 
 the stake he craved liberty to address the assem- 
 bled people, who were frantic with excitement. 
 Oliphant and other furnace-men refused him per- 
 mission to speak ; but the infuriated young men 
 of the crowd interfered, and while recklessly com- 
 mitting the burners and the bishops to the devil, 
 desired " Walter to speak what he pleased." 
 
 larly his chieffe, the Lord Somervill, who although ther was none 
 more zealous that way, yet he abhorred that rigiditie, and all per- 
 secutione upon the account of opinione, especially in him who had 
 no call thereto, nor was concerned as a judge in that process 
 against Walter Milne, who was the last in Scotland that suffered 
 upon that account." — Memorie of the Somervillcs, Vol. I. pp. 415-417. 
 
260 The Martyrs of Aligns and M earns. 
 
 First, he knelt down and prayed ; then he rose 
 and stood upon the coals and said : " Dear friends ! 
 the cause why I suffer this day is not for any crime 
 laid to my charge (albeit I am a miserable sinner 
 before God) but only for the defence of the faith of 
 Jesus Christ, set forth in the Old and New Testament 
 unto us ; for which, as the faithful martyrs have 
 offered themselves gladly before, being assured, 
 after the death of their bodies, of eternal felicity, so 
 this day I praise God that he hath called me of his 
 mercy, among the rest of his servants, to seal up 
 his truth with my life : which as I have received it 
 of him, so willingly I offer it to his glory. There- 
 fore, as you would escape the eternal death, be 
 no more seduced with the lies of priests, monks, 
 friars, priors, abbots, bishops, and the rest of the 
 sect of Anti-christ ; but depend only upon Jesus 
 Christ and his mercy, that ye may be delivered 
 from condemnation." * 
 
 The patience, the boldness, the constancy and 
 hardiness of the venerable martyr moved the mul- 
 titude so profoundly, that they made great mourn- 
 ing and lamentation, and refused to be comforted. 
 As he was hoisted up to the stake the people's 
 hearts were inflamed with love for the reformed 
 
 * Acts and Monuments, Vol. V., pp. 646, 647. 
 
Walter My In, Vicar of Lit nan. 26 r 
 
 religion ; and while in the fire, amid the swirling 
 smoke and the crackling flames, he uttered words 
 that proved his constancy, and encouraged those 
 left behind to fight the battle. " Lord have mercy 
 on me ; pray people, while there is time ; " and so 
 saying he departed to the bosom of God, where 
 rest the shining ones who have " come out of the 
 great tribulation." 
 
 So suffered and so died the last martyr of the 
 Scottish Reformation, " a man," says Hill Burton, 
 " past eighty years of age, and a quiet country 
 priest of blameless life." One account of the 
 martyrdom runs that in the fire the venerable 
 preacher said : " I am four-score and two years 
 old, and cannot live long by the course of nature ; 
 but a hundred better than I shall rise out of the 
 ashes of my bones. . . I trust in God I shall 
 be the last that shall suffer death in Scotland for 
 this cause."* If Walter Myln thus spoke it is sat- 
 isfactory to know that his last wish was realised. 
 "His death," says Spottiswoode, "was the very 
 death of Popery in this realm, for thereby the 
 minds of men were so greatly enraged, as resolving 
 thereafter openly to profess the truth, they did 
 bind themselves by promise and subscription to 
 
 * Pitscoltie's History, p. 201. 
 
262 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 oaths, if any should be called in question for mat- 
 ters of religion, at any time after, they should take 
 up arms and join in defence of their brethren 
 against the tyrannical persecution of the bishops." 
 And just as the phoenix of ancient fable secured 
 for itself an immortal progeny by dying in the 
 fires, so from the ashes of this venerable martyr 
 sprang a race of Scottish Worthies, whose uncon- 
 querable spirit and heroical faith carried the battle 
 for Reformation to the goal of victory. The spec- 
 tacle of the frail and venerable priest, suffer- 
 ing in the fires with a lion-hearted bravery and 
 a saintly meekness, roused the hearts of a radically 
 just and humane people, and constrained and com- 
 pelled them to espouse and carry forward a cause 
 for which they had long cherished a secret inclina- 
 tion. Persecution bereft the Roman Catholic 
 Church of old friends, and won adherents for the 
 cause of the Reformation. To this fact Knox refers 
 when he writes : " Which thing did so highly offend 
 the hearts of all the godly, that immediately after 
 his death began a new fervency among the whole 
 people ; yea, even in the town of Saint Andrews 
 began the people plainly to condemn such unjust 
 cruelty ; and in testification that his death should 
 abide in recent memory, there was cast together a 
 great heap of stones in the place where he was 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Luuan. 263 
 
 burnt." The memorial cairn to Walter Myln 
 deeply offended the bishops and the priests, who 
 regarded him as a stubborn heretic ; but though 
 they levelled it to the ground once and again, and 
 threatened with cursing all who should venture to 
 restore it, the people persisted in building up the 
 cairn. Only when the priests and papists stole 
 away the stones of the cairn by night, and built 
 them into their walls by day, was the martyr's 
 memorial destroyed. But the Scottish people 
 were determined that the honourable name of 
 Walter Myln and those of his illustrious com- 
 panions in suffering should not be forgotten by 
 posterity, and so they set themselves to erect a 
 permanent monument. And now, near the ruined 
 Castle of St. Andrews, and on classical ground, 
 stands an elegant obelisk, bearing the inscription : 
 
 " In memory of the martyrs Patrick Hamilton, 
 Henry Forrest, George Wishart, Walter Mill, who 
 in support of the Protestant faith suffered by fire 
 at St. Andrews, between the years MDXXVIII. and 
 MDLVIII. The righteous shall be held in everlast- 
 ing remembrance." 
 
 Prior to 1848 a monument to the memory of the 
 martyred priest stood in the graveyard of the 
 parish of Lunan, bearing the inscription : — 
 
264 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 " M.S. Reverendi Gualteri Mill, hujus ccclesiae, 
 o!im pastoris eximii, qui veritatis studiosus Jesu 
 Christi a Pontificiis ejusdem insectatoribus jam 
 major octogenario in foro Andrea-politano igni 
 crematus est tertio Kalendas Maii,* MDLVIII. Hoc 
 pos. R. J. G. I. W. 18 1 8." 
 
 This Latin inscription may thus be translated : 
 
 "Sacred to the memory of the Rev. Walter Mill, 
 formerly a distinguished pastor of this church, who, 
 zealous for the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, was 
 burned by Popish persecutors in the market-place 
 of St. Andrews, on the third of May, 1558, when 
 he was above eighty years of age. 
 
 * This old epitaph was composed by one of the ministers of 
 Lunan, the Rev. John Gowans, who, with his wife, Isobel Web- 
 ster, erected the ancient monument that stood in the churchyard, 
 of which not a vestige now remains. Mr. Gowans has dated the 
 martyrdom of his famous predecessor in May, 1558, but it is unques- 
 tionable that the 28th day of April is the real date. Knox is our 
 best authority on the subject, and he writes : " Shortly after these 
 things, that cruel tyrant and unmerciful hypocrite, falsely called 
 bishop of Saint Andrews, apprehended that blessed martyr of 
 Christ Jesus, Walter Myln ; a man of decrepit age, whom most 
 cruelly and most unjustly he put to death by fire in Saint Andrews, 
 the twenty-eight day of April, the year of God Jm. &c. fifty-eight 
 years." — History of the Reformation in Scotland, Vol. I. Book II., 
 p. 308 (Laing's Edit.) Foxe again fixes the trial of Myln on the 
 20th day of April, but does not mention the date of the execution ; 
 while Pitscottie, after stating that Myln was arraigned before the 
 clergy on the twentieth day of April, affirms generally that the 
 " bishop condemned him of heresy, and kept him two days, because 
 they could not get a criminal judge to condemn him to death." 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunaii. 265 
 
 This monument is placed here by the Rev. 
 John Gowans, and Isobel Webster, 1818." 
 
 When the old monument was removed a small 
 white marble tablet was inserted in the wall of 
 Lunan church, in 1848, bearing the inscription: — 
 
 " Sacred to the memory of Walter Mill, for up- 
 wards of forty years pastor of this church, and the 
 last Scottish martyr for adherence to the Protes- 
 tant cause. He entered on his ministrations in the 
 days when Popish error prevailed in Scotland ; but 
 by Divine grace was brought to a knowledge of the 
 truth ; and having faithfully preached the gospel for 
 many years in the midst of persecution, suffered 
 martyrdom at St. Andrews on the 28th day of 
 April, A.D., 1558, in the 83rd year of his age." 
 
 Perhaps the earliest of all the monuments erected 
 to the memory of the Vicar of Lunan was that 
 which stood in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, 
 with the famous Latin epitaph, composed by Pat- 
 rick Adamson, who became Archbishop of St. 
 Andrews : — 
 
 " Non nostra impietas, aut acta? crimina vita? 
 Armarunt hostes in mea fata truces : 
 Sola fides Christi sacris signata libellis, 
 Quae vitoe causa est, est mihi causa necis." * 
 
 * Quoted by Foxe, and preserved by Maitland in his History of 
 
 Edinburgh, p. 202. 
 
266 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 "No dark impiety, no faults of public life 
 Stirred savage foes to plot my violent death. 
 The faith of Christ alone, revealed in sacred books, 
 While saving others, robbed me of life's breath." 
 
 Such was Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan, who 
 suffered for his adherence to the doctrines 
 of Evangelical Protestantism more than three 
 centuries ago. He cannot be regarded as a 
 profound scholar, an eloquent and command- 
 ing preacher, a great ecclesiastic, or a leader 
 of men. He was simply a good truth-loving 
 man, a humble preacher of the Evangel, a quiet 
 God-fearing priest, who lived to guide his 
 fellow-men to heaven.* But the man is immortal, 
 
 * George Buchanan's account of Myln is full of interest, and I 
 append it here : — "In April (155S) Walter Mills, a priest, none of 
 the most learned, was suspected by the bishops, because he left off 
 saying Mass : whereupon he was dragged to their court. Though 
 he was weak by constitution of body and age, extremely poor, and 
 also brought out of a foul prison, and lay under such high discour- 
 agements, yet he answered so stoutly and prudently too, that his 
 very enemies could not but acknowledge that such greatness and 
 confidence of spirit, in such an enfeebled carcase, must needs have 
 a support from above. The citizens of St. Andrews were so much 
 offended at the wrong done him, that there was none found who 
 would sit as judge upon him ; and all the tradesmen shut up their 
 shops, that they might sell no materials towards his execution, 
 which was the cause of his reprieve for one day more than was in- 
 tended. 
 
 At last one Alexander Somerville, a friend of the archbishop's, 
 was found out the next day, a great villain, who undertook to act 
 as judge for that day. This is certain the commonalty took his 
 
Walter Myln, Vicar of Lunan. 267 
 
 because he was true to his nobler self, loyal to his 
 conscience, and. deepest convictions. He preferred 
 exile, hardship, and penury, to peace and comfort 
 bought at the price of a lie, and death in the fire 
 to a violation of the behests of conscience, and dis- 
 loyalty to the greatest of all martyrs, the King of 
 Truth. And the true man ever wears the crown of 
 a fair immortality. How many Scotsmen have 
 died upon the field of battle since Walter Myln 
 was burned at the stake ! How many haughty pre- 
 lates, splendid orators, astute lawyers, and princely 
 merchants have passed away during these last three 
 hundred years ! But how few of these live in the 
 hearts of good men, rule the destinies of their 
 fellowmen, and inspire them with devotion for the 
 truth, and with love to God ! It is moral grandeur, 
 loyalty to God, faith in the unseen and eternal, and 
 self-sacrifice for the cause of religious liberty, that 
 make men immortal ; and it is because Walter 
 Myln possessed in an eminent degree these fine 
 
 death so heinously that they heaped up a great pile of stones in the 
 place where he was burnt, that so the memory of his death might 
 not end with his life. The priests took order to have it thrown 
 ■down for some days ; but still, as they threw it down one day, it 
 was raised up the next, till at last the papists conveyed the stones 
 away to build houses with about the town." — History of Scotland, 
 Vol. III., p. 86. 
 
268 The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns. 
 
 qualities that he is entitled to a place among our 
 Scottish Worthies, and that his memory is in- 
 vested with an interest that is imperishable. 
 
 "The glory of one fair and virtuous action 
 Is above all the scutcheons on our tomb, 
 Or silken banners over us." 
 
 We cannot conclude the story of the Martyrs 
 without making a single observation regarding the 
 spirit of the Roman Church. Her spirit is intoler- 
 ant, and her conduct and sympathies uncatholic. 
 A gigantic tyranny, she inculcates principles that 
 sap and mine the foundations of civil and religious 
 liberty, and her practice is the outcome of her per- 
 secuting principles. The devotees of the Papacy 
 indeed profess to be the best friends of freedom, 
 but history plainly belies their pretensions, and 
 depicts them as the most relentless and formidable 
 of tyrants. If the Roman Catholic Church has ever 
 championed liberty, as Lammenais, Lacordaire, 
 and Montalembert have asserted, she has done so 
 in the hour of her weakness, and for the purpose 
 of securing a foothold to promote her own selfish 
 interests, and to climb into a position of ecclesias- 
 tical and political supremacy. If she has be- 
 
Conclusion. 269 
 
 friended freedom she has used her as a slave to 
 mislead independent peoples. Doubtless she 
 favoured Catholic Emancipation in Great Britain 
 and Ireland ; but has she not imprisoned and 
 burned many a good and holy Scotsman and Eng- 
 lishman, and planted her heel on the neck of Pro- 
 testant Independence in Spain? She contended 
 for liberty of worship in Calvinistic Geneva ; but 
 has she ever granted religious freedom in the home 
 of the Pontiffs ? In Protestant countries she 
 enjoys toleration ; but in every land where she is 
 supreme is not her policy suppression ? 
 
 " I do despise them ; 
 For they do prank them in authority, 
 Against all noble sufferance." 
 
 It is vain for Romanists to boast of their love of 
 liberty, when their Church has stoutly opposed 
 representative government in Scotland, in France, 
 in Italy, and supported every tyranny that 
 promised her aid. Cardinal Beaton was the 
 embodiment of Papal principles ; and we know 
 that he not only persecuted with relentless rage 
 George Wishart and the goodly band of Scottish 
 martyrs and reformers, but opposed every political 
 measure in his day that was distinctly patriotic. 
 Afraid that union with our natural ally, Protestant 
 England, would weaken the Papal Church in 
 
270 The Martyrs of Angus and M earns. 
 
 Scotland, Beaton constantly leagued himself with 
 Papal France, and furthered all the schemes and 
 plans of the Guises and French statesmen, because 
 they were hostile to the cause of Protestantism. To 
 the Roman Church the principles of civil and re- 
 ligious liberty are detestable. Subjugation — not 
 Toleration — is her motto. Not Conscience, but the 
 Church speaking through the Pope, is the king of 
 man's soul, in the opinion of Roman Catholics. 
 Ultramontanism is, and has always been, a 
 synonym for spiritual despotism.* We do not, of 
 course, yield to the temptation of slighting the vir- 
 tues of all the members of the Papal Church. We 
 remember that the great and mighty men who in- 
 spired Luther and Calvin, and Wishart and Knox, 
 and laid the foundations of Protestant Theology r 
 were members of the Church of Rome. We are 
 deeply indebted to the incomparable scholar, Saint 
 Augustine, to the devout and profoundly spiritual 
 recluse, 'A Kempis, to the great missionary 
 preacher, Saint Bernard of Clairveaux, to the 
 pensive, pure, and deeply religious Pascal ; and 
 we are perfectly conscious of the beauty of the 
 lives and the splendour of the sacrifices of 
 
 * See Hatnerton's Essay on Henri Perreyve, Ecclesiastic and 
 C rator. Modern Frenchmen, pp. 155, 166. 
 
Conclusion. 271 
 
 many other adherents of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. Still most of these were Protestant 
 in spirit and in life, and while in the Roman 
 Church were nobler than the teachers who 
 formulated the creed, and propagated the prin- 
 ciples that dominate the Papacy, and make it 
 the most tremendous and terrible of all human 
 organizations for crushing individual opinion and 
 personal conviction, and manacling the hearts and 
 hands of freeborn peoples. However difficult it 
 may be to practise Toleration in all circumstances, 
 it is certainly true that Christianity, as the religion 
 of charity and love, is directly hostile to persecu- 
 tion in every form. And "that is no good reli- 
 gion," as Jeremy Taylor has finely said, "whose 
 principles destroy any duty of religion. He that 
 shall maintain it to be lawful to make a war for 
 the defence of his opinion, be it what it will, his 
 doctrine is against godliness. Any thing that is 
 proud, any thing that is peevish and scornful, any 
 thing that is uneharitable, is against that form of 
 S02ind doctrine which the Apostle speaks of." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A.— CARDINAL BEATON. 
 
 David Bethune or Beaton, the greatest ecclesiastical 
 statesman of his age, and the most formidable foe of 
 Protestantism in Scotland, was a younger son of John 
 Beaton of Balfour, by Isobel Monypenny, daughter of the 
 Laird of Pitmilly, in Fifeshire, and the nephew of James 
 Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, and afterwards Primate 
 of Scotland. Born in 1494, David Beaton entered 
 the University of St. Andrews when he was about fifteen 
 years of age; and in 15 11 he proceeded to the Univer- 
 sity of Glasgow to pursue his studies under the guid- 
 ance of his uncle, the Archbishop. Following the ex- 
 ample of the aspiring and ambitious young men of his time 
 he subsequently went to France and planted himself 
 at the feet of the great Masters of Civil and Canon Law 
 who lent lustre to the University of Paris. To Scotland 
 he returned about the year 15 18, when he was presented 
 by the Archbishop of Glasgow to the Rectory of Campsie 
 in Stirlingshire, and designed " Clericus S. Andrese Dio- 
 cesis." Living at the clachan of Campsie, situated at the 
 mouth of a romantic glen that penetrates the heart of 
 the Campsie Fells, he displayed singular tact and extra- 
 ordinary ability in the management of the affairs of a 
 large and important rural parish, ten miles north of 
 
 s 
 
274 Appendix. 
 
 Glasgow. Speedily his statesman-like gifts attracted 
 the attention of men in high position, and, among 
 others, of the Duke of Albany; and in J 5 19 the 
 Regent appointed him Resident for Scotland at the 
 French Court, — a position for which his brilliant talents 
 and splendid address eminently fitted him. After five 
 years of diplomatic services, he returned to his native 
 land bearing the reputation of an astute politician. In the 
 winter of 1524 two French galleys filled with diplomatists 
 reached Dunbar. David Beaton was among the courtiers, 
 and he immediately proceeded to the Castle of St. 
 Andrews, occupied by his uncle the Primate, and 
 tendered an account of his stewardship. 
 
 While resident in France, Beaton had imbibed the 
 principles and cultivated the tastes of the politicians 
 among whom he lived in pomp and splendour, and after 
 his return to Scotland he played the part of a wily 
 ecclesiastic, who was either in the pay of France, or who 
 believed that he could best promote the interests of his 
 Church by courting the favour of the French King. 
 Reports of the sagacity and wisdom displayed by the 
 younger Beaton at the French Court seem to have 
 gratified the Primate, and to have awakened a desire 
 to advance him to some influential position in the 
 Scottish Church, where he could cultivate his friend- 
 ship and have easy access to him when he required 
 advice in matters of ecclesiastical importance. Accord- 
 ingly, the Archbishop of St. Andrews resigned the 
 Commendatory of the Abbey of Arbroath, and appointed 
 his nephew to the high and remunerative position of 
 Abbot, reserving to himself only half of the revenue. 
 David Beaton's name first appears on the chartulary of 
 the Abbey on the 18th day of January, 1524, "confirming 
 
Appendix. 275 
 
 Robert Scot's endowment of the altar of Saint Dupthacus," 
 and it repeatedly occurs in charters till the close of the 
 year 1536. As Abbot of Arbroath, Beaton sat in the 
 Scottish Parliament of 1525, and exerted a power- 
 ful influence over the affairs of Church and State. On 
 the fall of the Earl of Angus, and after the resignation of 
 Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, in 1528, his singular talents 
 secured his appointment to the office of Lord Privy Seal, 
 and it is said that King James founded the famous Col- 
 lege of Justice in Edinburgh, at his instigation. Beaton's 
 conspicuous ability, his large knowledge of the world, 
 his polite and insinuating manners, his skill and tact 
 in managing men, obtained for him numerous appoint- 
 ments in the public service at home and abroad. In 1533, 
 he accompanied Sir Thomas Erskine, Secretary of State, 
 to France, to form a league with that kingdom ; and 
 he negotiated the marriage of James the Fifth, first 
 with the beautiful and fragile Princess Magdalen of 
 France, and, after her early death, with Mary of Guise, 
 widow of the Duke of Longueville. To the French King 
 he greatly commended himself by his political sagacity 
 and winsome manners ; and as a reward of his public 
 and private services, Francis secured his appointment to* 
 the Bishopric of Mirepoix in Languedoc on the 5th 
 December, 1537, and persuaded Pope Paul III., in 
 January 1538, to promote him to the Cardinalate under 
 the title Sancti Stephani in Motite Coelio. In the same 
 year he was made Coadjutor of St. Andrews, and on the 
 death of his venerable uncle, in 1530, he was presented 
 to the Archiepiscopal See, and the Primacy. Four years 
 later, he was created Lord High Chancellor of the realm ;. 
 and, to crown all his honours and dignities, he was in 
 1544 appointed Legatus a Latere, and consequently 
 
2,j6 Appendix. 
 
 became as powerful as the Pope himself in the Scottish 
 Church. He was assassinated on the 29th of May, 1546. 
 Though his career was one of extraordinary prosperity, it 
 was not uncheckered by personal misfortune. Once he 
 was ignominiously cast down from the lofty position of 
 Regent which he had wickedly usurped. Terrified lest 
 the marriage of the infant Queen of Scots with the 
 Protestant Prince of England would unite the two realms 
 in perpetual friendship, and advance the interest of the 
 Reformation in Scotland, he commanded the clergy to 
 preach steadily against the match, and rouse the violent 
 passions of the people. His conduct highly displeased 
 the great nobles, and in 1543, he was suddenly seized 
 while sitting at the Council Table of the Convention of 
 Lords, held in Edinburgh, and confined for some time in 
 the castles of Dalkeith and Blackness. But ultimately 
 Lord Seaton " partly moved with the Queen's favour, 
 partly allured by great gifts of gold and silver, let him 
 escape : so that he raged more furiously than before, 
 with all contempt of the Authority." * Then, after the 
 disastrous battle of Solway-Moss when King James the 
 Fifth, broken-hearted and hopeless, laid himself down to 
 die at Falkland Palace, Cardinal Beaton attempted to 
 obtain the Regency by craft. Mackenzie in his Lives 
 of Scots Writers, states that Beaton on the 14th Decem- 
 ber, 1542, suborned a priest named Henry Balfour to 
 forge the King's last Will and Testament, " whereby it 
 was declared that he had committed to the Cardinal, the 
 Earls of Argyll, Huntly, and Murray, the government of 
 the realm during his daughter's minority ; and this he 
 caused to be proclaimed over the Market Cross of Edin- 
 
 * Pitscottie's History of Scotland, p. 181. (Edit. 172S). 
 
Appendix. 277 
 
 burgh on the Monday after the king's death ; but the rest 
 of the nobility having met, and finding that the king was 
 not in a condition to grant a warrant for forming of a 
 Testament, they made choice of James, Earl of Arran, 
 •to be Governor of the Realm." Lindsay of Pitscottie 
 furnishes us with a somewhat different version of the 
 same story. " At this time," says the quaint old chroni- 
 cler, " David Beaton, Cardinal of Scotland, standing 
 in presence of the king, seeing him begin to fail of his 
 strength and natural speech, held a Throch of Paper to 
 his Grace, and caused him to subscribe the same ; 
 wherein the said Cardinal wrote what pleased him for his 
 own particular Well, thinking to have authority and pre- 
 eminence in the government of the country. But we 
 may know hereby the king's Legacy was very short; for 
 in this manner he departed, as after I shall show you. 
 He turned him upon his back, and looked, and beheld 
 all his Nobles and Lords about him, and gave a little 
 smile of laughter, syne kissed his hand, and offered the 
 same to all his Nobles round about him; thereafter held 
 up his hands to God, and yielded his spirit to God." 
 
 A similar story in which the Cardinal is charged with 
 forgery and deceit, is recounted in the State Papers of 
 Sir Ralph Sadler, the acute and accomplished English 
 Ambassador. Whatever variations there be in the 
 different accounts that have found there way into 
 History, it seems unquestionable that Beaton "produced 
 a written testament under his signature, which, as Arran 
 believed, was either absolutely forged or obtained by 
 fraud."* But the estates of the kingdom speedily 
 detected the forgery, refused Beaton's presumptuous 
 
 * Hill Burton's History of Scotland, Vol. III. p. 189. 
 
278 Appendix. 
 
 claims, declared the Earl of Arran, head of the House 
 of Hamilton, Regent, according to his hereditary right, 
 and entrusted him with the care of the infant Queen. 
 
 "The Popish writers," says Mackenzie, "give Beaton 
 very high eulogiums;" and some have even been disposed 
 to treat him as Victor Hugo has treated Torquemada, 
 the Grand Inquisitor, — as an apostolical man, doing 
 violence to his better feelings in carrying out political 
 schemes of a questionable character, and in persecuting 
 heretics of the Protestant type. They wish men to believe 
 that the Cardinal was at heart a good and earnest prelate, 
 and that his very treachery and cruelty sprang out 
 of his genuine devotion to the cause of truth, and 
 his burning zeal for the glory of God. The argu- 
 ment is specious, but it is as baseless as it is dan- 
 gerous. David Beaton was unquestionably a great 
 ecclesiastic, a man of deep political sagacity, of iron will, 
 of conspicuous administrative ability, of fine address, of 
 remarkable social accomplishments, although he does not 
 appear to have been an accurate scholar or a learned 
 theologian. But notwithstanding all his ability and refined 
 manners, he wis a haughty, ambitious, and avaricious 
 politician, a tyrannical and merciless prelate, and a 
 licentious and profligate man. Reared under French and 
 Italian influences he was a worldly churchman, more 
 deeply versed in the mysteries of political intrigue than in 
 the doctrines of Christianity, and fonder of pomp and 
 power and luxury than of plain living, celestial contempla- 
 tion and earnest pastoral work. He was indeed the Wolsey 
 of Scotland, a man of affairs, fond of pleasure, proud of 
 power and splendour, despotic and unscrupulous, brook- 
 ing no opposition, and tolerating no rival ; and like his 
 great English contemporary he died ignominiously, reap- 
 ing what he sowed. 
 
Appendix. 279 
 
 More particularly, Beaton was a profligate prelate. "It 
 must be acknowledged," says Mackenzie,* " that he was a 
 man of unlimited ambition, endued with good natural 
 parts, and well seen in all the parts of literature, but of a 
 very irregular life, being much addicted to the pleasures 
 of the fair sex, even after his advancement to the priest 
 hood : as I have by me a Contract of Marriage dated 
 April 10, 1546, at St. Andrews, betwixt his daughter, 
 Margaret Beaton and the Master of Crawford, he himself 
 . consenting and agreeing to the said Contract on the one 
 hand, and the Earl of Crawford on the other." His 
 favourite mistress was Marion Ogilvy, daughter of Sir 
 James Ogilvy, who was created Lord Ogilvy of Airlie in 
 1491, and died in 1504. At a very early period in his 
 career he seems to have lived in concubinage with this 
 woman ; and he certainly heaped upon her wealth and 
 property, if he degraded her by his illicit amours and 
 the refusal of the honourable bond of marriage. On the 
 22nd day of May, 1528, Beaton granted a life-rent lease 
 to Marion of the lands of Ban don of Ethie for a small 
 sum of money, and other caicses ; and on the 20th day of 
 July, 1530, he granted her a life-rent lease of "the 
 Kirkton of St. Vigeans, with the Muirfauld and the Toft 
 of St. Vigeans, and a piece of common land lying to the 
 south of the church." In 1530, Ethie House was occu- 
 pied by the Abbot's mistress, and she held lands on 
 every side. On the 17th February, 1533, Beaton granted 
 to Marion Ogilvy a nineteen years lease of the eighth 
 part of Auchmithie lands with the Brewhouse and the 
 lands pertaining thereto ; in 1546 Marion occupied the 
 Castle of St. Andrews ; and in 1565 she was in possession 
 
 * Lives of Scots Writers, p. 2S. 
 
28o Appendix. 
 
 of Hospitalfield, about a mile west of Arbroath. In 
 the Burgh Court-Book of this date, she is styled the Lady 
 of Melgund. She died in June, 1575. 
 
 Thomas Maule, yr. of Panmure, one of the Cardinal's 
 attendants, was engaged to Margaret Beaton, daughter of 
 Marion Ogilvy ; but it is said that while James the Fifth 
 and Maule were riding out of Arbroath one day, the king 
 advised his companion "never to marry ane priest's gett." 
 Young Maule laid the royal counsel to heart, but he was 
 mulcted of three thousand merks by the Cardinal for 
 breaking the engagement. The young lady was afterwards 
 married to David Lindsay, the Master of Crawford ; and 
 the Cardinal himself celebrated the wedding at Finhaven, 
 amid great pomp and magnificence, shortly after the 
 Martyrdom of George Wishart. By Marion Ogilvy, 
 Beaton had at least two sons, David Betoun of Melgund, 
 the ancestor of the Bethunes of Nether Tarbet, and 
 Alexander Betoun, Archdene of Lothian, who is sup- 
 posed to have become a minister of the Reformed 
 Church. 
 
 Some Roman Catholic writers have been bold enough 
 to attempt a defence of Beaton's conduct while he lived 
 in concubinage with Marion Ogilvy. They have pleaded 
 that it was perfectly lawful for a prelate to lead a life of 
 " married domesticity," and to repudiate in practice the 
 doctrine of clerical celibacy, when the Church of Rome 
 denied him the rights and privileges of wedlock. But 
 the position of these writers is quite indefensible, and 
 unworthy of Christian advocates. If a prelate repudiated 
 the doctrine of clerical celibacy, and believed that the 
 law of God and the enlightened conscience sanctioned 
 what the Church forbad, then he was morally bound to 
 renounce the vow of celibacy, to withdraw from the 
 
Appendix. 28 1 
 
 priesthood, and to sever the ties that united him to a 
 corrupt and unscriptural Church. It may be affirmed that 
 extraordinary moral courage was necessary to enable a pre- 
 late to disentangle himself from the mazy and complex cir- 
 cumstances inwhich he found himself placed in the Church 
 of Rome, and to surmount the moral difficulties that sur- 
 rounded his great position. But all morality is dependent 
 on courage ; and what was possible for the reformers was 
 not impossible for Beaton. If he was an " apostolical 
 man," as his defenders aver, he ought to have been 
 capable of renouncing every comfort and enjoyment for 
 the sake of promoting the highest interests of the Re- 
 deemer's kingdom. The system he countenanced was 
 not only directly antagonistic to the letter and spirit of 
 the New Testament, but demoralizing and dangerous in 
 the extreme. " Every man who practised it was a law 
 unto himself. There was no distinct sanction drawing, 
 as the law of marriage draws, an obvious unmistakable 
 line between domesticity and profligacy." It degraded 
 the woman to the level of a harlot, and humiliated her 
 in the eyes of respectable society ; and as it tended 
 to weaken the strength and sacredness of the honourable 
 bond ot marriage, it directly promoted moral laxity and 
 conjugal infidelity. In point of fact, however, Beaton 
 was not disposed to assume the attitude of a conscience- 
 burdened dissenter, or anxious to profess his faith in matri- 
 mony, by affecting the life of a married person. Of him 
 and his successor, Mr. Hill Burton* has truly said : "They 
 flared their amours in the face of the world, as if proud 
 of the excellence of their taste for beauty, and the rank 
 and birth that had become prostrate to their solicitations. 
 
 * History of Scotland, Vol. III., p. 309. 
 
282 Appendix. 
 
 It seemed as if their very greatness as temporal grandees 
 enabled them to defy the ordinary laws of decorum, 
 while their spiritual rank secured to them immunity 
 from that clerical punishment which it was their duty to 
 pronounce against less gifted sinners." 
 
 But Beaton was as cruel as he was profligate. If he 
 was lax in morals he was severely strict, and fanatically 
 rigid in all matters pertaining to doctrine. He was the 
 Arch-Inquisitor of the Church in Scotland, and the re- 
 lentless enemy of all religious men who ventured to 
 protest against the teaching of the Popish clergy. As 
 soon as he was raised to the Cardinalate he set himself 
 to devise rigorous measures for stamping out heresy. In 
 a great assembly of nobles and bishops, convened in the 
 Cathedral Church of St. Andrews, he exposed the dangers 
 which threatened the Papacy from the steady increase 
 and daring conduct of the disciples of Luther, and warmly 
 exhorted all present to aid him in an attempt to exter- 
 minate offenders. At the diet he commenced the work. 
 of persecution with a resolute earnestness worthy of a 
 better cause. He denounced Sir John Borthwick, one 
 of the Protestant leaders, as a dangerous heresiarch, 
 ordained his goods to be confiscated and his effigy to be 
 publicly burnt, if the man himself could not be appre- 
 hended and executed. Forthwith he marched out of St. 
 Andrews with a strong band of supporters, and made a raid 
 on the central district of Scotland. At Perth he adopted 
 bloody measures for the'extirpation of pronounced dissen- 
 ters, and the confusion of suspected heretics. Five men 
 belonging to the humbler ranks of society he summarily 
 hanged, and he drowned a brave woman with an infant 
 at her breast. Some of the most honourable burgesses of 
 the fair city he drove into exile, and spoiled of their pro- 
 
Appendix. 283 
 
 perty. From Perth he marched into Angus, filling the 
 hearts of all men with terror. A Black Friar, of the name 
 of Rogers, he seized in Dundee, and flung into the dungeon 
 of the Castle of St. Andrews, where it is suspected he 
 was secretly murdered ; and after silencing and scattering 
 the citizens that sympathised with the work of reforma- 
 tion, he proceeded to Arbroath, and occupied Ethie 
 House. From this retreat Beaton watched the procedure 
 of Walter Myln of Lunan, and John Petrie, chaplain to 
 Lord Innermeath of Redcastle, and when he discovered 
 the Lutheran tendency of their teaching, pounced upon 
 them. These two reformers, however, were on the 
 alert, and escaped like birds from the fowler's snare. 
 Shortly afterwards, he proceeded to East Lothian, cap- 
 tured George Wishart, and had him burned in front of 
 the Castle of St. Andrews, while he, with his prelatical 
 and bloodthirsty friends, lay over a window, and gloated 
 over the sacrifice. More than once he projected a 
 plan for the massacre of the Scottish nobility and gentry 
 disposed to look with favour on the work of reformation, 
 and was only hindered from carrying it into execution by 
 the King's opposition, and the difficulties of the time. 
 The cruelty of Beaton's disposition cannot be questioned 
 by any critic familiar with his life. Mackenzie states that 
 " he was altogether inexcusable for putting to death so 
 many poor people for their religion, he himself being 
 witness of the burning and hanging of them, which 
 showed that he was naturally of a cruel and inhuman 
 temper;" and this witness is true. The principles of 
 toleration were indeed unknown in Beaton's time, but if 
 the Cardinal had possessed a humane or generous heart 
 he could never have dealt so harshly and savagely with 
 quiet, earnest, and devout men. As a Roman Catholic 
 
284 Appendix. 
 
 prelate he might have reprobated their conduct, and 
 lamented their declension without visiting them with 
 such fearful and barbarous severities. When the head 
 of a Church cooly sentences to death religious men who 
 differ from him in matters concerning theological doc- 
 trine and ecclesiastical government, he must be entirely 
 destitute of the spirit of Christ, who never broke the 
 bruised reed nor quenched the smoking flax. 
 
 The inhumanity and haughty pride of Beaton ere long 
 became intolerable to the people and many men of 
 "great birth, estimation, and honour." At open tables 
 men growled and nursed their wrath. Some fearlessly 
 talked of assassination, and even the Cardinal overheard 
 their mutterings and threats. To protect himself against 
 the rising storm he formed alliances with powerful families, 
 courted the favour of the Governor, and Mary of Guise, 
 and strengthened the fortifications of his castle. But 
 while in the act of fortifying his position, bold and 
 resolute men were at work plotting his overthrow. On 
 Friday the twenty-eighth day of May 1546, William 
 Kirkcaldy, yr. of Grange, was in the town of St. Andrews 
 watching the movements of the Cardinal. In the even- 
 ing of the same day, Norman Lesley, Master of Rothes, 
 crept into the town, and he was immediately followed by 
 his uncle, John Lesley of Parkhill, in Fife, brother of the 
 Earl of Rothes. Early in the morning of Saturday the 
 twenty-ninth day of May, the conspirators were abroad 
 and holding counsel in the Abbey churchyard, a short 
 distance from the castle. As soon as the castle gates 
 were opened and the drawbridge let down for the recep- 
 tion of the masons, stone-carts, and building materials, 
 William Kirkcaldy, a youth of seventeen, and six other 
 young men sauntered to the porter's lodge. Quietly they 
 
Appendix. 285 
 
 approached the porter, and enquired if the Cardinal was 
 awake. Informed that he had not yet appeared, they pre- 
 tended to be satisfied with the answer, and proceeded to 
 examine the alterations, and to look atthe masons who were 
 prosecuting their work. Silently, and without rousing the 
 porter's suspicion, William Kirkcaldy and Norman Lesley 
 advanced into " the midst of the close " of the castle. 
 Immediately John Lesley and four other persons came 
 upon the scene, and as they leapt upon the bridge the 
 porter, alarmed at the appearance of men known to be 
 the sworn enemies of his master, suddenly attempted to 
 shut the gates. But in a moment his head was broken, 
 the keys of the castle snatched from his belt, and his 
 mangled body flung into the ditch. Speedily the 
 workmen were turned out of the castle, and " the 
 wicket yet" locked behind them. Young Kirkcaldy 
 planted himself at the privy postern to prevent the 
 escape of the Cardinal, while the rest of the company 
 roused the servants, and without violence discharged 
 them one by one. Beaton's bed-chamber overlooked 
 the quadrangle of the castle. Awakened by the 
 scuffle, he peered through the window and asked the 
 cause of the noise. When told that Norman Lesley 
 had seized the castle, he ran towards the postern gate ; 
 and as soon as he perceived it was guarded, " he re- 
 turned quickly to his chamber, took his two-handed 
 sword, and caused his chamber child cast chests- and 
 other impediments to the door." Vengeance was near. 
 The sound of hurrying feet fell upon his ear, and quickly 
 a voice demanding admission. "Who calls?" said the 
 Cardinal. "My name is Lesly." "Is that Norman?" 
 " Nay, my name is John." " I will have Norman," says 
 the Cardinal, " for he is my friend." " Content yourself 
 
286 Appendix. 
 
 with such as are here; for other shall ye get none," said 
 the man who had vowed, after Wishart's death, that his 
 hand should be priest to the Cardinal. At the door with 
 John Lesley stood two determined men, "James Mel- 
 vin, a man familiarly acquainted with Master George 
 Wishart, and Peter Carmichael [of Balmadie], a stout 
 gentleman." They commanded Beaten to open the 
 door instantly. The trembling wretch enquired if they 
 would save his life. " It may be that we will," said 
 John Lesley. " Nay," said the Cardinal, " swear 
 unto me by God's wounds." "That was said, is 
 unsaid," answered the ringleader. The avengers 
 cried for fire, and immediately a brazier full of 
 burning coals was brought, and the door was fired. 
 Realising the hopelessness of the situation, the Car- 
 dinal drew back the bolts, and his boy removed the 
 obstructions. As the conspirators strode through the 
 smoke they found Beaton half-dressed, sitting in a chair. 
 The unhappy prelate quickly read the hard, scowl- 
 ing faces of the invaders ; and in despair and anguish 
 he cried : " I am a priest ; I am a priest ; ye will 
 not slay me." John Lesley was merciless and resolute, 
 and struck him once or twice. Peter Carmichael 
 followed his example. But James Melvin, of Carnbee, 
 perceiving they were angry and excited, withdrew 
 them, and counselled " greater gravity." Thereupon 
 Melvin returned, presented the point of his sword to 
 Beaton's heart, and said : " Repent thee of thy former 
 wicked life, but especially of the shedding of the blood 
 of that notable instrument of God, Master George 
 Wishart : for here, before my God, I protest that neither 
 the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, nor the 
 fear of any trouble thou could have done to me in 
 
Appendix. 287 
 
 particular, moved, nor moves me to strike thee ; but 
 only because thou hast been, and remainest an obstinate 
 enemy against Christ Jesus and his Holy Evangel." 
 And so he struck him twice or thrice through with a stog 
 sword ; and so he fell, never a word heard out of his 
 mouth, but " I am a priest ; I am a priest ; fie ! fie ! all 
 is gone."* 
 
 Tidings of the Cardinal's sudden and tragical death 
 spread throughout the city like wildfire. Sir James 
 Learmont, the Provost, assembled "the communitie " 
 and then hurried to the castle fosse, crying : " What 
 have ye done with my lord Cardinal ? Have ye slain 
 my lord Cardinal ? Let us see my lord Cardinal." 
 " Return to your own houses," said those within 
 the castle ; " for the man ye call the Cardinal has 
 received his reward, and in his own person will trouble 
 the world no more." The excited crowd declared they 
 would never depart till they had seen the Cardinal. To 
 satisfy the mob, the conspirators brought the corpse of 
 the Cardinal to the East Block-House-Head, and showed 
 it over the wall. "And so they departed, without 
 Requiem eeternam, and Requiescant in pace song for his 
 soul." The corpse of the Cardinal was salted, enclosed 
 in "a cope of lead," and deposited in the bottom of the 
 Sea-tower, "to await what obsequies his brethren the 
 Bishops would prepare for him." Nine months there- 
 after, the dead body of Beaton was taken from its tem- 
 porary place of sepulture, and " obscurely interred," says 
 Sir James Balfour, " in the Convent of the Black Friars 
 of St. Andrews, in anno 1547." 
 
 Knox's History of the Reformation, Vol. I. pp. 176-7- 
 
288 Appendix. 
 
 To the miserable fate of Beaton, Sir David Lindsay 
 thus alludes in the Tragedy: — 
 
 " I lay unburyit seven monethis and more, 
 Or I was borne to cloister, kirk, or queir, 
 In ane midding, quhilk pane bene to deplore, 
 Without suffrage of chanoun, monk or freir ; 
 All proud Prelatis at me may lessonis leir, 
 Quhilk rang so lang, and so triumphantlye, 
 Syne in the dust doung doun so dolefullye." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbots of Arbroath, - - 6 
 
 Abbot, The, of Melrose, cursed, S6 
 Aberbrothoc Kirk threatened, 123 
 Aberdeen, King's College, 104, 219 
 Adamson, Archbishop of St. 
 
 Andrews, ... 45 
 
 Alane, or Alesius, Alexander, 
 
 Canon of St. Andrews, - 62 
 
 Anderson, Thomas, School- 
 master in Montrose, - 4S 
 Andrew of Wyntoun, Prior of 
 
 Lochleven, ... 26 
 
 Arbirlot Moor and Hecken- 
 
 bois Path, - - - 104 
 Arbroath Abbey, - 3, 14, 75 
 
 Arbroath, Black Book of, 212 
 
 Arran's, Regent, fickleness 
 and conversion to the 
 Roman Faith, - - 124 
 Arth, William, preacher in 
 
 Dundee, - - - 55 
 
 Arts Curriculum in the Scot- 
 tish Universities prior to 
 the Reformation, - - 221 
 " A Scottishman named Wys- 
 
 shart," - - - - 143 
 
 Assembly of Reforming Nobles 
 
 at Edinburgh, - - 244 
 Augustine's Conversion at Milan, 90 
 Ayrshire Reformers, - - 135 
 Ayrshire, YVishart preaches in, 133 
 
 B. 
 
 Ballad-mongers, their services, 35, 39 
 Beaton, Cardinal, his ancestors, 272 
 Beaton, Rector of Campsie, - 272 
 Beaton, Resident for Scotland 
 
 at the French. Court, - 273 
 
 Beaton, Commendator of the 
 
 Abbey of Arbroath, - 273 
 
 Beaton, Member of the Scot- 
 tish Parliament, - - 274 
 
 Beaton's appointment to the 
 
 office of Lord Privy Seal, 274 
 
 Beaton negotiates marriages 
 of James the Fifth with 
 the Princess Magdalen 
 and Mary of Guise, - 274 
 
 Beaton appointed Bishop of 
 
 Mirepoix, - - - 274 
 
 Beaton promoted to the Car- 
 
 dinalate, - - - 274 
 
 Beaton appointed Pope's Legate, 274 
 
 Beaton imprisoned in the 
 Castles of Dalkeith and 
 Blackness, - - - 275 
 
 Beaton's attempt to obtain the 
 
 Regency by craft, - 275, 276 
 
 Beaton's character, - - 277 
 
 Beaton's favourite mistress, - 278 
 
 Beaton's illegitimate sons, - 279 
 
 Beaton, defence of his char- 
 acter by Roman Catholic 
 writers, - - 279, 2S0 
 
 Beaton's vigorous measures 
 for the suppression of 
 heresy, - - - - 281 
 
 Beaton's character, estimate 
 
 of, by Dr. Mackenzie, - 2S2 
 
 Beaton's severities resented, - 283 
 
 Beaton's assassins, - 283-285 
 
 Beaton murdered in the Castle 
 
 of St. Andrews, - 207, 285 
 
 Beaton interred in the Con- 
 vent of Black Friars, St. 
 Andrews, - - - 286 
 
 Beaton's fate, described by 
 
 Sir David Lindsay, - 287 
 
290 
 
 Index. 
 
 Beaton's raid on Perth and 
 
 Angus, - - - - 125 
 Beaton's plot to murder Wish- 
 art at Montrose, - - 149 
 Beaton conspires with the 
 Regent Arran to silence 
 Wishart, - - - 165 
 Beaton, James, Archbishop 
 
 of Glasgow, - - - 272 
 Beaton, John, of Balfour, - 272 
 Bellenden, John, the Chronicler, 28 
 Bibles clandestinely circulated 
 
 on East Coast, - - 33 
 
 Bibles suppressed by Acts of 
 
 Parliament, - - . - 33, 34 
 Blackader, Archbishop of 
 
 Glasgow, - - - 31 
 
 Blair, Patrick, Vicar of Lunan, 226 
 Boece, Hector, Principal of 
 
 Aberdeen University, - 32, 104 
 Borthwick, Sir John, of Cin- 
 
 ery, .... 66, 28 1 
 Bothwell's hostility to the 
 
 work of Reformation, - 155 
 Bothwell, Sir Ralph Sadler's 
 
 opinion of, - - - 160 
 Bothwell promises protection 
 
 to Wishart, - - - 161 
 
 Bothwell's treachery, - - 163 
 
 Brechin, Constable Lands of, 100 
 Bristol, George Wishart at, 110-112 
 Bristol, Mayor's Calendar of, 111 
 
 Buchanan, George, the His- 
 torian, --- - 65, 206 
 Burton's, Mr. J. Hill, charge 
 of conspiracy against 
 George Wishart refuted, 146 
 
 Cambridge, Wishart. Regent at, 118 
 Campbell, Hugh, of Kinzean- 
 
 cleugh, - - - - 135 
 Campbell, Hugh, of Loudoun, 135 
 Canterbury Tales, their in- 
 fluence, - - - 37, 38 
 Carmichael, Peter, of Bal- 
 
 madie, - 285 
 
 Castle of St. Andrews, - 165 
 
 Chaucer's description of pil- 
 grims and pilgrimages, - 37 
 Chaucer's portrait of a good 
 
 pastor, - - - - 38 
 
 Chaucer's Parish Priest, quoted, 236 
 
 Chisholme, Bishop of Dunblane, 19 
 Christison, David, Vicar of 
 
 Lunan, - - - 226 
 
 Cockburn, John, of Ormiston, 162 
 Cocklaw, Thomas, Vicar of 
 
 Tullybody, - - - 56, 55 
 Commissioners, Scots, return 
 
 to Edinburgh, - - 120 
 Consequences of Wishart's 
 
 death, - - - 205, 206 
 
 Corrupt condition of the Church, 7 
 Craw, Paul, the Bohemian 
 
 physician, - - - 27, 28 
 
 Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, 16 
 
 Crichton of Brunston, - - 143 
 
 Cursing, process of, - - 85 
 
 I). 
 
 Dante's exposure of the Roman 
 
 Catholic Church, - - 35 
 
 Dawn of the Reformation, - 22 
 
 Decay of Spiritual Life in 
 
 Scotland, ... 7 
 
 Degradation of the Church, 20, 21 
 
 Desecration of the Lord's Day, 16, 17 
 
 Douglas, Hugh, of Longnid- 
 
 dry, _- - - 153. 15S 
 
 Douglas, Sir George, of Pit- 
 
 tendreich, - - - 153 
 
 Dunbar, Gavin, Archbishop 
 
 of Glasgow, - - - 5, 134 
 
 Dunbar, Arclibishop, and Car- 
 dinal Beaton, - - 167 
 
 Dunbar, William, the Poet, - 35, 39 
 
 Dundee and Stirling, early 
 
 homes of Lutberanism, - 68,69 
 
 Dundee, Cowgate and Sick- 
 yards, - - - - 13S 
 
 Dundee, its ecclesiastical im- 
 portance, - - - 122 
 
 Dundee, Monasteries, Nun- 
 neries, Churches, and 
 Chapels in, - - - 122 
 
Index. 
 
 291 
 
 Dundee, Wishart expounds 
 
 Epistle to the Romans in, 123 
 
 Dundee, Plague in, - - 137 
 
 Dundee, Situation of, - - 131 
 
 Dundee, the second Geneva, 132 
 
 Dundee, zeal of Reformers in, 123 
 
 E. 
 
 Ecclescreig, the Church of, - 75 
 
 Effect of Beaton's death on 
 the Papal Church in 
 Scotland, - - 207-209 
 
 El phingstone Tower, the Car- 
 dinal's Lair, - - - 160 
 
 Elphinstone, Bishop, of Aber- 
 deen, - - - - 11 
 
 Erskine of Dun, his great in- 
 fluence in pre-Reforma- 
 tion times, - 69, 86, 87, 104 
 
 Erskine, Sir Thomas, Secre- 
 tary of State for Scotland, 274 
 
 F. 
 Family Worship at Ormiston 
 
 House, - - - 159, 160 
 
 First printing press in Scot- 
 land, - - - - 211 
 Fisheries in the Parish of St. 
 
 Cyrus, - 82 
 
 Fordun, Mensal Church of, - 103 
 Fordun, Wishart's monument at, 193 
 Forres, David, General of the 
 
 Mint, - - - _ - 155 
 Forrester, Robert, of Arngib- 
 
 borne, - 56 
 
 Forrest, Henry, Benedictine 
 
 Monk, burned at St. 
 
 Andrews, - - - 55 
 
 Forret, Thomas, Vicar of Dollar, 57 
 Forret, Thomas, martyrdom of, 59 
 Froude's insinuations against 
 
 Wishart groundless, - 146 
 
 G. 
 Ged, James, Vicar of Athy, 213 
 
 Glencairn, Lord, friend of the 
 
 Reformation, - 133, 134 
 
 Gourlay, Norman, charges 
 
 laid against, - 93 
 
 Gourlay, Norman, burned at 
 
 Greenside, Edinburgh, - 96 
 Graham, Patrick, Primate of 
 
 Scotland, ... 30 
 
 Greek Learning, influence of, 109 
 
 Greek Learning in Scotland, 105 
 
 Greenside, Lands of, - - 95 
 Glide and Godly Ballads, their 
 
 influence, ... 46 
 Guiscards, or Vischarts, of 
 
 French extraction, - 99 
 Guise,»Mary of, - - 124. 274 
 
 IT. 
 
 Haddington, Wishart's Len- 
 ten Services in the 
 Church of, - - - 155 
 Halyburtons of Dundee, - 132 
 
 Hamilton, John, Archbishop 
 
 of St. Andrews, - - 256 
 Hamilton, Patrick, his lineage, 49 
 Hamilton's companions in 
 
 Germany, . - - - 5° 
 
 Hamilton's doctrines, - - 5 1 
 
 Hamilton's martyrdom, - $1, 5 2 
 
 Hamilton's death, results 
 
 of, - - - - 53, 54 
 Hamilton's influence on Wal- 
 ter Myln, - • - 234 
 Hamilton's, Sir David, de- 
 fence of Wishart, - - 166 
 Hay, James, Bishop of Ross, 92 
 Helvetic Confession translated, 1 15 
 Henry the Eighth, his interest 
 
 in Scotland, - - - 143 
 Hepburn, George, Abbot of 
 
 Arbroath, - - - 213 
 Hepburn, John, Bishop of 
 
 Brechin, - - 106, 10S 
 Hepburn, Patrick, Prior of 
 
 St. Andrews, - - 19 
 
 Hertford, Earl of, at New- 
 castle, - - - - 143 
 Hewat, James, of Dundee, - 132 
 Huseman, the Papal Legate, 31 
 
 I. 
 Ignorance and rudeness of the 
 
 people of Scotland, - 7 
 
2Q2 
 
 Index. 
 
 Ignorance of the Bishops of 
 
 Scotland, - - - 195 
 
 Ignorance of the Clergy, - 15, 16 
 
 Influence of Greek Learning 
 
 on the Reformation, - 196 
 
 Influence of Luther and Cal- 
 vin on Reformers of Scot- 
 land, ... - 241 
 
 Inveresk, Wishart preaches 
 
 in the church of, - - 133 
 
 J- 
 Jeffryis, Thomas, Mayor of 
 
 Bristowe, - - - in 
 
 Jonston, John, his Latin poems, 47 
 
 K. 
 Keith, William, Fourth Earl 
 
 Marishall, - - - 130 
 Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrews, 11 
 Kennedy, Thomas, of Ayr, 
 
 burned at Glasgow, - 60 
 
 Kerrell, Sir John, Dean of Bristol, m 
 King Edward the Sixth's 
 Prayer Book in use in 
 the churches of Scot- 
 land, - - - 244, 245 
 Kinnear of Kinnear, - - 149 
 Kirkcaldy of Grange, - 207, 283 
 
 Knox, Tutor at Longniddry, 157 
 
 Lamy, Archibald, .School- 
 master in Arbroath, - 219 
 Latimer, Bishop, of Worcester, no 
 Lauder, John, prosecutor in 
 
 Wishart's trial, - - 171 
 Laurence of Lindores, Abbot 
 
 ofiScone, - 26 
 
 Laurieston Castle, - - 77, 7S 
 
 Lawson, Master Robert, 
 
 Vicar of Ecclescreig, - 83 
 
 Learmont, David, of Clatta,- 101 
 Learmont, Elizabeth, second 
 
 wife of Sir James Wishart, 101 
 Learmont, Sir James, of Bal- 
 
 comie and Dairsie,- 101, 286 
 
 Learmont, Patrick, Provost 
 of St. Andrews, refuses 
 to execute Myln, - - 255 
 Lesley, John, of Parkhill, in 
 
 Fife, - - - 207, 283 
 Lesley, Norman, Master of 
 
 Rothes,- - - - 283 
 Lethington, House of, - - 155 
 Lindores Abbey sacked, - 123 
 Lindsay, Janet, first wife of 
 
 Sir James Wishart, - 101 
 
 Lindsay, David, Master of 
 Crawford, married to 
 Margaret Beaton, - - 279 
 Lindsay, Sir David, of the 
 
 Mount,- - - - 40, 41 
 Lindsay's, Sir David, descrip- 
 tion of the Churchmen, - 20, 41 
 Logie, Gavin, Professor in 
 
 St. Andrews, - 32, 54, 234 
 
 Logie, Robert, Canon of Cam- 
 
 buskenneth Abbey, - 65 
 
 Lollard, Walter, - - - 21 
 
 Lollards, their peculiar tenets, 24 
 Lollards, Act of Parliament 
 
 for suppression of, - - 31 
 
 Lollard Leaders in Ayrshire, 32 
 
 Lord's Day, desecration of, - 17 
 
 Lothian, Wishart's friends in, 153 
 Lunan and its inhabitants be- 
 fore the Reformation, - 196 
 Lunan, boundaries of old 
 
 Parish of, - - - 222 
 Lunan Bay, description of, - 223 
 
 M. 
 
 Macalpine, or Maccabaeus, 
 Prior of the Dominican 
 Monastery at Perth, - 63 
 
 Macbriar, John, Canon of 
 
 Glenluce, - 64 
 
 Mackdowal, John, Sub-Prior 
 of the Black Friars Mon- 
 astery, Glasgow, - - 63 
 
 Major, John, Professor in 
 
 Glasgow, - - - 32 
 
 Major, John, Provost of the 
 
 Old College, St. Andrews, 55 
 
 Mallyne, IVa., St. Andrews, 220 
 
Index. 
 
 293 
 
 Marsiliers, Pierre de, School- 
 master in Montrose, - 105 
 Martyrs' Memorial at St. 
 
 Andrews, - - - 263 
 Mary of Lorraine, Queen Regent, 242 
 Mauchline Moor, scene of 
 
 Wishart's preaching, 136, 137 
 Maule, Thomas, younger, of 
 
 Panmure, - ' - - 279 
 Melvill, James, pupil of 
 
 Andrew Myll, - - 216 
 Melville, Andrew, - - 222 
 Melvin, James, of Carnbee, - 285 
 " Men o' the Meains,"- - 80 
 
 Middle Ages in Scotland, - I, 85 
 Middle Ages, Burghal and 
 
 Conventual schools of, - 218 
 Mistake as to the length of 
 Myln's ministry at Lun- 
 nan corrected, - 230, 231 
 
 Monasteries in their best days, 12, 13 
 Monastic Life in Middle Ages, 2 
 
 Monastic Orders, - 2 
 
 Monastic Registers of Ar- 
 broath, - - - 14, 15, 228 
 Monks, their indolence, ig- 
 norance, and profligacy, 1 1, 12, 13 
 Montaigu College, Paris, - 104 
 
 Montrose, Wishart preaches in, 121 
 Montrose, the lighthouse of Angus, 121 
 Monypeny, Isobel, daughter 
 
 of the Laird of Pitmilly, 272 
 Myl, Alexander, Notary of the 
 
 Abbey of Arbroath, - 215 
 
 Myll, Andrew, early Classical 
 
 Teacher in Montrose, - 216 
 Myll, John, of Bruntone of 
 
 Athy, - - - - 214 
 Myll, Robert, of Dundee, - 129 
 
 Myln, Walter, Vicar of Lunan, 210 
 Myln's parentage and birth- 
 place, - - - -210-218 
 Myln's early education, - 218 
 
 Myln's connection with St. 
 
 Andrews University, -219-221 
 Myln appointed to the charge 
 
 of Lunan, - 230 
 
 Myln's labours at Lunan, 
 
 period of, - - 230, 231 
 Myln sowing the seed of Pro- 
 
 testant truth amongst his 
 parishioners, - - - 232-236 
 
 Myln condemned to the 
 flames for heresy, by- 
 Cardinal Beaton, - - 239 
 
 Myln escapes from the hands 
 
 of his persecutors, - - 240 
 
 Myln sheltered amongst the" 
 Lollards in the south of 
 Scotland, - - - 240 
 
 Myln forced to take refuge 
 
 on the sea, - 240 
 
 Myln probably influenced by 
 the reformers of Ger- 
 many and Switzerland, - 241 
 
 Myln returns to Scotland, - 242 
 
 Myln's marriage, probable 
 
 date of, - - - 242 
 
 Myln deceived by the in- 
 activity of his enemies, - 245 
 
 Myln preaches in Fife, - - 246 
 
 Myln's movements watched 
 
 by Papal spies, - - 246 
 
 Myln seized and cast into the 
 dungeon of St. Andrews 
 Castle, - - - - 247 
 
 Myln's courage and steadfast- 
 ness in the Protestant 
 Faith, - - - - 24S 
 
 Myln's trial and martyrdom, 249-260 
 
 Myln charged with denying 
 the doctrine of Transub- 
 stantiation, etc., - - 252 
 
 Myln's vindication of his teach- 
 ing and preaching, 253-255 
 
 Myln offered free pardon by 
 
 the Bishop on recantation, 255 
 
 Myln bravely refuses to recant, 255 
 
 Myln, Provost of St. Andrews 
 
 refuses to sentence to death, 257 
 
 Myln, Oliphant's treatment 
 
 of, at the stake, - - 259 
 
 Myln's dying exhortation, - 260 
 
 Myln, Hill Burton's account of, 261 
 
 Myln's martyrdom, Spottis- 
 woode's estimate of the 
 result of, - - - 261 
 
 Myln's martyrdom, Knox's 
 
 account of, - - 262 
 
 Myln, Buchanan's account of, 266 
 
294 
 
 Index. 
 
 Myln, Monuments erected to 
 
 the memory of, - 264, 265 
 
 N. 
 
 Neglect of the Registers of 
 
 Arbroath Abbey, - - 228 
 
 New Testament read in the 
 
 fields, - - - - 88, 89 
 
 New Testament unknown to the 
 
 Bishops and Clergy, 15, 16, 195 
 
 O. 
 
 Objections to Wishart preach- 
 ing without Ordination, 200-203 
 
 Ogilvie, Lord, protects Aber- 
 
 brothoc Kirk, - - 123 
 
 Ogilvie, Marion, - 19,107,278 
 
 Oliphant, Andrew, prosecutor 
 
 of Walter Myln, - - 250 
 
 Ormiston House, scene of 
 
 Wishart's capture, 159, 160, 162 
 
 Pakly's Well at Fordun, - 103 
 Palladius, Saint, of Fordun, 102 
 
 Panbride, or Ballinbride, home 
 
 of Hector Boece, - - 104 
 Panther, Patrick, Abbot of 
 
 Cambuskenneth, - - 6 
 
 Parish of Lunan, - - - 222 
 Parish of Ethie, - - - 212 
 
 Parish of Inverkeilor, - - 212 
 Perth, Martyrs of, - 1 25- 127 
 
 Persecuting spirit of the Roman 
 
 Catholic Church, - 26S-271 
 
 Peters, Hugh, of Ecclescreig, 84 
 
 Petrarch's description of the 
 
 Papal Church, - - 36 
 
 Tetrie, John, Chaplain to Lord 
 
 Innermeath of Redcastle, 282 
 Pitarrow, Old Castle of, 102, 103 
 
 Prophecy of the Cardinal's 
 
 death, - - - 190, 191 
 
 R. 
 
 Rankin, Laurence, Laird of 
 
 Sheill, - - - - 136 
 
 Rapacity of the Churchmen, 6 
 
 Raysis Myl, near Ethie House, 214 
 Redcastle on Lunan Bay, - 224 
 Reformation, an Evangelical 
 
 Revival, - - - 72-74 
 Reformation, real character 
 
 of the, - - - - 71 
 
 Relations of Arbroath and 
 St. Andrews before the 
 Reformation, - - 221 
 
 Religious Houses, - - 3 
 
 Resby, James, ... 25 
 
 Resby burned at Perth, - 26 
 
 Resby's heretical doctrines, - 26 
 
 Rhine, Wishart's Jewish com- 
 panion on the, - 116, 117 
 Richardson, Sir Robert, Canon 
 
 of Cambuskenneth Abbey, 64 
 Rogers, John, of Dundee, 127, 132 
 Roman Ecclesiastical Province, 2 
 Row's History of the Kirk' of 
 
 Scotland, - - - 43, 45 
 Rural Parishes, condition of,- 14 
 
 Russel, Jerome, burned at 
 
 •Glasgow, ... 60 
 
 S. 
 Saint Roque, Chapel of, Dundee, 139 
 Salmon Fisheries in St. Cyrus, 82 
 
 Scholastic learning, - - 5 
 
 Schools, Burghal and Con- 
 ventual, - - - 218 
 vSchool, Grammar, at Montrose, 106 
 Scott, John, of Dundee, prin- 
 ter of the Reformation 
 Ballads, - - - 48 
 Scot's, Robert, endowment of 
 
 the altar of Dupthacus, - 274 
 Scrymgeour, John, Constable 
 
 of Dundee, - - -48, 128 
 Scrymgeour, Sir James, friend 
 
 of Alesius, - - - 128 
 Scrymgeours of Dudhope Castle, 128 
 Seyton, Sir Alexander, Con- 
 fessor to James V., - 66 
 Shaxton, Nicolas, Bishop of 
 
 Salisbury, ... 63 
 
 Simony in the Church, - 1 1 
 
Index. 
 
 295 
 
 Simson, Andrew, School- 
 master at Perth, - - 44 
 Simson, Andrew, Minister of 
 
 Cargill and Dunbar, - 45 
 
 Social influence of the Clergy, 5 
 Somervaille, Alexander, of 
 
 Tarbrax, Carnwath, - 257 
 Somervaille's infamous char- 
 acter, --.- 25S 
 Spence, John, Lawyer, - 92 
 St. Andrews, - - - 51 
 St. Andrews Castle, - - 165 
 St. Cyrus, ... - 75 
 St. Leonard's Well, - - 54 
 State Papers quoted in con- 
 nection with the charge 
 of conspiracy against 
 Wishart, - - - 143 
 Strachan, Sir George, Vicar 
 
 of Dysart, - - - 246 
 Stratoun, David, of Whit- 
 
 stoun, in the Mearns, - 74, So 
 Stratoun's ancestors, - - 75, 76 
 Stratouns, their general char- 
 acter and features, - 79> So 
 Stratoun's, David, Conversion, 81, 89 
 Stratoun prepares for martyr- 
 dom, and makes the great 
 decision, - - - 89, 90 
 Stratoun, charges laid against, 93 
 Stratoun's defence, - - 95 
 Stratoun asks grace of the King, 95 
 Stratoun's martyrdom, - 96 
 Stratoun, George, of Laurieston, 87 
 Superstition rampant, - - 8 
 Supremacy of the Clergy, - 3 
 Swearing and licentiousness, 18, 19 
 Symson, Sir Duncan, Chap- 
 lain at Stirling, - - 56 
 
 Theologians, Liberal, -' - 32 
 
 Thirds of Benefices, - - 243 
 
 Tithe, the Prior's, - - 83 
 Tranent, Wishart preaches in 
 
 the Church of, - - 155 
 
 Trial of Myln, - - - 249 
 
 Trial of Stratoun, - - 93 
 
 Trial of Wishart, - - - 168 
 
 Turry, Sir Hugh, - - 246 
 
 Tylney's, Emery, description 
 of Wishart at Cambridge, 
 
 Tyndale's translation of the 
 Bible, --.- 
 
 Universities in Scotland, state 
 of, - 
 
 Vicars of Lunan, - 
 Visionaries of the German 
 Reformation, 
 
 W. 
 
 11S 
 
 226 
 
 113 
 
 47 
 
 Wallace, Adam, the Martyr, - 
 
 Wardlaw, Henry, Bishop of 
 
 St. Andrews, - - 26, 27 
 
 Wedderburn, James, of Dundee, 46 
 
 Wedderbum's Tragedy oijoh 11 
 
 the Baptist, -' - - 46 
 
 Wedderburn, John, Vicar of 
 
 Dundee, ... 47 
 
 Wedderbum's Songs, their 
 
 popularity, - - - 48 
 
 Whitehead, Andrew, Vicar of 
 
 Lunan, - - - - 226 
 
 Whitstoun House, - - 74, 79 
 
 Wightone, Sir John, Wishart's 
 
 desperate foe, - - 114 
 
 Williams, Thomas, of Athal- 
 
 staneford, - - - 158 
 
 Willock, John, a friar of Ayr, 67 
 
 Willock's commanding power 
 
 and influence in the West, 6S 
 
 Winram, Sub-Prior of the 
 
 Monastery of St. Andrews, 54 
 
 Winram's discourse at Wish- 
 art's trial, - - - 170 
 
 Winram pleads with the Pre- 
 lates for Wishart, - - 1 85 
 
 Wischart, Georgius, Armiger 
 
 Crucis Regis Galliae, - 145 
 
 Wishart, Bailie, in Dundee, - 145 
 
 Wishart, brother-germain of 
 John Wishart of Pett- 
 arrow, - - - - 145 
 
 Wishart, George, of Pitarrow, 99 
 
296 
 
 Index. 
 
 Wishart, Schoolmaster of 
 
 Montrose, - - 108, 109 
 
 Wishart's real heretical opinions, 1 1 1 
 
 Wishart's recantation of hereti- 
 cal doctrine, - - - 112 
 
 Wishart in Germany, - - 114 
 
 Wishart a disciple of the 
 
 Swiss reformers, - - 115 
 
 Wishart's encounter with 
 
 Archbishop Dunbar, - 134 
 
 Wishart preaches in Galston 
 
 church,- - - - 135 
 
 Wishart's sermon at the Cow- 
 gate, Dundee, - - 140 
 
 Wishart's assailants, - - 143 
 
 Wishart, defence of, against 
 
 the charge of conspiracy, 144-148 
 
 Wishart's struggle at Invergowrie, 150 
 
 Wishart's journey to Leith, - 152 
 
 Wishart surrenders himself 
 
 to Bothwell, - - - 161 
 
 Wishart a prisoner in St. 
 
 Andrews dungeon, - 165 
 
 Wishart delivered into the 
 Cardinal's hands by the 
 Regent, - - - 165 
 
 Wishart's trial and condem- 
 nation,- - - - 168- 1S5 
 
 Wishart's vindication of his 
 
 doctrine, - - - 173 
 
 Wishart appeals from the 
 
 Cardinal to the Governor, 174 
 
 Wishart and the preaching of 
 
 the Gospel, - - - 174 
 
 Wishart on the Sacraments, 
 Auricular Confession, In- 
 fant Baptism, and Tran- 
 substantiation, - - 175-177 
 
 Wishart charged with teach- 
 ing Necessitarianism, - 180 
 Wishart accused of preaching 
 against the Monastic vow, 
 costly churches, and fast- 
 ing, - 183, 1S4 
 Wishart, Winram pleads with 
 
 Prelates for, - - - 185 
 Wishart condemned to be 
 
 burned as a heretic, - 185 
 Wishart's farewell meal in 
 
 the Governor's house, - 1S6 
 Wishart, preparations for the 
 
 execution of, - - 1S7 
 
 W T ishart's meek and Christ- 
 like bearing at the scaf- 
 fold, - - - 1S7-1S9 
 Wishart addresses the crowd 
 
 around the scaffold, - 1S8 
 Wishart's prophecy of the 
 Cardinal's death ex- 
 amined, - - 190, 191 
 Wishart, description of the 
 
 burning of, - - 192, 193 
 Wishart, the Scholar, - 194-197 
 Wishart, Scotland's first Lay- 
 Evangelist, - - - 197-203 
 Wishart, the Martyr, - - 203-209 
 Wishart's martyrdom, fruits 
 
 of, 205-206 
 
 Wishart, James, of Pitarrow, 100 
 Wishart, John of,- - - 99 
 
 Wishart, Robert, - - - 100 
 Wishart, Sir James, of Pitarrow, 101 
 Wishart, Sir John, of Pitarrow, 100 
 Wishart, William, - % - 100 
 
 Wycliftites in Ayrshire, - 22 
 
 Wyschard, John, of the Mearns, 100 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 42 (foot of page), (ox fends, read feuds. 
 
 Page 48 (fifth line from foot of page), for commended, read commanded. 
 
 Page 130 (last line of page), for 11 yeklifitcs, read Wyclijfites. 
 
 Tage 160 (foot of page), for smoothcd-tongued, read smooth-tongued. 
 
 Page 210 (foot of page), for on, read no. 
 

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