sion of his sentiments, and when Knox, at the meeting of the Black and Grey friars, demanded whether he conscientiously considered the doctrines then called heretical contrary to God's word, he not only evaded the question, but argued on the popish side; he assisted at the trials of at least two of the reformers, of whom one suffered, and the other only saved himself by flight. It may perhaps be said that Winram expected to be thus able to advance the reformation more effectually than by an open abandonment or opposition of the popish church, but this is an argument which would in any case be liable to strong suspicion, and which in Winram's is rendered everything but inadmissible by the other facts which are known respecting him. The truth seems to be, and candour requires that it should be stated, that he generally displayed a covetous, interested disposition. On this account he was sometimes treated with no great respect, even by persons of inferior rank: one person, indeed, was charged in 1561, before the kirk session of St Andrews, with saying that he was a "fals, dissaitful, greedy, and dissemblit smaik, for he wes ane of tham that maist oppressed, smored, and held down the word [kirk?] of God, and now he is cum into it and professes the same for grediness of geir, lurkand and watchand quhill he may se ane other tym." Nor does he seem to have possessed in any considerable degree the confidence of his clerical brethren. It has been remarked that, in the records of the proceedings of the first General Assembly, his name appears but seventeenth on the list of persons considered fit to minister, and is placed after those of men greatly his juniors. This is a circumstance which mere accident may have occasioned, and is not of itself entitled to much consideration; but of one fact there, can be no doubt, that in the whole course of thirty-six Assemblies, which, according to Wodrow, he attended, he was never appointed moderator, nor intrusted even with a share in the management of their more important transactions.
Winram married Margaret Stewart, widow of . . . . Ayton of Kinnaldy, but she predeceased him without having any family except by her first husband. Many passages in the books of the commissariot of St Andrews show that the superintendent and his wife's sons were on indifferent terms, and leave one not without suspicion that he made some attempt to deprive them of their just rights or property. In the remarks which we have made on this and other parts of his conduct we have been actuated by no other motive but a desire to draw a fair and impartial conclusion from the facts which time has spared to us. At the same time, we are sensible, and we mention it in justice to the memory of Winram and many others, that, did the history of the period admit a fuller investigation, considerations might arise which would probably place many transactions in a different point of view.[1] The only work known to have been written by Winram is a catechism, which has long disappeared, and of which not even a description is now known to exist.
WISHART, George, a distinguished protestant martyr, was probably the son of James Wishart, of Pitarro, justice-clerk to James V. He is supposed to have studied at Montrose, where he himself gave instructions for some time in the Greek language; a circumstance which, considering the state of Greek learning in Scotland at the time reflects distinguished honour on his literary character. But there were men in power by whom it was reckoned heresy to give instructions in the original language of the New Testament. Owing to the persecution he received from the bishop of Brechin and cardinal Beaton, he left the country in 1538. His history during the three following years is little known. It appears that, having preached at Bristol against the worship and mediation of the Virgin, he was condemned for that alleged
- ↑ Abridged from Wodrow's Biographical Collections, printed by the Maitland Club, i.
