preachers of the Reformed doctrines was George Wishart of Pitarrow, who had in consequence rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious to the Romish priesthood, and it was now resolved to have him arrested and brought to trial on a charge of heresy. He was at this time residing at Ormiston in East Lothian, and Arran was induced by the primate to send a party of horse, under the earl of Bothwell, to arrest him. Wishart surrendered under a solemn promise from Bothwell that his life should be spared. But he was treacherously delivered up by that noble to the cardinal, who immediately conveyed him to St. Andrews and cast him into a dungeon in his castle. Arran refused to grant a commission to a civil judge to bring Wishart to trial, and wrote to Beaton to stay proceedings till he should have time to inquire into the matter. But the cardinal paid no regard to the injunction, and immediately, on his own authority, brought Wishart before an ecclesiastical tribunal at St. Andrews on a charge of heresy. He was of course found guilty, and condemned to be burnt—a sentence which was executed on the following day, March 28, 1546, in front of the castle. (See George Wishart.)
Immediately after this cruel deed, Beaton proceeded to Angus for the purpose of attending the marriage of Margaret, one of his natural daughters, to David Lindsay, eldest son of the earl of Crawford. The nuptials were celebrated at Finhaven castle with unusual magnificence, the bride receiving from her father the princely dowry of four thousand marks. In the midst of the marriage festivities, the cardinal received information that King Henry was collecting a naval force for the purpose of ravaging the coast of Fife, and he immediately returned to St. Andrews in order to strengthen the fortifications of his castle against the threatened attack. Meanwhile the murder of Wishart, which had been warmly applauded by the clergy and the popish party, had excited deep and general indignation throughout the country. Some of the martyr's friends resolved to exact speedy vengeance for his blood, while others who held the cardinal at feud, determined to avail themselves of the favourable opportunity to revenge their own real or supposed wrongs. Norman Lesley, master of Rothes, had until lately been one of the prelate's friends, and had even granted him a bond of "man-rent." But a quarrel had recently taken place which had rendered them mortal enemies. It is said that Beaton had resolved to take off or imprison Lesley and several of his friends, while Norman, with the approbation of his uncle, John Lesley, who had already threatened to revenge the murder of Wishart, called into his counsels Kirkaldy of Grange, James Melville, and several other associates, who both hated and feared the cardinal, and after a secret consultation it was determined to put their dreaded enemy to death without delay.
On the evening of Friday, 21st May, the conspirators, sixteen in number, proceeded quietly to St. Andrews, and entered the town in detachments, and at different times. Next morning, before day-break, they approached the castle in small detached groups. The drawbridge had been lowered to admit the workmen who were engaged in the erection of the new fortifications, and Kirkaldy, with six of his associates, passed the gates and inquired if the cardinal was yet awake. While the attention of the porter was thus engaged, Norman Lesley and James Melville entered unnoticed. But on the appearance of John Lesley, whose enmity to Beaton was well known, the porter, suspecting mischief, rushed to the drawbridge, and unloosening its fastening, was in the act of raising it, when Lesley leaped across the chasm. The porter was instantly dispatched, deprived of his keys, and thrown into the fosse before he could give the alarm. The workmen, amounting to about a hundred, who were labouring on the ramparts, were then quietly led to the gate and dismissed. The household servants, fifty in number, were next roused from sleep, threatened with instant death if they made any outcry, and one by one turned out of the castle; while Kirkaldy of Grange, who was well acquainted with the place, stationed himself at a private postern, through which alone the cardinal could escape. The conspirators were now complete masters of the castle. Up till this moment Beaton, totally unconscious of his danger, had continued fast asleep; but being now roused by the noise, he raised the window of his bedroom and asked what it meant. Being told that the castle had been taken by Norman Lesley, he ran to the postern, but, finding it secured, he fled back to his bedchamber, seized his sword, and with the help of his page barricaded the door. John Lesley now approached and demanded admittance. "Who calls?" said the cardinal. "My name is Lesley," was the reply. "Is that Norman?" asked the unhappy prelate. "Nay," said the conspirator, "my name is John." "I will have Norman," exclaimed Beaton; "for he is my friend." "Content yourself," returned Lesley, "with such as are here, for others you shall have none."
Two others of the band, Melville and Carmichael, now joined Lesley in attempting to force open the door, which resisted all their efforts. The cardinal meanwhile earnestly entreated that they would promise to spare his life. "It may be that we will," was the equivocal reply of Lesley. "Nay," returned Beaton, "swear unto me by God's wounds, and I will open the door unto you." "It that was said is unsaid," exclaimed the assassin, infuriated at the delay, and calling for fire, was about to apply it to the door, when it was unlocked by the cardinal or his page, it is not known which. Sitting down on a chair, Beaton exclaimed, "I am a priest, I am a priest, ye will not slay me!" Disregarding his entreaties for mercy, Lesley and Carmichael struck him twice with their daggers. But Melville, whom Knox describes as a man "of a nature most gentle and most modest," rebuked them for their violence, saying, "This work and judgment of God, although it be secret, ought to be done with greater gravity." Then admonishing the unhappy prelate to repent of his wicked life, and especially of the murder of Wishart, whose blood cried for vengeance upon him, he added, "I protest before God that neither the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, nor the fear of any trouble thou couldest have done to me in particular, moveth me to strike thee, but only because thou hast been and remainest an obstinate enemy against Christ Jesus and his holy Evangel." Having thus spoken, he repeatedly passed his sword through the body of the cardinal, who fell down from his chair, and expired, exclaiming, "I am a priest, I am a priest; fie, fie, all is gone!"
Meanwhile an alarm had been raised in the town, and several hundreds of the citizens, headed by the provost, hurried to the side of the castle moat, crying out, "What have ye done with my lord cardinal? Let us see my lord cardinal." The assassins ordered them to disperse, but without effect; and at length Norman Lesley, taunting them as unreasonable fools who wished to speak with a dead man, dragged the bleeding body of the cardinal to the window, and hung it by a sheet over the wall. "There," said he, "is your god; and now that ye are satisfied, get you home to your houses;" a command which the terror-stricken crowd immediately obeyed.
Thus perished, in his fifty-second year, by "a deed foully done," Cardinal Beaton, "the Wolsey of Scotland." He was undoubtedly a man of great abilities—sagacious, bold, energetic, magnificent in his tastes, and liberal in his expenditure. But his ambition was unbounded, and his cruelty, licentiousness, and unscrupulousness, have left an indelible stain upon his memory. His death was an irreparable loss to his party, and contributed not a little to hasten the downfall of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland.—(John Knox's History; Lesley; Spottiswood; Sir David Lindsay's Tragedy of the Cardinal; Sadler's State Papers, vol. i.)—J. T.
BEATON, James, an eminent prelate of the Romish church, and uncle of Cardinal Beaton, took a prominent part in public affairs during the stormy period which followed the death of James IV. He owed his first preferment, in 1503, to the provostship of the Collegiate church of Bothwell, to the house of Douglas, who were patrons of that establishment. He passed rapidly through the various grades of promotion, till he attained the highest rank of ecclesiastical dignity. In 1504 he was made abbot of Dunfermline, and in the following year he succeeded his uncle. Sir David Beaton, in the office of high treasurer of the kingdom. In 1508 he was appointed bishop of Galloway, and next year he was translated to the archiepiscopal see of Glasgow. While he held the office of archbishop of Glasgow, he built a magnificent wall round the episcopal palace, augmented several of the altarages in the cathedral, and repaired many of the bridges within his regality which had fallen to decay After the death of James IV., Beaton was elevated by the Regent, Albany, to the office of Lord Chancellor, and appointed one of the governors of the kingdom during the absence of the Regent in France. The violent discussions which now broke out between the rival factions of Arran and Angus, led to the disruption of the friendship which had hitherto existed between Beaton and the Douglases, his early patrons. Arran had married the niece of the archbishop, and
