Martyrs of Angus and Mearns

GEORGE WISHART. THE MAR OF ANGUS AND MEARNS SKETCHES IN THE HISTORY of the SCOTTISH REFORMATION r=-r-^ ^ —u+±—, 'Of [* JAN 14 1911 BY THE Rev. J. MOFFAT SCOTT 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 Bdilates. In the Middle Ages, Scotland was an ecclesiastical 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 Mearns. 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 Pre- Reformation Times in Scotland. 3 and Priories of Arbroath, Melrose, Dunfermline, St. Andrews, Paisley, and Cambuskenneth possessed numerous parochial charges and vast tracts princely and of fertile country ; and the abbots 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 possessed 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 Mearns. 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-Reformation 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 and defied if a fair-minded opposed them ; 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 all property for their religious services a tenth of ; 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 Pre-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

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