Happily for the cause of the Reformation in the evil
days upon which it had again fallen, there was still one powerful living
preacher who stood forth to defend it in one of its chief strongholds,
and whose fervent appeals from the pulpit could do more to plead for it,
and sustain the sinking hearts of its friends, than any letters, however
excellent, from reformers in distant exile. George Wishart was still
preaching on the Epistle to the Romans, in the zealous burgh of Dundee,
and multitudes were hanging upon the lips of the greatest
pulpit orator that Scotland had seen for centuries.
Wishart had no doubt fled for a time from Dundee,
when it was occupied by the governor and the cardinal, in February,
1544; but returning again with his fugitive flock, when the danger was
over, he continued for several months longer to preach to them without
interruption. His position in Dundee was a very strong one. The most
powerful man in the town was the hereditary constable of the Castle, Sir
John Scrymgeour of Dudhope, and Sir John was a steady friend of the
Reformation. In his father, Sir James, Alesius had found a friend as
early as 1531, on his flight from St Andrews; and the whole influence of
the family had been ever since employed on the side of the truth. They
were the chief ecclesiastical patrons of the town; a large proportion of
its chapelries and altarages were in their gift; and by the judicious
use of this power, they were able to render important services to the
cause of Reform.
Still Wishart had an enemy to contend with, who was
more than a match for all the power of his patrons and friends. What an
eyesore such a preacher was to Beaton may be easily imagined, and the
all-powerful cardinal was now resolved to put a stop to his labours.
From about the middle of 1544, we can trace the hand of this resolute
and unscrupulous churchman in a series of attempts, either to stifle the
Reformer's preaching, or to deprive him of life, which were continued
with unrelenting pertinacity, till they took effect at last in his
apprehension and death.
The cardinal's first design was to drive him from
Dundee, and in this he succeeded for a time, by working upon the fears
of some of its magistrates. Reminding them of the troubles which their
heretical preacher had already brought upon the town, he menaced them
with the terrors of a second visit, unless they used their authority to
put an end to his harangues. In the name of the queen and the governor,
they must charge him to depart. In truth, the governor was now so
entirely at the cardinal's devotion, that the town was completely at
Beaton's mercy. The magistrates were overawed by his threats, and
Robert Mill, a man who had himself been formerly a sufferer for the
truth, consented to be the instrument of carrying out his demands.
Wishart was in the pulpit, surrounded by a great congregation, including
the Earl Mareshal and others of the nobility, when Mill entered the
Church, and charged him, in the queen and governor's name, to depart
from the town and trouble it no more. "Whereupon, he mused a little
space with his eyes bent unto the heavens, and then looking sorrowfully
to the people, he said, i God is my witness that I minded ever your
comfort and not your trouble, which to me is more grievous than to
yourselves. But, sure I am, to reject the Word of God and drive away his
messengers is not the way to save you from trouble. When I am gone, God
will send you messengers who will not be afraid either for horning or
banishment. I have with the' hazard of my life remained among you,
preaching the word of salvation; and now, since yourselves refuse me, I
must leave my innocency to be declared by God. If it be long well with
you, I am not led by the Spirit of truth; and if trouble unexpected fall
upon you, remember this is the cause, and turn to God by repentance, for
He is merciful.' These words pronounced, he came down from the pulpit,
and declining the earnest request of Earl Mareshal to accompany him into
the northern parts of the king* dom, * with all possible expedition, he
passed to the westland.'"
Our historians have
accustomed us to associate with the name of George Wishart, mainly the
two ideas of heroism and gentleness; heroism as a confessor, and
gentleness as a man. But it is plain from the above address, and from
several Other incidents of his life, that upon just occasions he could
be stern as well as gentle, and that he could speak as firmly and
faithfully of the duty of others, as he could act heroically in
fulfilment of his own. According to Tylney's account of him, he was a
strict disciplinarian as a college regent, and the remains of his
sermons show that he was a disciplinarian in the pulpit as well as in
the schools. His voice had often the solemn tones of a prophet, as well
as the gentler notes of an evangelist
Wishart had made the acquaintance of the Earl of
Glencairn in England, and it was probably this tie, as well as the
Lollard traditions of Kyle, " that ancient receptacle of God's people,"
which drew him to the west. During his sojourn there, he preached
commonly at the kirk of Galstone, and was frequently a guest at the
house of John Lockhart of Barr. Interesting notices have also been
preserved of his preachings in Ayr and Mauchline. In Ayr he was obliged
to preach at the market-cross, because the Archbishop of Glasgow had
first got possession of the church. Instigated by the cardinal to a new
effort of reluctant zeal, Dunbar had hastened from Glasgow, "with his
jackmen," to oppose and apprehend the Reformer, and had hoped by the aid
of these carnal weapons at once to end the strife. But upon the first
notice of his arrival, Glencairn and other barons hurried into the town
to defend the preacher, and proposed to dispute possession of the church
with the Archbishop by force of arms. " But to this Maister George
utterly repugned, saying, ' Let him alone, his sermon will not much
hurt; let us go to the market-cross/ And so they did; where he made so
notable a sermon, that the very enemies themselves were confounded."
•As for Dunbar, he had few to hear him but his own
jackmen, and his sermon was notable only for its weakness. "The sum of
all his sermon 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 the next time.' . This was the beginning and end
of the bishop's discourse, who with haste departed the town, but
returned not again to fulfil his promise."
Wishart gave another example of the same noble
moderation, and confidence in the unaided power of Gospel truth, in what
took place soon after at Mauchline. Having been invited to preach there,
he consented to do so; but Sir Hugh Campbell of Loudoun,
who was sheriff of the county, took possession of the church with a band
of armed men, in order to exclude him from the pulpit Sir Hugh feared
for the safety of a beautiful tabernacle which stood upon the altar.
"Some zealous men, among whom was Hugh Campbell of Kinzean-cleugh,
offended that they should be debarred their own parish kirk, concluded
to enter by force. But Maister George withdrew him, and said unto him,'
Brother, Christ Jesus is as potent upon the fields as in the kirk, and
he himself preached oftener in the desert, at the sea-side, and in other
places judged profane, than he did in the temple of Jerusalem. It is the
word of peace which God sends by me. The blood of no man shall be shed
this day for the preaching of it.' And so withdrawing the whole people,
he came to a dyke in the edge of a moor, upon the south-west side of
Mauchline, upon the which he ascended. The whole multitude stood and sat
about him: God gave the day pleasing and hot. He continued in preaching
more than three hours. In that sermon, God wrought so wonderfully with
him, that one of the most wicked men in that country, the Laird of
Scheill, was converted. The tears ran down from his eyes in such
abundance that all men wondered; and his conversion was without
hypocrisy, for his life and conversation witnessed it in all time to
come."
This is the first time we read of field-preaching in
the history of Scottish evangelism; the stones of a " dry dyke" serving
for a pulpit, and the tufts of moss and moor-heather for benches and
faldstools. And was not that scene at Mauchline— a fervent evangelist
preaching for three hours at a time, and a vast congregation of
worshippers fixed to the turf in mute attention, and God "working
wonderfully " with the word, and tears of repentance rolling down the
cheeks of stalwart men and hardened sinners—was it not what Christian
men in our own time would call a revival. Yes; the
Reformation of the sixteenth century was undoubtedly a great movement of
religious revival. Its aspect as a mighty work of ecclesiastical reform
was only the outside manifestation of its inner soul and spirit as a
wide-spread spiritual awakening; and if there had been no spiritual
awakening, there would have been no effectual ecclesiastical reform.
With regard to Scotland, in particular, nobody can doubt that if the
Spirit of God had not breathed the breath of new religious life into a
large number of souls throughout the kingdom, a Reformation of the
Church would have been impossible. There was no country in Christendom
where the Papal Church was so rich and powerful in proportion to the
wealth and influence of the rest of the nation; and there was none where
the struggle, which issued in its downfal, was so long protracted. It
required no less than thirty-five years of conflict and suffering to
work out the great change. Could anything less than a mighty
re-quickening of religious feeling in the heart of the nation, have
carried it successfully through such a conflict, and given it the
victory over such a gigantic foe? If ever there were preachers of the
Gospel who were eminently godly and devoted men, Hamilton, Wishart, and
Knox, were a trio of such men. And their word was with power. Great
numbers who heard them woke up to " newness of life," and it was the
power of this new life, in the party of the Reformers, which at last
achieved the ecclesiastical revolution of the Reformation.
While Wishart was thus occupied in the west of
Scotland, rumours ere long reached him that the plague had broken out in
Dundee. One of those "messengers of God "which he had forewarned its
citizens of," not to be effrayed for horning, nor yet for banishment,''
had been sent to them sooner than he expected. The fatal disease had
begun to show itself only a few days after his departure, and it shortly
became so vehement, that the numbers who died every four and twenty
hours were almost incredible. The pestilence would seem to have followed
upon the heels of a famine, for a contemporary chronicler informs us
that " in this time many people died with great scant and want of
victuals, and the pest was wonder great in all boroughs-towns of this
realm."
On learning the certainty
of these evil tidings, Wishart instantly took leave of his friends and
followers in Kyle. They lamented his departure, and entreated him to
remain, but no urgency could constrain him to delay his return to
Dundee. "They are now in trouble," said he, "and they need comfort.
Perchance this hand of God will make them now to magnify and reverence
that Word, which before, for fear of men, they set at light price." The
joy of the plague-smitten town, on hearing of his arrival, was exceeding
great. Without delay, he announced that he would preach on the morrow.
The most part of the inhabitants were either sick themselves, or in
attendance upon their sick relatives and friends. They could not
assemble in the church. They were crowded in and about the5
lazar-houses, near " the East Port" of the town, and Wishart chose for
his preaching place the top of the Cowgate port or gate. "The sick and
suspected sat without the port, the healthy sat or stood within." The
text of his first sermon was these words of the 107 th Psalm, "He sent
his Word and healed them? "O Lord," he began, "it is neither herb nor
plaster, but thy Word that healeth all." "In the which sermon," says
Knox, "he most comfortably did treat of the dignity and utility of God's
Word, the punishment that comes for contempt of the same, the
promptitude of God's mercy to such as truly turn to Him; yea, the great
happiness of those whom God takes from this misery, even in his own
gentle visitation, which the malice of man can neither add to, nor take
from. By the which sermon he so raised up the hearts of all that heard
him, that they regarded not death, but judged those more happy that
should depart than such as should remain behind, considering that they
knew not if they should have such a comforter with them at all times."
It has not been noticed
by our historians that the locality where Wishart preached during this
season of public distress, gave a peculiar significance to the text of
his first address from the top of the East Port. Just outside the gate
stood the ancient Chapel of St. Roque; and St. Roque, in popular belief)
was the helper of men in time of plague and pestilence. Hence the
erection of the ancient lazar-houses of the town in that locality; and
hence, too, in all probability, the choice of. the Reformer's first
text, "' He sent his Word and healed them, and delivered them from their
destructions.' It is God, not St Roque, who is the healer of the
plague-stricken; look unto Him and be ye saved. It is to Him you must
turn your languid eyes, not to the image and shrine of St Roque."
It was not only, however,
by his. powerful and consoling preaching, that Wishart ministered on
this occasion to the sick and dying inhabitants of Dundee. He was
equally assiduous in his attentions to their bodily wants. Regardless of
the danger of contagion, "he spared not to visit those that lay in the
very extremity, he comforted them as well as he might in such a
multitude, and he caused all things necessary to be ministered to those
who were well enough to eat and drink taking care, so to apply the
beneficent aid which was obtained from the public funds of the town,
"that the poor were no more neglected than were the rich."
Prodigal of his life in
this public mortality, Wishart entirely forgot not only the peril of
contagion, but also the hazards which he ran at the hand of the fanatic
and assassin. He forgot that he had been placed by the ban of the
Church, and the outlawry of the state, beyond the protection of law, and
that any man might take his life without a crime. In truth, his enemy
the cardinal was again upon his track, and, thirsting for his blood, had
suborned a wretched priest to dispatch him with a dagger, in the very
midst of his labour of love. u Upon a day, the sermon being ended, and
the people departing, no man suspecting danger, and therefore not
heeding Maister George, a priest, called John Wighton, stood waiting at
the foot of the steps which led up to the top of the gate; his gown
loose, and his dagger drawn in his hand under his gown. Maister George,
being most sharp of eye and judgment, marked him, and as he came near,
he said, *My friend, what would ye do?" and therewith he clapped his
hand upon the priest's hand wherein the dagger was, which he took from
him. The priest abashed, fell down at his feet and openly confessed the
verity as it was. The noise rising and coming to the ears of the sick,
they cried out, *Deliver the traitor to us, or else we will take him by
force,* and so they burst in at the gate. But Maister George took him in
his arms, and said, 'Whosoever troubles him, shall trouble me, for he
has hurt me in nothing, but he has done great comfort both to you and to
me; to wit, he has letten us understand what we may fear in times to
come: we will watch better.' And so he appeased both the one part and
the other, and saved the life of him that sought his."
"He saved the life of him who sought his." "Whosoever
troubles him, shall trouble me." Can the man who spoke and acted thus,
have been the same man as "a Scotishman called Wishart," who is
mentioned in a letter of the Earl of Hertford, dated the 17th of April,
1544, "as privy to a conspiracy to assassinate Cardinal Beaton, and as
employed to carry letters between the conspirators and the English court
"? So some of our historians have conjectured, especially in our own
time. But never surely was there a conjecture (for it is nothing more)
more violently improbable, or more injurious to the memory of a good
man, and an eminent benefactor of his country. Certainly the spirit of
moderation and forbearance, the disapprobation of violence, and the
hatred of blood, manifested by Wishart in the affair of priest Wighton,
in Dundee, and on several other occasions mentioned in the preceding
narrative, were very unlike the fierce and violent passions which
prompted some of the enemies of Beaton to enter into such a conspiracy.
Is it conceivable, or without good evidence credible, that a man such as
Tylney has described, with a character so lofty, so pure, so gentle, and
so beneficent, would lend his sanction to a deliberate scheme of blood,
and would even degrade himself to act a very subordinate part in the
plot—to be a carrier of letters from men who were basely bargaining for
the price of murder, to other men who were so ashamed to be seen in the
conspiracy, that though they wished it for their own ends to be
successful, they refused to give any formal promise of the price which
was demanded % Surely, instead of "sorrowfully" confessing, as a
recent historian does, that there is a "strong presumption" that George
Wishart was connected with such a conspiracy, we ought to answer
indignantly to such a charge, that the strong presumption is all the
other way. For what is the whole basis of proof upon which this alleged
presumption is made to rest % The only fact that is produced in support
of it is, that Wishart was personally acquainted with several or all of
the men who were engaged in the conspiracy, and that he sympathized
generally in their ecclesiastical and political views. But is that fact
a sufficient warrant for subjecting him to such a grave and injurious
suspicion ? Is every individual of a whole party to be held capable of
approving of, and taking part in, whatever extreme and desperate
measures are suggested and plotted by any two or three of the party?
Admitting that Wishart, as the great preacher of the Reforming party,
was acquainted with all its leading men, is that to be considered
adequate historical proof that he, and not some other person of the same
family name, was the person alluded to in Hertford's letter? There were
other members of the family of Pittarrow who shared in the same
religious and political views; why should he be thus singled out for
suspicion from all the rest? There were other Wisharts in Scotland
besides the Wisharts of Pittarrow; why might not the individual alluded
to have been one of them? Besides, there is good evidence to show that
the Reformer was preaching in Dundee, at the very time when he is
alleged to have been carrying letters to London. Knox informs us that he
continued to preach there from the time of his first visit till he was
charged by Robert Mill, in the queen's name, to depart But this took
place shortly before the plague appeared in the town, and the date
usually assigned, both by general and local historians, to that
incident, is the summer of 1544. In the spring of that year, then,
Wishart must have been still in Dundee; that is, at the very season when
he is alleged to have been absent in England.
So much for the properly
historical evidence bearing upon the question. As to the allegation made
use of to weaken the 1 Rev. John Cunningham, in his Church History of
Scotland. improbability of a man of Wishart's high religious character
giving any countenance to such a plot, that religious fanaticism is able
to blind the eyes of men to the most palpable distinctions between right
and wrong, it is enough to reply, that before this general observation
is directed against any particular historical personage, the fact should
first be established that he was a fanatic. But no evidence of such a
fact is produceable in the case of Wishart, unless we assume the very
point which has to be proved—his complicity in this conspiracy. It may
be true, also, that if this conspiracy had taken effect in Wishart's
lifetime, he would have rejoiced, as Knox rejoiced, in the deliverance
thus wrought for the afflicted cause of God, as a dispensation of Divine
Providence. No doubt he would have seen the hand of God in it as an
avenging judge and a righteous deliverer, as Knox saw it. But to show
that eyen in that age of high-wrought feeling and religious passion,
wise and good men made a distinction between what God permitted and
overruled, and what was right for men to do and approve, it may suffice
to refer to the judgment of Sir David Lindsay upon the assassination of
Beaton, when it actually took place :—
"As for the Cardinal, I grant
He was the man we weel could want,
And we'll forget him soon;
And yet I think, the sooth to say,
Although the loon is weel away,
The deed was foully done."
But are we never to hear the last of this rash and
groundless calumny upon the name and memory of one of the most honoured
and beloved of our "Scottish Worthies"? We lament that it should still
be repeated and countenanced by the writers of our time. Can they not
condemn a guilty conspiracy without themselves seeming to conspire
against a name which is justly dear to almost a whole nation? Where is
the historical justice of blotting such a name upon mere suspicion; upon
evidence which would be deemed in any court of law insufficient to
convict any man, even the worst, of any crime, even the most
insignificant?
