John Hamilton was an illegitimate son of the first Earl of Arran and half-brother of the Regent Arran, who governed Scotland in the 1540s. Educated in Paris, he became Bishop of Dunkeld and, after the murder of Cardinal Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews.

Hamilton recognized that the Scottish church needed reform. He held provincial councils and in 1552 issued a vernacular catechism, known as Hamilton’s Catechism, that explained the faith in plain Scots. But he would not tolerate dissent. In April 1558 he had Walter Myln, a former priest of more than eighty years, tried and burned at St. Andrews.² Before the fire, Myln told the crowd:

The cause why I suffer this day is not for any crime laid to my charge.² Walter Mylnat St. Andrews, April 1558

Myln was the last Protestant martyr in Scotland, and his death roused the country. Within two years the Lords of the Congregation had risen, Mary of Guise had died, and the Parliament of August 1560 abolished the authority of the pope and forbade the mass. Hamilton opposed it. He was imprisoned in 1563 for saying mass, and he baptized the infant James VI with Catholic rites in 1566. Captured at Dumbarton Castle in 1571, he was hanged at Stirling on April 7, 1571, for complicity in the murders of Lord Darnley and the Regent Moray.

Archbishop John Hamilton should not be confused with Patrick Hamilton, the martyr of 1528.

Catholic Opponents