James Beaton, of the family of Balfour in Fife, became Archbishop of Glasgow in 1509, Chancellor of Scotland, and in 1522 Archbishop of St. Andrews and primate of the Scottish church. He was a politician of the first rank in the troubled minority of James V.

In the 1520s Lutheran books came into Scotland through the eastern ports, and the Parliament of 1525 forbade them. The young Patrick Hamilton, abbot of Fearn and kinsman of the royal house, had studied at Paris and Marburg and returned preaching justification by faith. Beaton invited him to St. Andrews for a conference, then had him tried. Hamilton was condemned and burned before St. Salvator’s College on February 29, 1528.¹

The archbishop meant to stamp out heresy. Instead the martyr’s death spread it, and one of Beaton’s own household warned him, according to John Knox, that if he burned any more he should burn them in cellars:

The reek of Patrick Hamilton infected all on whom it did blow.² A member of Archbishop Beaton’s householdas recorded by John Knox

Beaton presided over further trials, including that of the Benedictine Henry Forrest. He died on February 14, 1539, and was succeeded at St. Andrews by his nephew, David Beaton.

Catholic Opponents