Volume I Part 29 (1/2)
”Anno sequenti [MCCCCx.x.xIII] accusatus est Paulus Crawar Teutonicus, xxiij. die mensis Julij, apud Sanctum Andream, et haereticus obstinatus repertus, convictus est et condemnatus, et ad ignem applicatus et incineratus. Hic, ut dicitur, missus fuit ab haereticis Pragensibus de Bohemia, qui tune in maleficiis nimium praevalebant, ad inficiendum regnum Scotorum, recommissus per ipsorum literas, tanquam praecellens arte medicine. Hic in sacris literis et in allegatione Bibliae promptus et exercitatus inveniebatur; sed ad insipientiam sibi, omnes quasi illos articulos erroneos Pragenses et Wiklivienses pertinaciter tenebat: sed per venerabilem virum magistrum Laurentium de Londoris, inquisitorem haereticae pravitatis, qui nusquam infra regnum requiem dedit haereticis, vel Lolardis, confutatus est.”--(Scotichronicon, vol. ii. p. 495.)
Bower, after this extract, in the remainder of the chapter, and the two following ones, has given some account of the rise and opinions of these Heretics, and the mode of confuting them; which are too long for quotation. b.e.l.l.e.n.den's briefer notice is as follows:--
”Nocht lang efter was tane in Sanct Androis ane man of Beum namit Paule Craw, precheand new and vane superst.i.tionis to the pepyl, specially aganis the sacrament of the alter, veneration of sanctis, and confession to be maid to Priestis. At last he was brocht afore the Theologis, and al his opinionis condampnit. And because he perseuerit obstinatly to the end of his pley, he was condampnit and brint. He confessit afore his death that he was send out of Beum to preiche to Scottis the heresyis of Hus and Wiccleif. The King commendit mekyl this punition, and gaif the Abbacy of Melros to Johne Fogo, for he was princ.i.p.all convikar of this Paule.”--(b.e.l.l.e.n.den's Cronyklis of Scotland, fol. ccxlvij of orig.
edition.)
It is a mistake, however, to say that Fogo was thus rewarded for the zeal he displayed in convicting Paul Crawar of heresy in 1432. Dr. John Fogo was Abbot of Melrose in the year 1425, when he was sent to Rome on an emba.s.sy from King James the First. He was the King's Confessor, and was present at the Council of Basil in 1433.--(Morton's Monastic Annals, pp. 236, 237.) Sir James Balfour treats him with very little ceremony:--”This zeire 1433, (he says,) the King, at the earnist sollicitatione of the clergey, bot especially of Henrey Wardlaw, Bishope of St. Andrewes, bestowed the Abbey of Melrosse upone a luberdly mounke of the Cisteauxe order, quho had wretten a blasphemous pamphlet against Paull Crau's heresy, named Johne Fogo.”--(Annals, vol. i. p. 161.)
But it was not obscure men or strangers who were occasionally subjected to the charge of heresy. In the reign of James the Third, the case of the Primate of Scotland is worthy of special notice. In 1466, Patrick Graham, son of Lord Graham, and nephew of James the First, was translated from the See of Brechin to St. Andrews. Graham proceeded to Rome to obtain his confirmation, but the enmity of the Boyds during their power at Court occasioned him to delay for some years his return to Scotland. During this period, the Archbishop of York having renewed an old contested claim as Metropolitan of the Scotish Church, Graham succeeded in obtaining from Pope Sixtus the Fourth a sentence, whereby it was declared ”a thing unfitting that an English Prelate should be the Primate of Scotland, by reason of the warres that might break forth betwixt the two kingdoms.”--The King, in 1470, calls him ”Consanguineo nostro carissimo;” and in the same year is styled as ”Conservator Privilegiorum Ecclesiae Scoticanae.” He is said to have returned in the year 1472; and both Buchanan and Spottiswood have given a minute and interesting account of the troubles in which he was involved.
In 1471, Pope. Sixtus the Fourth erected the See of St. Andrews into an Archbishop.r.i.c.k, and thus Graham became Primate, Pope's Nuncio, and Legatus a latere. But his zeal and innovations in reforming abuses, excited the envy and opposition both of the clergy and persons in civil authority; and darkened the latter days of his life to such a degree, that he was brought to trial, and by the Pope's Legate, named Huseman, who came to Scotland for that purpose, he was degraded from his dignities, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, as a HERETIC, schismatic, &c.; and was put under the custody of William Schevez, Archdean of St. Andrews, who was appointed his coadjutor and successor.
Bishop Lesley (p. 318,) places Graham's trial in 1477, and says, he was first imprisoned in Inchcolm, then removed to Dunfermling, and soon after to the Castle of Lochleven, where he died in 1478. See also Sir James Balfour's Annals, vol. i. p. 200. ”This end (says Spottiswood) had that worthy man, in virtue and learning inferior to none of his time, oppressed by the malice and calumny of his enemies, chiefly for that they feared reformation of their wicked abuses by his means.”
Of the LOLLARDS mentioned by Knox as summoned for trial before James the Fourth in 1491, no additional information has been obtained. Alexander Alesius, in 1534, takes notice of John Campbell of Cesnock having also been summoned and acquitted: see Rev. Chr. Anderson's Annals, vol. ii.
p. 400; John Davidson's Memoriall of Two Worthie Christians, &c., p. 10, Edinb. 1595, 8vo; and Calderwood's History, vol. i. p. 54. In ”The Praise of Aige,” a poem, written about that time by Walter Kennedy, a younger son of Gilbert Lord Kennedy, the progenitor of the Earls of Ca.s.silis, we find these lines:--
”This warld is sett for to dissaive us evin, Pryde is the nett, and cuvatece is the trane; For na reward, except the joy of hevin, Wald I be yung in to this warld agane.
_The Schip of Faith, tempestuous wind and rane Dryvis in the see of Lollerdry that blawis_; My yowth is gane, and I am glaid and fane, Honour with aige to every vertew drawis.”
The same author, in his Flyting or poetical contest with William Dunbar, among other terms of reproach, styles his antagonist ”Lamp Lollardorum;”
and also, ”Judas Jow, Juglour, LOLLARD Lawreat.”--(Dunbar's Poems, vol.
ii. pp. 85, 90, 440.)
No. III.
PATRICK HAMILTON, ABBOT OF FERNE.
In collecting some notices of this memorable person, it may be remarked, that Knox has pa.s.sed over his history much more briefly than likely he would have done, had he himself been at St. Andrews at the time of his execution. It has been customary to give a rather exaggerated account of Hamilton's birth and family connexions. Bishop Burnet says, ”The first who suffered in this age (in Scotland) was Patrick Hamilton, a person of very n.o.ble blood: his father was brother to the Earl of Arran, and his mother sister to the Duke of Albany: so nearly was he on both sides related to the King. He was provided of the Abbey of Fern in his youth; and being designed for greater preferments, he was sent to travel,”
&c.--(Hist. of the Reform., vol. i. p. 291.) Similar terms are employed by later writers.
This notion to Hamilton's high descent and parentage requires to be somewhat modified. His father, Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavel, was an illegitimate son of James first Lord Hamilton, by a daughter of Witherspoon of Brighouse, and died in 1479. Sir Patrick afterwards obtained a letter of legitimation under the Great Seal, 20th January 1512-13; and in a charter of the settlement of the Hamilton estates about the same time, by the Earl of Arran, he was called next in succession, (failing the Earl's lawful issue,) after Sir James Hamilton of Fynnart, who was the natural son of James second Lord Hamilton, created Earl of Arran in 1503, and who was legitimated on the same day with Sir Patrick. The latter was slain in a conflict on the streets of Edinburgh, 30th April 1520. His wife was Catharine Stewart, daughter of Alexander Duke of Albany, the second son of King James the Second. She is also described as a natural daughter; the marriage of her parents having been dissolved on alleged propinquity of blood, by a sentence of divorce, p.r.o.nounced 2d March 1477-8. It is proper however to observe, that illegitimation caused by the dissolution of such marriages, in conformity with the complicated rules of the Canon Law, was not considered to entail disgrace on the children, nor did it always interrupt the succession either in regard to t.i.tles or property. Their children were,--
1. James Hamilton of Kincavel, Sheriff of Linlithgows.h.i.+re, and Captain of Blackness in 1525. He was summoned on a charge of heresy in 1534, but escaped to England. (See note 139.) He obtained permission to return in 1540, and was the means of accomplis.h.i.+ng the downfall of his cousin, Sir James Hamilton of Fynnart, (ib. p. 66.) The sentence given against him by the Popish Clergy at Holyrood House, 26th August 1534, was reversed and annulled by the General a.s.sembly in June 1563.
2. Patrick Hamilton the Martyr.
3. Katharine Hamilton, who is mentioned in a letter, 29th March 1539, (ib. p. 66, note,) as wife of the late Captain of Dunbar Castle. The reference in that letter may have been not to her brother Patrick, who was _brent_ in 1528, but to James, who was condemned for heresy in 1534.
The word _brent_ therefore might be read _banished_.
PATRICK HAMILTON was born about the year 1503. Being intended for the Church, he no doubt received a liberal education, and the influence of his family connexions was sure to obtain for him high preferment. The time when he was promoted to the Abbacy of Ferne, in the county of Ross, is nowhere stated, except in the vague, general terms, ”in his youth.”
It is however quite certain that Ferne was held, along with the Abbacy of Kelso _in commendam_, by Andrew Stewart, Bishop of Caithness, who died in 1517. Sir Robert Gordon, in his Genealogy of the Earls of Sutherland, (p. 93,) says, that on ”The 17th day of June 1518 yeirs, Andrew Stuart, Bishop of Catheneys, commendator of the Abbayes of Kelso and Ferne, died at his Castle of Skibo,” &c. (p. 93.) A ma.n.u.script Calendar of Ferne, which may be held as the best authority, places the Bishop's death in 1517. But although this benefice was conferred on Patrick Hamilton, there is no evidence to show that he was ever in Priest's orders, as he necessarily, at the time of this condemnation, would have been degraded, or deprived of such orders. He appears however to have prosecuted his studies at St. Andrews, and to have taken his Master's degree, according to the following entry in the Registers of that University:--
”Congreg. tenta, 3 Oct. 1524. Mag^r. Patricius Hamilton Abbas de Ferne Rossen. Dioc. in facultatem est receptus.”