WISHART, GEORGE: Name of two Scotch notables.

1. Scotch Reformer; b. 1513 (?); burned at the stake at St. Andrews Mar. 1, 1546. He belonged to the family of Wishart of Pittaxrow (near Montrose), but little or nothing is known with certainty as to his early history. In 1538, while master of the grammar-school in Montrose, he was summoned by John Hepburn, bishop of Brechin, for teaching his scholars the Greek New Testament (Greek being at this period almost unknown in Scotland), and to save his life was obliged to flee to England. In 1539 he again got into trouble in Bristol for preaching-according to the contemporary testimony of the Mayor of Bristol's Calendar (Camden Society Publications, new ser., v., p. 55, London, 1872)-that there is no imputation of the "merit" of Christ to men. His teaching was pronounced to be heretical by Thomas Cranmer (q.v.) and other prelates, and he made a public recantation at Canterbury. He seems to have lived abroad, chiefly in Germany and Switzerland, from 1539 to 1542. In 1543 he was again in England and a member of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The next year, probably, he ventured back to his native country and began to preach what he regarded as the fundamental doctrines of Christianity in Montrose, Dundee, Ayrshire, Leith, and elsewhere. East Lothian was the scene of his last labors, and the crowning result of his evangelistic work was the

RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Wise Wishart

conversion of John Knox, who at the time was still a Roman priest but already prepossessed in favor of the new doctrines, and was tutor to the families of two of the landed gentry of that county.

Early in Jan., 1546, after preaching in Haddington, Wishart, at the instigation of Cardinal David Beaton (q.v.), was apprehended at Ormiston House by the Earl of Bothwell, who, after promising to protect him from violence, surrendered him to the regent, Arran, and to the cardinal. The latter imprisoned him in his castle at St. Andrews. On Feb. 28 Wishaxt was tried and convicted, and the next day was illegally burned without the sanction of the regent. He died with unflinching courage and with the prayer to his Lord to "forgive them that have condemned me to death this day ignorantly." His alleged prophecy that "he who feedeth his eyes with my torments [Beaton] shall, within few days, be hanged out at the same window to be seen with as much ignominy as he now leaneth there in pride" is not contained in the earliest account of the martyrdom (1547), in Knox's History, or in the first edition of Foxe's Acts. The earliest reference occurs in a reprint of Foxe's work (1570), which has a marginal note " Mr. George Wishart prophesieth of the death of the cardinal." George Buchanan (Rerum Scoticarum historia, p. 178, Edinburgh, 1582) expands this alleged prophecy into a saying similar to the traditional utterance, which first occurs in David Buchanan's edition of Knox's History (1644), p. 171. The tradition of the prophecy grew, presumably, out of Wishart's warning to the prelates that if they would not convert themselves from their wicked error there should hastily come upon them the wrath of God (Knox, History, ut sup., p. 170). The unauthenticity of Wishart's alleged prophecy of Beaton's death "within few days" removes one foundation of the charge that he was implicated in the assassination of the cardinal-a charge first made by Thomas Dempster in the seventeenth century (Hist. eccl. gentis Scotorum, Bannatyne Club ed., ii. 599, Edinburgh, 1829). Other alleged grounds are mere conjectures, and the cardinal can have had no suspicion of Wishart's complicity or he would have brought it forward to secure the regent's sanction of the execution. No contemporary writer suggests such complicity, and it is hardly compatible with Wishart's prayer for the forgiveness of his judges.

2. Bishop of Edinburgh; b. in East Lothiam1599; d. in Edinburgh July 25 (?), 1671. He belonged to the Wisharts of Logie in Forfaxshire, and was educated, at least in part, at the University of Edinburgh for the Scottish Church during the period when Presbyterianism was being superseded by episcopacy, to which, both from family connections and personal predilections, he was inclined. He was minister of Monifieth, Forfarshire, 1625-26, whence he was translated to the second charge of St. Andrews. When the general assembly of 1638 renounced episcopacy, deposed the bishops, and imposed the Covenant (see Henderson, Alexander), Wishart, who would not sign the covenant, withdrew to England and was deposed in 1639 for desertion of his parish. As compensation he was appointed to two lectureships in Newcastle churches,

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but, when the town was captured by General Leslie in 1644, his house was plundered and he was sent a captive to Edinburgh. In 1645, having been sent to the Marquis of Montrose, then everywhere victorious, with other royalist prisoners to plead for royal clemency, he appears to have joined the family of Montrose as chaplain. He continued with him to the close of the campaign, and then accompanied him abroad. After the fall of Montrose (1650), he received protection and favor from Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, sister of Charles I. At the Restoration he returned to England, obtained the rectory of Newcastle, and in 1662 was promoted to the bishopric of Edinburgh.

Wishart's character is very differently represented by the Presbyterians and the Episcopalians. Robert Wodrow says he was notoriously profane, a drunkard, and the author of "lascivious poems" which "gave scandal to all the world." Bishop Keith calls him "a person of great religion," and says that, when the unfortunate rising at Pentland failed, he interested himself to obtain mercy for the captive insurgents; and, " having been a prisoner himself, he was always careful at each dinner to send away the first mess to the prisoners." The " lascivious poems " referred to by Wodrow, have never been discovered. The bishop was an elegant Latinist and a man of general literary ability. His chief writing was a Latin history of a campaign in Scot- land under Montrose (composed at the Hague; Amsterdam [?],1647). He also left in manuscript a second part completing the life of his patron. The work has often been translated and reprinted (text, transl., and notes, by A. D. Murdoch and H. F. M. Simpson, London, 1893).

W. Lee†. Revised by Henry Cowan.

Bibliography: On 1 consult: John Know, Works, ed. D

Laing, vol. i. passim, Edinburgh, 1864; T. MeCrie, Life of John Knox, Edinburgh, 1841; P. Lorimer, Scottish Reformation, pp. 90-155, London, 1860; D. Hay Fleming, Martyrs and Confessors of St. Andrews, 1887; DNB, lxii. 248-251. For and against Wishart's complicity in the assassination of Cardinal Beaton, consult: P. F. Tytler, Hist. of Scotland, vol. v., chap. v., Edinburgh, 1834; Weir, in North British Review, 1888; J. H. Burton, Hist. of Scotland, vol. iii., chap., xxxvi., London, 1873; C. Rogers, Life of George Wishart, pp. 82-87, Edinburgh, 1876; J. Cunningham, Church Hist: of Scotland, vol. i., chap, viii., ib. 1882; W. Cramond, The Truth about George Wiahnrt, 1598; A. F. Mitchell, The Scottish Reformation, p. 69, ib. 1900; P. H. Brown, Hist. of Scotland, ii. 20-26, Cambridge, 1902; H. Cowan, John Knox, New York, 1905. On 2 consult his Memoirs of James, Marquis of Montroae, 1839-60, transl. and ed. A. D. Murdoch and H' F. M. Simpson, London, 1593; R. Wodrow, Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, vol, i., ib. 1721; R. Keith, Catalogue of the Bishops of . . . Scotland, ib: 1755; DNB, Ixii. 251-253.