CHAPTER IV.
GEORGE WISHART.
It was about this time that a new evangelist arrived in the country, singularly fitted to impress on the hearts of men the lessons of the Holy Book to which they had now access in their native tongue. This was George Wishart, a younger son or nephew of Sir James Wishart, laird of Pittarrow in the Mearns. He appears to have been born about 1512-13, and to have received his university training in King's College, Aberdeen, then presided over by a distinguished humanist skilled both in Latin and Greek. He acquired a knowledge of Greek—at that time a very rare accomplishment in Scotland—either from the Principal of King's College, or from a Frenchman teaching languages in Montrose. From his early years he seems to have been intimate with John Erskine, laird of Dun, and at that time also provost of the neighbouring burgh of Montrose. The earliest notice we have of him is as attesting a charter granted in favour of Erskine.[57] This lends confirmation to the tradition which Petrie, himself a native of the town, says he had heard from ancient men (who in their youth had seen and known the reformer) that then, or soon after, he was employed as assistant or successor of Marsillier, the Frenchman Erskine had brought from France to teach the languages, and that, like him, he read the Greek New Testament with some of his pupils. John Hepburn, then Bishop of Brechin, would not naturally have been quick-scented to detect heresy in one who stood so high with his good friend Erskine of Dun; but David Betoun, Abbot of Arbroath, often resided at the mansion-house of Ethie, half-way between Arbroath and Montrose, and he was both more lynx-eyed and more anxious to stamp out any approach to heresy, and he urged the bishop on.
Summoned for Heresy.
Wishart in consequence was summoned by Hepburn, but instead of appearing in answer to the summons, he, like many others in that year of grievous persecution, sought safety in England, and it is said that he was forthwith excommunicated and outlawed. He found shelter under Bishop Latimer, whose diocese comprehended Gloucester and Bristol, as well as Worcester; but in the following year he fell into fresh trouble at Bristol—not, as was at one time supposed, by denying the merits of the Virgin Mary, but by denying the merits of Christ Himself. For this he was duly convented before Archbishop Cranmer, and, after conference with him, was persuaded to recant and bear his faggot. Soon after the enactment of the bloody statute of the six articles, he, like most of the Scottish refugees, left England and sought shelter among the reformed churches on the Continent, especially those of Zürich, Basle, and Strassburg, and brought home with him, and ultimately translated into English, the First Helvetic Confession,[58] composed and agreed on by the chief theologians of these churches.
He returned to England about the close of 1542, and soon after entered into residence in Corpus Christi or Benet College, Cambridge, with the view of studying and teaching there. In one of the windows of the common-room in that college, above the arms of archbishops and nobles, distinguished alumni of the college, stands the name of George Wishart, with the martyr's crown over it; and it is to Emery Tilney, his His Appearance and Habits. pupil during the year he was in residence there, that we are indebted for our fullest description of his appearance and habits. He was, he tells us, "a man of tall stature, polled-headed, and on the same a round French cap of the best; judged to be of melancholy complexion by his physiognomy; black haired, long bearded, comely of personage, well spoken after his country of Scotland, courteous, lowly, lovely, glad to teach, desirous to learn, and was well travelled; having on him for his habit or clothing never but a mantle or frieze gown to the shoes, a black Millian [i.e. Milan] fustian doublet, and plain black hosen, coarse new canvas for his shirts, and white falling bands and cuffs at his hands,—all the which apparel he gave to the poor, some weekly, some monthly, some quarterly, as he liked, saving his French cap, which he kept the whole year of my being with him.... His charity had never end, night, noon, nor day, ... infinitely studying how to do good unto all, and hurt to none."[59]
Such, according to his pupil, was the evangelist who—in 1543 according to some, in 1544 according to others—returned to his native land, and for two years testified of the gospel of the grace of God throughout Angus and Mearns, Ayrshire and the Lothians, but whose favourite fields of labour were to be central Angus and Mearns, the towns of Montrose and Dundee. A portrait of him, as well as one of his great opponent, has been preserved in the Roman Catholic College of Blairs, and the expression of the face harmonises well with the description his pupil gives of him. Another portrait, deemed by Dr Laing not unworthy of Holbein, is in possession of a descendant of the Wisharts.[60]
It is supposed that for a short time after his return to Scotland he lived quietly at Pittarrow, in the parish of Fordoun, where the shrine of St Palladius was preserved; and being an accomplished artist, occupied himself with adorning the ancestral mansion with several beautiful fresco paintings, which, after being long covered over by the wainscot, were again brought to light in the present century, but unfortunately were destroyed before their value was perceived. Dr Leslie of Fordoun, who saw them, has thus described the most remarkable of them: "Above the largest fireplace in the great hall was a painting of the city of Rome, and a grand procession going to St Peter's.... The Pope, adorned with the tiara, and mounted on horseback, was attended by a large company of cardinals on foot, richly dressed, but all uncovered. At a little distance, directly in front of the procession, stood a A Protestant Pasquil. beautiful white palfrey, finely caparisoned, held by some persons who were well dressed, but uncovered. Beyond them was the Cathedral of St Peter, the doors of which appeared to be open. Below the picture were written the following lines:—
"In Papam.
"Laus tua, non tua fraus, virtus non gloria rerum
Scandere te fecit hoc decus eximium;
Pauperibus dat sua gratis nec munera curat
Curia Papalis, quod more percipimus.
Haec carmina potius legenda, cancros imitando."[61]