The earlier notices given of this Martyr by Bower the Continuator of Fordun, and Hector Boece, may also be quoted, the latter in the words of his translator John Bellenden, Archdean of Murray, in the reign of James the Fifth. It will be observed that Bower mentions Laurence of Lindores as Inquisitor, whereas Boece says it was John Fogo, his successor in that office, who acted on this occasion, which some authorities place in 1431, others in 1432, or in the following year.
"De combustione Pauli Crawar arch-hæretici, et de Lolardis.
"Anno sequenti [mccccxxxiii] accusatus est Paulus Crawar Teutonicus, xxiij. die mensis Julij, apud Sanctum Andream, et hæreticus obstinatus repertus, convictus est et condemnatus, et ad ignem applicatus et incineratus. Hic, ut dicitur, missus fuit ab hæreticis Pragensibus de Bohemia, qui tune in maleficiis nimium prævalebant, ad inficiendum regnum Scotorum, recommissus per ipsorum literas, tanquam præcellens arte medicine. Hic in sacris literis et in allegatione Bibliæ 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 hæreticæ pravitatis, qui nusquam infra regnum requiem dedit hæreticis, 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. Bellenden'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 superstitionis 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 principall convikar of this Paule."—(Bellenden'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 embassy 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 Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ." 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 Archbishoprick, 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 Cassilis, we find these lines:—