FOXE'S ACCOUNT OF HENRY FORREST, AND OTHER MARTYRS IN
SCOTLAND, DURING THE REIGN OF KING JAMES THE FIFTH.
The fate of Henry Forress or Forrest seems to have excited much less attention than might have been expected. In the note to page 52, I suggested that the probable time of his martyrdom may be placed in 1532; and he may thus be regarded as the second victim in the cause of the Reformed faith in Scotland. The strict inquisition which took place, and caused a number of persons to forsake their native country, whilst others met with a similar fate as his own in the course of a few years, may have contributed to this comparative silence. Even Foxe, to whom we are chiefly indebted for preserving an account of his fate, seems to have been ignorant of it in 1564; as in the following short paragraph, from the first edition of his work, he refers to those who suffered in Edinburgh in 1534, as the next in succession to the Abbot of Ferne:—
"¶ Five burnt in Skotland.
"Seuen yeres after Patrik Hamelton, whose history is before passed, there were v. burnte in Skotland, in the city of Edenborow, being the Metropolitike citye of al Skotlande, of the which fiue two were dominicane Friers, one Priest, one Gentleman, and the fifthe was a channon: whose iudges and inquisitors were these: Jhon Maior, Archbishop of S. Androwes, Petrus Chappellanus, and the Franciscane friers, whose labor and diligence is never wanting in such matters." (Page 525.)
At the same time I suggested that Henry Forrest was the son of Thomas Forrest of Linlithgow, who was in the employment of King James the Fourth. Since that sheet was printed, I find the name of "Heniricus Forrus" in the list of students who were incorporated, that is, became Bachelors of Arts, at the University of Glasgow, in the year 1518. If this was the martyr, we may presume that at the time of his martyrdom he must have been upwards of thirty years of age. This however may have been another person of the same name, as we find "Henricus Forrest," as a Determinant in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, in 1526, which leaves no doubt of his having, two years later, witnessed the fate of Patrick Hamilton.
The following is Foxe's account from his enlarged edition of his "Actes and Monuments," in 1576:—