Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/258

604 tion convenient on such occasions, and disgraceful to the law in which it found a place—an act of forefaulture in absence had been passed against the archbishop in the first parliament of regent Murray, and in terms of that act he was hanged on the common gibbet of Stirling, in his pontificial robes, on the 5th April, 1571. The law of that period, like a weapon of war, was used by party against party, and was a protection to none but those who could wield it, a terror to none but those against whom some powerful adversary could direct it; and hence even those punishments, which, as abstract rewards of guilt, might be looked on as equitable, became unjust—because they were the offspring of malignity, and not dealt for the prevention of farther crimes. The archbishop had committed the crime of religious intolerance, which is a crime under whatever form it appears, however casuists may vindicate it by the arguments which may be used in vindication of any crime whatever—prejudice and conviction of the mind—and a crime which mankind may be said never to forgive or forget, but to treasure for the indignation of future ages. Yet those crimes which are perpetrated by the assistance of the law, are not fit for receiving punishment from that instrument: public opinion, and the weight of the public voice are the restraints which men and legislatures should feel under such temptations; for the punishment of persecution, being always bestowed by the party which has been persecuted, is a repetition of the crime, and a re-opening of the wounds of party rancour. The ignominy gratuitously bestowed on the reverend head of their party and religion was not soon forgot by the adherents of the Hamilton*, and long after his haughty indomitable spirit had ceased to oppose the progress of the reformation, his name, and the memory of his fate, were bonds of union to the papists, and dreaded by the protestants. Like that of all violent partizans, the memory of Hamilton has been coloured with much blame, and with much praise. Buchanan has wasted good Latin both in prose and verse in ascribing to him all the vices of which poor human nature is susceptible —"Archiepiscopus etiam in omnium rerum licentia suis cupiditatibus obsequebatur;"—nor does he hesitate to charge him with accession to two deliberate murders, from the punishment consequent on one of which, his influence protected the principal perpetrator, the father of his mistress. His incontinence is a charge which circumstances have, to a considerable extent, justified.

His open and received mistress was a female of the name of Semple, whom his defenders maintain he had married early in life, and before he had entered, into holy orders; but the proof is insufficient to meet the contrary presumptions. An article of the treaty of Perth has been discovered, restoring the son of the archbishop to the possessions of his father, forfeited through treason. It appoints "that the heirs and successors of persons forfeited, properly comprehended under this pacification, and now departed this life, shall be restored, and made lawful to enter by brieves to their lands and possessions, notwithstanding of the forfeitures laid against their fathers or predecessors, and as giff they had died at our sovereign Lord's faith and peace, and especially of John, archbishop of St Andrews," &c. The circumstance is rather unintelligible; if the son was in law illegitimate, the restoration could not without legitimation admit his suing forth a brief of service to his father, and the circumstance of the father having been a priest, was sufficient to establish the illegitimacy, whether a marriage had taken place before his advancement to the priesthood or not. It would appear that the female in question was the wife of another man, while she was the mistress of the archbishop. "But supposing," says M'Kenzie, "that the bishop had made this slip in his youth, it is not a sufficient ground to stain the whole course of his after life with."