Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/256

 the kirk, but not before he had threatened his adversaries with God's vengeance by fire and sword for interfering with His messenger. The earl marshal and other noblemen entreated him to stay. He declined and passed ‘with all expedition’ to Ayrshire, another centre of the reformers, where the lollards of Kyle had sown seed which had never been wholly rooted out by persecution. He was driven from Ayr by Dunbar, the bishop of Glasgow, who took possession of the church and preached against him, though the Earl of Glencairn and the gentlemen of Kyle supported him. Before leaving he preached at the market cross ‘so notable a sermon that the very enemies themselves were confounded.’ In Kyle he remained some time, preaching commonly at the kirk of Galston, residing at the house of Lockhart of Barrs in that parish. In summer he preached at Mauchlin, and being debarred from using the kirk by Campbell of Mongaswood and other catholic gentlemen, he preached from a dyke on the Muir, near Mauchlin, saying to his supporter Campbell of Kinzeancleuch, afterwards the devoted friend of Knox, that Christ is ‘as potent in the field as in the kirk.’ News having come that Dundee was suffering from the plague, he returned thither probably in August, and preached at the head of the East Port, the sick sitting or standing outside the port, from the text, ‘He sent his word and healed them,’ Psalm cvii. Not content with preaching, though this was his special office, he visited the plague-stricken and aided the poor. A desperate priest, Sir John Wighton, was, according to Knox, sent by the cardinal to murder him. Wishart, suspecting his design, drew the whinger out of his hand, but saved Wighton from the vengeance of his followers. He remained in Dundee till the plague ceased, and then passed to Montrose, where the cardinal, by a forged letter pretending to be an invitation from Wishart's friend John Kinnear of that ilk in Fife, tried to draw him into an ambuscade laid for him within a mile and a half from Montrose. Suspecting the plot, Wishart declined to go until his followers had examined the road and discovered the ambush. Wishart, when told, exclaimed, according to Knox, ‘I know I shall finish this my life by this bloodthirsty man's hands, but it will not be in this manner.’ Having trysted the gentlemen of the west to meet him at Edinburgh, he returned to Dundee and stayed a night at Invergowrie with ‘a faithful brother,’ James Watson, where also he prophesied his own early death and the triumph of the Reformation. Next day he went to Perth, and so by the Fife ferry crossed the Forth to Edinburgh. On Sunday, 10 Dec., he preached at Leith from the parable of the sowers. Continuously preaching in various parishes in the neighbourhood, he passed after Christmas to Haddington, where his audience, which had been large at his other sermons, diminished through the influence of Patrick Hepburn, third earl of Bothwell [q. v.] He stayed at the house of David Forres (afterwards general of the mint), and at Lethington with Sir Richard Maitland [q. v.], who was ‘ever civil albeit not persuaded in religion.’ Next day he received a note that the gentlemen who promised to come from Kyle to him could not come, and he told John Knox, then acting as tutor at Longniddry, who had been with him since he came to Lothian, that ‘he wearied of the world.’ He had again few hearers, and in his sermon he inveighed against their absence. Like Knox, he had full assurance of his own mission, and never spared the denunciation of his opponents. The same day, before midnight, he was seized by Bothwell in the house of Ormiston, to which he had been taken by Cockburn, its laird, Sandilands the younger of Calder, and Crichton of Brunston. He had refused the company of Knox, who attended him since he came to Lothian with a two-handed sword, saying to him, ‘Return to your bairns, and God blesse you; one is sufficient for one sacrifice.’ After supper he had spoken of the death of God's chosen children, asked his host and fellow guests to join in singing the fifty-first Psalm in Scots metre, and gone earlier than his wont to bed, praying ‘God grant qwyet rest.’ His rest was broken by Bothwell, who declared that opposition was vain, as the governor and cardinal, who were at Elphinston Tower, were coming after him. On a promise being given by Bothwell that he would preserve him from violence and not deliver him to the will of the governor or the cardinal, he surrendered. Bothwell took Wishart to Edinburgh, and then brought him back to his own house of Hales. There, soon after 19 Jan. 1545–6, on a warrant of the privy council, he delivered Wishart, who was transported to Edinburgh Castle. At the end of January the governor gave him up to the cardinal, who took him to the Sea Tower in his castle of St. Andrews, where he remained in strict confinement. On 28 Feb. he was tried by a convocation of bishops and other clergy.

Knox and Pitscottie both give a full account of the trial and articles of accusation brought forward by John Lauder, archdeacon