George Wishart (c.1513–1546): The Martyr Who Lit the Reformation Flame in Scotland
In the flickering torchlight of Scotland’s long and bloody Reformation, one name stands as both a shadow and a spark: George Wishart, the enigmatic preacher whose sermons of quiet defiance and radical faith stirred a nation. Executed at the age of thirty-three, Wishart left behind no institutional legacy, no systematic theology, no worldly power—but his death at the hands of the Catholic hierarchy electrified the Protestant cause. To his followers, he was a prophet; to his enemies, a heretic. But in the larger sweep of history, he became the moral touchstone of the Scottish Reformation, the man whose sacrifice made possible the revolution John Knox would later carry to completion.
Wishart was born around 1513, likely in Kincardineshire, to a minor landed family. Educated at King’s College, Aberdeen, and later at Louvain and possibly Cambridge, he absorbed the currents of European humanism and the early tremors of Lutheran dissent. His intellectual formation bore the signature of Erasmian rigor and evangelical urgency—a combination that placed him in the crosshairs of an increasingly anxious Scottish church. By the early 1540s, Wishart had begun openly teaching Reformed doctrines, particularly in Montrose, where he translated and taught from the Greek New Testament. According to the historian Alec Ryrie, “Wishart was one of those rare men whose faith burned hotter under pressure, not colder. He preached as if he were always under siege—and eventually, he was” (Ryrie, The Origins of the Scottish Reformation, 2006).
He was exiled for a time, accused of heresy, and fled to England, where the Protestant Edwardian regime offered a brief refuge. There, Wishart was likely influenced by Martin Bucer and Heinrich Bullinger, continental reformers whose blend of Protestant rigor and civic morality would later echo in Scottish Presbyterianism. But it was back in Scotland, amid the rising discontent against clerical corruption and French dominance, that Wishart’s influence would prove incendiary.
In 1543, he returned to his homeland during a period of political instability and religious uncertainty. Scotland was being pulled between the influences of Catholic France and Protestant England. The young queen, Mary, Queen of Scots, had just been betrothed to the French Dauphin, while Cardinal David Beaton, the powerful Archbishop of St Andrews, moved ruthlessly to suppress the growing Protestant movement. It was into this storm that Wishart walked, preaching from town to town—Ayr, Haddington, Dundee—condemning the Mass, clerical immorality, and salvation by works.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wishart avoided sensationalism. His sermons were austere, centered on Scripture, and focused on repentance, faith, and moral renewal. He did not seek spectacle; he sought transformation. Yet, in the polarized climate of 16th-century Scotland, his very presence became political. According to historian Gordon Donaldson, “Wishart’s crime was not merely theological—it was that he gave spiritual structure to a nascent rebellion. He preached as if the Gospel itself were under siege, and his enemies believed him” (Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation, 1960).
In 1546, after months of itinerant preaching and evading capture, Wishart was arrested near Ormiston in East Lothian. His captors acted under the orders of Cardinal Beaton, who saw in Wishart both a theological threat and a political liability. Taken to St Andrews, he was subjected to a perfunctory trial and condemned to death for heresy. On March 1, 1546, George Wishart was burned at the stake outside the castle walls, watched by the very man who had ordered his death. As flames consumed his body, it was said that Wishart cried out, “Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!”
Yet death was not the end of his influence—it was the beginning. Just months after his execution, a group of Protestant conspirators assassinated Cardinal Beaton, dragging his mutilated corpse to the very same window where he had watched Wishart die. The connection was unmistakable. Among the Protestant defenders who later took up arms at St Andrews Castle was John Knox, Wishart’s former bodyguard and devoted student. It was Wishart who had taught Knox not only theology, but also the moral courage to defy tyranny cloaked in robes.
Knox himself would later write that Wishart “spake with the spirit of prophecy,” and called his martyrdom a “light to the hearts of many.” Wishart’s sacrifice transformed the slow embers of Protestant discontent into open rebellion. Though he left no church, no creed, no confession, his death forged a symbol of resistance that galvanized the movement for reform.
Wishart’s martyrdom also signaled a critical turning point in Scotland’s spiritual and political history. His death revealed the ruthless lengths to which the Catholic establishment would go to maintain control, and it cast the Reformed cause as one of noble suffering and moral clarity. As historian Rosalind Marshall noted, “Wishart gave the Reformation in Scotland its first martyr, and in doing so, gave it a soul” (Marshall, John Knox, 2000).
In the centuries that followed, Wishart would be commemorated in sermons, biographies, and stained-glass windows. His name became synonymous with piety and sacrifice. Though Knox would institutionalize the Presbyterian Church and reshape Scotland’s religious landscape, it was Wishart who baptized that movement in blood. The moral fire he lit did not die with him. It blazed in the pulpits of the Kirk, in the austere consciences of its ministers, and in the conviction that faith could—and must—stand against power.
References
- Donaldson, Gordon. The Scottish Reformation. Cambridge University Press, 1960.
- Marshall, Rosalind K. John Knox. Birlinn, 2000.
- Ryrie, Alec. The Origins of the Scottish Reformation. Manchester University Press, 2006.
- Knox, John. The History of the Reformation of Religion in the Realm of Scotland. 1559.
- Wormald, Jenny. Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625. Edinburgh University Press, 1981.