Hamilton, Patrick

(1504–28)

   Martyr.

   Hamilton was born of an aristocratic Scottish family and, at the age of thirteen, he was appointed Abbot of Fern. He was educated at the Universities of Paris and St Andrews and was converted to Lutheran opinions. In 1527 he fled to Wittenberg where he came into contact with both luther and melanchthon. On his return to Scotland, he was summoned by the Roman Catholic Archbishop Beaton to St Andrews where he was tried for heresy, convicted and burned at the stake. The death of such a committed and highly born young man caused a furor and it was said that ‘the reek of Mr Patrick Hamilton has infected as many as it did blow upon’. He is remembered as the first Protestant Scottish martyr.

   A. Cameron (ed.), Patrick Hamilton, First Scottish Martyr of the Reformation (1929);

   D.M. Kay, Patrick Hamilton, Scottish Martyr (1929).