George Wishart

George Wishart , 1513?-1546, Scottish religious reformer, Protestant martyr. He was master of a grammar school in Montrose. In 1538 he fled Scotland to escape charges of heresy; he was in England for a short time, then on the Continent. In 1544 he is thought to have returned to Scotland, where he traveled about at his peril, preaching Christianity as he conceived it. The most eventful result of his preaching was the conversion of John Knox . Cardinal Beaton instigated Wishart's arrest. He was tried for heresy (1546), convicted, and burned at St. Andrews. His followers murdered Beaton in retaliation. Wishart's translation of the Helvetic Confession was published posthumously (c.1548).

Bibliography: See biography by J. Knox in his History of the Reformation in Scotland, ed. by W. C. Dickinson (2 vol., 1950).

Wishart, George (c.1513–46), Scottish Reformer. He fled to England when charged with heresy in 1538 and travelled on the Continent. Returning to Scotland in 1543, he began active propaganda on behalf of the Reformed doctrines, assisted by J. Knox. He was arrested and burnt.

Wishart, George (c.1513–46). One of the first Scottish protestant martyrs. Wishart came from Pittarrow near Montrose. He seems to have taught at Montrose and, after accusations of heresy, moved to Bristol, where in 1539 a George Wishart was forced to make a public recantation. After visiting Germany and Switzerland, he became a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, before returning to Scotland in 1543. There he commenced itinerant preaching with John Knox as a disciple. He was arrested in 1546, taken to Cardinal Beaton's castle at St Andrews, and tried for heresy. His defence was an appeal to Scripture against the authority of the church. Two months after Wishart was burned, Beaton himself was murdered in the castle by Wishart's friends.

J. A. Cannon