Like Christ, Wishart went willingly to his death, as if he had been foreseeing the repercussions of his sacrifice. Wishart was not wrong in thinking that his death would be of benefit to the Scottish Reformation. In fact, the reaction to his execution was so extreme that some critics have ventured to say he and his friends had planned it in advance.

The name George Wishart is generally associated with John Knox, one of his most devout followers, who remembered him fondly in his History of the Reformation. By the time Knox heard Wishart exhorting in Leith, Scotland, on 13 December 1545, the preacher had already gained a fame as one of the most dynamic Scottish preachers.

At that time, both men were in their early thirties – full of energies and hopes. The liberating message of the gospel, powerfully expounded in Germany and Switzerland, had slowly seeped into Scotland, in spite of its remoteness. It was brought by young men who traveled to the continent to study.

One of the earliest Scottish “gospeler,” as these evangelists were called, was Patrick Hamilton, author of a treatise (simply known as “Patrick’s Places”) on the difference between law and gospel and the sufficiency of Christ. Hamilton’s boldness on these subjects left no question about his Lutheran leanings. Arrested and executed in 1528, he displayed such a courage in the flames where he burned for six hours that someone felt compelled to advice the archbishop, “My Lord, if ye burn any more … ye will utterly destroy yourselves. … for the reek of Master Patrick Hamilton has infected as many as it blew upon.”[1]

Wishart’s Life

Equally bold, by 1545 Wishart had been able to preach for over a year, probably because of his frequent change of locations and his large number of friends in high places. Born in 1513 to a respected family (his father was the Laird of Pitarrow), he studied first at the University of Aberdeen and then at the University of Louvain, in today’s Belgium, where he came in contact with Lutheran and Reformed teachings.

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