David Beaton (c. 1494 – 29 May 1546) was Archbishop of St Andrews and the last Scottish Cardinal prior to the Reformation.
He was a younger son of John Beaton of Balfour in the county of Fife, and is said to have been
born in 1494. He was educated at the universities of St Andrews and
Glasgow, and in his sixteenth year was sent to Paris, where he studied civil and
canon law. He began his political career at the French court. He became
Commendator of Arbroath in 1524, bishop of
Mirepoix in Languedoc in December 1537 on the recommendation of King Francis I, and in 1538 he was appointed a cardinal by Pope Paul
III, under the title of St Stephen in the Caelian Hill. He was the only Scotsman
named to that office by an undisputed right, Cardinal Wardlaw, Bishop of Glasgow, having
received his appointment from the Antipope Clement VII. On the death in 1539 of
Archbishop James Beaton, his uncle and patron who had given him the prebend of
Cambuslang, the cardinal became Archbishop of St. Andrews. In 1544, he was made
Papal legate in Scotland.
Between 1533 and 1542 he acted several times as King James V of Scotland's
ambassador to France. He took a leading part in the negotiations connected with the King's marriages, first with Madeleine of
France, and afterwards with Mary of Guise. He was naturalised a French subject.
Politically, Beaton was preoccupied with the maintenance of the Franco-Scottish alliance, and opposing Anglophile political
attitudes, which were associated with the clamour for Protestant reform in Scotland ('the whole pollution and plague of Anglican
impiety' as he called it). He was afraid that James V might follow Henry VIII's
policy of appropriating monastic revenues. On the death of James in December 1542, Beaton attempted to assume office as one of
the regents for the infant sovereign Mary, founding his claim on an alleged will of
the late king; but the will was generally regarded as forged, and James
Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran, heir presumptive to the throne, was declared regent. The cardinal, blamed by many for the war
policy that led to the defeat at Solway Moss, was, by order of the regent,
committed to the custody of Lord Seton. With Beaton out of power, the Anglophile party persuaded Arran to make a marriage treaty
with England on behalf of the infant queen, and to appoint a number of Protestant preachers. In 1543 Beaton regained power,
cancelled the treaty and proceeded to prosecute a number of those whom he saw as heretics. Two English invasions followed - and
for these many blamed Beaton.
In March 1546, perhaps to divert attention from these criticisms, Beaton arranged for the arrest, trial and execution by burning of George Wishart, who was prosecuted
by Beaton's Private Secretary, John Lauder. Wishart, though, had many sympathisers, and this
led to the assassination of the Cardinal soon afterwards. The conspirators, led by Norman
Leslie, master of Rothes, and William Kirkcaldy of Grange, managed to
obtain admission at daybreak of 29 May 1546, and murdered the
cardinal in his own castle of St Andrews. At the time it was widely believed that his
death was in the interests of Henry VIII of England, who regarded Beaton as the chief obstacle to his policy in Scotland.
19th century engraving of David Beaton
The murder of Beaton was certainly a significant point in the eventual triumph of Protestantism in Scotland, and yet even at
the time it was not necessarily condoned even among his opponents. His contemporary Sir David
Lyndsay, statesman, poet and strong critic of Beaton's, wrote soon after The Tragedie of the Cardinal, which
concluded:
- As for the Cardinal, I grant,
- He was the man we weel could want'
- And we’ll forget him soon!
- And yet I think, the sooth to say,
- Although the loon is well away,
- The deed was foully done.
Beaton was little interested in Church reform, living, like many pre-Reformation prelates, in open concubinage, providing
lavishly for his children from ecclesiastical property. Certainly, he was an able statesman, and some saw his stance against
Henry VIII as patriotic, but others, recalling his assets and interests in France called him 'the best Frenchman' in
Scotland.
He was succeeded as Archbishop of Saint Andrews by John Hamilton
His illegitimate daughter married David Lindsay, 10th Earl of Crawford.[1]
References
- John Knox, History of the Reformation in Scotland, ed. David Laing (1846-1864)
- John Spottiswoode, archbishop of St Andrews, History of the Church of Scotland (Spottiswoode Soc., 1847-1851)
- Article in Dictionary of National Biography and works there
quoted;
- Andrew Lang History of Scotland, vols. i. and ii. (1900-1902)
- Cameron M et al (eds) Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology T&T Clark, Edinburgh 1993.
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia
Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public
domain.
- Sanderson, Margaret. Cardinal of Scotland: David Beaton, c. 1494—1546. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2001.
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