About the same time a descendant of the Lord of the
Isles whom James IV had crushed made an agreement with Henry, but was of
little use to his cause. Beaton, after some successful fighting on the
borders, in the end of 1545, went to St. Andrews in the beginning of
1546. On the 1st March, George Wishart, who had been condemned on a
charge of heresy, was hanged, and his body was burned at the stake. On
May 29th the more fierce section of the Protestant party took their
revenge by murdering the great cardinal in cold blood. We are not here
concerned with Beaton's private character or with his treatment of
heretics. His public actions, as far as foreign relations are concerned,
are marked by a consistent patriotic aim. He represented the long line
of Scottish churchmen who had striven to maintain the integrity of the
kingdom and the alliance with France. He had shown great ability and
tact, and in politics he had been much more honest than his opponents.
But for his support of the queen-dowager in 1542-43, and but for his
maintaining the party to which Arran afterwards attached himself, it is
possible that Scotland might have passed under the yoke of Henry VIII in
1543, instead of being peacefully united to England sixty years later.
With him disappeared any remaining hope of the French party. "We may say
of old Catholic Scotland", writes Mr. Lang, "as said the dying Cardinal:
'Fie, all is gone'.
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