29 Feb 1528 A.D. Scotland’s 1st Lutheran Minister Burned at the
Stake, Patrick Hamilton.
Dallmann, Walter. Patrick Hamilton: The First Lutheran
Preacher and Martyr of Scotland. St.
Louis, MO: Concordia Press, 1918. https://archive.org/details/patrickhamiltonf00dall. Accessed 28 Feb 2014.
29 February 1528 A.D. Patrick Hamilton—Scottish Martyr & Author
of “Patrick’s Places”
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Patrick Hamilton
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Patrick Hamilton
was the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation – the first person to
die for his faith. He was born 1504 into a rich family who were related
to the king. At the age of about fourteen he went to university in
Paris. While he was there he heard about the teachings of Martin
Luther. Luther had been a priest but now he was teaching and writing
about the corruption and false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
Luther was shocking everyone by declaring that men and women could only
get to Heaven by putting their faith in Jesus Christ, and not by their
good works. He said that people should be allowed to read the Bible for
themselves to see if what he was saying was true.
After finishing
university in France, Hamilton came home and in 1524 became a Professor
at the University of St Andrews. Luther’s books were banned in 1525 but
many copies of them were still available, along with the first
translation of the Bible from Greek into English by William Tyndale in
1526. Hamilton became convinced that Luther’s teachings were from the
Bible and was converted. However St Andrews was the centre of Roman
Catholicism in Scotland at this time and his new beliefs attracted the
attention of Archbishop James Beaton in 1527. Twenty-three year old
Hamilton was not yet ready to take on the Roman Catholic Church, so he
fled to Germany.
In Germany,
Hamilton wrote a book called Patrick’s Places. The main point of the
book was that people can only be saved through faith in Christ and not
by good works. At the centre of everything Patrick Hamilton believed
and taught was Jesus Christ and what He had done. He became determined
to go back to Scotland to preach the good news, even though he knew it
would be to risk his life.
Patrick therefore
returned home and devoted himself to preaching. His brother and sister
both became believers through his preaching and many others followed.
Archbishop Beaton quickly became aware of his return however and
summoned Patrick to appear before him. His accusers allowed him to
preach openly in the university for about a month, hoping that he would
it would give them more evidence against him. However instead many
important people were converted.
On the 29th of
February Hamilton was summoned for trial. He refused to deny his
beliefs and was sentenced to be burnt at the stake the same day for
being a heretic (accepting false doctrines). His death was slow and painful
because the fire kept going out, and it took him six hours to die. His
death was a turning point however. Archbishop Beaton was advised that
if he had to burn any more heretics, he should do it in deep cellars so
that no-one would know, because ‘the reek of Mister Patrick Hamilton
has infected as many as it blew upon’. His courage, brilliance and
gentleness inspired many. Throughout Scotland, as people heard of his
death, they began to ask why it had happened. The teaching of God's
Word, instead of dying, spread.
Application
The life of Patrick Hamilton shows us how important it is that we don’t
just accept what we’re taught, but we check that it’s from the Bible.
It also shows us the importance of preaching. It is so important that
Patrick Hamilton was prepared to die rather than stop doing it. This
reminds us how important it is that we, our families and our friends
hear the preaching of God’s word.
Read more!
John Howie, ‘Patrick
Hamilton’ in The
Scots Worthies (Edinburgh, 1995 [1775]), pp 11-17.
John Knox, History
of the Reformation in Scotland ed. W. C. Dickinson (2 vols, 1949).
Iain Torrance, ‘Hamilton, Patrick
(1504?–1528)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
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