Note 455 — PREFACE (continued 3)
Reading edition
The following paragraph is given by Foxe, in connexion with his account of Wishart's martyrdom, as mentioned in note [434]:—
"A note of the just punishment of God upon the cruell Cardinall Archbyshop of Saint Andrewes, named Beaton.
"It was not long after the Martyrdome of the blessed man of God, M. George Wischeart aforesayd, who was put to death by David Beaton, the bloudy Archbyshop and Cardinall of Scotland, as is above specified, an. 1546, the first day of March, but the sayd Dauid Beaton, Archbyshop of S. Andrewes, by the just revenge of God's mighty judgement, was slayen within his own Castle of S. Andrewes, by the handes of one Lech [Leslie] and other gentlemen; who, by the Lord styrred vp, brake in sodeinly into his Castle upon him, and in his bed murthered him the same yeare, the last day of May, crying out, 'Alas, alas, slay me not, I am a Priest.' And so lyke a butcher he lyved, and like a butcher he dyed, and lay 7 monethes and more unburyed, and at last, like a carion, buryed in a dunghill. An. 1546, Maij ult. Ex historia impressa."—(Foxe, edit. 1576, p. 1235.) Sir David Lyndesay thus alludes to the Cardinal's fate, in his poem entitled "The Tragedie of the umquhyle maist reverend Father David, be the mercy of God, Cardinal, and Archebischop of Sanct Androis," &c.,—
"Quhen every man had judgit as him list, They saltit me, syne closit me in ane kist. I lay unburyit sevin monethis, and more Or I was borne, to closter, kirk, or queir, In are midding, quhilk pane bene to deplore, Without suffrage of chanoun, monk, or freir; All proud Prelatis at me may lessonis leir, Quhilk rang so lang, and so triumphantlye, Syne in the dust doung doun so dolefullye."
Foxe's statement respecting the Cardinal's burial, is evidently incorrect. Sir James Balfour, in his MS. Account of the Bishops of St. Andrews, says of Cardinal Beaton, that "His corpse, after he had lyne salted in the bottom of the Sea-tower, within the Castell, was nine months thereafter taken from thence, and obscurely interred in the Convent of the Black Friars of St. Andrews, in anno 1547." Holinshed, in some measure, reconciles these apparent contradictions: After referring to what Knox has called "the coloured Appointment," (see page 183,) entered into by the Governor, in the view of having his son released, it is added, "They delivered also the dead bodye of the Cardinall, after it had layne buried in a dunghill, within the Castell, ever sithence the daye which they slew him."—(Chron. of Scotland, p. 466, edit. 1577.) This must have been either in December 1546, or in January 1546-7, immediately after the Governor had raised the siege of the Castle.