Iconographia Scotica: or, portraits of illustrious persons of Scotland, engraved from the most authentic paintings, &c. With their lives, compiled from the works of the best informed and modern writers extant, manuscript as well as printed, containing many curious biographical anecdotes and particulars, never before published; the whole authenticated with notes, references, and observations, / by John Smith, of the Inner Temple.

Smith, John, of the Inner Temple

Date:: [1798]

Credit: Iconographia Scotica: or, portraits of illustrious persons of Scotland, engraved from the most authentic paintings, &c. With their lives, compiled from the works of the best informed and modern writers extant, manuscript as well as printed, containing many curious biographical anecdotes and particulars, never before published; the whole authenticated with notes, references, and observations, / by John Smith, of the Inner Temple. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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as being the Regent’s prifoner, to a temporal judicature ; but he con- demned him as an obftinate heretic, and cauTed him to be (/) burnt at Saint Andrews, forbidding all perfons to pray for him, under pain of incurring the fevered cenfures of the church, Thefe rigorous proceedings and oppreffions of the Cardi^ nal, draw on him a general hatred and deteftation, and fo in- eenfed thofe who favoured the Reformation, that they refolved to murder him ; his a (fa fli nation had been in fome meafure predicted by Wifeheart, for he concluded his dying fpeech, at his execution, in thefe remarkable words, 66 He who now fo proudly looks down upon me, from yonder lofty palace (pointing to the (/) Cardinal) and feeds his eyes with my torments, (hall ere long, he hung out at that window, and be as ignominioufly thrown down, as he now proudly (kj lolls at his eafe this prediction of Wifeheart, concerning Cardinal Beaton, which is related by Buchannan, in his Hi (lory of Scotland, as exemplary manners, Id. ib. who had greatly distinguished himself, by preaching with much eloquence and zeal againft Popery. Tow. Br. Biogr. ut supra. See Rob. Hist. Scotl. I. ii2. Knox’s Hist, of the Reform, and How. Biogr. Scotl. 46. (e) The answers are in Fox’s Martyrology, and Mr. Knox’s Church History, and in McKenzie, by which the reader will comprehend all that was laid to his charge. McKenzie’s laves of Scots Writers, III. 14. (/) The circumstances of his death are related in Buchan. Hist. Scotl. Lib. XV. 40. and M‘Kenzie’s Lives, III. 16. (g) M‘Kenzies Lives of Scots Writers, III. 23. (i) The window in the castle of St. Andrew’s, is shewn, out of which, it is pretended, that Cardinal Beaton leaned, to glut his eyes with the cruel martyrdom of this pious man, burnt beneath ; this is one of those relations, whose verity we should doubt, and heartily wish there was no truth in it [Brown’s Vulgar Errors] and, on enquiry, we may console ourselves, that this is founded on puritanical bigotry, and invented out of hatred to a persecutor sufficiently detestable, as the diredor of the persecution, and the cause of the death of the above-named George Wiseheart. Penn, Scotl. 193, 194, Who was a man of God. How. Biogr. Scot. God’s Justice, &c, II. Notwithstanding Mr. Pennant’s remark, we still continue of opinion, that the fad is not inconsistent, either with the Cardinal’s charader, or the general spirit of those times. Biog. Brit, CorrigendaKipp. Edit. (k) That the Cardinal might gratify his eyes with so desirable a sight, thecushiong were laid for him and his company to lean upon, while looking foyth at the window. How, God’s justice, &e.” ap. Biog, Scot, II. 12,

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