Prosecutor of Heretics
Lauder famously became Scotland's Public Accuser of Heretics.
The prosecution of Norman Gourlay, (sometime spelt Gowrlay or Galloway, described as vicar of Dollar, in Perthshire and David Stratton, a brother of the Laird of Lauriston, both of whom were burnt at the stake in August 1534, was carried out by Lauder.
Patrick Fraser Tytler chronicled the trial of Thomas Forrest, the martyr, in 1539. Dean Thomas Forrest had also been vicar of Dollar, and a canon regular of the monastery of St. Colm's, Inch. He was tried along Sir Ducan Simpson (a priest), two black friars - Keillor and John Beveridge - plus a notary in Stirling by the name of Forrester, before a council held by Cardinal Beaton and William Chisholm, Bishop of Dunblane. Bishop Crichton of Dunkeld was also present. Lauder again prosecuted. During Forrest's own defence "his Bible was plucked from his hand by Lauder, who denounced as heretical the conclusions he had drawn from it, and Forrest and his four companions were condemned to the stake". The sentence was carried out on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh on the last day of February, 1539.
John Knox also wrote a lot about this John Lauder, and referred to him as "a monstere, full of the Popis thunder, so spytfull that the ignorant people dreded least the earth then wold have swallowed them up."
Knox on Lauder is also quoted by Robert Lindesay of Pitscottie, in an almost complete transcript of the trial, on 1 March 1546, of the martyr George Wishart, whom Lauder "laidin full off curssingis written in paper.....cruellie accussit him and condemnit him to death." Cardinal Beaton presided over the execution of Wishart, with his faithful secretary and prosecutor, Lauder, at his side, in front of the Cardinal's Castle of St Andrews.
Calderwood also mentions the "Trial of Adam Wallace, 1550.........at the farther end of the chancellarie wall (in the church of the Blacke Friars in Edinburgh), in the pulpit, was placed Mr. Johne Lawder, Parson of Marbottle Morebattle, accuser, cled in a surplice, and a reid hood." Foxe also gave an account of this trial.
Read more about this topic: John Lauder
Famous quotes containing the word heretics:
“... when the Spaniards persecuted heretics they may have been crude, but they were not being unreasonable or unpractical. They were at least wiser than the people of to-day who pretend that it does not matter what a man believes, as who should say that the flavour and digestibility of a pudding will have nothing to do with its ingredients.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)