Patrick Hamilton (martyr) - Return and Flight

Return and Flight

Returning to Scotland, Hamilton selected St Andrews, the Scottish capital of the church and of learning, as his residence. On June 9, 1523 he became a member of St Leonard's College, part of the University of St Andrews, and on October 3, 1524 he was admitted to its faculty of arts, where he was first a student of, and then a colleague of the humanist and logician John Mair. At the university Hamilton attained such influence that he was permitted to conduct, as precentor, a musical mass of his own composition in the cathedral.

The reforming doctrines had now obtained a firm hold on the young abbot, and he was eager to communicate them to his fellow-countrymen. Early in 1527 the attention of James Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews, was directed to the heretical preaching of the young priest, whereupon he ordered that Hamilton should be formally tried. Hamilton fled to Germany, enrolling himself as a student, under Franz Lambert of Avignon, in the new University of Marburg, opened on May 30, 1527 by Philip of Hesse. Among those he met there were Hermann von dem Busche, one of the contributors to the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum, and probably William Tyndale, translator of the Bible.

Late in the autumn of 1527 Hamilton returned to Scotland, living up to his convictions. He went first to his brother's house at Kincavel, near Linlithgow, where he preached frequently, and soon afterwards he married a young lady of noble rank; her name is unrecorded. David Beaton, avoiding open violence through fear of Hamilton's high connections, invited him to a conference at St Andrews. The reformer, predicting that he was going to confirm the pious in the true doctrine by his death, accepted the invitation, and for nearly a month was allowed to preach and dispute, perhaps in order to provide material for accusation.

With the publication of Patrick’s Places in 1528, he introduced into Scottish theology Martin Luther's rediscovery of the distinction of Law and Gospel.