21 Facts About George Wishart

George Wishart was a Scottish Protestant Reformer and one of the early Protestant martyrs burned at the stake as a heretic.

George Wishart was the son of James and brother of Sir John of Pitarrow, both ranking themselves on the side of the Reformers.

George Wishart was educated at the University of Aberdeen, then recently founded, and travelled afterwards on the Continent.

George Wishart engaged for some time in teaching Greek at Montrose.

George Wishart returned to Scotland in the train of the Commissioners who had been appointed to arrange a marriage with Prince Edward and the Queen of Scots.

George Wishart preached to the people with much acceptance at Montrose, Dundee, and throughout Ayrshire.

On passing East to the Lothians, George Wishart, who spoke latterly as in near prospect of death, was apprehended by Bothwell in the house of Cockburn, of Ormiston.

George Wishart was carried captive to St Andrews, where he was tried by a clerical Assembly, found guilty, and condemned as an obstinate heretic.

George Wishart belonged to a younger branch of the Wisharts of Pitarrow near Fordoun, Kincardineshire.

George Wishart was probably called George after his maternal grandfather of granduncle Prior George Leirmont, the name was certainly derived from his mother's family.

George Wishart was certainly a student at the University of Leuven, from which he graduated in 1531.

George Wishart taught the New Testament in Greek as schoolmaster at Montrose in Angus, until investigated for heresy by the Bishop of Brechin in 1538.

George Wishart fled to England, where a similar charge was brought against him at Bristol in the following year by Thomas Cromwell.

George Wishart returned to Montrose, where again he taught Scripture.

George Wishart went from place to place, in danger of his life, denouncing the errors of the Papacy and the abuses in the churches of Montrose, Dundee, Ayr, Perth, Edinburgh, Leith, Haddington and elsewhere.

George Wishart translated into English the first Helvetic Confession of Faith in 1536.

George Wishart proclaimed that the true Church was where the Word of God was faithfully preached and the two dominical sacraments rightly administered.

The Arch is the only surviving portion of the town's walls, and probably survived owing to a story that George Wishart preached from it in 1544 to plague victims.

However the connection of the Arch with George Wishart has been described as 'probably-mythical' and the structure is thought to have been built around 1590, long after George Wishart's death.

George Wishart was commemorated in Dundee with a United Presbyterian church being named after him.

George Wishart church was built in Dundee' Cowgate in 1841 and could seat over 700 people.