Hamilton, Patrick 1503-28
Scottish Lutheran theologian and martyr

Born in Glasgow, the son of Catherine Stewart, the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Albany, second son of James II, he was educated in Paris, then went to Louvain. He returned to Scotland and was in St Andrews in 1523, but was forced to leave in 1527 on account of his Lutheranism. After a brief stay in Wittenberg, where he met Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, he settled for some months in Marburg, where he wrote (in Latin) a series of theological propositions known as 'Patrick's Places', propounding the doctrines of the Lutherans. In 1528 he was summoned to St Andrews by Archbishop James Beaton, and on a renewed charge of heresy was burned before St Salvator's College. His death did more to extend the Reformation in Scotland than ever his life could have done.