Str JoHn MAcBrRaIr. 161 
of great and sundry crimes and heresies. Assisted by John 
Lockhart of Bar and two others, he broke prison and escaped 
to Bar. In July, 1550, his accomplices were denounced as 
rebels (Pitcairn Criminal Trials I., 352).4 He found shelter 
in the Lollard Country with Andrew Stewart, Lord Ochiltree, 
whose daughter John Knox married in 1564. Archbishop 
John Hamilton, ‘‘a_ dissolute scoundrel’’ (Fleming, 
Reformation, 51), boasting of his purgation of the Diocese 
of Glasgow of its plague of heretics, one of whom, Adam 
Wallace, he had burnt at the stake in 1550, declared: *‘ In 
proof of this, he himself in his own proper person stormed 
the place of Ochiltree (i.e., Lord O.’s castle), and, in spite of 
its owner, dragged from thence to bonds and imprisonment a 
certain Apostate, Macbraire by name, an arch-heretic, and 
mulcted his supporters in heavy penalties. Likewise another 
man, Wallace (Valassium), a native of the same diocese, pro- 
fessing heretical opinions and persisting in his heresy, being 
convicted and condemned by a public convention of all orders 
of prelates in the Kingdom, he delivered to the secular court 
to be burned, and thus he caused the plague of heresy to be 
punished, which the See of Glasgow was quite unable to do.’’® 
Events were hastening quickly to the consummation of 
Reformation principles. George Wishart suffered martyrdom 
on 1st March, 1546; Cardinal Beaton was murdered on the 
29th May following; and John Knox, with his pupils, was 
holding the Castle of St. Andrews for the rebels against the 
popish persecutors between these two dates. Knox 
surrendered to the French fleet on 30th July, and was carried 
away with his compatriots to the galleys on the Loire, only 
to be released in 1549. It may be asked, was Macbrair among 
the prisoners? We meet him next in close conjunction with 
after 1547.’’ A list of preachers licensed by Arch- 
Knox ‘ 
bishop Cranmer to preach in England is preserved in the 
Record Office, London. It is entitled: “‘ The names of 
4 Lockhart became surety for Macbrair in 1550 (L.H.T., Acc., 
ix., 459). 
5 Fleming, Reformation, p. 202, citing Liber Officialis Sancti 
Andree, p. 167. 
