At noon, on the last day of February, 1528, the noble confessor stood before the pile. He uncovered his head, and, lifting up his eyes to heaven, remained motionless for some time in prayer. He then turned to his friends, and handed to one of them his copy of the Gospels-the volume he so much loved. Next, calling his servant, he took off his gown, and gave it to him, with his coat and cap-"Take these garments; they can do me no service in the fire, and they may still be of use to thee. It is the last gift thou wilt receive from me, except the example of my death, the remembrance of which I pray thee to bear in mind. For albeit it be bitter to the flesh, and fearful before man, yet is it the entrance to eternal life, which none shall possess that deny Christ Jesus before this wicked generation." As the executioners passed the iron chain round his body, and fastened him to the stake, he again exclaimed, "In the name of Jesus I give up my body to the fire, and commit my soul into the hands of the Father." By the ignorance and awkwardness of his executioners, his sufferings were protracted for nearly six hours. The details are too harrowing to be transferred to our pages. Three times the pile was kindled, and three times the fire went out because the wood was green. Gunpowder was then placed among the fagots, which, when it exploded, shot up a fagot in the martyr's face, which wounded him severely. Turning to the deathsman, he mildly said, "Have you no dry wood?" Dry wood was brought from the castle, but it was six o'clock in the evening before his body was reduced to ashes; "but during these six hours," says an eye-witness, "the martyr never gave one sign of impatience or anger, never called to heaven for vengeance on his persecutors: so great was his faith, so strong his confidence in God." His last words that were heard were, "How long, O Lord, shall darkness cover this realm? How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of man? Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"
So died the proto-martyr of the Lutheran Reformation.
The rumor of his death ran speedily over the whole land, and all heard it with a shudder. People everywhere wanted to know the cause for which the young man had suffered such a cruel death. All turned to the side of the victim. It was, no doubt, around his funeral pile that the first decided movement of the Scottish Reformation took place. His gracious manners, and the mildness, patience, and fortitude which he displayed at the stake, combined to give unusual interest to his martyrdom, and were well fitted to touch the heart of the nation. "The murder of Hamilton," says a modern historian, "was afterward avenged in the death of the nephew and successor of his persecutor; and the flames in which he expired were, in the course of one generation, to enlighten all Scotland, and to consume with avenging fury, the Catholic superstition, the papal power, and the prelacy itself."
The overruling hand of the Lord is most distinctly seen in the whole history of Patrick Hamilton. So far as we are able to judge, a life, long and laborious, would not have served the cause of the Reformation so much as his trial, condemnation, and death, all accomplished in one day. Nothing less than the fiery stake of the confessor would have aroused the nation from that sleep of death into which popery had lulled it. It began to bear fruit immediately. Henry Forrest, a Benedictine in the monastery of Linlithgow, was brought to a knowledge of the truth by the preaching of Hamilton, and he is the first to come forward and repeat his martyrdom. It was told the archbishop that Forrest had said that "Hamilton was a martyr, and no heretic," and that he had a New Testament. "He is as bad as Master Patrick," said Beaton: "we must burn him." James Lindsay, a wit, standing by, ventured to say, "My lord, let him be burned in a hollow; for the reek of Patrick Hamilton's fire has infected everyone it blew upon." The archbishop, not heeding the satire, had the stake of Forrest planted on the highest ground in the neighborhood, that the population of Angus and Forfar might see the flames, and thus learn the danger of falling into Protestantism. Henry Forrest was Scotland's second martyr.