BEATON. - There are three principal Scottish figures of this name: 1) James, archbishop of Glasgow, uncle of 2) David, cardinal and archbishop of St. Andrews, who was the uncle of 3) James, likewise archbishop of Glasgow.
1. JAMES
B. in 1473 and d. in 1539. He studied at the University of St. Andrews, where he received the title of "magister artium" in 1493. Elected bishop of Galloway in 1508, even before being consecrated, he was elevated to the archbishopric of Glasgow in 1509. During the minority of King James V (1513-42) he was one of the counsellors of the regency, and in the struggles between the two regents Angus and Arran, B. favored the latter, to whom he was related. In 1522 he was transferred to the primatial see of St. Andrews and showed himself an opponent of English policy, opposing the machinations of Henry VIII, who wanted to dominate Scotland, intervening in the marriage of the young king with the daughter of the king of France, and, after her death, with Mary of Guise, against the marriage with the daughter of the king of England, Mary Tudor.
Shortly after the marriage he obtained that his nephew, Card. David B., be named his coadjutor with the right of succession. He was a great benefactor first of his diocese of Glasgow and afterward of the University of St. Andrews, in which he instituted a new college (St. Mary's) for the study of theology, civil and canon law, medicine, etc. By mandate of Pope Clement VII and with the support of the king he proceeded with energy against the Protestants, striving, as much as he could, to avoid the great troubles that heresy brought upon Scotland.
2. DAVID
B. in 1494, d. in 1546. He was the son of John B. of Balfour, brother of James B., archbishop of Glasgow. After completing his early studies at St. Andrews, he moved to Glasgow to be with his uncle James, then going on to Paris to continue them. In 1519 the king of Scotland James V elected him his ambassador to the court of France. Having returned to Scotland in 1525, he was one of the members of Parliament; but in 1533 he had to return to France, sent there by the king and by his uncle to negotiate the alliance with that nation and the marriage of the young king with Madeleine, daughter of Francis I king of France, whom he then accompanied to Scotland. After the queen died in 1537, shortly after the marriage, he returned to France to procure the marriage of the widowed king with Mary of Guise, and on this occasion the bishopric of Mirepoix was granted to him by King Francis I. Created cardinal in 1538 with the title of St. Stephen in Celio, he returned to Scotland, where he was named coadjutor or auxiliary of the archbishop his uncle, whom he succeeded in 1539 in the primatial see. Meanwhile the schismatic Henry VIII of England was striving to separate James V too from the Holy See.
In this grave danger the king was effectively helped by the cardinal. When war broke out with the English, in 1542, after the defeat of Solway Moss, the king died of a broken heart, leaving a daughter, Mary Stuart, recently born, under the regency of B. and other Scottish nobles. The nobles, bought by Henry VIII and turning Protestant, refused to recognize him as regent and imprisoned him. The Protestant attitude of these men and their anti-Catholic conduct so grated on the feelings of the Scottish people, then Catholic, that in order to avoid turmoil, he had to be released. With great energy B. promptly provided for the independence of the fatherland and the defense of religion. Named legate a latere by Pope Paul III, in 1544 he proceeded with greater energy and had condemned to death, among others, the Protestant preacher George Wishart, guilty of having plotted to assassinate him (1546). Two months later he himself was killed by the partisans of Wishart, paid by England. Card. B. was not free from defects, but he was a great and true lover of religion and of his fatherland and did all he could to prevent the Protestant avalanche, the cause of so many ruins of Scotland.
3. JAMES
B. in 1517, d. in 1603 in Paris, while King James was going to London to assume the crown of England. Son of a brother of Card. B. After his studies and at the age of barely 34 he was elected archbishop of Glasgow (1551). Not yet being a priest, he received priestly ordination and episcopal consecration in Rome in 1552. Having returned to his homeland, during the regency of Mary of Guise, he helped her against the Protestant Scottish nobles, who, having enriched themselves with stolen ecclesiastical property, saw in the pseudo-reformation the only means of being able to enjoy it in peace. After the regent died in 1560, B. withdrew to Paris, carrying with him many documents that he later left to the Scottish college of that city, and which, for the most part, were unfortunately dispersed or lost during the French Revolution. Queen Mary Stuart named him her ambassador to the court of France. He was also her counsellor and sincere friend throughout her life, reproving her also for her mistakes, and remaining faithful to her even after her forced abdication in 1567. In 1574 the Scottish privy council declared him a rebel and an outlaw, but King James VI of Scotland and I of England maintained his trust in him and elected him his ambassador to the court of France in 1586.
His friendship with the Guise family united him to the league against Henry IV, and when the league dissolved, he was in danger of being driven out of France, but Henry IV himself opposed it. His conduct was so noble throughout all these vicissitudes that, in 1598, that is, almost 40 years after the suppression of the Catholic religion in Scotland, the Scottish Parliament restored to him his property with all the honors and dignities that he had held, "although he had never recognized the new religion of the kingdom."
Bibliography
Camillo Crivelli