James Beaton

James Beaton (1517 – 24/25 April 1603) was a 16th-century archbishop of Glasgow. He was the son of James Beaton of Balfarg (a younger son of John Beaton of Balfour and nephew to Cardinal David Beaton. James Beaton got an education at the University of Paris, which he entered in the 1530s at the age of 14. On the resignation of the archbishop-elect Alexander Gordon, the archbishopric of Glasgow became vacant. Despite not being yet in priests' orders, on 4 September 1551, at the request of Marie de Guise, Pope Julius III provided Beaton to the archbishopric of Glasgow. He was consecrated on Sunday 28 August 1552 at Rome by the bishops of Abruzzo, Nevers and Fondi. For eight troublous years he administered the affairs of his diocese and stood faithfully by the queen-regent, Marie de Guise, in her dealings with the disaffected Protestant nobles. In March, 1559, he was at the provincial council at Edinburgh summoned by the primate, Archbishop Hamilton — the last assembly of the kind which was to meet in Scotland for three hundred and twenty-six years. The events of 1560, the treaty of alliance with England against France, the commencement of the work of destruction of cathedrals and monasteries, and, finally, the death of the queen-regent, no doubt actuated Beaton in his resolve to quit the distracted kingdom. He repaired to Paris, where he took a number of the muniments and registers of his diocese, and much church plate and other treasures, which he deposited in the Scots College. Mary, Queen of Scots, immediately appointed him her ambassador at the French Court, and he remained both up to her forced abdication in 1567, and during the rest of her life, her most faithful friend and adviser. He did not hesitate, after the murder of Darnley, to inform her frankly of the dark suspicions attaching to her, and the necessity of the assassins being punished. On the 15 February 1574, Beaton's name appears at the head of the list of the Roman prelates and clergy declared outlaws