Patrick Hamilton was a Scottish churchman and an early Protestant Reformer in Scotland. He travelled to Europe, where he met several of the leading reformed thinkers, before returning to Scotland to preach. He was tried as a heretic by Archbishop James Beaton, found guilty and handed over to secular authorities to be burnt at the stake in St Andrews as Scotland's first martyr of the Reformation. In no other country in the world was the Reformation so complete or as thorough as in Scotland. This country was moved by the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton in 1528. Hamilton began preaching in Scotland in 1527 and was invited as a friend by Archbishop Beaton to a conference in St. Andrews. Once there, he was charged with heresy and burned. After Hamilton's death, others who had New Testaments or who professed Reformed doctrines were burned or sentenced to severe punishments, and some fled the country. The clergy were held up to ridicule all over the land.

James Beaton (1473–1539) was a Roman Catholic Scottish church leader, the uncle of David Cardinal Beaton and the Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland.