Beaton, JAMES, an uncle of the cardinal's, took his M.A. at St Andrews in 1493, and rose rapidly to be Archbishop of Glasgow (1509), and of St Andrews (1522). One of the regents during James V.'s minority, he upheld the Hamilton against the Douglas faction. To the Edinburgh street-fight between them, famous in history as 'Cleanse the Causeway' (30th April 1520), he came wearing mail beneath his episcopal habit; but when Gawain Douglas, the poet-bishop of Dunkeld, besought him to stay the impending conflict, he swore on his conscience that he knew nothing thereof. His armour rattling as he struck his breast, called forth the rebuke, 'My lord, your conscience clatters.' The Hamiltons lost the day, and Beaton himself owed his life to Bishop Gawain. In 1526 he had, says Pitscottie, 'to keep sheep in Balgrumo,' whilst the Douglases plundered his castle; but he was soon reinstated in his see, and figured as a zealous supporter of France, and an opponent of the Reformation, Patrick Hamilton and three other Protestants being burnt during Beaton's primacy. He died at St Andrews in 1539.—Another JAMES BEATON, nephew to the cardinal, was born in 1517, and in 1552 was consecrated to the archbishopric of Glasgow. He stood high in favour with the queen-regent, Mary of Lorraine, and it was to him that she handed the Lords' remonstrance (1557) with the remark,
'Please you, my lord, to read a pasquil.' On her death in 1560, he withdrew to Paris, and there he dwelt as Scotch ambassador, honoured by all men for his blameless life, till his death on 30th April 1603.