[12] [The bull of Eugenius the Fourth, addressed to Bishop Kennedy, and dated 6th July 1440, orders the excommunication of the followers of the anti-pope, Felix the Fifth, elected by the Council of Basle, to be published in Scotland (Ibid., p. c.)] [13] [Dr Mitchell, no doubt, had the Commentary itself before him. Those who have not access to it will find the dedication in the Appendix to Constable's 'Major,' Scot. Hist. Soc., pp. 447, 448.] CHAPTER II. PATRICK HAMILTON. It has not been very clearly ascertained how or when the opinions and writings of Luther were first introduced into Scotland. M. de la Tour, who in 1527 suffered in Paris for heresy, was accused of having vented various Lutheran opinions while in Edinburgh in attendance on the Duke of Albany. This, of course, must have been before 1523. On the 9th June 1523, the same day that John Major was received as Principal of the Pædagogium, or St Mary's College,[14] Patrick Hamilton was incorporated into the University of St Andrews;[15] and on 3rd October 1524 he was admitted as a member of the Faculty of Arts. If he did not from the latter date act as a regent in the University, he probably took charge of some of the young noblemen or gentlemen attending the classes. At that date he was probably more Erasmian than Lutheran, though of that more earnest school who were ultimately to outgrow their teacher, and find their congenial home in a new church. [Sidenote: His Studies.] Patrick Hamilton was born in 1503 or 1504 at Stonehouse in Lanarkshire, or at Kincavel near Linlithgow. His father, a natural son of the first Lord Hamilton, had been knighted for his bravery, and rewarded by his sovereign with the above lands and barony. His mother was a daughter of Alexander, Duke of Albany, the second son of James II., so that he had in his veins the noblest blood in the land. His cousins, John and James Hamilton, were in due time raised to episcopal rank in the unreformed church of Scotland, and several others of his relations received high ecclesiastical promotion. Marked out for a similar destiny, Patrick was carefully educated, and, according to the corrupt custom of the time, was in his fourteenth year appointed to the Abbacy of Ferne in Ross-shire, to enable him to maintain himself in comfort while continuing his studies abroad. Like many of his aristocratic countrymen he went first to the University of Paris, and probably to the College of Montaigu, where Major, the great Scottish scholastic doctor, was then teaching with much _eclat_, and gathering round him there, as afterwards at St Andrews, an ardent band of youthful admirers, several of whom in the end were to advance beyond their preceptor, and to lend the influence of their learning and piety to the side of Luther and the reformers. Before the close of 1520 he took the degree of M.A. at the University of Paris, and soon after left Paris for Louvain, to avail