BISHOP WISHART. GLASGOW CATHEDRAL

Bishop Wishart was a warrior. First and foremost to him was the independence and protection of Scotland, her church and her people. King Robert the Bruce travelled to Glasgow where he met Bishop Wishart, in whose diocese the death of Commyn had been committed. Rather than ex-communicate the guilty as was normal church practice, Wishart immediately absolved him and urged his flock to rise in his support.

He then accompanied Bruce to Scone, the site of Scottish coronations of ages past, and there met his brother bishops of St. Andrews and Moray as well as other prominent churchmen, in what gives the appearance of a well-managed plan. Less than seven weeks after the killing in the Dumfries, along with a number of prominent lay figures they all witnessed the coronation of King Robert the first on the 25th March.

The country was immediately put on a war footing, with Bishop Wishart himself, despite his advancing years, being in the forefront of the preparations. The timber the English had given him to mend the bell tower of Glasgow Cathedral was used for making siege engines, and he took personal charge of the assault on Cupar Castle in Fife, ’like a man of war,’ as the enemy later complained. All these hopes and efforts were soon frustrated by the advance of the English army under Aymer de Valence in the summer of 1306. Bruce was defeated at the battle of Methven and soon to be forced into hiding.

Wishart was captured at Cupar and he was taken south in chains and incarcerated in an English dungeon saved only from execution from clerical orders.

Edward was delighted with the capture of this ‘traitor and rebel,’ and wrote to the Pope in September telling him that Wishart, along with Bishop William de Lamberton were being held in close confinement, and that the custody of the See of Glasgow had been entrusted to Geoffery de Mowbrey. Bishop Wishart was to remain in prison for the next eight years and going blind in the course of his captivity.

It was not until after King Robert’s triumph at the Battle of Bannockburn he was released as part of a prisoner exchange. He returned to Scotland to live out his life in relative peace, finally dying in Glasgow in November 1316. Undisputedly one of the great figures for the struggle for Scottish independence, the patron friend of both William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. He was the persistent opponent plantagenet pretensions and a hero of the long war.