What happens when priests obtain “the whole regiment of the realm,” with “[the Devil’s] own son” as the head of this ecclesial usurpation? In this talk I will present the views of John Knox, George Buchanan, and David Hume on the killing of Cardinal Beaton (d. 1546) at St Andrews Castle. Was this notorious episode from the Scottish Reformation a justified if irregular quasi-judicial proceeding, a cold-blooded murder, or something else entirely? Did it involve the right of resistance to tyranny or a purported right of revolution? The talk will seek to address prudently the topic of political assasination from a historical and historiographical perspective.

George Buchanan was a late 16th-century Scottish Reformed thinker who used Scripture, history, and the natural law to argue for the restraint of civil rulers, the resistance to tyranny, an ...