George, fourth Earl]. In the parliament held at Edinburgh on 5 June 1563 he was one of those appointed to determine who should be included in the act of oblivion for offences committed between 6 March 1558 and 1 Sept. 1560 (Acts of Scottish Parl. ii. 536).
While thus employed in state affairs Wishart did not neglect his private interests. Between 1557 and 1565 he obtained liberal grants of lands in Kincardineshire and Aberdeenshire. But his fortunes met with a sudden reverse. According to Knox, the queen hated him ‘because he flattered her not in her dancing and other things.’ In August 1565 he joined the Earl of Moray in opposing Mary's marriage with Lord Darnley, was denounced as a rebel, and compelled to fly to England, where he remained until the assassination of David Rizzio on 9 March 1565–6 and the alienation of Mary from Darnley enabled him to return. He received a royal pardon on 21 March, but he did not recover the office of comptroller, which was held by Sir William Murray (d. 1583) [q. v.] In 1567 he joined the confederacy against the Earl of Bothwell, and on 25 July subscribed the articles in the general assembly. On 19 Nov. he was appointed an extraordinary lord of session, and in October 1568 accompanied the regent Moray to York to support his charges against Mary (Memoirs of Sir James Melville, Bannatyne Club, 1527, p. 205). He preserved his loyalty during the Earl of Huntly's rebellion in 1568 [see Gordon, George, fifth Earl], and was appointed an arbitrator in regard to the compensation to be made to those who had suffered by it (Reg. Scott. Privy Council, 1545–69 pp. 645, 665, 667, 1569–1578 p. 9). Before Moray's assassination in 1570, however, he had left his party, and attached himself to that of the Duke of Châtelherault [see Hamilton, James]. In 1570 he was protected from debts incurred during his term of office as comptroller by an act of the privy council (ib. Add. 1545–1625, p. 320). In February 1572–3 he was appointed in the pacification between Châtelherault and the Earl of Morton [see Douglas, James, fourth Earl] one of the arbitrators to see that the conditions were carried out north of the Tay (ib. 1569–78, p. 195). He joined Sir William Kirkcaldy [q. v.] in Edinburgh Castle, and became constable of the fortress. He was one of the eight persons by whose assistance Kirkcaldy undertook to hold the castle against all assailants, and on the capitulation to Morton in May 1573 he became a prisoner (Spottiswoode, Hist. of Church of Scotland, Bannatyne Club, ii. 193). On 11 June he was denounced as a rebel, and his lands and goods conferred on his nephew John Wishart, ‘son to Mr. James Wishart of Balfeeth.’ He was also deprived of his judicial office, but on 18 Jan. 1573–4 he was reappointed an extraordinary lord of session, and on 20 March took his seat in the privy council (Reg. Privy Council, 1569–1578, p. 346). Wishart died without issue on 25 Sept. 1576. He married Janet, sister of Sir Alexander Falconer of Halkerton in Kincardineshire. He was succeeded in his estates by his nephew John Wishart, eldest son of James Wishart of Balfeith. In 1573 John Davidson (1549?–1603) [q. v.] dedicated to Wishart his poem on Knox, ‘Ane Brief Commendatiovn of Vprichtnes.’ The English ambassador, Thomas Randolph (1523–1590) [q. v.], had a very high opinion of Wishart, whom he described as ‘a man mervileus wyse, discryte, and godly, withowte spotte or wryncle’ (Cal. State Papers, Scottish, 1547–1563, p. 513). Wishart was one of those wittily portrayed in Thomas Maitland's squib representing a conference of the lords with the regent Moray [see under Maitland, Sir Richard, Lord Lethington].
[Rogers's Life of George Wishart, 1876, pp. 82–8; Register of the Scottish Privy Council, ed. Burton, 1545–78; Corresp. of Randolph in Cal. State Papers, Scottish, 1547–1563, ed. Bain; McCrie's Life of Knox, 1855, pp. 99, 185, 407, 430, 448; Knox's Works, ed. Laing, 1846, vols. i. ii.; Keith's Hist. of Scotland, 1734, pp. 96, 117–19, 315; Bannatyne's Memoriales (Bannatyne Club), pp. 911, 149, 308; Calderwood's Hist. of Scotland (Wodrow Soc.), vols. i–iii.; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, 1832, pp. 137–8.]
WISHART, ROBERT (d. 1316), bishop of Glasgow, belonged to the family of Wishart or Wiseheart of Pittarrow, Forfarshire, and was either nephew or cousin of William Wishart, bishop of St. Andrews and chancellor of Scotland. William Wishart was bishop-elect of Glasgow in 1270, but before he was installed he was transferred to the bishopric of St. Andrews, and Robert Wishart, then archdeacon of St. Andrews, was preferred to the see of Glasgow. No record exists of his early career, and his name first appears as bishop of Glasgow, in which office he was consecrated at Aberdeen in 1272 (Chron. Melrose). Wishart rapidly achieved a leading position among the prelates who directed affairs of state during the reign of Alexander III, and after that monarch's death on 16 March 1285–6 he was appointed one of the six guardians of the realm, the government of the land south of the Forth being
