DAVID, archbishop of St Andrews, and a cardinal of Rome, in the early part of the sixteenth century, was born in 1494. Pope Paul III. raised him to the rank of cardinal in December 1538; and having been employed by James V. in negotiating his marriage at the court of France, he was there consecrated bishop of Mirepoix. Soon after his instalment as archbishop of St Andrews, he promoted a furious persecution of the reformers in Scotland; but the king's death put a stop for a time to his arbitrary proceedings, and having been excluded from the management of public affairs, he was thrown into confinement. But he soon raised so strong a party, that, upon the coronation of the young queen Mary, he was admitted of the council, made chancellor, and procured a legatine commission from the court of Rome. He now began to renew his persecution of heretics, and, amongst the rest, of the famous protestant preacher Mr George Wishart, who suffered death at the stake in front of the cardinal's residence at St Andrews. It is alleged that Wishart, in the midst of the flames, foretold that Beaton would die a violent death; a prediction which probably proved the cause of its own fulfillment, as the persecutor was assassinated in his chamber on the 29th May 1547. Beaton was a haughty bigoted churchman, and thought severity the proper method of suppressing heresy.