George Wishart was the son of James and brother of Sir John of Pitarrow, both ranking themselves on the side of the Reformers.

He returned to Scotland in the train of the Commissioners who had been appointed to arrange a marriage with Prince Edward and the Queen of Scots.

On passing East to the Lothians, Wishart, who spoke latterly as in near prospect of death, was apprehended by Bothwell in the house of Cockburn, of Ormiston.

He was carried captive to St. Andrews, where he was tried by a clerical Assembly, found guilty, and condemned as an obstinate heretic.

[6] He taught the New Testament in Greek as schoolmaster at Montrose in Angus, until investigated for heresy by the Bishop of Brechin in 1538.

In 1539 or 1540 he may have visited Germany and Switzerland, but by 1542 he had entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he studied and taught.

He may have been the "Scottish man called Wishart" acting as a messenger to England for Alexander Crichton of Brunstane in a 1544 plot against Cardinal David Beaton.

[9] At his trial he refused to accept that confession was a sacrament, denied free will, recognised the priesthood of all believing Christians, and rejected the notion that the infinite God could be "comprehended in one place" between "the priest's hands".

[citation needed] He proclaimed that the true Church was where the Word of God was faithfully preached and the two dominical sacraments rightly administered.

A lodge of the Scottish Orange Order, formed with a warrant in Dundee but often meeting in near by Forfar, is named The Wishart Arch Defenders in his honour.