After Hamilton's death, others who had Lutheran New Testaments or who professed Protestant doctrines were also burned or sentenced to severe punishments, while others fled the country[citation needed].

Since the Scottish Reformation Parliament of 1560, the site of Hamilton's execution has been treated with enormous respect, even by the students and faculty of the University of St Andrews.

At the university Hamilton attained such influence that he was permitted, as precentor, to conduct a Solemn High Mass based on music of his own composition at the St. Andrew's Cathedral.

[4] Early in 1527 the attention of James Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews, was directed to the heretical preaching of the young priest, whereupon he ordered that Hamilton should be formally tried.

Among those he met there were Hermann von dem Busche, one of the contributors to the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum, John Frith and William Tyndale.

He went first to his brother's house at Kincavel, near Linlithgow, where he preached frequently, and, soon afterwards, he renounced clerical celibacy and married a young lady of noble rank; her name is unrecorded.

David Beaton, the Abbot of Arbroath, avoiding open violence through fear of Hamilton's powerful protectors, invited him to a conference at St Andrews.

[5] The Young minister, predicting that he was going to "confirm the pious in the true doctrine" by his death,[2] accepted the invitation, and for nearly a month was allowed to preach and to debate.

There were thirteen charges, seven based on the doctrines in Philip Melanchthon's Loci Communes, the first theological exposition of Martin Luther's scriptural study and teachings in 1521.

His only known writings, based upon Loci communes and known as "Patrick's Places", echoed the doctrine of justification by faith and the contrast between the gospel and the law in a series of clear-cut propositions.

To lift the curse students may participate in the annual May dip where they traditionally run into the North Sea at 05.00 to wash away their sins and bad luck.