Walter Milne

Who was Walter Milne?

Walter Milne, also recorded as Mill or Myln, was the last Protestant martyr to be burned in Scotland before the Scottish Reformation changed the country from Catholic to Presbyterian.

Milne was a married man, and had at one point been a Roman Catholic priest from the Parish of Lunan near Montrose. He was burned at the stake for heresy outside Deans Court, St Andrews, in April 1558 at the age of 82, at the behest of the Roman Catholic Archbishop John Hamilton. When he was sentenced to death, Milne replied "I will not recant the truth. I am corn, not chaff; I will not be blown away with the wind or burst by the flail. I will survive both." Milne is commemorated on the Martyrs' Monument at St Andrews.