In summarising the attitudes of individual Scottish bishops at the Scottish Reformation, the historian Gordon Donaldson described him as follows:
a voluptuary, [Hepburn] was successful in his main object of continuing to enjoy his revenues for his lifetime and there is no evidence that he took any interest in religious developments.

 Hepburn co-operated with the reformers in the years leading up to the Reformation of 1560.
In 1559, Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll and Lord James Stewart, the senior secular figures of the Lords of the Congregation, saved Hepburn's palace-abbey from destruction by the reformers.
Stewart and Argyll had only protected Hepburn's palace-abbey on the condition that the latter aided them with men and arms, and with a vote against the clergy in Parliament.
Yet he did not attend the Reformation Parliament of 1560, and in 1561 he and George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly, advised Mary, Queen of Scots, to land at Aberdeen rather than Leith, in an effort to improve the prospects of restoring the old catholic order.
In summarising the attitudes of individual Scottish bishops at the Scottish Reformation, the historian Gordon Donaldson described him as follows:
a voluptuary, [Hepburn] was successful in his main object of continuing to enjoy his revenues for his lifetime and there is no evidence that he took any interest in religious developments.
 Hepburn co-operated with the reformers in the years leading up to the Reformation of 1560. In 1559, Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll and Lord James Stewart, the senior secular figures of the Lords of the Congregation, saved Hepburn's palace-abbey from destruction by the reformers. Stewart and Argyll had only protected Hepburn's palace-abbey on the condition that the latter aided them with men and arms, and with a vote against the clergy in Parliament. Yet he did not attend the Reformation Parliament of 1560, and in 1561 he and George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly, advised Mary, Queen of Scots, to land at Aberdeen rather than Leith, in an effort to improve the prospects of restoring the old catholic order.
Patrick Hepburn