KEITH O’Brien, the last Cardinal of Scotland, has died just days after his 80th birthday.

The senior cleric’s health had deteriorated after a fall earlier this month in the home in Ellington, Northumberland, where he’d been living in exile since quitting Scotland in disgrace in 2013.

He passed away at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne on Monday, almost five years to the day that he’d resigned as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh.

O’Brien left the church after four men, three of them priests and one a former priest, came forward to say they had been sexually intimate with the cleric.

It was unclear what did O’Brien the most damage, that the Catholic leader who had once compared gay marriage to bestiality and child abuse, was, himself, a closeted homosexual, or that those relationships were a result of him abusing his power.

The complaints dated back to 1980, and all four shared the same pattern of behaviour, with the senior O’Brien taking advantage of people junior to his position.

Leo Cushley, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, delivered the the last rites over the weekend.

Yesterday, Archbishop Cushley said: “In life, Cardinal O’Brien may have divided opinion - in death, however, I think all can be united in praying for the repose of his soul, for comfort for his grieving family and that support and solace be given to those whom he hurt and let down. May he rest in peace.”

O’Brien’s spectacular fall from grace overshadowed much of his work in the church.

He was for much of his career, by the Catholic Church’s standards, a liberal, who had slightly less conservative views on homosexuality, celibacy in the priesthood, and contraception, than his predecessor Cardinal Winning.

In 2003, before he took office, he called for “full and open discussion about these issues and where we stand”.

But upon taking the red hat, he fell in line with Rome.

In his formal Profession of Faith, a statement made by church figures before taking office, he promised to uphold the Vatican’s teaching on the immorality of the “homosexual act”.

An anonymous fax sent to news organisations and Catholic groups claimed O’Brien was “told by the Vatican if he did not correct what he said at a mass on October 1 he would not be allowed to become a Cardinal”.

O’Brien denied that was the case: “Having recently restated my loyalty to the Church, its teachings and the Pope, I would hope that Catholics everywhere would join with me in respecting the decisions of the Pope and demonstrate their own loyalty by not questioning them.”

Over the years, his views hardened.

In 2005, he told MSPs of his worries about new gay laws leading the destruction of society.

“We’ve gone far enough and we can’t go any further with the destruction of society. The moral tone of our society has gone downhill.

“Someone said, ‘That’s it, now we can’t get any worse’.

“But I said, what about paedophiles? There’s a paedophile party on the Continent.

“What if that is what everybody likes? What if a man likes little girls?”

He added: “Where are we going with this? I even mentioned bestiality. This is of intense worry to me.”

For his efforts, Stonewall awarded him their bigot of the year award.

When the allegations came out in the Observer, one month before he was due to retire, and days before he was due to fly to the Vatican to elect a successor to Pope Bendictus, he initially denied the claims.

Less than 36 hours later, he came clean.

O’Brien said he had valued the opportunity of “serving the people of Scotland” and offered a qualified apology: “Looking back over my years of ministry, for any good I have been able to do, I thank God. For any failures, I apologise to all whom I have offended.”