THE situation of St Andrews Castle
is exceedingly picturesque. The shore on each side of the ruins trends
inwards, leaving a projecting headland, upon whose rocky summit stand the
ruins of the Archiepiscopal Palace. The ceaseless beat of the wild North
Sea has swept away the ancient landmarks upon either side, gradually
leaving the foundation of the Castle to form an apex between two bays:-
"The peak on an
aerial promontory,
Whose caverned base with the vexed surge is hoary."
If this spot be really the site of
the original Castle of St Andrews, built by Bishop Roger in 1200, as there
is little reason to doubt, it savours more of romance than of practical
utility. For even though the encroachments of the sea have been great in
this locality they cannot have so seriously altered the position of the
Castle in little over seven centuries as to transform an inland fortress
into a sea-washed ruin. And, however conducive to reflection in a recluse,
it could not be altogether pleasant for men of the world, as many of the
Prelates were, to hear the "hollow-sounding and mysterious main" dashing
against the rock-bound coast, or watch it flinging its wintry spray
defiantly upon the topmost battlement.
Whether for resistance by sea or
land, no more commanding site could have been found along the coast than
that on which the Castle stands. Its peninsular position would enable its
possessor to sweep both the north and south coasts with ease; while the
approach from the land would be rendered difficult by the narrowness of
the passage. Local tradition tells of subterranean caves hollowed beneath
the foundations of the Castle, and represents the rock as honey-combed by
the action of the waves; and certainly there have been mysterious passages
recently discovered which may have been formed by extending such caves,
though their utility has not been satisfactorily explained.
But the ruin which now crowns the
rugged steep has not been reduced to its present state solely by the
ravages of time or of the elements. The resistless surge of human passion
and the fierce whirlwind of civil war have done more to render the Castle
of St Andrews roofless and uninhabitable than have the relentless storms
of many centuries. And though first erected a dwelling for• the men of
peace, it was not long ere the warriors of Scotland discovered that the
position which it occupied was too valuable to be sacrificed as a
Parsonage; even as they found that the site of Dunnottar Castle was too
important for a Parish Kirk. And thus it soon happened that the peaceful
abode of the Bishops of St Andrews became the residence of the fierce
soldiery both of England and France, whose lawless presence drew down upon
its innocent head the vengeance of their enemies. And the Castle, which
might have existed as long as the Vatican at Rome, had it been left to its
original possessors, did not continue for a century and a half without
suffering almost total demolition. Arising again from its ashes under the
benign influence of another Bishop, it re-asserted the proud position
which it had formerly held, and remained intact for another hundred and
fifty years. But the cloud of the Reformation had over-shadowed the
dignity of the priesthood, and "their gilded domes and their princely
halls" were now the abode of the leading spirits of the new birth.
Yet again was the ruined Castle
rebuilt and made habitable, but it was now shorn of all its former
greatness, and "Ichabod" was written on its ruins. And now, as if
"unwilling to outlive the good that did it," or wilfully refusing shelter
to the renegades from the faith of its founders, it stands bare and
desolate, a barren relic of the glory that passeth away. Only a few yards
from these ruins may be seen the burying ground where rest many of the
Lords Spiritual, who once held sway within its halls, mingling their dust
with that of the vassals whose toil supported them, and by whose labour
they were maintained. And as we pass from these tombs by the ever-sounding
sea to the melancholy ruin of former grandeur which the Castle presents,
we feel:-
"The sway
Of the vast stream of ages bear away
Our floating thoughts."
Here in the very birthplace of
Scottish Christianity we find the cradle of the Reformation, and this grim
ruin was the scene of many of the deeds of violence and of injustice and
lawlessness that called aloud for a new upheaval of Society—the avatar of
a Protestant Reformation. And now, as the moonlight breaks through the
unglazed window apertures, or falls shimmering, clear and cold, upon the
grass-grown courtyard, unroofed and open to the assaults of heaven, we
cannot escape from the romance of the situation—
"I wandered through the wreck of days
departed,
Far by the desolated shore, when even
O’er the still sea and jagged islets darted
The light of moonrise; in the northern heaven,
Among the clouds near the horizon driven,
The mountains lay, beneath one planet pale;
Around me broken tombs and columns riven
Looked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale
Waked in these ruins grey their everlasting wail!"
The action of the water upon the
free stone and shale forming the base of the Castle is apparent, though
the extent of this influence is much exaggerated. Some local historians
would have us believe that the angry surge has swept away towers and
turrets, walls and battlements, but there is more fancy than fact in their
statements. Yet there are many alterations in the formation of the Castle
grounds plainly discernible. At some remote period the whole of the
landward structure has been surrounded by a deep moat, presumably supplied
with tidal water and furnished with lock-gates communicating with the sea.
The debris of many years had accumulated within this fosse to such
an extent that it was level with the ground. But some years ago
excavations were made in the locality whereby the trench was quite cleaned
out, and a more correct view of the fortifications thus obtained. Amongst
other discoveries made, not the least interesting was that of the ancient
well in the courtyard, which has been cut out of the solid rock, and is
more than twenty feet deep to the water surface. In the North Sea Tower on
the north-west part of the courtyard, may be seen the Bottle Dungeon, a
cavity quarried in the freestone, twenty-five feet deep, with an aperture
forming the neck, seven feet in diameter and eight feet deep. Below this
point the dungeon expands to nearly seventeen feet in diameter; and as
there are no visible means of entrance, it is supposed that the prisoners
were incarcerated here by using rope and windlass to lower them into its
loathsome depths. The imaginative in-habitants of this neighbourhood have
peopled this fearful prison with many of the men familiar in history; but
the traditions connected with it are not very trustworthy. It is not
likely that the place was used except for purposes of temporary
confinement, and as an alternative to the rack or other form of torture.
The whole plan of the Castle is now clearly visible, and as steps have
been taken to preserve the ruins the ravages of time will no longer
prevail to overthrow it. The vicissitudes through which it has passed, and
which link it prominently with many notable events in Scottish story,
entitle the Castle of St Andrews to the tender regard and veneration of
the students alike of Church and of State History.
The exact date of the foundation of
the Bishopric of St Andrews is not now discoverable, but it is known to
have had a firmly established existence in the middle of the ninth
century. For a considerable period the history of the Bishopric is but a
succession of names and dates which, like the catalogue of the Pictish
Kings, is now of little interest to us. Early in the twelfth century
(about 1107) Bishop Turgot founded the Parish Kirk, and about fifty years
after, Bishop Arnold, the possessor alike of larger views and increased
revenue, began the erection of the splendid pile of St Andrews Cathedral,
whose ruins still testify to its former magnificence. Having thus provided
for the spiritual wants of their parishioners, it became advisable that
the Bishops should look after their own temporal welfare; and so Bishop
Roger laid the foundation of the Castle somewhere about the year 1200.
Hitherto the holders of the Episcopal See had resided either in the
ancient Monastery of the Culdees (now Kirkhill, where the foundations may
be seen) or in the house of the Prior, which adjoined the Cathedral
buildings. It no longer consorted with the dignity of so important a See
that the Bishops should have nowhere to lay their heads, and as the Royal,
as well as the Papal, favour had been bestowed upon them, they could well
afford to indulge in a habitation for themselves.
Old Andro Wyntoun, Prior of St
Serf’s on Loch Leven, in his "Cronykil," records that Bishop Roger was son
of the Earl of Leicester; but to this statement exception may be taken, as
it is not supported by other evidence. There certainly was a Roger de
Bellomont who fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and whose
descendant was Earl of Leicester in 1128, but that Earl had no son called
Roger. This is Wyntoun’s account
"This Rogere
The Erle’s son was of Laycestere.
The Castell in his dayis he
Founded and gart biggit be
In Sanct Andrewys in that place
Where now that Castel biggit was."
The undertaking, though considerable
in those days, was but a trifle compared to the erection of the Cathedral
which was then proceeding; and it is extremely likely that the builders of
the latter edifice were employed upon Bishop Roger’s residence. The name
of the architect of these two buildings has not been discovered. At that
time Antwerp was the great school of masonry, and a travelling Guild of
Masons may have begun the structure which took many years to complete.
By whomsoever devised and executed,
the Castle was at length completed, and the Bishop would, no doubt,
prepare with devout gratitude for his "house-warming." One may picture the
venerable Bishop looking forward with hopeful eyes to a glorious future
for the bield he had now "biggit," and prophesying of the halcyon days of
universal peace which his firmly-founded Castle should never behold. Hope
still looks forward, in defiance of history and human experience, for the
brighter days that never come, and we delude ourselves by a faith in the
future for which our past gives no warrant. And thus runs the world away !
—
"Golden days, where are you?
Pilgrims east and west
Cry, if we could find you
We would pause and rest.
We would pause and rest a little
From our dark and dreary ways,
Golden days, where are you?
Golden days!"
Peace and prosperity were not long
the heritage of the Castle of St Andrews, for in those stirring times the
dignitaries of the Church were compelled to take an active part in the
affairs of State. As St Andrews was the foremost See in Scotland, both
because of its antiquity and extent, it was natural that the Bishop of so
important a diocese should be frequently brought to the front. And as
Glasgow bore the same relation to the west of Scotland as St Andrews did
to the east, the Bishops of these places were the leaders during the most
turbulent times. Foremost among these patriots was Robert Wiseheart (Wishart),
Bishop of Glasgow, in 1270, who was appointed one of the six Guardians of
Scotland on the death of Alexander III. in 1286, though he supported
Edward I. in 1290, but took up the cause of Robert Bruce in 1299, for
which Edward imprisoned him. Afterwards he joined Wallace with the
Scottish patriots, and officiated at the Coronation of Robert Bruce in
1306.. His faithful ally was William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews in
1297, who supported Wallace, though he had sworn fealty to Edward. He was
also present at the crowning of Bruce and was captured and put in prison
by Edward.
It was during Bishop Lamberton’s
time that the building of the Cathedral was completed, and he also
repaired the breaches in the walls of the Castle which Edward I. had
caused after Wallace had escaped from it. Having had it put in repair for
his occupancy, Edward I. and his Queen occupied the Castle from 14th March
to 5th April 1303-4, together with the Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward
II.), and to the Prince was committed by the King the stripping of the
lead from the roof of the Cathedral to make ammunition for the siege of
Stirling Castle. While Edward was in St Andrews Castle he received the
homage of the leading Scottish nobles and clergy.
The Castle was held by the English
till 1305, when it was captured and held by the Scots for a short period,
but was regained from them in 1306, and remained an English fortress till
1314, the year of the Battle of Bannockburn. These frequent attacks must
have seriously weakened the structure, for Bishop Lamberton, who died in
1328, found it necessary to spend his last years in the Priory instead of
the Castle.
Hardly had Lamberton been gathered
to his fathers ere the minions of Edward Balliol, son of King John
Balliol, and a dependant on the bounty of the King of England, Edward
III., seized upon the Castle, and forced the new Bishop, James de Bane, to
fly for refuge to Holland, where he died in 1332, leaving the See
unoccupied. Edward Balliol had invaded Scotland in this year, and won a
victory at the Battle of Dupplin, and he placed a garrison in St Andrews
Castle. The chief Scottish opponent of Balliol was Sir Andrew Moray of
Bothwell, son of the companion-in-arms of Wallace, who was proclaimed
Regent. Finding English soldiers in the Castle he attacked it and forced
them away; but finding that he had not men to spare for garrisoning it he
threw down some of the fortifications, and proceeded southward to expel
the invaders from Scottish soil. This incident is thus recorded by Andro
Wyntoun :—
"Sir Andro Murray cast it doun,
For there he fand a garrisoun
Of English men intill that place,
For the See than vacand was."
Ere another fifty years had gone the
Bishopric came into the hands of Walter Trail (1385-1401) a Prelate whose
influence in the affairs of the kingdom entitled him to rank as a true
patriot. During his term as Bishop the Castle was rebuilt and again made
fit for an episcopal residence. Yet, by a curious fatality, the princely
towers which he built became the prison-house of one of his dearest
friends, shortly after his decease. In the story of Rothesay Castle in
this volume, the sad tale of the murder of David, first Duke of Rothesay,
son of Robert III., by his unscrupulous uncle, the Regent Albany, was
narrated. Whilst this unfortunate Prince was supported by the counsel of
his mother, Queen Annabella, of his father-in-law, Earl Douglas, and of
his tutor, Bishop Trail, he withstood the insidious advances of his
ambitious uncle; but when death had removed all three of these
counsellors, the craft of the statesman proved too much for the
unsuspecting Prince. Rothesay was persuaded that after the death of the
Bishop it was his duty to occupy the Castle till a successor was
appointed. The young Duke made his way to Fife with a few followers, and
was waylaid by the emissaries of Albany near Strathtyrum and thrown into
prison at St Andrews Castle to await the instructions from his uncle.
Ultimately he was taken to Falkland Palace, where he met the sad fate
prepared for him. Thus the lordly dwelling which his old friend the Bishop
had erected, and where he would have been an honoured guest, became the
scene of his first imprisonment.
"What man that sees the ever-whirling
wheels
Of change the which all mortal things doth sway;
But that thereby doth find, and plainly feels
How mutability in them doth play
Her cruel sports to many men’s decay?"
The Castle of St Andrews increased
in importance as time rolled on, and soon had greatness thrust upon it.
Bishop Wardlaw had spent his forty years within its walls; and had done
much service to the world at large by founding the University, building
the Guard Bridge, and burning a few pestilent heretics "for the greater
glory of God." Bishop Kennedy had enjoyed his quarter-of-a-century there,
and signalized his reign by erecting the College and Chapel of St Salvator,
founding the Greyfriars Monastery, and endeavouring to introduce commerce
to the city by building a large vessel suitable for export trade. But the
venal period of the Bishops had arrived, and they were about to blossom
into Archbishops. Bishop Kennedy died in 1465, and his half-brother,
Patrick Graham, Bishop of Brechin, succeeded him in the following year.
Bishop Wardlaw, in 1440, had appointed John de Wemyss of Kilmany as
Constable of St Andrews Castle, so it had been kept in order during the
time of Bishop Kennedy. To his successor, Patrick Graham, belongs the
honour of being the first Archbishop of St Andrews, but he did not take up
his residence at the Castle in 1466, going to Rome for another purpose. In
1472 he returned with Bulls from Pope Sixtus IV., constituting St Andrews
the Metropolitan See of Scotland.
Despite the honour that Archbishop
Graham had brought to this country his life was a miserable one. He had
been impoverished by the bribes he had presented to the officials at Rome,
who had assisted him, and in 1478 William Schevez, then Archdeacon,
brought charges of heresy and simony against him, and he was deposed and
imprisoned, first in the Monastery of Inchcolm, and afterwards in Loch
Leven Castle, where he died, and was buried at St Serfs Isle. The
ambitious Schevez succeeded as second Archbishop, and apparently resided
at the Castle. Hardly had he been appointed than he dashed into a
controversy with Robert Blacader, Archbishop of Glasgow, on a point of
etiquette as to precedence. The dispute became so violent that it had to
be submitted to His Holiness Pope Innocent VIII., who evidently gave the
preference to St Andrews as the seat of the Primate. An ancient
Chartulary, still in existence, throws a sinister light on this
transaction. It shows that Schevez gave over the lands and Castle of
Gloom, on the Devon, and the Bishopshire on the Lomond Hills to the then
Earl of Argyll to bribe his support in the dispute with Glasgow. He thus
proves himself as the mediaeval ecclesiastic— solemn, precise,
exacting—anything but profound, whose interest lay more in vestments and
ceremonies than the welfare of the precious souls committed to his charge.
The Castle of St Andrews had now
gained additional importance as the seat of the Primate, and the
Archbishops took a prominent part in political affairs, and were
recognized as statesmen. So far back as the time of William the Lion, the
claim had been made, and since continued, that the King had the right of
presentation to this Archbishopric. Hence, when the See of St Andrews
became vacant through the death of James Stewart, second son of James Ill.
(1497-1503), James IV., who bore the same name as his younger brother,
exercised his right under peculiar circumstances. The King had then an
illegitimate son, Alexander Stewart, born in 1493, but not of age to be
made an Archbishop, so the See was left vacant till 1505, when he was
nominated. In that year Stewart went abroad; studied under Erasmus at
Padua, 1508; returned to Scotland in 1509 for his installation; was
appointed Chancellor of Scotland, 1510; accompanied his father the King in
1513 to Flodden, and fell on the battlefield, in his twentieth year.
A very curious complication arose at
Archbishop Stewart’s death. The Queen-Regent (Margaret Tudor, sister of
Henry VIII., and widow of James IV.), claimed the right of the Crown to
appoint the new Archbishop, and was prepared to select the famous Bishop
Elphinstone of Aberdeen, founder of Aberdeen (King’s College) University,
for the See of St Andrews; but he died at Edinburgh in October 1514,
before he could be installed. Meanwhile, in August 1514, Queen Margaret
had married Archibald Douglas, sixth Earl of Angus; and to please her new
husband she nominated the celebrated poet, Gawain Douglas, her uncle by
marriage, to the Archbishopric. But the Chapter of St Andrews elected in
preference John Hepburn, Prior of St Andrew, while the Pope recommended
Andrew Forman, Bishop of Moray for the position. There were thus three
claimants, proposed respectively by the Queen-Regent, the Chapter, and the
Pope, representing the Crown, the Church, and the Papal power.
Gawain Douglas, the translator of
Virgil, and one of the most learned and accomplished men of his time, made
the first move by taking violent possession of St Andrews Castle, having
the troops of Angus and the Queen-Regent to support him. The forces he had
at his disposal were lulled into a false security by the ease of their
conquest. Doubtless the new Archbishop, looking upon himself as the man in
possession prepared to enjoy his "lordly pleasure-house" with as little
apprehension of approaching danger as ever troubled the hero of his own
exquisite poem :—
"King Hart into his comely Castel
strang,
Closed about with craft and meikle ure,
So seemly was he set his folk amang
That he no doubt had of misadventure,
So proudly was he polished plain and pure,
With Youth heid and his lusty levis greeve,
So fair, so fresh, so likely to endure,
And also blyth as bird in summer schene."
But the dark-visaged Prior Hepburn
meanwhile was not idle. Silently assembling the fierce Border Clans of the
Hepburns and Homes, to whom he was related, he took the Castle by storm,
and turned out its occupants in disgrace. Chagrined by his defeat, the
Queen-Regent urged her husband, Angus, to besiege the Castle; but the bold
Prior, like a true Churchman Militant, set the forces of the Crown at
defiance. The combined efforts of the Royal troops and the Men of the
Means were unavailing to conquer the hardy Borderers, and the unscrupulous
Archbishop-elect for whom they fought.
Matters had thus reached a crisis,
and it seemed as though Scotland were to be blessed with three Primates.
The wily Bishop Forman, however, meddled less with arms than with men, and
he soon gained over the Earl of Home to his cause by the old-fashioned
method of bribery and corruption. Hepburn had no choice but to succumb to
circumstances. He withdrew his soldiers from the Castle and resigned all
claim to the Primacy on condition of receiving the Bishopric of Moray,
from which See his opponent Forman had been promoted, together with a
pension of three thousand crowns from the hinds of the Archbishop of St
Andrews, stipulating that no questions should be asked as to the revenues
which he had uplifted whilst in possession of the See. And thus the
presentees alike of the Queen-Regent and the Church were conquered by the
favourite of the Pope.
The ambition of the Queen-Regent
brought evil days upon her. When the Duke of Albany, grandson of James
II., and heft-presumptive to the Throne, was appointed Governor of
Scotland in 1515, he soon took vengeance upon those friends whom Margaret
Tudor had favoured.
The relatives of the Earl of Angus,
who were suspected, fell under Albany’s displeasure, and first among them
was Gawain Douglas. He was seized upon the pretext of some informality in
his presentation to the post of Bishop of Dunkeld, was carried to St
Andrews Castle and thrown into the Bottle Dungeon there in 1521, where the
vagaries of Fortune would give him food for regretful reflection, in the
darkness, upon the brief period when he was master in the Castle :—
"But yesterday I did declare
How that the time was soft and fair,
Come in as fresh as peacock’s feddar—
This day it stangis like ane eddar,
Concluding all in my contrair.
Yesterday fair upsprang the flowers—
This day they are all slain with showers;
And fowlis in forest that sang clear,
Now weepis with ane dreary chere,
Full cauld are baith their beds and bowers.
So next to Summer Winter bein;
Next after comfort caris keen;
Next to dark night the mirthful morrow;
Next after joy aye comis sorrow;
So is this warld and aye has been!"
By some obscure means Gawain Douglas
escaped from St Andrews in 1521, and fled to England, where Henry VIII.
was his patron; but he died there in the following year, of the plague,
aged forty-eight years.
Archbishop Forman died in 1522, and
was succeeded by James Beaton, then Archbishop of Glasgow. Beaten was the
son of John Beaten of Balfour, in Fife. He took his M.A. degree at St
Andrews University in 1492; was Abbot of Dunfermline in 1504; Lord
Treasurer, 1505-6.; Chancellor, 1513 to 1526; one of the Regents during
the minority of James V.; Bishop of Galloway and Archbishop of Glasgow,
1509; and Archbishop of St Andrews, 1523, continuing in that office till
his death in 1539. He kept lordly state within the Castle, and was
renowned for his hospitality, especially to French visitors to Scotland.
Beaton assisted James V. to throw off the yoke of his step-father, the
Earl of Angus, and in revenge Angus laid waste the Archbishop’s Castle of
St Andrews. Beaton, however, was a "building Prelate" even when in
Glasgow, and he soon restored his Castle to its former magnificence. James
V. was frequently entertained there, and it is possible that the King
would have made the Castle the residence of his first Queen, Magdalen de
Valois, in 1539, had he not built a special house in the Priory grounds
for her reception. It was during the rule of Archbishop James Beaton that
the persecution of the Scottish Protestants began, and in this work he was
especially active, utilizing the dungeons in the Castle for the
confinement of heretics. The Archbishop died in 1539, and was buried
before the High Altar in the Cathedral of St Andrews.
The successor to James Beaten was
his nephew, David Beaten, who was Archbishop from 1539 till 1546, when his
death was violently accomplished. He was the third son of John Beaten,
eldest brother of James Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews, and was born in
1494; educated at St Andrews, Glasgow and Paris; Abbot of Arbroath, 1523;
Bishop of Mirepoix, in Languedoc, 1537; Cardinal of St Stephen in Monte
Coélio, by Pope Paul III., 1538; Co-Adjutor of St Andrews, 1538-39;
Archbishop of St Andrews, 1539.
The character of Cardinal Beaten has
puzzled many Scottish historians, their estimates being largely influenced
by religious prejudices on one side or the other. To imagine that he was
an empty and illiterate bigot is an open mistake. He was more of the
time-server who could perceive where the necessity had arrived for him to
bend to the blast, but who would strenuously hold fast that which he had
until a better appeared. Yet, however opportunist his actions might be, he
stoutly resisted the plans of Henry VIII. to conquer Scotland by capturing
the infant Queen Mary. When the game lay between the wily Cardinal and
bluff King Hal, it required skilful playing to come off victorious as
Beaten did. He was sent by James V. to arrange the King’s marriage with
Mary of Guise, which he accomplished successfully.
His uncle and predecessor, James
Beaton, as already mentioned, had taken up a violent attitude against the
Protestants, and the same policy was adopted and intensified by the
Cardinal, and it ultimately led to his destruction. The methods adopted by
him had made many enemies, but he pursued the persecution of the heretics,
as he accounted them, as if it were a pious duty. The tragic incident of
the Cardinal’s assassination has been so often narrated that it need not
here be detailed. The dastardly deed took place on Saturday, 29th May
1546, when Kirkaldy of Grange gave admittance by the drawbridge to the
Castle to Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes, John Leslie, his uncle, Peter
Carmichael, James Melvil, and others to the number of sixteen, who sought
out the Cardinal in his room, set upon him with swords and daggers, and
violently bereft him of life. They then, it is said, showed the dead body
at a window to the populace. The window usually shown to visitors was
certainly not the spot of this exposure, as it was erected by Archbishop
Hamilton, the Cardinal’s successor.
Assassination is one of the most
dangerous weapons that a struggling cause can adopt; and the deed, however
convenient for themselves, was loudly blamed by the Protestant party. So
far from rising into favour with their partizans, as the conspirators had
hoped, they found themselves almost universally execrated. Thus Sir David
Lyndsay, no friend to the Cardinal, and a most undoubted and faithful
Protestant, expresses his feelings:—
"As for the Cardinal—I grant
He was the man we weel could want,
And we’ll forget him soon!
And yet I think, the sooth to say,
Although the loon is well away,
The deed was foully done."
The assassins had taken possession
of the Castle, which was well-provisioned, and expected that their
sympathisers would have flocked to support them, and that they would hold
this fort till Henry VIII. had sent troops to capture Scotland and end the
Roman Catholic Church. In both expectations they were disappointed. Henry
VIII., the indomitable champion of Protestantism, died on 28th January
1546-47, and on 30th March following, Francis I. of France, the hero of
Romanism, "also died," so that both parties were deprived of their
leaders. The Castilians, as they called themselves, found that even the
Governor Arran had been the friend of the Cardinal, and they even sent an
humble petition to him that he would apply to the Court at Rome for a Bull
of Absolution to clear them of their crime. Well they knew that the
message to Rome would occupy some time, and meanwhile the English troops
might arrive to aid them. This was duplicity, but it was not worse than
that of the Governor, who certainly sent a message to Rome, as requested,
but took up the interval before the answer was returned in frantic appeals
to Francis I. to send skilful bombardiers to besiege St Andrews Castle.
Evidently both parties were insincere. The Castilians, meanwhile, had
received no inconsiderable additions to their numbers, amongst them the
indomitable John Knox, who had written that he recorded the murder of the
Cardinal "merrily," and who was yet to become a ruthless leader in the
demolition of the Churches of Scotland.
The Governor Arran, who had returned
to the Ancient Faith, found that his animated entreaties to the Court of
France had been effectual. He had besieged the Castle for four months
without victory; but at length the French soldiers and the artillery of
Leon Strozzi reduced the Castle to such a ruinous condition that the
Castilians capitulated in August 1547. And it is recorded by Lindsay of
Pitscottie that, "the French captain entered and spoiled the Castle very
vigorously; wherein they found great store of vivers, clothes, armour,
silver, and plate, which, with the captives, they carried away in their
galleys. The Governor, by the advice of the Council, demolished the
Castle, lest it should be a receptacle of rebels." In the "Diurnal of
Occur-rents," it is stated that the captors " tuke the auld and young
Lairds of Grange, Normand Leslie, the Laird of Pitmilly (Monypenny), Wm.
Henry Balnevis, and John Knox, with mony utheris, to the number of sex
score persones, and carryit thame all away to France; and tuke the spulzie
of the said Castell, quhilk was worth 100,000 pundis and tuke doun the
hous." It was this incident which called forth the current verse of the
time :—
"Priests, content ye noo;
Priests, content ye noo;
For Norman and his companie
Ha’e filled the galleys fou!"
The French Commander, Leon Strozzi,
had instructions to convey his Scottish prisoners to Paris, and the King
there decided that many of the Castilians should be incarcerated in
prisons at the north of France, the ringleaders, including John Knox,
should be sent to the galleys and chained to the oars. The bold spirits
who had put the Army of the Regent to defiance, were now treated as
malefactors, whose crimes were only short of receiving the extreme penalty
of the law. John Knox was imprisoned at Paris in 1548, and released in the
following year. He went to Dieppe, Geneva, where he met Calvin, and
Frankfort-on-Maine, reaching Scotland in 1556, and resuming his position
as a leader of the Scottish Reformation. His death took place at Edinburgh
in 1571, when in his sixty-sixth year.
The successor of Cardinal Beaten as
Archbishop of St Andrews was John Hamilton, an illegitimate son of James
Douglas, first Earl of Arran, and was born in 1511, was Abbot of Paisley,
and afterwards Bishop of Dunkeld in 1546, and was translated to St Andrews
in 1547 as Archbishop. The first work which he undertook was the repairing
of the ruinous Castle, and in this reconstruction he was probably assisted
by the masons whom he had employed to complete the building of St Mary’s
College. When the Reformers had gained power in Scotland in 1559, Hamilton
had to abandon the Castle, and from that time he was a fugitive until he
was captured at Stirling in April 1571, accused of complicity in Darnley’s
murder, and hanged ignominiously.
The Castle came into the possession
of the Protestants under the Regent Moray, and was used as a political
prison by him and his successors as Regents, becoming, indeed, "the
Bastile of Scotland." Though thus used as a secular prison, it was still a
portion of the ecclesiastical property, and James VI. did not feel
justified in annexing it without some process of law. This was not
accomplished for many years, and the place had become partly ruinous from
the repeated attacks made upon it by successive factions of the Scottish
nobles. At length the King made a bargain with George Gledstanes,
Episcopal Archbishop of St Andrews, as the representative of the ancient
Prelates, and in July 1600 a charter gave the Castle to George, Earl of
Dunbar, one of the King’s favourites. This arrangement, however, did not
last long, for when Episcopacy was fully established in 1612, the Castle
was given back to Gledstanes, and the Earl compensated. The new
Archbishops did not inhabit the Castle, but used it as an occasional
prison, and the place soon became ruinous.
About 1650 the Castle passed into
the hands of the Town Council, who shortly afterwards laid violent hands
upon the masonry, and used it for repairing the Pier. There is thus little
left even of Hamilton’s restorations. One may fancy the shade of good old
Bishop Roger addressing his successor, the Cardinal, in such lines as
these of the old Scottish poet Robert Henryson :—
"Thy kingdom and thy great empire,
Thy royalty nor rich array,
Shall not endure at thy desire,
But as the wind will wend away.
Thy gold and all thy goodis gay
When Fortune list, will from thee fall;
Sen thou sic sampills seest each day,
Obey and thank thy God for all!"