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!”
[Illustration: ST ANDREWS CASTLE _Valentine & Sons, Ltd._]
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 _débris_ 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 inhabitants 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 vernal
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 Serf’s 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 mediæval 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 III. (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 Mearns
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 funds 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 heir-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.