St Andrews Castle - St Andrews, Fife, Scotland (HS)
The bishops castle of St Andrews was a place, a workplace, a prison and a fortress. The first castle was destroyed during the Wars of Independence and what is seen today, dates mainly from 1400 to 1560.
Medieval church leaders were powerful ‘princes’ who owned large tracts of land and wielded political influence. They employed hundreds of people from stonemasons to musicians, tailors to sailors. In 1452, Bishop Kennedy was granted a charter by James II to mint coins.
The castle was at the forefront of the Reformation movement. The Protestant reformer, George Wishart, was burnt at the stake following which, on 29th May 1546 his captor, Cardinal David Beaton, archbishop of St Andrews, was murdered by a group of local gentlemen who had taken the castle by force. Following Beaton’s death, the Earl of Arran, Regent of Scotland, besieged the caste but was inclined to do very little at first because his son was inside. In November 1546 it was reported to the French Ambassador in London that Arran was trying to break into the castle by digging a mine; the aim was to tunnel beneath the gate tower and cause the walls to collapse. The defenders, who supported religious reform, dug a countermine, hoping to intercept the Regent's and render it useless. The counter-miners were guided solely by the sound of digging, and started on three false trails before finally intercepting the mine.
The successful counter-mine was started on the outside of the main walls of the castle, a reminder that outer defences once existed. The defenders had very little time to spare, and desperation can be seen in the narrow, twisting nature of their tunnel as compared with the spacious and straight gallery of Arran's mine. The castle fell in July 1547 after a massive artillery bombardment by a French fleet under the prior of Capua, with additional firing from St Salvator's College and the cathedral priory. John Knox, the future Protestant leader, who had joined those in the castle in April, preached in the castle during the siege but was captured and condemned to years as a galley slave when the fortress was finally destroyed.
The five angle towers served many functions within the caste. They provided
accommodation for those inside, and formed projected vantage points from which
defenders could fire down on any attackers approaching the walls.
The Sea Tower at the north-west angle contained the notorious bottle dungeon in its basement; particularly hopeless prisoners might have been held within this dark, airless pit cut out of the rock. The vaulted ground floor chamber was probably also a prison, as an angles hole has been cut through the wall next to the door; probably used to deliver food to the prisoner within. It is a possibility that the protestant, George Wishart was held in this chamber before being burned for heresy in 1546. Despite this, the upper floors contained at least one comfortable chamber for favoured members of the bishop's household or for important guests; this room contained a fireplace, a latrine suspended out over the sea, a stair to the upper floor, and probably a fine view!
By the later middle ages the bishops lived in considerable luxury in buildings around the perimeter of the courtyard. Today, little survives of these buildings, as with the Reformation came the destruction of St Andrews Castle, once the largest in Scotland.
How to get to St Andrews Castle