OS1/13/102/11

Continued entries/extra info

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Parish of St Andrews

The Castle
"This structure which answered the threefold purpose of an episcopal palace a fortress and a state prison was founded by Roger bishop of St Andrews in the year 1200 as a residence for himself and his successors by whom it is frequently called in official documents, nostrum palatium. It was often besieged taken and demolished or dismantled and as often repaired or rebuilt, during the various civil and foreign wars which prevailed from the time of its erection down to the revolution. The first time the castle of St Andrews was taken and garrisoned by the English was probably in July or August 1298 immediatelyafter the battle of Falkirk on which occasion we are told that Edward l "Wasted Andrews full plane" etc etc

"Thus have we seen this celebrated structure used for every variety of purpose and the theatre of nearly every variety of spectacle - a palace of bishops and a dungeon for the confinement of heretics, at one time a scene of hospitality revelry and mirth at another of stratagem and murder taken in succession by the English the French and the Scotch the birthplace of one King the assylum [asylum] of a second and the council chamber of two others, an object of contention among ambitious churchmen now besieged pillaged & demolished then rebuilt and fortified the dungeon alternately of the virtuous and the criminal the reformed and the unreformed; the place of one preacher's imprisonment and death and of anothers controversy and capture; a witness at once of the bravery of soldiers and the profligacy of assassins, a place of refuge for princes from their refractory barons and lastly [continued]

Transcriber's notes

Continuation of Description of Castle - main entry Page 9