St Andrews Castle has a violent and grisly history!
The castle's "bottle dungeon" is a dank and airless pit cut out of solid rock below the north-west tower. It housed local miscreants who fell under the Bishop's jurisdiction as well as several more prominent individuals such as David Stuart, Duke of Rothesay in 1402, Duke Murdoch in 1425, and Archbishop Patrick Graham, who was judged to be insane and imprisoned in his own castle in 1478. (Too dark to film bottle dungeon!)

There has been a fortification of some sort on this site since the 12th century. The castle was built as a defensive residence by Bishop Rodger. It has 400 hundred years of violent history and was destroyed and rebuilt many times. Incorporated into the Fore Tower are the remains of the Gate Tower built in 1200. It fell to the English in 1296, during which improvements were made in preparation to receive England`s King Edward. The Scots retook the castle in 1314 and dismantled it as part of Robert the Bruce`s policy of slighting castles.

Bishop William Lamberton made repairs to the castle from 1315 to 1320. In 1330 the castle again fell to the English. In 1337 the castle was recaptured by Sir Andrew Moray, Regent of Scotland, in a siege that lasted three weeks. The Scots destroyed the castle so that it would be unusable therefore preventing it from falling into English hands.

It lay in ruins until the end of the 14th century when Bishop Walter Trail ordered the castle to be rebuilt. He died here in 1401. It became the residence of the most powerful church leaders in Scotland. James I received his education from Bishop Henry Wardlaw here. Bishop Wardlaw was the founder of Scotland`s first University in 1410.

In 1521 Archbishop James Beaton began refortification of St. Andrews to withstand artillery fire. In 1537, he named his nephew, David, his appointed successor. In 1538, David became Archbishop of St. Andrews and a Cardinal of the Church.

Patrick Hamilton learned the teachings of Martin Luther and studied in Paris before he returned to the University at St. Andrews to teach. A supporter of the new reformation views, the Archbishop of St. Andrews had him arrested for heresy. Found guilty he was asked to recant, refusing to do so he was sentenced to death. "On a cold, wintry day in February 1528, Patrick was burned at the stake outside St. Salvator`s Church. The difficulty of lighting the fire and the need to relight it several times prolonged the agony of his death for over six hours. It is said that the reek of Patrick Hamilton infected all on whom it blew, and, also, that an image of his face appeared miraculously on one of the stones on the clock tower as he died."

The Archbishop of St Andrews, Cardinal David Beaton (1494-1546), had the Protestant Preacher, George Wishart, taken to North Street in March 1546, where he was tied to a stake and burned alive. It is said Beaton watched this gruesome event from the comfort of the Bishop`s Castle. This made him many enemies.

It was not long after Preacher Wishart`s execution a group of Fife Lairds, who were Protestants, entered the castle dressed as workmen and found Beaton asleep in his bed (May 1546). His slain body was hung, naked, from the battlements of castle`s Tower House. "And so like a butcher he lived, and like a butcher he died, and lay seven months and more unburied, and at last like a carrion was buried in a dunghill." The rebels held the castle for about a year, during which time the Earl of Arran held siege on the castle inflicting extensive damage. The castle was bombarded by cannon fire. He had guns mounted on the towers of St. Andrews Cathedral and St. Salvator`s Church. He finally defeated the rebels, one of whom was John Knox, with the arrival of the French fleet adding more cannons to the artillery`s fire power.

Archbishop John Hamilton succeeded Cardinal Beaton. Again the task of rebuilding the castle had begun. Upon his release, Knox returned to Scotland more dedicated than ever to the Protestant cause. In 1559, his preaching during the Reformation roused the fanatics in the mob to the point where they ransacked both the castle and Cathedral, eventually destroying them both. The Act of Annexation turned the castle and it`s land over to the Crown in1587. It then fell to ruin and in 1654 it was dismantled supplying building material for the harbour walls.

A mine and countermine had been dug from inside the castles grounds. Rediscovered in the 1900`s during local construction, was a large chamber where a underground battle had taken place. Further excavation uncovered a countermine with several false starts, making these siege works the finest of its kind in Europe.
Today's visitors are able to make their way down the countermine and into the mine, though it's not somewhere for those with claustrophobia!

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