The Spell of Scotland

by Keith Clark

To-day there are three towers left of the five—Dr. Johnson hoped that one which looked unstable on the day of his visit, would "fall on some of the posterity of John Knox; and no great matter!" There are massive walls. There is no roof between us and the sky, which, after all, does shelter the true faith, and if one misses the chanting of the monks echoing through these arches, under this roofless space, there is the moan of the sea, sobbing at the foot of the crag, the sea which is of no faith and never keeps faith. And if one misses the scarlet robes of Cardinal Beaton as he swept through these aisles in splendid procession with all the gorgeous trappings of his retinue, there are mosses and wild flowers to give glows of colour—one must content himself. Those were evil days, whatever the faith; there was not much division in matters of conduct; there may have been in matters of morals.

ST. ANDREWS CASTLE.

The castle stands stalwart on the rock promontory washed by the ocean, and the ocean breaks angrily at its base like a creature robbed over long of its prey. It is not the castle in which the Cardinal lived, but it was built soon after, and wrecked so thoroughly, and looks so very ancient, that one would fain believe; and the guide will tell, unless you prevent him, that it was at these windows that the Cardinal sat at his ease and witnessed the entertainment of the auto da fe of the non-conformist, George Wishart, burned alive on March 28, 1542; about the time Philip the Second was burning heretics in the Old Plaza at Madrid, and a little before Queen Mary spouse to Philip, was burning them in England. And it was only two months later, May 29, when workmen were strengthening the castle at the orders of the Cardinal against this very thing that happened, that the reformers made their way in, killed the Cardinal, and hung him "by the tane arm and the tane foot," from the very balcony where he had sat to enjoy Wishart's burning. A very barbarous time. As Wishart had lain in the Bottle Dungeon months before his burning, so Beaton lay in the dungeon in salt, seven months before his burial.

John Knox joined the reformers, holding the town until it was taken by the French fleet—"defended their castle against Scotland, France, and Ireland all three"—surrendering to Strozzi, Prior of Capua, a Knight of Rhodes; so was the great world made small in those days by errant knights and captains and hired mercenaries. The French captain entered, "and spoiled the castle very rigorously," lest it should be "a receptacle for rebels." All this in the time of the Regency of Mary of Lorraine.

Knox was taken and sent to the galleys for a year. Then he returned, and was frequently in St. Andrews, preaching in the town kirk, founded, perhaps, by the confessor of Saint Margaret, preaching here some of his last sermons. "I saw him everie day of his doctrine go hulie and fear," wrote James Melville, "with a furrning of martriks about his neck, a staff in the an hand," and lifted up to the pulpit "whar he behovite to lean at his first entrie; bot or he had done with his sermont, he was so active and vigorus, that he lyk to ding that pulpit in blads and fly out of it." The pulpit held. And so did the doctrine of Knox.

The square tower of St. Regulus, a pre-Norman bit of architecture, perhaps Culdee, stands southeast of the cathedral. Dr. Johnson was indignant with Boswell that he missed it. This with the many other towers of church and college make St. Andrews a towered town.

There is an air, an atmosphere, in St. Andrews; it is an academic town, serene, certain of itself, quiet, with wide streets and gray stone buildings. It is full of dignity, full of repose, as a northern Oxford combined with a northern Canterbury should be. There is a spell of ancientry over the gray old walls, but it is unbroken ancientry; if there is a bar sinister, the present generation has forgotten it.

And, of course—oh, not of course, but primarily—there is golf. There is golf everywhere in Scotland. The golf ball and not the thistle is the symbol of Scotland to-day, and from the Tee at St. Andrews the Golf Ball has been driven round the world. James VI, careful Scot, recognized golf as an industry, and granted letters patent in 1618 for the manufacture of golf balls—the old leather, feather-stuffed sphere—to James Melville and William Berwick.

Edinburgh is ringed about with golf courses, public and private. So is Scotland. The Firth of Forth is continuous with them, from North Berwick where the fleeting traveler is as certain to see golf balls as he is to see the Bass, up to St. Andrews. The Links of Leith are the most historic, for it was on these that Charles I was playing when news came of the Irish rebellion—and all that it led to. And here, his son, later James II, played against two English noblemen who had declared they could beat him, and James, cannily—true Scot!—chose the best player in Scotland, one Paterson an Edinburgh cobbler—and gave him the wager, and doubled it, out of which Paterson built for himself Golfer's Land in the Canongate. The Links of the Forth are not a golf course, although there may be some who assert that they were once an ancient course, say, for King Arthur and his Knights.