Cardinal Bethune’s House.
The ground-floor of this extensive building is arched over with strong stone-work, after the fashion of those houses of defence of the same period which are still scattered over the country. Some years ago, when one of the arches was removed to make way for a common ceiling, a thick layer of sand, firmly beaten down, was found between the surface of the vault and the floor above. Ground-floors thus formed were applied in former times to inferior domestic uses, and to the storing of articles of value. The chief apartments for living in were on the floor above—that is, the so-called first floor. And such is the case in all the best houses of an old fashion in the city of St Andrews at this day.
I shall afterwards have something to say of an event of the year 1517, with which Archbishop Bethune’s house was connected. It appears to have been occupied by James V. in 1528, while he was deliberating on the propriety of calling a parliament.[194]
The Bethune palace is now, like its confrères, abandoned to the humblest class of tenants. Eighty years ago, however, it must still have been a tolerably good house, as it was then the residence of Bishop Abernethy Drummond, of the Scottish Episcopal communion, the husband of the heiress of Hawthornden. This worthy divine occupied some space in the public eye in his day, and was particularly active in obtaining the repeal of the penal statutes against his church. Some wag, figuring the surprise in high places at a stir arising from a quarter so obscure, penned this epigram:
‘Lord Sydney, to the privy-council summoned,
By testy majesty was questioned quick:
“Eh, eh! who, who’s this Abernethy Drummond,
And where, in Heaven’s name, is his bishopric?”’