Gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

32
ANDREWS. (ST.)
through Fife into Forfarshire. St. Andrews
is a town of vast antiquity. Its history is
mingled with the civil and ecclesiastical an-
nals of Scotland ; but especially the latter.
As a seat of learning and Christianity its age
surpasses that of any other existing town in
North Britain. From these peculiar qualifi-
cations, it demands, from the topographical his-
torian, more than the space usually allotted by
him to descriptions of cities of a greater mag-
nitude, as regards population and extent of
building. It is considered expedient to com-
mence with an outline of its rise and progress,
and its distinction as an archiepiscopal see.
The history of the origin of this venerable
city is dependant on the uncertain tr ditionary
records of ecclesiastical writers. 1 1 the total
absence of accredited annals, we are compelled
to resort to the suspicious legends of the Ro-
mish church. It is recorded by every writer,
that it originated in a miraculous event. Some
time after the martyrdom of the apostle St.
Andrew, which took place, A. D. 69, by
prefixion to a wooden cross, in the man-
ner usually represented, at Patrae, a city of
Achaia in Greece ; his remains were hon-
oured by being deposited in a shrine, and
placed under the care of a priest called Re-
gulus. It seems that in the year 370, the
Emperor Constantine contemplated the seiz-
ure of the sacred relics, to carry them to his
city of Constantinople. This was displeasing
to the divinity, who warned Regulus, by a
vision in the night, to go instantly to the
shrine, and after taking therefrom certain
portions of the apostle's body, that he should
carefully preserve and carry them with him,
into a far distant island in the western ocean.
Regulus accordingly arose, and took from
the shrine an arm bone, three of the fingers,
and three toes of the apostle. Putting these
relics in a box, he went to sea, taking with
him Damianus a presbyter, Gelasius and Cuba-
culus, two deacons, with eight hermits, and three
devout virgins. These persons were, it is
said, exposed to innumerable hardships and
dangers for two years, while they coasted
along the shores of the Mediterranean sea,
through the Straits of Gibraltar, around the
whole extent of the Spanish and French
coasts, and up the English Channel into the
German Ocean. At length, by a violent
storm, they were shipwrecked in the bay of
St. Andrews. Their vessel was dashed to
pieces, and it was w'th difficulty they saved
themselves and the valuable box under their
charge. The country was at this time cover-
ed with wood and infested with wild beasts,
particularly with boars. On this account this
part of it was called by the Picts, 31uck-ross
which signifies the peninsula of swine. Her-
gust the king of the Picts, was at the time re-
sident at Abernethy in Strathearn, but no
sooner did he hear of the arrival of the strang-
ers, than he went to see them. On being
ushered into the presence of the chief, Regu-
lus and his companions speedily impressed
him in their favour and actually accomplished
his conversion. To signalize his favour for
the holy men, and his conviction of the truth
of their mission, he caused a chapel to be built
for Regulus, which is still in existence and
bears his name. He subsequently changed
the name of the place from Muckross to Kil-
rymont, an appellation which it bore till about
the middle of the ninth century, and which is
understood to mean " the cell of the King's
mount." Regulus lived thirty-two years, en-
joying the beneficent patronage of the Pictish
sovereign, and spreading the knowledge of
Christianity in this part of the kingdom. In
popidar language he was called St. Rule, un-
der which designation he is to this day more
generally known than by any other, and from
this circumstance the Highlanders still call St.
Andrews, Kilrule, or the cell of Ride. He
was buried in the church of which he had
been so long incumbent. If the above ac-
count be correct, it will follow that Regulus
and his religious attendants were among the
very first persons who introduced Christianity
into Scotland, as it was not till about the year
560, that Columba arrived from Ireland, and
established his monastery at Iona. At this
period and for several centuries later, all the
religionists in Scotland were of the order of
the Culdees, who, though partaking of many
of the peculiarities of the Church of Rome,
did not belong to that communion. As soon
as Kenneth the King of Scots had destroyed
the Pictish sway, he transferred the seat of
royalty from Abernethy to this place, which
was by him first called St. Andrews, in com-
pliment to the relics of the apostle there de-
posited. At what precise epoch St. Andrew
was constituted the tutelar saint of Scotland,
is quite uncertain. According to tradition, it
was about the year 819, when a Pictish sover-