Saint Andrews

Related Category: British and Irish Political Geography

town (1991 pop. 11,302), Fife, E Scotland, on the North Sea. A summer resort, it is famous for its golf courses. It was the seat of an archbishop from 908 and the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland until the Reformation. St. Andrews Cathedral, the largest in Scotland, but now a ruin, was founded in 1160 and plundered by Protestants in 1559. At St. Andrews the Protestant reformers Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart were burned. Protestants, among them John Knox, seized the bishop's palace (now also a ruin) in 1546 and held it for a year against siege by the French forces of Mary of Guise. The Univ. of St. Andrews, which dates from 1410, is the oldest in Scotland. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club is there.