"On the rocky shore, to the northward of the venerable city of St Andrews, stand the ruins of the ancient Episcopal palace, in other years the residence of the primates of Scotland. Those weatherbeaten remains, now pointed out to visitors by the ciceroni of the place, present only the fragments of an edifice erected by Archbishop Hamilton, the successor of Cardinal Beatoun, and are somewhat in the style of an antique Scottish manor-house; but very different was the aspect of that vast bastille which had the proud cardinal for lord, and contained within its massive walls all the appurtenances requisite for ecclesiastical tyranny, epicurean luxury, lordly grandeur, and military defence--at once a fortress, a monastery, an inquisition, and a palace. "The sea-mews and cormorants screaming among the wave-beaten rocks and bare walls now crumbling on that bleak promontory, and echoing only to drenching surf, as it rolls up the rough shelving shore, impart a peculiarly desolate effect to the grassy ruins, worn with the blasts of the German Ocean, gray with the storms of winter, and the damp mists of March and April--an effect that is greatly increased by the venerable aspect of the dark and old ecclesiastical city to the southward, decaying, deserted, isolated, and forgotten, with its magnificent cathedral, once one of the finest gothic structures in the world, but now, shattered by the hands of man and time, passing rapidly away. Of the grand spire which arose from the cross, and of its five lofty towers, little more than the foundations can now be traced, while a wilderness of ruins on every hand attest the departed splendours of St Andrews." George Wishart, the unhappy preacher, was burned before the Castle on the 28th March 1545, under circumstances of peculiar barbarity. We refer to the book for a proper description of the death-scene of the Martyr, whose sufferings were calmly witnessed by the ruthless and implacable Cardinal. But the avenger of blood was at hand, in the person of Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes. This young man, who was of a most fiery and intractable spirit, had some personal dispute with the cardinal, whom he accused of having attempted to defraud him of an estate. High words followed, and Norman rode off in wrath to the house of his uncle, John Leslie of Parkhill, a moody and determined Reformer, who had already vowed bloody vengeance for the execution of the unfortunate Wishart. Finding him apt for any enterprise, Norman instantly despatched messengers to the Kirkaldys of Grange, the Melvilles of Raith and Carnbee, and to Carmichael of Kilmadie, desiring them to meet for an enterprise of great weight and importance; and the summons having been responded to, these few men determined to rid the country of one whom they considered a murderer and an oppressor.