St Mary’s Quad

St Mary’s Quad

In 1538, Archbishop James Beaton decided to create a new collegiate foundation – the College of St Mary, with the avowed aims of fighting heresy, encouraging divine worship, and offering prayers for the soul of James IV and his heirs. There were two occasions of crucial importance to Mary Queen of Scots which occurred when she was staying in St Andrews – she learned of the assassination of her favourite uncle, Francis Duke of Guise, in 1563. According to legend, it was in that year that she planted a hawthorn tree (now known as Queen Mary’s Hawthorn) in the Quadrangle at St Mary’s College, perhaps in memory of her late uncle. Secondly, she took the decision to marry for the second time when in St Andrews. In 1565, she set her sights upon Henry, Lord Darnley, a decision which would ultimately lead to her untimely downfall. It was when Mary was in childbirth with her son Prince James that she wrote her will, in which she wrote that her deluxe collection of Greek and Latin books were to be given to the University of St Andrews ‘to found a library’. Many of Mary’s books were ransacked after her forced abdication; however, the University finally obtained some books when her son, James VI, by then James I of England, donated them almost half a century later.

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