You can download this volume here - Electric Scotland

230 J.
Maitland Anderson
a confirmatory papal bull, the granting of this charter does
not appear to have been the initial step in the founding of
the University. It was more probably the immediate, or at
all events the early, result of the University's actual existence.
Such at least is the inference to be drawn from the oldest
extant account of the beginnings of the University. Walter
Bower, Abbot of Inchcolm, the continuator of Fordun's Scoti-
chronicon, who had excellent opportunities of knowing the exact
circumstances, makes no mention of a foundation charter at all
in the short chapter he devotes to the foundation of the University.
He is even silent as to who the founder was. All he
says is that in the year 1410, 'after the feast of Pentecost [May
n], a Studium Generate Universitatis began in the Andrew of Kylrymonth in Scotland, in the
city of St.
time of Henry of
Wardlaw, bishop, and of James Biset, prior,
of the said St.
Andrew.' l The charter was not issued till more than a year and
nine months later, viz. on February 28, 1412.
Subsequent documents show that four persons were closely
associated in the foundation of the University. These were the
King of Scotland, the Bishop of St. Andrews, the Prior of St.
Andrews, and the Archdeacon of St. Andrews. Others no doubt
lent their aid, but these are the men who are entitled to rank as
its chief promoters. All four were men of learning and culture,
to whom the founding of a university must have been a congenial
enterprise. In a former number of the Scottish Historical Review"*
I have dealt with the share taken by King James I. in the founding
of the University of St. Andrews, and there is no need to refer to
the facts of his life here. In the I
present paper therefore confine
myself to brief notices of the Bishop, the Prior, and the Archdeacon.
Bishop Wardlaw is usually described as the younger son of Sir
Andrew Wardkw of Torry, Fifeshire ; but this is not borne out
by the results of recent investigation. He was most probably a
younger son of Henry Wardlaw of Wilton, in Roxburghshire,
and grandson of Henry Wardlaw of Wilton, who, in the beginning
of the fourteenth century, married a niece of Walter, Lord High
Steward of Scotland. Early in the fifteenth century, the laird of
Wilton married the eldest daughter and heiress of Sir James de
1
ScoticAronicon, 1. xv. c. xxii.
2 Vol. iii. p. 301. As this and the former article cover part of the same ground,
it has not been possible to avoid a certain amount of repetition, but the one does
not altogether supersede the other.