Foreseeing that they would be the objects of bitter attack, the conspirators, after they had done their bloody work, resolved to keep possession of the Castle of St. Andrews which they had so unexpectedly seized, and there they were speedily joined by at least one hundred and forty persons, numbering among them Kirkaldy of Grange, Melville of Raith, Balfour of Mount-quhany, and many gentlemen of Fife and the neighbouring { 9} counties. They put the castle into a state of defence, and were besieged by an army under command of the Regent Arran, against whom they held out, more perhaps from the incompetence of the besiegers than from the skill or strength of the besieged, until the end of January, 1547. At that date the siege was suspended under an agreement which stipulated that the Castle was still to remain in the hands of its defenders, on the conditions that they should hold it for the Regent and not deliver it to England; and that they should not be required to surrender it even to the Regent until he had obtained from Rome absolution for those who had been implicated in the murder of the cardinal. Upon his side the Regent agreed to withdraw his forces to the south of the Forth, and from the beginning of the year on till the following June the inmates of the Castle were permitted to go out and in at their pleasure, and to receive all that came to them.
Thus the Castle of St. Andrews became for the time a kind of sanctuary for all who were seeking relief or refuge from the oppression of the rulers in Church and State; and at the following Easter, which fell that year on the 10th of April, John Knox entered its gates under circumstances which he himself has thus described: "At the Pasch after, came to the Castle of St. Andrews John Knox, who, wearied of removing from place to place by reason of the persecution that came upon him by this Bishop of St. Andrews, was determined to have left Scotland and to have visited the schools of Germany { 10} (of England then he had no pleasure by reason that the Pope's name being suppressed, his laws and corruptions remained in full vigour). But because he had the care of some gentlemen's children, whom certain years he had nourished in godliness, their fathers solicited him to go to St. Andrews, that himself might have the benefit of the castle, and their children the benefit of his doctrine, and so (we say) came he the time foresaid, to the said place, and having in his company Francis Douglas of Longniddry, George his brother, and Alexander Cockburn, eldest son to the laird of Ormiston, began to exercise them after his accustomed manner."[2]