Castles of the Scottish Northeast

Will history repeat itself?

Castles are sprinkled throughout the Scottish Northeast at a safe distance from each other based on the lands given to aristocrats by kings and queens. Most were built between 1100 and 1800, with defensible walls, long roads to the entrance, vast fields and gardens, and guard houses, much the way many of today’s wealthy folk enjoy large mansions surrounded by comfortable space, with greenery and gardens and walls and gates and security cameras. Most of Scotland’s historic castles are owned and maintained by the National Trust for Scotland, which usually offers tours of the castle interiors. Some castles, even while managed by the National Trust, contain off-limits portions that are still lived in by clan chiefs or other titled aristocrats traditionally associated with the estates. Some Scottish castles have been purchased as private residences.

We’ll talk about just a few of the castles we’ve visited on our trips. (See map of these locations.)

Dunnottar Castle

About twenty miles south of Aberdeen, near Stonehaven, is the formidable Dunnottar Castle, built on high cliffs overlooking the sea. This castle has figured in countless historical events becaused it was considered a key defensive strongpoint for Scotland. The first three letters of its name, Dun, suggest that the site was originally a Pictish fort. Recorded events there stretch back to the 5th century.

In the 13th century, William Wallace captured the castle by stealth and burned thousands of English soldiers in its chapel. In subsequent years, there were many visits by royalty. It figured heavily into religious battles between royalist Catholics and Protestant Covenanters, some of whom were captured and cast into a dungeon. During the invasion by Cromwell in the 1560s, Scotland’s crown jewels were stored at Dunnottar, smuggled in by Katherine Drummond, who hid them in sacks of wool. Similarly, when Cromwell blockaded the castle, the King’s papers were smuggled out by being sewn into the clothing of Anne Lindsay (a relative of the lady of the castle), who may also have carried out the crown jewels in sacks of various goods over the course of several visits. What we see of the castle today dates to the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, but most of it is in ruins, as the castle was abandoned after the Jacobite uprising of 1715 caused the Earl Marischal (title of the owner of Dunnottar Castle) to forfeit his lands and titles.

Apart from the wars and struggles, the positive impact of wealth is worth noting as well. The 16th century Earl renovated the castle to install comfortable quarters with sea views. He was the founder of Marischal College, now a part of the University of Aberdeen.

Dunnottar was apparently the model for Merida’s castle in the animated movie Brave.

Crathes Castle

Twenty miles northwest of Dunnottar is Crathes Castle, built in the 16th century by the Burnetts of Ley on land given them in 1323 by Robert the Bruce. The family originally built a wooden fortress in the middle of bog, a structure commonly called a crannog. Hundreds of these structures were used in Scotland and Ireland from Neolithic times all the way through the 17th century. Some were artificial islands surrounded by water, with additional defense provided by a secret pattern of steps just below water level that only those in the know could use to approach the dwelling. In singer Dougie Maclean’s Perthshire Amber Festival, a crannog was featured as the location of several concerts, though people could easily cross a walkway to get there instead of encountering an obstacle course!

The current grounds of Crathes Castle include over 500 acres of woodlands and fields, and an amazing four-acre walled garden that was especially well developed by the Burnetts who lived there in the 1920s.

In 2004, excavations at the castle found 10,000-year-old pits that were determined to have served as the world’s oldest known lunar calendar — twice as old as those found in Mesopotamia. Ancient history is never far away in Scotland, and the sophistication of structures found there often seems to call into question our presumptions about the arc of human history.

Craigievar Castle

Another twenty miles to the northwest is Craigievar Castle, completed in the 17th century by the Forbes family, who were friends of the Burnetts from Crathes castle. It contains several collections of artwork, and has a very familiar classic look because it was one of the castles that inspired Walt Disney’s trademark motif.

Like many castles, the exterior was coated in limewash, the most effective traditional coating over stone walls because it is porous and allows moisture to wick out of the castle, keeping the interior dry.

Huntly Castle

Yet another twenty miles to the northwest is where we visited Huntly Castle, just one of several castles that have been used by the Gordons of Huntly. Originally built in the 1100s by the Strathbogies, this castle was given to the Gordons by Robert the Bruce in 1314 because they remained loyal, while the Strathbogies changed sides just before the battle of Bannockburn.

The Gordons became enormously powerful, wealthy, and politically well connected, to the point that in 1556, when the mother of Mary Queen of Scots enjoyed unprecedentedly lavish hospitality at the hands of George Gordon the 4th Earl of Huntly, her advisor suggested she “clip the wings” of the arrogant “Cock of the North,” as the Earl was called. Six years later, Huntly was defeated in battle with the Queen, and his castle stripped of its provisions, including some 45 tapestries, which were sent to the Queen.

The castle was partially demolished by order of James VI in the 1590s, but then restored by the next Gordon, the first Marquesse (a step above an earl, but one step below a duke) of Huntly. You can see his name, George Gordon, and his wife’s name, Henriette Stewart, set in stone on the front of the castle, as shown below. (He was also the 2d Duke of Gordon; many nobles had multiple titles, just to keep us on our toes!)

Much trouble came to the Gordons because they were prominent Catholics, at one point even the leader of the Catholics in Scotland, in the face of the Protestant Reformation. In 1640, the castle was occupied by Protestant covenanters who hacked off all the Catholic emblems in the frontispiece of the entryway, as you can see below at right.

Below is a shot showing the height of the ruined castle, a guard room, some of the beautiful greenery out back, and a window in a roofless, nearly wall-less room on the top floor, dubbed by the explanatory plaque “A Room with a View.”

Glamis Castle

I’ll finish by mentioning a visit we made a few weeks ago to Glamis Castle (pronounced Gloms), made famous as the place where Shakespeare’s Macbeth murdered King Duncan and began his streak of epic fortune and decay. The castle was actually built about 300 years after the real King Macbeth, who was not in fact the disastrous monarch artistically portrayed by Shakespeare. But Glamis Castle doesn’t mind all the free publicity! And in the woodland nearby is a series of beautiful wooden sculptures depicting key moments from Shakespeare’s play. The castle is about 40 miles southwest of Dunnottar Castle, near Forfar, in Angus.

Castles as Patrons of the Arts

One of the hallmarks of many of these castles is the use of money to support the creation of amazing quantities of artwork, tapestry, and grand architecture — not to mention music. At a time when European aristocrats patronized musicians such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, many of Scotland’s aristocrats patronized traditional Scottish musicians. For example, the Duke of Atholl supported fiddler and composer Niel Gow and his musical family, and the Duke of Gordon sponsored the multi-talented butler, fiddler, composer, gardener and inventor, William Marshall (about 200 years after the older Huntly Castle mentioned above was surrendered and abandoned to ruination). We’ll discuss Marshall a bit more in an upcoming article.

And as Scenes of Violence

One recurring historical theme among some, but not all, castles, is periodic violence, which of course attracts everyone’s attention because of the intense drama involved, and often, the historic consequences. We mentioned above some such events at Dunnottar and Huntly castles, and came across a few more at Glamis Castle, though not the ones invented by Shakespeare.

The oldest room of Glamis Castle was used as the entryway. Built in the 1400s of arching stonework dimly lit, it struck me as one step better than a cave! Along the walls were many artifacts such as armor and weapons. At one spot is a doorway that was filled in at some point by stonemasons. It is said that if you listen closely at that wall, you can still hear the cursed 15th-century Earl of Crawford playing cards with the Devil.

Timeless Cruelty (Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?)

Another ghost reportedly seen often in Glamis Castle is a wandering woman with no tongue. Perhaps this relates to the one instrument of torture still hanging on the wall of the cave room. It was called the “scold’s bridle.” This collar could be tightened in the back with a screw while a metal paddle was fitted in the mouth to lock down the victim’s tongue. It was used to punish women who were regarded as gossips, or too loud, or as witches, or who needed to be “kept in their place.” Clearly, the victim couldn’t talk as long as she had the “bridle” on, but I also wonder how well she could swallow or whether she could eat. (I suspect many magaminions would love to see this gadget brought back into fashion.)

The ghost of a 16th-century Lady Glamis named Janet Douglas is said to haunt a particular chair at the end of the back row of the chapel at the castle. This chapel is filled with amazing Italian paintings and well worth a visit. Janet Douglas was married to John Lyon, the 6th Lord Glamis, with whose family King James V had a longstanding grievance. When John died, the king hoped to take over the castle by accusing Janet Douglas of having murdered her husband. She was found innocent at trial. Not satisfied by the legal process, the king later concocted the scheme of torturing her family and staff until one of them “revealed” evidence that Janet was a witch. She was then “tried” and burned at the stake. During one castle tour, when this story was explained to a large group of visitors, the guide pointed out the particular chair in the back where the ghost of Janet Douglas was often spotted. An American woman happened to be sitting in that seat. After hearing the story, she rose, a bit shaken, and said, “My name is Janet Douglas.”

Unfortunately, cruelty is timeless. Many of the terrible stories we heard at these castles seem ancient and medieval, but today they continue to resonate. The longstanding grievances against the family of Lord Glamis, the failed murder trial of Janet Douglas, and the concocted witch trial, all sound a lot like the aggrieved claims and yearnings for vengeance that we’ve heard relentlessly for years from Donald Trump, and soon, he will have the power to bring medieval times to life.

Scotland has come through a great deal of suffering, and yet it has ended up contributing so much to the world (see How the Scots Invented the Modern World) and its people are well educated, rational, uncynical, and they even get my jokes!