Huntly Castle | |
---|---|
Huntly, Aberdeenshire | |
Coordinates | 57°27′18″N 2°46′52″W / 57.45488°N 2.78117°W |
Type | L-plan tower house |
Site information | |
Controlled by | Strathbogie family (1100-1314) Clan Gordon (1314- ) |
Site history | |
Built | 12th century |
Built by | Duncan II, Earl of Fife |
Huntly Castle is a ruined castle north of Huntly in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where the rivers Deveron and Bogie meet.[1] It was the ancestral home of the chief of Clan Gordon, Earl of Huntly. There have been four castles built on the site that have been referred to as Huntly Castle, Strathbogie Castle or Peel of Strathbogie.[1][2]
Location
Huntly Castle was built on the crossing of the rivers Deveron and Bogie, north of Huntly and roughly 40 miles from Aberdeen. The original wooden castle was built on a motte. The second castle, made of stone, was built on the northern end of the bailey. The third and modern castles were built to the east of the original, on the southern end of the estate.[2]
History
The castle was originally built by Duncan II, Earl of Fife, on the Strathbogie estate sometime around 1180 and 1190.[2][1] The castle became known as the Peel of Strathbogie.[3]
The Earl Duncan's third son, David, inherited the Strathbogie estate and later, through marriage, became earls of Atholl around 1204.[1] During the Strathbogie family's time at the estate, Robert the Bruce was guest after falling ill at Inverurie. The family was loyal to him and when he got better, Robert the Bruce went on the win the battle at Bannockburn.[3] However, around 1314, David of Strathbogie shifted his support to the English right before Robert the Bruce won the battle at Bannockburn. Robert the Bruce saw this as treachery and granted the castle and estate to Sir Adam Gordon of Huntly because he was consistently loyal. In 1506, the castle was officially renamed Huntly Castle.[2]
Although the castle was burned to the ground, a grander castle was built in its place. In 1496, the pretender to the English throne, Perkin Warbeck, was married to Lady Catherine Gordon the daughter of George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly, witnessed by King James IV of Scotland at Edinburgh. James IV came to Huntly in October 1501 and gave gifts of money to the stonemasons working on the castle. In October 1503, James IV came again and played in a shooting contest at a target called a "prop".[4] He came back again in the following October, on his way south, accompanied by four Italian minstrels and an African drummer known as the "More taubroner".[5] James IV played cards at the castle on 10 October 1505 and gave a tip to masons working on the building. These visits were part of his annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Duthac at Tain.[6]
William Mackintosh was executed on 23 August 1550 at "Castle Strathbogie".[7]
Architecturally the L plan castle consists of a well-preserved five-story tower with an adjoining great hall and supporting buildings. Areas of the original ornate facade and interior stonework remain.
Wings were added to the castle in the 16th and 17th centuries. The English diplomat Thomas Randolph stayed two nights in September 1562, and wrote that the castle was "fayer, beste furnishede of anye howse that I have seen in thys countrie."[8] Mary, Queen of Scots decided to take the castle, giving as a cause that the Earl withheld from her a royal cannon lent to him by Regent Arran. She sent her half-brother John Stewart, Commendator of Coldingham to arrest the George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly at Huntly Castle in October 1562. On the day William Kirkcaldy of Grange and the Tutor of Pitcur arrived first and surrounded the house. While Kirkcaldy was talking to the castle porter, the castle watchman on the tower spotted Coldingham and the Master of Lindsay and their troops a mile off. He alerted the Earl, who ran without "boot or sword" and hopped over a low wall at the back of the castle and found a horse before Pitcur could stop him. Elizabeth Keith, Countess of Huntly then welcomed the queen's men in and gave them a meal and showed them around the place. She still had her chapel furnished for Roman Catholic worship.[9]
George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly died after the Battle of Corrichie on 28 October 1562, and the castle was garrisoned for Mary, Queen of Scots by Charles Crawfurd and twenty soldiers. Furnishings including beds and 45 tapestries were carted to Aberdeen and shipped in barrels to Edinburgh for the royal collection and refurbishment by Servais de Condé.[10] In July 1570 the exiled Earl of Westmorland found a refuge at Huntly.[11]
A fatal football match
An eyewitness description of the death of George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly in 1576, compiled by Richard Bannatyne gives some details of how the castle was used. The Earl suffered a stroke, or a collapse caused by food-poisoning, while playing football outside the Castle on the Green. He was taken through the outer-gate to his bedchamber in the round tower of the palace block, which was then called the "New Warke of Strathbogie." The Earl's bedchamber was adjacent to his "Grit Chalmer", the Great Chamber. After the Earl died, his body was laid out in the "Chamber of Dais", another name for the Great Chamber, and his valuables were secured in the bedchamber. After the Earl's steward left the Castle a number of alleged supernatural events occurred beginning with the sudden collapse of one of the servants in the "Laich Chalmer", Low Chamber. This "Laich Chalmer" was in another part of the castle, under a stair opposite the "Auld Hall." On the following day a servant went up to the Gallery at the top of the "New Warke" where spices (which were precious) were stored. This servant and two companions also collapsed and when revived complained of feeling cold. After the Earl's body was embalmed and taken to the chapel, his brother sat on a bench in the Hall by the Great Chamber door, and heard unexplained sounds from the chamber. It was said that "there is not a live thing bigger than a mouse may enter in that chamber with the door locked."[12]
James VI slights the castle
In March 1584 an English recusant Catholic Sir Thomas Gerard of Bryn was sent by Lady Ferniehirst to find refuge at Huntly.[13] George Gordon, 6th Earl of Huntly was a Catholic and James VI decided to subdue his power in the north. The king arrived at Huntly on 26 April 1589 after spending a night at Kintore. The Earl of Huntly had fled to the mountains, stripping the countryside and emptying the house of furniture. James brought 100 workmen to demolish the castle. Huntly sent the king an offer to spare the house and surrendered.[14] In May 1593 the Earl captured a man called Pedder in the lands of Atholl. Pedder was hanged and dismembered and his body parts displayed on poles at Huntly.[15]
In July 1594 Huntly was overseeing the building of a new hall and gallery.[16] Following the battle of Glenlivet, James VI came with workman again and his master of works William Schaw, and planned to blow up the "gret old tower" which had been "fourteen years in building" on 29 October 1594.[17] David Foulis wrote to Anthony Bacon that Henrietta Stewart, Countess of Huntly, watched the demolition and was not allowed to have an audience with the king to plead her case.[18] The kirk minister Andrew Melville was with the king and a vocal advocate for demolition.[19] Aberdeen town council bought twenty stones in weight of gunpowder for the demolition of Huntly, and sent the stonemason John Fraser and other workmen to the demolition work at Huntly and Old Slains Castle, equipped with new shovels.[20]
The king made his friend Sir John Gordon of Pitlurg the keeper of Huntly.[21] It was decided not to completely demolish Huntly and Slains Castle and other houses, but preserve them for the convenience of the royal garrisons. It was also said that the pleas of the Countesses of Huntly and Erroll to save the houses were successful.[22]
Restored for a Marquess
References
- ^ a b c d "History". www.historicenvironment.scot. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
- ^ a b c d "Huntly Castle Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland". www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
- ^ a b "Huntly Castle". aboutaberdeen.com. Retrieved 2021-02-12.
- ^ James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1900), pp. xlix-l, 124, 401, for "prop" see 'Prop', Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue
- ^ James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland: 1500-1504, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1900), pp. 462-4.
- ^ Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland: 1506-1507, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 165, 168.
- ^ James Balfour, Annals: The Historical Works of James Balfour, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1824), p. 297.
- ^ CSP. Foreign, Elizabeth, vol. 5 (London, 1867), nos. 648, 688, 718, 823: CSP. Scotland, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 652.
- ^ Joseph Bain, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1898), pp. 654-5, 657-8.
- ^ Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), p. 214, 217: Michael Pearce, Michael Pearce, '"Beds of 'Chapel" form in sixteenth-century Scottish inventories: the worst sort of beds', Regional Furniture, vol. 27 (2013), pp. 78-91
- ^ William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1903), p. 274.
- ^ Pitcairn, Robert ed., Bannatyne's Memorials of the Transactions in Scotland (1834), 334-5: McKean, Charles, The Scottish Chateau (Sutton, 2001), 109.
- ^ William Boyd, Calendar of State Papers Scotland: 1584-1585, vol. 7 (Edinburgh, 1913), p. 36.
- ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 51-2.
- ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 91.
- ^ Annie I. Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 375.
- ^ Annie Cameron,Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 470: David Masson, Register of the Privy Council, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1882), pp. 185-6.
- ^ Thomas Birch, Memoirs of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 1 (London, 1754), p. 192.
- ^ Robert Pitcairn, Autobiography and diary of James Melville (Edinburgh, 1842), pp. 314, 319.
- ^ Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. 5 (Aberdeen, 1852), pp. 61-2
- ^ Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. 1 (Aberdeen, 1841), p. 9.
- ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 471 no. 398.
- ^ Calendar of State Papers Scotland, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), p. 512 no. 412.
- ^ Charles McKean, Scottish Chateau (Stroud, 2001), pp. 216-7.
- ^ John Duncan Mackie, Calendar State Papers Scotland, 13:2 (Edinburgh, 1969), p. 1106 no. 897.
- ^ Michael Pearce, '"Beds of 'Chapel" form in sixteenth-century Scottish inventories: the worst sort of beds', Regional Furniture, vol. 27 (2013), pp. 84-5: Michael Pearce, Whispers from An Age Gone By', Historic Scotland Magazine, (Winter 2016), pp. 16-18: Maria Hayward, Stuart Style (Yale, 2020), p.p. 244-5.
- ^ Historic Environment Scotland. "Huntly Castle (SM90165)". Retrieved 27 February 2019.
- ^ "1987 Pure Strength Contest". strongestman.billhenderson.org.
External links
- Historic Environment Scotland: Visitor guide
- More photographs of Huntly Castle
- Take a 360 Virtual Tour of Huntly Castle Grounds
- Engraving of Huntly Castle by James Fittler in the digitised copy of Scotia Depicta, or the antiquities, castles, public buildings, noblemen and gentlemen's seats, cities, towns and picturesque scenery of Scotland, 1804 at National Library of Scotland
- Video images and narration - Huntly Castle & Huntly Lodge