James IV of Scotland (the Stirling Head on the left) became king when his father, James III, was killed at the Battle of Sauchieburn (by his own nobles) in 1488. At that time James IV was only 15 and the rebels who did away with his father planned to put him on the throne – with James IV’s agreement. The family relationships could only be described as strained. Our boy was a Renaissance Prince who spoke not only Scots and Gaelic but eight other languages. He’d been engaged to Cecily of York before the death of Edward IV. The proposed union was one of the factors that led to James III’s murder. It meant that when Henry Tudor approached the subject of a union with his own eldest daughter, Margaret Tudor (Stirling head far right), that James IV, was somewhat reticent in the first instant.
Eventually, after the difficulties arising from James’ support of Perkin Warbeck, Margaret’s youth, Lady Margaret Beaufort’s concerns about the Scottish king’s reputation with the ladies and problems over the size of Margaret’s dowry, Scottish envoys – headed by the Archbishop of Glasgow- finally arrived in England at the end of 1501 where they celebrated Christmas before signing the Treaty of Perpetual Peace on 24 January 1502. Margaret’s official betrothal to James took place the following day with Patrick Hepburn, 1st Earl of Bothwell acting as the king’s proxy.
On 27 June 1503, Margaret departed from Richmond Palace for her grandmother’s home at Collyweston near Stamford. From there she travelled north in the care of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and his wife Agnes. The newly weds met for the first time at Dalkeith before Margaret made her entry to Edinburgh and her new home at Holyrood. James, who was quite frankly a bit of a charmer, wooed his new wife and showed her every consideration. He understood the importance of romance but recognised also the necessity of courting his wife until she was of an age to bear his heir. After their wedding, he gifted his new bride with Kilmarnock and cut off his beard which Margaret did not much like. From Holyrood Margaret travelled to Linlithgow and Stirling.
Stirling had been James IV’s childhood home and it was he who turned the castle into a Renaissance palace. Margaret discovered now, if she hadn’t known before, that her husband’s illegitimate daughter, Margaret Stewart was housed in the royal nursery at Stirling along with her numerous half-siblings. The queen did not react well. Margaret Stewart was sent off to Edinburgh Castle with her household. Alexander Stewart, whose mother was Marion Boyd, would be sent off on a European tour to complete his education in preparation for his life in the Church. he was made Archbishop of St Andrews when he was 11-years-old. The boy would be tutored by Erasmus at Padua.
Margaret celebrated her fourteenth birthday at Linlithgow. By then the household of ladies that she had known since childhood had been largely dismissed and returned to England. The entertainments were lavish and her husband attentive but it would be more than two years until Margaret became a mother. By then James’ brother and heir, the Duke of Ross (also named James), was dead. Margaret’s son, James (quelle surprise) was born on 21 February 1507. Margaret had fulfilled her duty as a queen in providing her husband with an heir but her happiness was cut short when the baby died the following year at Stirling. She would go on to provide her husband with a daughter who died soon after her birth the same year. After that Margaret became pregnant almost every year during her marriage to James. James IV’s eventual heir, another James, was born in 1512 (Stirling Head in the middle)
Important treaties between countries were usually sealed with a marriage between the two parties. The subsequent children of the union were thought to strengthen the bond between nations. Marriage was a political transaction forging ties that would endure between nations.
Having randomly looked at Henry VII’s foreign policy with Scotland last week I thought that it would be sensible to consider why Henry’s policies in regard to his neighbours and Europe were established rather than doing what English kings did – i.e. going to war with the French and the Scottish at the first opportunity to win land, glory, possibly a pension from a foreign monarch who wanted you to go away, and to prove that God was smiling on you – oh yes, and to keep your nobility happy because they were bagging lots of loot and ransoms.
Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne which came from his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, was tenuous. God, or possibly the Stanley family, smile upon him at Bosworth on 22 August 1485 when he became king by right of arms – the last of England’s kings to do so. Early modern people regarded the victory as evidence that Henry’s claim to the throne had divine approval. However, kings had come and gone throughout the fifteenth century in a series of increasingly bloody encounters so Henry, his mother and their advisors needed to strengthen Henry’s position on his new throne if there was to be a Tudor dynasty. Setting aside Shakespeare’s assessment of Henry’s reign, the first exploration of his policies was made by Francis Bacon in 1622. Most famous in the twentieth century for their analysis of Henry’s rule were GR Elton and SB Chrimes.
He dated his reign from the day before the battle. This was standard procedure and meant that anyone who didn’t sue for pardon who fought for the Yorkists could be attainted of treason and executed or imprisoned. It also meant that those nobility who were pardoned were required to be on their best behaviour.
He secured the remaining royal members of the house of York. The 15 year old Earl of Warwick, son of George Duke ofClarence, was at Sheriff Hutton when Henry became king. He was moved to London where he spent a short time in Margaret Beaufort’s custodianship before being shifted to the Tower where he remained for the rest of his life. Margaret was assigned various other noble wards including the young Duke of Buckingham (who had his own claim to the throne). These wards could be educated under Margaret’s watchful eye, she had the right to organise their weddings into families known to be loyal to the Tudors and even better she retained control over their lands until they achieved their majorities.
Hey married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV, as he had promised (on Christmas Day 1483 at Rennes Cathedral) before he invaded England but he was careful to ensure that he was the rightful king rather than ruling by right of his wife. For many people, it was Elizabeth as the eldest surviving child of Edward IV who was the rightful monarch. And it also raises the question that if Elizabeth was legitimate once more, then so were her missing brothers, presumed dead in the Tower. One of the consequences of Henry’s need to look as though he was king in his own right was that Elizabeth was not crowned until 25 November 1487
He and his new bride produced an heir in short order. Prince Arthur was born on 19 September 1486 – suggesting that his parents may have preempted the marriage ceremony, which also makes sense because as king Henry needed an heir to succeed him to a) demonstrate that God was still smiling on him, b) a male heir reduced the likelihood of further rebellion because it provided stability of succession.
Henry and his advisors developed a mythology about the Tudor claim to the throne that pre-dated the Plantagenets and legitimised his rule still further. The unification of the red rose of Lancaster and white rose of York was only one element of the way the Tudors spun their claim to the throne. Later Tudors continued the policy e.g. Shakespeare’s Richard III.
He rewarded his supporters, married off the female members of the Plantagenet family into safe hands so that they wouldn’t become focal points for later rebellion or packed them off into nunneries.
He established the Yeomen of the Guard – a 200 strong force to look after him and his family.
He had to deal with Yorkist plots – there were sponsored by foreign powers including Margaret of Burgundy. Henry’s foreign policy always had to come back to potential Yorkist threats which he needed to nullify through diplomacy rather than war (the royal piggy bank was empty).
He wanted established European royal families to recognise the Tudors as monarchs – so he was very keen on marriage alliances and also on doing things that defined him as a renaissance king…just like his neighbours.
He needed to fill the treasury. Foreign wars cost money – all those troops and equipment had to be paid for so Henry and his advisor’s used diplomacy to avoid war. He also tightened the way the realm was administered to ensure that he received everything that he was due. Depending on which Historian you read the use of Tudor administrators to ensure the taxes were collected was a new development but revisionist historians, point out that Edward IV established a very similar system and that Henry developed it to ensure that regional nobility was bypassed for a more centralised approach to government. It would have to be said that Henry VII had a strong grasp of his accounts and inspected them regularly.
He needed to ensure that so-called ‘over mighty subjects’ were put in their place and unable to go to war against him. It was another reason he didn’t want any foreign wars. Henry did not have a standing army, he was reliant on his nobles putting forces in the field but while the system of ‘bastard feudalism’ survived in which it was the nobles who offered regional patronage and reward and could call on armed forces – his own stability on the throne was a bit wobbly…so no wars if it could be helped.
No war also meant that although there were seven parliaments during the course of Henry’s reign he didn’t need to call on them to provide subsidies for war – which meant that parliament didn’t have that much leverage over the king.
The need for security, the appointment of men he could trust on his council- not to mention the delights of the Court of the Star Chamber- another cunning wheeze to keep the nobility in check- meant that Henry kept his crown for 24 years until his death in 1509. The policies did not prevent Yorkist plots or make him very popular with anyone but he ensured stability within his kingdom, promoted the economy and filled his treasury. When he died, largely unlamented, he left an heir who succeeded him with very little blood being shed – Empson and Dudley, Henry VII’s tax collectors were executed to show that a new reign had begun and that the repressive elements of the first Tudor’s rule were a thing of the past.
Henry VIII was tall, handsome and not quite 18…and what is a king to do with a full treasury to show that God is indeed smiling upon him…of course…start a war!
Those of you who know me, also know that I have a bit of a thing about 1745 and the Jacobite march to Derby – not to mention all those blue plaques announcing where the Stewart prince reseted his head. One of my heroes, it certainly isn’t the prince, is Lord George Murray. George was the sixth son of the 1st Duke of Atholl. He had taken the oath of allegiance to George II in 1739 having been pardoned for his part in the 1715 rising. When the prince arrived in Perth, Murray joined the prince. It wasn’t anything new. The Murray family and the earls of Atholl had been loyal to the Stewart cause throughout the seventeenth century. And let’s face it, after the deposition of James VII/II it was impossible to be loyal to two monarch, so there was some strategic ill health and geographical shenanigans to ensure that everyone- with a crown on their head- was as happy as possible. Even so, the 1st Duke, was careful to maintain his loyalty to the Hanoverians.
The eldest son of the duke had been killed at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. The new heir, William, Marquess of Tullibardine, was attained for his part in the 1715 Jacobite rising, took part in the 1719 rising and spent the next 25 years in exile. He would be one of the seven men who accompanied Bonnie Prince Charlie back to Scotland in 1745. By then he had lived a life of poverty and ill health. He was captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden and died in the Tower of London.
The third son of the duke, James, inherited his brother’s title after William was attainted and would eventually become the duke. He was with the Duke of Cumberland’s army when it arrived in Edinburgh at the beginning of 1746. He ordered his tenants to join the Hanoverian colours. When he died he was succeed by his nephew, John, the son of Lord George Murray – brother number 6. Charles Murray was also a Jacobite and there had been another George who died during his first year.
Like many Scots, Lord George Murray had been well educated before joining the army in the Low Countries. Given that the Wars of the Spanish Succession were underway there was no need for him to become a mercenary despite his chosen career as a professional soldier. The duke had avoided taking part in the 1715 rising and his heir also fought on behalf of the Hanoverians (the family knew how to balance on a political tightrope). But Murray joined the Jacobite cause along with two other brothers having spent time in London – all three strictly forbidden in writing from joining the Stewart cause. After the rising he did not return to Scotland until 1739. His brother, Tullibardine, remained at the side of the Old Pretender.
When Bonnie Prince Charlie arrived in Scotland in 1745, Murray joined with his former cause, and with his brother, once again. He became one of the army’s key commanders and is held responsible for the victory at Prestonpans against John Cope in September. It was George who planned the route from Scotland through Carlisle and the North-West of England despite the fact that he did not agree with the prince’s plan to invade England. And it was George who advised that the army should retreat from Derby recognising that there was little support for the Stuart cause in England – something that Charles never forgave him, even though he defeated an army at Falkirk in January 1746 and had protected the rearguard of the Jacobite column during the retreat from Derby back to Scotland. The prince had not wholly trusted him from the start of the campaign and blamed his losses on Murray.
He was opposed to the battle that took place at Culloden, recognising that it was poorly located. He commanded the right wing during the battle. The day afterwards he resigned from the army, wrote to Charles and after going into hiding went into exile. He never came home again. He was presented to James VIII/III in March 1747 in Rome and granted a pension. His wife, Amelia, joined him. When his brother, the Duke of Atholl died in 1764, despite the attainder against George, his son was allowed to inherit the dukedom.
And that leads us to the castle. And as you might expect in a family divided in its loyalties the fate of the castle was not a straight forward one. Duke James left the castle to join with the Hanoverians. William, who should have been the duke but wasn’t because he’d been attainted, arrived with Bonnie Prince Charlie (much awkwardness all around) but after what in modern parlance can only be described as a photo opportunity they all left and the various tenants of the duke breathed a huge sigh of relief. So far so good.
Now jump to 1746. The castle is garrisoned by Hanoverians – well it would be. The official duke was loyal to the government. On 16 March 1746 Lord George Murray turned up and besieged his childhood home., He wrote to his elder brother, William, the Jacobite duke, apologising about the fact that he intended to blow it to smithereens and destroy all the family portraits – to which William replied that despite the loss of the pictures he, being loyal to the Stuart cause, was not concerned. The garrison held out until 2 April when George was forced to withdraw, leaving the family portraits in tact and some lead from various forms of artillery in the roof timbers. Inevitably the prince wa snot pleased that George had not secured his old family home. On 16th April the Jacobites lost the Battle of Culloden.
George spent the next 8 months on the run before turning up in Europe. The Old Pretender welcomed him but the Bonnie Prince avoided the man he blamed for the failure of the rising. The prince’s viewpoint was somewhat in disagreement with Murray’s aide de camp – James the Chevalier de Johnstone who wrote:
Had Prince Charles slept during the whole of the expedition, and allowed Lord George to act for him, there is every reason for supposing he would have found the crown of Great Britain on his head when he awoke.
Murray was joined by his wife while his own eldest son, John , was raised by his brother, Duke James. The duke repaired the castle but made it less likely to be used defensively – new windows made it less of a fort and more of a manor house. John Murray married his cousin Charlotte reuniting the family split by civil conflict and ensuring that John was able to inherit the dukedom by right of his wife who became Baroness Strange (in her own right) as well as monarch of the Isle of Man. It was by vote of the House of Lords that John was identified as the rightful heir to the dukedom, not withstanding his father’s attainder.
Duke James had intended that his elder daughter, Jean, would marry his nephew – however, she had no intention of marrying her cousin and eloped with John Lindsay, Lord Crawford in 1747 from Edinburgh to marry at Berwick, when she was 17 years old. She died less than a year after her marriage. Charlotte and John Murray would go on to have nine children. My favourite fact about the 4th Duke of Atholl is that he planted his estates with larch trees- some of the seeds fired from a cannon. He hoped to sell the timber to the navy as well as using it himself for a range of purposes including furniture making.
The castle contains Bonnie Dundee’s armour (worn the day he was shot at Killiecrankie); Bonnie Prince Charlies gloves, glasses and compass and Lord George Murray’s white cockade indicating his support for the prince. I will also be posting at some point about the 8th Duke and his wife Katherine Ramsay who was a remarkable lady.
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27 July 1689, James VII/II has been turfed off his throne to be replaced by his son-in-law, William of Orange, and James’ own daughter, Mary. Having been forced from his throne in December 1688, war erupted in Ireland in March 1689 while in Scotland John Graham of Claverhouse, better known as Bonnie Dundee, led his own rebellion against the new regime. It was the first Jacobite rebellion, which always comes as something of surprise since it’s the 1715 one that most people think of in the first instance.
General Hugh MacKay, William and Mary’s general led the Scots Brigade in the Low Countries. He was a seasoned commander but then, Dundee was also a professional soldier who fought for both the French and the Dutch before returning to Scotland in 1677 to serve James VII/II and suppress the Covenanters. His suppression of the men who refused to take an oath of loyalty to the king while he was Sheriff of Wigtown earned him deep unpopularity in some quarters as well as the title Viscount Dundee.
If the truth was told no one was that enthusiastic about another civil war in 1689. Many families sought to avoid taking part in any conflict. John Murray, Marquess of Atholl whose home was at Blair Castle took himself off to England to avoid taking part in proceedings. The fact that Patrick Stewart who occupied the castle for the Jacobites was a trusted family retainer is neither here nor there. Dundee was short of men and resources, even though support for the deposed king was growing in the Highlands. He hoped to win a battle that would increase support to his cause.
When John Murray, who was Atholl’s eldest son withdrew from the castle leaving the Jacobites in control, General MacKay moved north to support Murray. Blair Castle was to be besieged. Dundee saw an opportunity to intercept MacKay’s army, win a victory and garner support for the cause of James VII/II. MacKay may have had between 4,000 -5, 000 men who were accompanied by a baggage train and some ordinance. Dundee had about 3,000.
When MacKay entered the Pass of Killiecrankie on the track from Dunkeld he did not realise that he was being watched or that an ambush had been prepared. The track by the River Garry is the same path that government troops used in 1689. It is narrow and muddy. Iain Ban Beag Macrae, from Atholl, was observing MacKay’s men as they scrambled up the valley. When they were close enough he fired the first shot and killed an officer as he was crossing the river.
The Jacobites were on the ridge above the pass. MacKay knew that it would have been madness to order a charge so simply gave orders for his own men to shoot at the enemy. When Dundee gave orders to advance at about seven o’clock in the evening, as the sun began to set, Mackay’s men were subject to a Highland charge. They did not have time to fix bayonets (rifles could either fire or be used as bayonets at that time – not both). It meant that they were ill equipped for the fighting that followed. It was all over in a few minutes. MacKay’s men fled – one of them, Donald McBane, made an 18ft (that’s more than 5m) leap across the River Garry from one rock to another, to escape from the Jacobites. Other men were not so lucky and drowned. Mcbane published his memoirs in 1728 describing events at Killiecrankie and his dramatic escape.
Killiecrankie was a victory – unfortunately it came at the cost of the viscount’s life and a third of his men. The sword that Dundee is rusted to have used is on display at Killiecrankie while his armour, and the hole left by the musket ball, can be seen at Blair Castle. The bullet that killed Dundee was likely to have been a stray one, although tradition states that it was made from a silver button because only silver could harm the viscount. It’s a nice story. Taken together with the fact that he died with his men and that he was also related to John Graham, Marquess of Montrose who had become something of a hero since his execution by Parliament in 1650 meant that Dundee was soon the subject of ballads – the most famous one being ‘Bonnie Dundee’ by Sir Walter Scott which is still played by pipers. It was/is a popular regimental march for various Highland Regiments.
The only squirrel, red or otherwise, I have yet to see – despite lots of signs telling me about their presence!
Margaret Tudor – ‘Stirling Head’ panel. She’s holding a greyhound which was one of the Tudors’ heraldic symbols, originally belonging to the Beaufort family.
There’s no escape from the Tudors if you’re a teenager with an interest in history. The AQA A level syllabus begins in 1485 with Henry Tudor settling in to the newly vacated throne. This is what students are expected to know about him:
Henry Tudor’s consolidation of power: character and aims; establishing the Tudor dynasty
Government: councils, parliament, justice, royal finance, domestic policies
Relationships with Scotland and other foreign powers; securing the succession; marriage alliances
Society: churchmen, nobles and commoners; regional division; social discontent and rebellions
Economic development: trade, exploration, prosperity and depression
Religion; humanism; arts and learning
I’m willing to bet that regular readers of the History Jar could make a good answer to most aspects of the syllabus and are probably quite relieved that I don’t have the Wars of the Roses on my mind. Today however, Scotland and Henry VII – mainly because no one is permitted to photograph the Stone of Destiny which is currently held in Perth Museum and Scone Palace is a Victorian edifice.
Even during the Wars of the Roses the old hostilities between the English and their Scottish neighbours had continued. In 1480, by which time the Yorkists looked secure on the throne, Edward IV even invaded Scotland and intermittent border raids had continued unabated. In 1485, Henry VII’s claim to the throne was tenuous and his cashbox was empty. He needed to secure his borders and make treaties that were beneficial to the Tudor dynasty as well as to the economic prosperity of his new realm. Most of all, he needed his royal house, the Tudors, to be recognised as England’s rightful kings by Europe’s other rulers.
The Treaty of Perpetual Peace was signed between England and Scotland on 31 October 1502 at Westminster by Henry VII and at Glasgow Cathedral by James IV on 10 December. It was the first attempt in about 170 years to bring warfare between the two countries to an end. The treaty was sealed with a marriage between James IV of Scotland, aged 30 years, and Henry VII’s eldest daughter, Margaret Tudor, aged 12 years.
The two monarchs did not start out on quite such good terms. When James IV, aged 15 years, was crowned king of Scotland 1488, Henry continued to face revolts from Yorkist claimants to the English throne, including Perkin Warbeck. King James used this instability to his advantage, invading England in 1496 and 1497. Margaret of Burgundy (a.k.a. the aunt of the missing Yorkist Edward V and his brother Richard) sent envoys to Scotland in 1488 to ensure good relations with the new Scottish king and perhaps ferment trouble for the new English monarch. Henry was required to play a long term strategic game. In November 1492 the Treaty of Etaples agreed among other things, that the French would no longer offer support to the pretender.
In November of 1495, Perkin Warbeck, who Margaret of Burgundy, recognised as the younger of her two nephews, arrived in Scotland. The king who was a similar age to Warbeck (and this is not the post to consider whether he was the missing prince or a pretender) welcomed him to court. He went so far as to have taxes collected to pay Warbeck an allowance of £1,200 per year and in January of 1496, Warbeck married Lady Katherine Gordon, a daughter of the Earl of Huntly who was related to the king by marriage. None of this went down particularly well in England and it’s impossible to know whether James truly believed Warbeck to be the prince or not. Warbeck was certainly at home in the royal court suggesting that his grasp of manners was either instilled from birth or the son of a boatman had been given some very thorough lessons. What is certain is that James intended to use his guest as a pawn in his attempt to regain the town of Berwick-Upon-Tweed which was in English hands as well as gain an advantage over his English neighbour.
James and Warbeck came to an agreement that if the Scots backed an invasion and Warbeck won the crown that Berwick would become Scottish once more, the loan for men and equipment would be paid back and there would be a healthy interest to be paid. Plus, of course, Perkin would owe the Scots for his Crown. Unfortunately when the Scots crossed the border in September 1496 there wasn’t an outpouring of popular Yorkist support and the Scottish king returned home. Furthermore, Margaret of Burgundy was no longer able to offer overt support for the Yorkist cause as the Intercursus Magnus of February 1496 provided for improved economic relations between Burgundy and England. Even worse it turned out that Henry VII wasn’t quite the push over that James might have supposed. The English king gave orders to the Earl of Surrey to raise an army to confront the Scots. The matter was brought to an end with the Treaty of Ayton in 1497 which saw Henry agreeing to marry his eldest daughter to the Scottish king. Henry did not want war, he wanted a peaceful settlement and security. Wars cost money which he preferred not to spend. In addition, he was busily disarming his aristocracy. He didn’t want to have to permit northern lords to continue with their bad old habits of retaining men and crenelating their walls – even if it was to keep the Scots out. It meant that, in Scotland, James maintained his country’s Auld Alliance with France at the same time as entering negotiations with the English. Henry might always be outflanked if he ended up going to war with either of the two kingdoms.
In September 1497 Warbeck sailed to Cornwall with his wife in a ship provided by James in an attempt to gather more support for his claim. For James it meant the opportunity to wash his hands of an increasingly unwelcome guest and to begin fresh negotiations with Henry VII. In all fairness he had not yielded to pressure to hand Warbeck to the English in return for payment. Nor for that matter was James IV totally convinced he wanted to marry Margaret who was still only a child (think of the importance of an heir to the Scottish throne). Not that it mattered so long as the Treaty of Ayton held while there were negotiations between the two realms.
James IV had a perfectly nice mistress, thank you very much. He was in love with Margaret Drummond, the eldest daughter of John, Lord Drummond – though don’t go running away with the idea he was a one man woman. By 1496 Margaret, who gave the king a daughter, had her own apartment in Stirling Castle and while his council were talking about the benefits of an Anglo-Scottish alliance, James was thinking marrying Margaret who came from a relatively unimportant family. There were even rumours of a secret marriage having taken place.
In 1501 Margaret, who was at her family home at Drummond Castle in Perthshire, became unwell, as did two of her sisters, Euphemia and Sybella, following their breakfast. The three of them died. Suspicion pointed at Euphemia’s widower, John Fleming, 2nd Lord Fleming but whether they were poisoned so that the way was cleared for the Anglo-Scottish marriage to go ahead or wether it was a case of accidentally food poisoning is another matter.
The way was clear for a proxy marriage between Margaret and James to take place at Richmond in January 1503 by which time Margaret’s brother Arthur was dead – Elizabeth of York would die the following month. All that stood between the Scottish king and the English throne was Prince Henry. The Tudor dynasty wasn’t looking quite so secure as it had once done. But the marriage was a success for Henry VII – as well as lessening the chance of invasion from the north it reflected that the Tudor family was recognised by its neighbour as a royal one – especially as the Stewarts were long established royalty. One of the conditions of the marriage agreement was that Margaret should not travel north until she was 13 years old. In 1498 while negotiations were still under way, Henry had indicated that his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and wife, Elizabeth of York, did not think it right that so young a girl should be risked to the dangers of child birth at a tender age. In addition to which the pair had probably heard that James IV was some something of womaniser.
Margaret stayed in England, referred to as the Scottish queen while preparations for her journey north got underway. She would travel to Scotland, taking a whole month to arrive, when she was 13 years-old. The only fly in the ointment were the finances. Henry wanted to know what Margaret’s ladies-in-waiting would be paid. There was the new queen’s dower to be settled and also the dowry to be paid – Henry agreed to 30,000 nobles to be paid across three years – which to be fair, he paid promptly. It was unfortunate that James paid more than half of that for the pageantry surrounding his bride’s arrival in Edinburgh. The fact that she did not have a child until 1507 suggests that James respected his mother-in-law and Lady Margaret Beaufort’s concerns for his wife’s physical well being. Chivalry and pageantry was the glue that held the treaty together in the meantime and James intended to assert Scottish dominance on proceedings.
And just in case you’re thinking – how lovely – a happy ending…think again, In 1508, Henry VII began to renovate the fortifications at Berwick and in 1513, Margaret’s brother, by then Henry VIII, won the Battle of Flodden which also saw the death of James IV – so much for perpetual peace.
Incidentally, a past exam question states: Henry VII’s foreign policy with Scotland was most successful. How far do you agree?
David Beaton was James V’s ambassador to France and by 1528 was the Keeper of the Privy Seal. It was he who helped to arrange the king’s French matches, first to Madelaine of France and then, following her death in 1537, to Mary of Guise. His rise in the church had been just as rapid thanks to his kinship to the Archbishop of Glasgow but in 1358 he was creed a cardinal and following his uncle’s death in 1538 he became the Archbishop of St Andrews. By 1542 he was one of the king’s most trusted advisors, encouraging the king to affiliate himself ever more closely to the French. St Andrew’s Castle, Beaton’s principal residence, reflected his wealth and status.
When James died leaving his infant daughter, Mary, the crown. Beaton was swift to produce a document purporting to be the king’s will and making the cardinal the Regent of Scotland along with a group of his own supporters. Instead of getting what he wanted the Earl of Arran, who was Mary’s heir, became regent but in a gesture of good will, or at least of political expediency, Beaton became Chancellor. Beaton and the queen’s mother, Mary of Guise, wanted to keep Scottish foreign policy tied to the French but across the border, in England, Henry VIII wanted his son, Edward, to marry the young queen and unify the two nations. The Protestant lords of Scotland also looked more favourably on that match than one that might be made with Catholic France.
When Henry VIII gave orders for the Rough Wooing, some of Scotland’s nobility felt that it was the French faction who provoked it. Beaton was not popular with his peer group. he’d risen to power through nepotism and had more than 20 illegitimate children. He personified all that was wrong with the catholic church. To make matters worse, Beaton began to arrest reformers and imprison them in St Andrew’s Castle bottle dungeon at the bottom of the Sea Tower. He regarded them not only as a threat to his religious beliefs but also dangerous to his political power.
In 1545 Beaton arrested George Wishart, a Protestant preacher, and then had him burned at the stake for heresy. His initials mark the spot outside St Andrew’s Castle where he died. Scotland’s protestant Lords decided enough was enough and on 29 May 1546 Beaton was captured by a group of men pretending to be stone masons. They killed the cardinal and displayed his naked body from the parapet before throwing it in the castle’s bottle dungeon.
Mary of Guise sent troop to regain control of the castle from the protestants. The siege was commanded by the Earl of Arran who ordered a mine be dug beneath one the castle’s towers to undermine it. The garrison, after a couple of false starts, dug a countermine. They also hoped that assistance would be sent by the English – but instead, in July 1547, the French navy arrived and bombarded the castle causing the castle’s garrison to surrender. The men that were captured, including John Knox (who was doing a spot of light tutoring in St Andrews, was an admirer of Wishart, and had somehow ended up as the Protestant chaplain in the castle), ended up as prisoners in France or forced to row in French galleys. Knox, who spent 19 months chained to an oar, returned to St Andrews in 1559 following his return from a decade of exile. After he preached a particularly fiery sermon St Andrew’s Cathedral was stripped of its wealth in the aftermath of an orgy of destruction.
Stirling is perched on top of a hill and between the start of the twelfth century and the Union of the Crowns in 1603 every Scottish monarch lived here at one time or another. The oldest parts of the castle date from the time of Robert II and I am not lingering on the Scottish Wars of Independence in this post and besides which the castle as it can be viewed today was the work of James IV and James V. And like everywhere else I’ve been in the last week, it’s featured on Outlander.
I guess the start of my particular story is when James II arrives at the castle, aged 6, for safety after the murder of his father in 1437. It commences the tradition of young Scottish monarchs and heirs being both protected and educated here.
James II, who was known for his somewhat irascible temper, threw his enemy, William 8th Earl of Douglas, out of a window into the garden beneath in 1452 having first murdered the lord.
James IV saw himself as a Renaissance Prince and it was he who began the transformation of the medieval fortification into something more comfortable as well as encouraging scholars and artists to visit him. He was particularly interested in alchemy and instituted a research laboratory at the castle. His alchemist, John Damian, was something of a favourite with the king from about 1501 onwards. He was employed as the king’s doctor, tried to turn base metals into gold and wanted to fly. In September 1507 he made himself a pair of wings from bird’s feathers and announced that he would fly from Stirling to France. It was a short-lived project saved from total disaster by crash landing into a dung-hill at the foot of the castle’s walls. The laboratory and its experiments concluded in 1513 with the death of James IV and accession of James V, whose regent was his mother Margaret Tudor.
James V sent for French masons to continue his father’s work. Like his English brother-in-law he wanted to be seen as a Renaissance Prince. He might also have wanted to impress his French bride. There are six rooms dating from this period – three for the king and three for the queen and the most notable thing about them is the ceiling in the king’s audience chamber which contains the Stirling Heads carved from oak. The originals were taken down in 1777 and can be seen elsewhere in the castle. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there were various building projects which turned Stirling into a Renaissance Palace.
James VI was born at Edinburgh Castle but quickly moved for his own safety to Stirling where he was baptised in a ceremony costing £12,000. He would be crowned at the nearby Church of the Holy Rude. His mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was crowned in the chapel in the castle and she spent most of her Scottish childhood there, out of reach of the English. Her son would also spend his childhood at Stirling. Come to think of it James V, who was born at Linlithgow, was also crowned at Stirling after the death of his father at Flodden.
It was only when James’ wife, Anne of Denmark, became pregnant that James VI returned and gave orders for the castle to be modernised. James VI had the medieval chapel torn down and a new far grander chapel royal built for the baptism of his heir Prince Henry in 1594. The outline of the medieval building can be seen in the cobbles of the courtyard.
The feast celebrating Henry’s baptism, which took place in James IV’s Great Hall (completed in 1503) included a fish course served in a full size boat that came accompanied by cannons that fired and some mermaids. The Great Hall is, apparently, the largest medieval hall in Scotland and had five fireplaces. As well as providing fine dining for Scotland’s nobility and other honoured guests, parliament used to occasionally sit there. After James moved to England in 1603 the castle ceased to be so important.
In 1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie tried and failed to capture the castle. It was the last of the castle’s eight sieges and given that it is protected on three sides by steep drops it’s reputation for security is perhaps not surprising.
Castle Wynd leading up the hill to the castle from the town contains houses with their own links to the Stewart/Stuart dynasty. Argyll’s Lodging dates from the sixteenth century but was extended in the seventeenth century, and is best known as the Stirling home of the 1st Earl of Stirling. It was owned for a time by Adam Erskine the administrator for Cambuskenneth Abbey and one of the players in the life of the young James VI. He originally supported Morton, tried to win favour with the king and in 1578 gained the pos of keeper of Stirling Castle having persuaded his cousin, the 2nd Earl of Mar, that he had a hereditary right to be the king’s guardian. There was something of a dispute that caused the king much distress. Later Adam would support the Earl of Gowrie who held the king at Ruthven Castle. After the collapse of Gowrie’s regime, Adam was banished and his properties forfeited to the crown.
In 1629 – by which time the royal family were ensconced in England- the property was sold to Sir William Alexander who was one of Prince Henry Stuart’s tutors during his life time. He went with the royal household to London in 1603 and by 1626 was appointed Secretary for Scotland. In 1630 he became Earl of Stirling. Stirling had the house on Castle Wynd remodelled when Charles I was going to visit Stirling for his Scottish coronation. Below the castle garden, known as the King’s Knot and the Queen’s Knot, were created to celebrate the occasion and the Chapel Royal in the Castle was also given a new paint job. In the event the king and court only stayed a few days but the frieze painted by Valentine Jenkin in the chapel can still be seen.
The coat of arms above the courtyard doorway at Argyll’s Lodging shows a mermaid and an Indigenous American. Alexander is principally remembered of this settlement of Nova Scotia. And why is it called Argyll’s lodging I hear you ask? Well Stirling died deeply in debt in 1640 – the town fathers claimed the house and then, during the 1660s, sold it to the Duke of Argyll.
Mar’s Wark, on the opposite side of the road, was the townhouse of John Erskine who built the house during the 1560s/1570s when he was regent for James VI. When Anne of Denmark first arrived in Stirling she moved into Mar’s Wark while work on the castle was completed. The facade is all that remains today and both buildings are in the hands of workmen at present – so photos are littered with scaffolding and bright orange safety barriers. Oh well.
Tomorrow? The bookshops of St Andrews await along with the cathedral of course and some of the towns award winning fish and chips!
The sun shone! The sky was blue! The people we met at the abbey and palace were lovely and the almond croissants at the Abbot House (the very pink building) were delicious. I was also quietly amused by the addition of a spider to the window depicting Robert the Bruce. Last time we visited Dunfermline we had greater access to the ruins and in case you’re wondering my earlier photographs are all trapped on my misbehaving external hard drive.
The abbey became the burial place for Scottish royalty in the 1100s. St Margaret (the daughter of the Anglo-Saxon Edward the Exile) established the monastery in 1070, on the site where she married King Malcolm. It was enlarged by David I who was the youngest of Margaret’s six sons. David arranged for masons to come from England to complete the building work and appointed Geoffrey, who was Canterbury’s prior, as the first abbot. Even on the eve of the reformation, thanks to David’s devotion to the abbey, where his parents were buried, it was one of the wealthiest foundations in Scotland. It helped that across the centuries pilgrims had come to visit the shrine of Queen Margaret who was canonised in 1249.
Not that matters were always so trouble free. The Scottish Wars of Independence took their toll on the abbey and the town. Alexander III’s three children died before him as did his queen, Margaret, a daughter of King Henry III of England. In an attempt to secure his dynasty he remarried and was in such haste to spend the night with his beautiful young bride took a tumble off a cliff on his way to visit her in 1289 – he was buried at Dunfermline next to his first queen while his grand daughter the Maid of Norway was invited to wear Scotland’s crown. Her premature death in 1290 during her journey to Scotland was the trigger for the Scottish Wars of Independence.
Not far away from the abbey and palace, at Pittencrieff Park, visitors can find Wallace’s Well. William Wallace, he of Braveheart fame (and no he did not father Edward III…even if the Mel Gibson film of 1995 suggests that he did) is supposed to have taken refuge here in 1303 after the Battle of Falkirk. How true the story might be is another matter entirely (it’s the uninspiring mini stone shed with the littler on top of it in the gallery of images). Wallace’s mother is also said to be buried in the churchyard on the northern side of the building and after Wallace’s execution a bit of him made it back to Dunfermline where it was interred with his mother’s remains. Inevitably. Edward I and his court spent some time here as well. Having spent the winter of 1303 at the abbey when he left Dunfermline in May 1304 he gave ordered for the monastery to be burned. Perhaps he heard rumours that the abbot had helped Wallace or perhaps he was just as unpleasant as he can, on occasion, sound.
Robert I financed the rebuilding of Dunfermline’s abbey. The huge new building made an impressive statement as did the rest of Scotland’s programme of monastic construction. After his death, in 1329, Robert was buried there in front of the high altar. His heart is, of course, went on crusade and is interred at Melrose. The Stewarts/Stuarts stayed in the abbey guest house which doubled as a royal residence when they visited. It underwent several remodellings including that of James V at the beginning of the sixteenth century. James VI/I eventually gifted the abbey and its accommodation to his queen, Anne, in 1598 and she turned it into a palace. The queen’s daughter Elizabeth and her son Charles were born here. Her young son Robert was the last of the Stuarts to be buried here in 1602.
After the Stuart kings travelled south Dunfermline’s importance diminished and it gradually turned into a ruin. A new parish church was designed to take the place of the old one at the turn of the nineteenth century. It was in 1818 that Robert the Bruce’s remains were found during building work along with 19 fragments from his tomb.
This year, to celebrate his 750th birthday Historic Scotland commissioned a reconstruction of the famous king’s head based on a scan of the scull found in 1818- although it cannot determine whether the king had leprosy at the time of his death or not. The reconstruction shows him without the illness dressed as he would have been at Bannockburn, while a second digital model makes the same reconstruction but with the effects of leprosy evident. There are no accurate descriptions of the king and, in case you’re wondering, the leprosy accusation came from English sources – and let’s face it, the accusation is a pretty good way of insulting Robert as well as suggesting that God wasn’t happy with him.
The sun came out- the sky was blue – briefly. Today we explored a little of the Fife coast and visited the home of James Douglas 4th Earl of Morton. He was instrumental in bumping off Mary Queen of Scots’ secretary, David Rizzio and encouraging her to abdicate while she was imprisoned in Loch Leven.
Which leads us to the reign of James VI. James Stewart, Earl of Moray was assassinated at Linlithgow in 1570. In 1571, the next regent, James’ grandfather Mathew Stewart, Lord Lennox was shot and died at Stirling. The third regent was the Earl of Mar…he died in 1572 and hey presto Morton, who was already one of the nation’s most influential men, became regent. He was forced to resign six years later much to the irritation of Elizabeth I.
In 1580 he was accused of playing a part in the murder of Lord Darnley. He was condemned and executed in Edinburgh. The consummate politician had finally gone the way of so many of his predecessors. Morton’s wife, Elizabeth, was incapable of managing her own affairs. It seems that she and her sisters Margaret and Beatrix suffered from an inherited mental illness. Morton’s three surviving legitimate daughters were also declared mentally incompetent in 1581. The older women were grand daughters of James IV, through their mother Katherine (an illegitimate daughter of the king) and all of them, incompetent or not, were married to powerful men. It was through Elizabeth that Morton inherited his earldom and Aberdour. Elizabeth spent most of her time in seclusion at Tantalon Castle. An inquest after Morton’s death declared her to be incapable of managing her affairs, as she was an “idiot and prodigal”. King James VI signed a warrant appointing a legal guardian called an “administrator and tutor” to supervise her dower. (Fraser, William, eds., Lennox Muniments, vol.2 (1874), 321-322).
The earldom of Morton passed to Sir William Douglas of Lochleven (Mary Queen of Scots’ gaoler). He was eventually succeeded by his grandson who was one of James VI’s gentlemen of the bedchamber. He made several alterations to Aberdour including the gallery and walled garden. But it was Regent Morton who began the castle’s terraced gardens, planted the orchard and gave orders for the dovecot to be built.
And that leads me down an interesting rabbit hole that really has nothing to do with Aberdour or Regent Morton – What exactly did James V die from at Falkland. Was it one of the many diseases that plagued armies at the time? I’ve also seen cause of death described as pulmonary tuberculosis. And did he suffer from depression – famously having heard that his wife, Mary of Guise, had given birth to a daughter he turned his face to the wall and stayed there until he died having declared that the crown came into the Stewart family with a girl and would go with one .
Mary Queen of Scots was not without her own maladies – hardly surprising under the circumstances. I don’t suppose 19 years of captivity is going to do anyone the world of good. In all honesty being a royal Stewart, or even Stuart, wasn’t necessarily good for your health for a variety of reasons setting aside melancholy – James I was assassinated; James II was killed by one of his own cannon; James III – either died on the battle field or was assassinated trying to leave it; James IV – killed at Flodden; James V – having lost the Battle of Solway Moss either died from disease or because he was extremely peeved about the birth of a daughter; Mary Queen of Scots – beheaded. James VI/I died of natural causes in his own bed (although the tall tale that he was poisoned by the Duke of Buckingham still occasionally surfaces). Charles I – followed in granny’s footsteps and lost his head.
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Today the house looks like a very grand nineteenth century châteaux but it’s built around a fourteenth century tower (that’s the large square block on the right hand side of the main entrance). And there’s more history than that in the grounds. It lies on the line of the Antoine Wall that stretched from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde. By the 12th century a thane’s hall stood on the site. The Callendar family held the land until the Scottish Wars of Independence. Sir John Callender was a signatory of the Treaty of Salisbury which confirmed the Maid of Norway as queen of Scotland following the death of Alexander III when he died in March 1286. He also signed the Ragman Roll in 1296 that recognised Edward I as king of Scotland following the maid’s untimely end. He was captured by those fighting for Scottish independence at the Battle of Falkirk in 1299.
Sir Patrick Callendar had his own difficulties during the Scottish Wars of Independence but Callender House passed into the Livingston family with the marriage of his daughter to William Livingston. Unfortunately it was not that clear cut because Callender had elected to support Edward Balliol’s (the son of King John Balliol) claim to the Scottish throne when David II succeeded to the throne at the age of 4-years. Ball was crowned in 1332 after which there was rather a lot of crown swaps but essentially for our purposes when David II regained his throne the Calendars found themselves in some difficulty because of their affiliation with the Balliols.
In 1345 David II regularised matters with the grant of Callendar House to William Livingston. Livingston demonstrated his loyalty to the monarch and they were all set to rise. By the 1440s the Livingstone were the guardians of James II and Alexander, 5th Lord Livingston was one of Mary Queen of Scot’s guardians. By then the originally tower house had doubled in size but still had none of the turrets and additional wings of the modern building. The fifth lord was born at the turn of the sixteenth century and had a reputation as a military commander. When Mary travelled to France in 1548, Alexander travelled with her and remained there until his death. Alexander’s daughter Mary was one of the queen’s so-called Four Marys and his son William, who was a protestant, would fight for the queen at the Battle of Languid in 1568.
William accompanied the queen into exile. William’s wife, Agnes, travelled to Bolton Castle to serve the imprisoned queen. Like William she had known Mary all the queen’s life – Agnes was the daughter of Mary’s governess Janet Stewart, Lady Fleming (making Agnes the queen’s cousin as well). She shared several years of her mistress’s captivity. The Earl of Moray seized Callendar while William set about trying to negotiate the queen’s release. The couple’s eldest son Alexander, who would become the 1st Earl of Linlithgow, also supported the queen and was captured at Dumbarton in 1571. It was another three years before the family came to terms with James VI’s regent even though William returned to Scotland in 1573.
But by 1580 Alexander was a gentleman of the king’s bedchamber. In 1592 Alexander succeeded his father as Lord Livingston. He had worked his way into royal favour as a follower of Esme Lennox and by seizing Stirling Castle in 1584 after the Ruthven Raid. In 1594 he played a part in the baptism of James VI’s eldest son Prince Henry.
Two years later he and his wife Helenor (or Eleanor)Hay were entrusted with the care of James’ daughter Princess Elizabeth. The fact that Helenor was a Catholic did not make her unsuitable. As well as spending time at Linlithgow Palace, Alexander was its keeper, the princess also spent time at Callendar House. In 1600, at the time of Prince Charles’ baptism, Livingston became 1st Earl of Linlithgow. In 1603 the Livingstons’ took Princess Elizabeth to Windsor to return her to her father.
The couple’s eldest son, Alexander, became the 2nd Earl of Livingston while his brother James, who was a similar age to Elizabeth, became 1st Earl of Callendar in 1534. He had spent his formative years as a mercenary fighting in the Low Countries and in Germany. He served James VI (and 1) as well as Charles I but his support for the Covenanters led to difficulties. Ultimately though, he took the field on the side of the royalists. His estates were seized in 1654 and he was imprisoned by Parliament. By then Callendar House had also taken something of a battering. In 1651, following his victory at Dunbar, Cromwell had seized most of Lowland Scotland. That summer Callendar House was placed under siege. General Monck stormed the building with his men killing 62 of the garrison. The house’s governor was among the dead. Having buried the dead and demolished the gatehouse Monck departed, although not before Oliver Cromwell had arrived to survey the scene. Unsurprisingly given Livingston’s affinity, the estate was sequestered and it was General Monck who received the income from it.
The Restoration saw James Livingston return to Callendar and begin work on alterations and refurbishment to his home – a seventeenth century Manor House was added on to the tower. When he died in 1674 his title and estates were inherited by his nephew, another Alexander, who completed the building work that James’ began before his death. Unfortunately it wasn’t long before the house saw more soldiers – Alexander’s own views ran somewhat contrary to those of James VII of Scotland ( II of England) but he was dead before the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The third earl continued the policy of extending the house.
James, the 4th Earl of Calendar showed his ancestors’ loyalty to the Stuarts. He rose in support of the Jacobites in 1715 and was attainted for treason. His son-in-law, the Earl of Kilmarnock took possession of the property but in 1745 he supported Bonnie Prince Charlie (yup he stayed in the house which was looking a bit tatty again), was captured at Culloden and beheaded at the Tower of London.
In the latter half of the eighteenth century Callendar House was sold to the Forbes family. William Forbes was from Aberdeen and was known as Copperbottom from his business of coating the bottom of naval vessels. He was also a slave owner. He was very wealthy indeed, if not very popular with the people of Falkirk. It would be the Forbes’ family who turned Callendar House into a French Chateau.
You will notice that once again the sun did not shine! Good job I just need black and white photographs for Raising the Stuarts. The parking at Callendar House, which is owned by Falkirk Council, is free as is entry to the grounds and house. The history of the house was extremely well presented, as was the explanation of the location of the Antonoine Wall. Even better they did a very nice maple and pecan scone…
