Dunglass Castle, East Lothian

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the Dunglass Castle in West Dunbartonshire, see Dunglass Castle.

Dunglass Castle was formerly a castle at Dunglass in East Lothian, Scotland. It was a seat of the Home family and frequently visited by the Stewart kings. There are no upstanding masonry remains of the castle, but Dunglass Collegiate Church is maintained by Historic Environment Scotland.

Origins[]

The first medieval castle at Dunglasss was built by the Pepdie family in the 14th century. On the marriage of Nicola Pepdie to Sir Thomas Home of Home, the castle and lands passed to the Home family. James IV stayed at Dunglass in December 1496, and played cards. He gave a tip to masons working on the building and enjoyed a banquet which included spices brought from Edinburgh.[1]

The Home family were forfeited in 1516, and for a time the castle passed to Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. Dunglass was besieged and slighted by the English under the command of Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland in the winter of 1532.

Rough Wooing[]

In 1547, during the war now known as the Rough Wooing, Dunglass was captured by the forces of the Duke of Somerset from George Douglas of Pittendreich, and was fortified and garrisoned by the English. A new artillery fortification was built on a site nearby overlooking the older castle of the Home family. According to Jean de Beaugué, the new site was also hard to defend and had no water.[2]

In January 1549 the French landed two boat loads of ladders at Dunbar, intending to assault the fort, but they did not make an assault.[3] The English soldiers were entertained by two Irish minstrels on 9 July 1549.[4]

On 31 January 1550 soldiers from Dunglass fired two barn yards at the Place of Nether Keith and burnt houses in the village. The English raiders were chased back to Dunglass.[5] Regent Arran gave orders for cannon to be shipped to bombard the fort on 11 April 1550.[6] The Earl of Rutland was at Dunglass in May 1550 and took the opportunity to have his mail armour scoured in a bag of bran and had his pistol mended. He bought white fabric in the camp at Dunglass to modify his hose for the hot weather in July.[7]

The fort at Dunglass was surrendered to the French in March 1550.[8] In June, the remaining cannon were taken to Dunbar Castle and the villagers in the area were summoned to slight the fort.[9]

Earls of Home[]

After going to Jedburgh to hold justice courts, and viewing the English town of Berwick-upon-Tweed from "Calsehill" or Castlehills in April 1588, James VI rode to Dunglass Castle to banquet with Lord Home.[10] In October 1595 Christian Douglas, Lady Home moved her best household goods from Dunglass to Fife, sparking rumours of a marital separation.[11] James VI stayed with Lord Home at Dunglass Castle on 13 March 1596, for his "sports".[12] King James alarmed the English garrison by coming to hunt near Berwick-upon-Tweed, staying a night the house of the laird of Billie, six miles from Berwick, and then returning to Dunglass.[13]

The castle was rebuilt, in an enlarged and improved form, and gave accommodation on 5 April 1603 to King James, and all his retinue, on his journey to London to take up the English throne at the Union of the Crowns. It was improved by Mary, Countess of Home and her husband, Alexander Home, 1st Earl of Home. Some of the luxurious furnishing of the castle and its long gallery are recorded in inventories made by the Countess of Home.[14] On 13 May 1617, the Earl of Home escorted King James from Berwick to Dunglass, where an entertainment including flattering poems by David Hume of Godscroft delivered by Alexander Hume, the schoolmaster of Prestonpans.[15] The King stayed another day, and then rode with the Earl of Home to Pencraig by East Linton Bridge, to meet the Earl of Winton.[16] According to some sources, on the second day at Dunglass, the King may have visited "Cavard" or Cavers Castle, where he knighted William Fenwick.[17]

Grace Fane, Countess of Home (died 1633), was living at Dunglass in 1630 and her mother, Mary Mildmay Fane, Countess of Westmorland, wrote to her from Apethorpe.[18] It was intended that Charles I would stop at Dunglass during his progress to Scotland in 1633,[19] but the plan was changed after the death of the owner James Home, 2nd Earl of Home. The King was escorted from Berwick to Dunglass on 12 June by 600 Home family followers wearing green satin doublets and white taffeta scarfs. He stayed the night at Dunglass, but "at his own charge", and went on to Seton Palace the next day.[20] In 1636 William Brereton noted that the castle was "pleasantly seated, and seems to be in good repair".[21]

Explosion in 1640[]

This castle was destroyed on 30 August 1640 when held by a party of Covenanters under Thomas Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Haddington. According to Scotstarvet, an English page, Edward Paris, vexed by an insult against his countrymen, thrust a red-hot iron into a powder barrel. He was killed, with the Earl, his half-brother, Richard, and many others.[22] A pamphlet with a verse account of the explosion and a list of casualties was published by the author and poet William Lithgow. He named thirty nine dead including five women, and John White, an English plasterer working for Lady Home.[23]

The diplomat Thomas Roe and Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia mentioned the explosion in their correspondence. The sister of the Countess of Home, Mistress Anne Dudley had been her childhood companion. Roe heard there had been sixty casualities, forty of them gentlemen of quality. Elizabeth of Bohemia wished her brother Charles I would be speedily delivered from his troubles.[24]

The Hall family acquired the estate in 1687. The Rough Wooing artillery fort, which survives in outline earthworks, was repurposed as a garden feature with a summerhouse and bowling green by Sir John Hall before 1760 when the antiquarian Richard Pococke saw it.[25] Francis James Usher bought the Estate from Sir John Richard Hall in 1919, and the estate remains in the Usher family.[26]

References[]

  1. ^ Thomas Dickson, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1877), p. 308.
  2. ^ Patrick Abercromby, History of the Campaigns of 1548 and 1549 (1707), p. 63 The original French of Jean de Beaugué is, 'se meit à construire vn petit fort, qu'il nomma Donglas, sur une crouppe de montagne, ou ne se trouvoit commodité d'eau quelconque, & outre ce mal, cete montagne, ou il sit son fort, est veuë & commandée d'une colline à cinquante pas, si haute qu'un homme n'y sauroit demeurer à la muraille pour defendre la bresche: par ce que de cete colline, qui est au dessus, il seroit à decouvert battu en flanc", from Histoire de la Guerre d'Écosse pendant les campagnes 1548 et 1549 (Maitland Club: Edinburgh, 1830), p. 70.
  3. ^ Joseph Bain, Hamilton Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1892), p. 623.
  4. ^ HMC Duke of Rutland, vol. 4 (London, 1905), p. 354.
  5. ^ Thomas Thomson, Diurnal of Occurrents (Edinburgh, 1833), p. 49
  6. ^ James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 396-7.
  7. ^ HMC Duke of Rutland, vol. 4 (London, 1905), pp. 360-1.
  8. ^ Thomas Thomson, Diurnal of Occurrents (Edinburgh, 1833), pp. 49-50
  9. ^ James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 420-1.
  10. ^ James Dennistoun, Moysie's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 67
  11. ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1595-1597, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), p. 41 no. 38.
  12. ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1595-1597, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), p. 167: Thomas Birch, Memorials of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 1 (London, 1754), p. 454.
  13. ^ Joseph Bain, Border Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1896), p. 114.
  14. ^ Michael Pearce, 'Approaches to Inventories' in Architectural Heritage, 26 (Edinburgh, 2015), pp. 76-77: NRAS 217 box 5 no. 5.
  15. ^ John Adamson, The Muses Welcome to the High and Mightie Prince James (Edinburgh, 1618), pp. 1-16.
  16. ^ Melros Papers, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1837), pp. 289-290: John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 3 (London, 1828), pp. 300-5.
  17. ^ Roger Green, 'The King Returns: The Muses Welcome', Steven J. Reid & David McOmish, Neo-Latin Literature and Literary Culture in Early Modern Scotland (Brill, 2017), pp. 129-130.
  18. ^ Moray muniments, NRAS 217 box 5 no. 296.
  19. ^ Siobhan Keenan, The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625-1642 (Oxford, 2020), p. 39.
  20. ^ Thomas Frankland, Annals of King James and King Charles the First (London, 1681), p. 430.
  21. ^ P. Hume Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 134.
  22. ^ Robert Paul, 'Letters of Thomas Hope', Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (Edinburgh, 1893), p. 112.
  23. ^ William Lithgow, A briefe and summarie discourse upon that lamentable and dreadfull disaster at Dunglasse. Anno 1640 (Edinburgh, 1640).
  24. ^ Nadine Akkerman, Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, 1632-1642, vol. 2 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 938-41.
  25. ^ Daniel Kemp, Richard Pococke's Tours through Scotland (Edinburgh, 1887), p. 326.
  26. ^ "Dunglass Estate: Scottish wedding venue by Edinburgh". Dunglass Estate.

External links[]

Coordinates: 55°56′19″N 2°22′31″W / 55.9386°N 2.3754°W / 55.9386; -2.3754

Retrieved from ""