Lady Lindsay

Around 1489 Alexander, Master of Lindsay, and his brother John, sons of the fifth Earl of Crawford, quarrelled and fought at Inverqueich Castle, in Lower Strathardle.

Alexander was severely wounded, he should have recovered had his wife not helped him on his way by smothering him with a down pillow as he lay in bed weak from loss of blood.

She was Lady Janet Gordon, daughter of George, Earl of Huntly and his wife, Princess Annabella daughter of King James I.  No sooner has she got rid of Lindsay then she took a second husband and married Patrick, son of Lord Grey. Coincidentally he died soon after they were married. Then without waiting she was married a third time, this time to Halberston of Southwood.

Inverqueich Castle is still talked about as ‘Lady Lindsay’s Castle’. It doesn’t exist today.

Her crime had gone unpunished but in 1500 she was brought to trial and found guilty for the murder of the Master of Lindsay. Her punishment was to be imprisoned for the rest of her life on the top of Craig-an-Fhithiche (The Raven’s Rock), an impressive cliff that rises about 300 feet above the River Ericht; and here every day before she was allowed to eat and drink, she had to spin a thread long enough to reach from her prison down till it reached the water of the river, and there she lingered on, spinning her daily thread to an extreme old age. She is said to have lived to be over a hundred years of age.

Here history stops but as usual local tradition steps in, and draws aside the veil of time, and tells us how:

“Lady Lindsay sat on the Raven’s Rock,
An weary spun the lee lang day,
Tho’ her fingers were worn, they aye bore the stain
O’ the blood o’er her first lurve, the lycht Lindsay,”

1843 engraving from an old book called Perthshire Illustrated of the dramatic cliffs leading down to River Ericht

Then at last her shrivelled fingers were worn by the constant friction of the thread to mere stumps, and then she died. But as local legend tells us there was no rest for this murderess, for there her ghost was seen to sit and spin, and often a fisherman as he fished in the clear waters below Raven Rock was startled to see a shadowy thread coming slowly down from above till it touched the water when it instantly disappeared and the scared fisherman knew that the Lady Lindsay’s task was at least over for that day. So the thread of time was spun.

River Ericht – watch out when fishing

The post The Punishment of Lady Lindsay appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

Otterburn Battle

On the 5th of August, 1388, the Battle of Otterburn took place. This was a skirmish between Scotland’s James, 2nd Earl of Douglas, and England’s Henry “Hotspur” Percy, the son of the Earl of Northumberland. This battle was part of continuous Anglo-Scottish border conflicts that were quite common at the time. It was a decisive Scottish victory, but was also a relatively bloody affair, with thousands of casualties, mainly on the English side.

Since it was a border fight, many of the lowland clans fought along with the Earl of Douglas. Some of these families included Clan Lindsay, Clan Johnstone, Clan Montgomery, Clan Graham, and Clan Gordon. Since it was such a decisive and famous victory several ballads were written about it, including a ballad called The Battle of Otterburn.

In the ballad a number of the families get mention, including the Gordons on a couple of occasions.

The ballad begins:

It fell about the Lammas tide

When the muir men win their hay,

The doughty Earl of Douglas rode

Into England to catch a prey.

It then continues to mention some of the clans there:

He chose the Gordons and the Graemes,

With them the Lindsays light and gay -

Later on in the ballad it goes on to claim that the Scots proved to have been quite blood thirsty, particularly the Gordons, and slayed a lot of their enemy.

The moon was clear, the day drew near,

The spears in flinders flew,

But mony a gallant Englishman

Ere day the Scotsmen slew.

The Gordons good in English blood

They steeped their hose and shoon.

There were also a number of Scottish casualties too, including, unfortunately for the Gordons, their leader, and father of Sir Adam Gordon, who also went on to give his life for his country.

The post The Gordons at Otterburn appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

I’d like to continue by reproducing Alaistair Moffat’s reading given at St Giles. It was an excellent account of the battle and the aftermath.

—

FLODDEN ADDRESS. – ALISTAIR MOFFAT

When dawn broke on the morning of 10th September, 1513, the landscape of hell was revealed. On the gently undulating northern ridges of Branxton Hill more than 10,000 men lay dead or dying. In the midst of the carnage were the naked, plundered bodies of King James IV of Scotland, his half-brother, Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St Andrews, George Hepburn, Bishop of the Isles, two abbots, nine great earls of Scotland, fourteen lords of parliament, innumerable knights and noblemen of lesser degree and many thousands of farmers, ploughmen, weavers and burgesses. It was the appalling aftermath of the battle of Flodden, the greatest military disaster in Scotland’s history.

In the grey light of that terrible dawn, sentries posted around the captured Scottish cannon could make out where the brunt of battle had been joined. Below them, at the foot of the slope ran the trickle of a nameless burn now choked with slaughter, a wrack of mangled bodies, broken pikeshafts, shattered shields and everywhere blood and the sickening stench of death, vomit and voided bowels. Not all of the bodies were yet corpses. Through a long dark night the battlefield had not been a silent graveyard. Trapped under lifeless comrades, crippled, hamstrung or horribly mutilated, fatally wounded men still breathed. Bladed weapons rarely kill outright and they were often used to bludgeon men to their knees or into unconsciousness. In the churned mud of the battlefield some men will have lost their footing, fallen and been hacked at before they could get up. Many bled to death, maimed, lacerated by vicious cuts, screaming, fainting and screaming once more in their death agonies. Some will have been put out of their misery by parties of English soldiers scouring the field by torchlight for plunder, stripping the bodies, ransacking them for valuables. But other men will have lingered on in

unspeakable pain, praying to their God, passing in and out of consciousness, slowly bleeding to death. The fury of the battle on Flodden field may have been stilled and awash with death and defeat. But all was not yet over. In an instant the plunderers and scavengers looked up and the sentries by the cannon stood to, frantically peering through the morning light. They could hear the rumbling thunder of hoofbeats – and then, suddenly, riders erupted over Barelees Rig. With 800 horsemen at his back, Lord Alexander Home galloped hard across the horrors of the battlefield and up the slopes of Branxton Hill. They had not come back to Flodden to rejoin a lost battle but to rescue their captured ordnance. And they very nearly succeeded. After a sharp skirmish, the English gunners managed to load and get off a volley at Home’s squadron, and they scattered.

And so it ended. As the Border horsemen wheeled round and raced out of range, the remnants of the shattered Scottish army were limping across the Tweed at Coldstream. There was no organised pursuit. The victorious English army had taken heavy casualties and the Earl of Surrey and his captains were exhausted. In any event, their bloody work was done. The floors o’ the Forest were a’ wede awa, Flodden was a national disaster, a harbinger of lawlessness in the shape of the Border Reivers, the beginning of a long period of political uncertainty and the last medieval battle in the history of Britain. The last time a king was to die leading his army.

It was also an epic. As two huge armies mustered and marched into history, extraordinary scenes had been witnessed. At Ellemford, high in the Lammermuirs above Duns, where sheep now graze on the flanks of the hills, where buzzards hang in the updrafts and an elegant bridge crosses the Whiteadder, King James IV and his army camped. Huge guns were trundled down the hill trails, dragged by oxen, and by 21st August 1513, almost 30,000 men had massed in this beautiful, now lonely valley. Two days later, the largest force ever to leave Scotland crossed the Tweed at the fords below Coldstream. They had declared war, they had entered the realm of the Tudors, of the ferociously ambitious and bull-like Henry VIII.

Meanwhile Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, and the Bishop of Durham carried the standard of St Cuthbert before their battle-hardened troops. In front of the high altar of the great cathedral, Howard had watched the bishop bless the flag of the Haliwerfolc. The lands of Palatinate, of the Prince-Bishops of Durham, reached to the Tweed and beyond, and in an early definition of Englishness, their people were known as the Holy Man’s Folk, the Haliwerfolc. Ancient allegiances were being roused and summoned.

Between 2nd and 9th September two vast armies circled each other in a small corner of North Northumberland, like heavyweight boxers looking for weaknesses or waiting for wrong moves. After the Earl of Surrey had despatched a herald, the Rouge Croix, it was finally agreed that battle would be joined on 9th September. Supplies for almost 70,000 men, horses and camp followers were running dangerously low

and neither army could remain in the field much longer.

Realising the strength of the Scots’ entrenched position, Surrey led his men to the east, skirting Flodden Edge and staying out of artillery range. On the morning of the appointed day, he crossed the River Till and took up a position to the north of James IV’s army, barring any retreat to Scotland. And then, on a damp afternoon, the greatest battle ever fought between England and Scotland began.

On the left wing of the Scottish host, the Highlanders led by the Earl of Huntly massed in formation with Lord Home’s Borderers, and in the moments before their chiefs roared the claideamh mor, the order to charge, the Gaelic-speaking warriors did something remarkable. They began to summon the army of the dead. They began the sloinneadh, the naming of the names of memory. To bolster his courage, each man began to recite his genealogy. Many waiting to charge could go back 20 generations. As if they were offering up the murmur of prayer, each man remembered why he had come to fight. Is mise mac Iain, mac Ruaridh, mac Domhnuill. I am the son of John, the son of Roderick, the son of Donald. And once their quiet voices stilled, the roar of the claideamh mor rent the air and they broke into the charge. With their broadswords and Lochaber axes, the Highlanders tore into the English ranks, the division led by Edmund Howard, They scattered and a rout was only prevented when Lord Dacre rode to the rescue with his English Borderers. As history rumbled across Branxton Hill, fortune appeared to be smiling on the Scots.

At the same time, James IV was about to make a catastrophic decision, a crucial error of judgement. Instead of occupying an elevated position at the rear of his vast army, he chose to lead from the front. His division raced down Branxton Hill and as they reached the lower slopes and much softer ground, many men began to skid and lose their footing. This unsteadiness made it very difficult for them to control their long, 12 foot pikes. The wet ground made them charge out of formation, only engaging piecemeal with the solidly planted ranks of English billmen, With their shorter, more easily handled bills, they began to slice into James IV’s division. And as the men at the back saw the Scottish pikes go down, they hesitated and many of them ran, believing their king to be killed. By leading from the front, James was immediately submerged in the ruck of the fighting, only able to see what was directly in front of him, in no position to direct his forces. The result was disaster.

The legacy of Flodden was most immediately and keenly felt in the Borders. North of the Tweed the memory of the battle is kept alive in the fabric of the midsummer common ridings. At Selkirk the ceremony of the casting of the colours is unique in Britain and it is based on the return of a soldier known as Fletcher, traditionally believed to have been the only one of sixty from the town to return. In his bloodied hand he held aloft, in a gesture of desolate defiance, a flag captured from the men of Macclesfield in Cheshire. Many Englishmen had fought and fallen at Flodden. And passions still run high. When the Mayor of Macclesfield recently wrote to the Provost of Selkirk asking for the return of the flag, he was told that he would need to come to the Borders and take it.

Flodden is an immense story. Like Culloden in 1746, it signalled the end of a fading, feudal Scotland.  And it also ushered in a century of lawlessness, the criminal society controlled by the appalling Border Reivers. Across Europe, renaissance, enlightenment and the reformation were changing lives, forming new ideas and creating the institutions of the modern world. In the first half of the 16th century, central authority broke down in a leaderless nation, and while swords and spears spoke in Scotland, the law was often silent.

What is to be learned from all of that suffering and slaughter, from all of those ancient enmities? First that they are ancient and must remain firmly in the past. In 2014 Scotland faces a historic choice and whichever way the people of Scotland vote, it must be a signal lesson of Flodden that enmity, even ancient enmity can have no part. And it is to the credit of politicians on all sides of the argument that it has not reared an ugly head. But it might.

And alongside that it mustmbe important to remember, to understand the visceral, bloody realities of whatmwent on on that terrible day 500 years ago. Lest we forget, Flodden should become a place of remembrance and of pilgrimage, a place where the uncomfortable lessons of history can be learned and never forgotten.

Two weeks ago, on one of the countless beautiful evenings of this glorious summer, I drove over to Branxton. As the sun threw long shadows across the gently undulating fields, I tried to imagine the 10th of September, 1513, the distant roar of thousands of men, the screams, the fear and feral closeness of hand-to-hand fighting when

men can smell the breath, smell the sweat of men grunting pushing, hacking, swearing at them, trying to kill them. In a Gaelic phrase, I tried to listen for the music of the thing as it happened. I tried to listen to the slow, sad music of our history. I hope that many in Scotland and England hear it too.

Prior to the sir Malcolm MacGregor (who has admitted that try as he might he can not find a single MacGregor involved in the battle) researched the casualty lists. The following names are clans and families who are known to have fought at Flodden along with notable people who fell in the battle:

From the Highland Clans: 

Campbell, Erskine, Fraser, Gordon, Graham, Guthrie, Haldane, Hay, Keith, Leslie, Lindsay, Macaulay, Macfarlane, Mackay, Maclean, Macnab, Menteith, Moncreiff, Moray, Murray, Ogilvy, Oliphant, Ramsay, Rattray, Ross, Ruthven, Seton, Sinclair, Stewart, Forbes, Forsyth, Grant, MacKenzie, MacNaughton, Ross, Skene, Buchanan Of Leny, MacDonald

The Lowland and Border Clans and Families:

Adair, Abercromby, Adam, Anstruther, Baillie, Baird, Balfour, Barclay, Blackadder, Bonar, Boswell, Carnegie, Cathcart, Cleland, Cockburn, Colville, Craig, Crauford, Crichton, Cunningham, Dunbar, Dundas, Edmonstone Of Duntreath, Elphinstone, Fotheringham, Gray, Grierson, Haig, St.Clair Of Roslin, Henderson, Hepburne, Herries, Home, Hoppringle, Houston, Lauder, Liddel, Lockhart, Lumsden, Lyon, Masterson, Maitland, Maule, Maxtone, Maxwell, Melville, Muirhead, Mure, Napier, Rollo, Sempill, Somerville, Spottiswood, Stewart Of Traquair, Allardice, Ballingall, Kerr, Colville, Crammond, Eliott, Ferguson, Fleming, Foreman (Standard Bearer), Inche, Inglis, Johnstone, Kirkcaldy, Knolis, Logan, Montgomery, Morton, Muir, Nelson Of Madinpap, Otterbrun, Pitcarin, Pringle, Reid, Rorison, Savage, Scott, Seton, Tunstall, Vallanche, Wood Of Raik, Kennedy, Douglas, Hamilton, Livingstone, Wemyss, Wallace, MacLellan, MacCulloch, MacDowall

Chief Or Notable Head Of House/Family

King James IV, Archbishop Of St.Andrews (King’s Son), Earl Of Morton ( Grandson Of James 1), Earl Of Glencairn, Douglas Of Drumlanrig, Sir James Dunbar, Dundas, Lord Elphinstone, Lord Erskine, Earl Of Huntly, Earl Of Montrose, Sir Alexander Guthrie, Haig Of Bemersyde, Haldane Of Gleneagles, Earl Of Errol, Earl Of Bothwell, Sir William Keith, Earl Of Cassilis, Earl Of Rothes, Earl Of Crawford, MacDowal, Earl Of Garthland, MacFarlane Of Arrochar, Hector MacLean Of Duart, Maxwell Lord Of Carlaverock, Sir John Moncreiffe Of That Ilk, Moray Of Abercairney, Ramsay Of Dalhousie, Rattray Of That Ilk, Rollo Of Duncrub, Master Of Ruthven, Lord Sempill, Lord Seton, Earl Of Caithness, Earl Of Atholl, Earl Of Lennox, Lord Darnley, Master Of Angus, Anstruther Of That Ilk, Ballingall Of That Ilk, Master Of Eliott, Lord Forbes, Master Of Lovat, Sir Alexander Gordon Of Lochinvar, Sir Alexander Gordon Of Knockenshene, Grant Of Freuchie, John Henderson Of Fordell, Lord Alexander Home, Sir Patrick Houston Of That Ilk, William Johnstone Of That Ilk, Lord Keith, Lord Lorn, Lyon (Sons Of Lord Glamis), MacKenzie Of Kintail, Sir Alexander MacNaughton Of That Ilk, Andrew Pitcairn Of Pitcairn And 7 Sons, Lord Ross, William Ruthven Of That Ilk, Sir Walter Scott Of Buccleuch, Alexander Skene Of That Ilk, Sir David Wemyss, Earl Of Argyll, Lord Kinnaird, Master Of Cathcart, MacDonald Of Lochalsh.

—–

The St Giles Service…

Just over 40 clan chiefs  attended the St Giles service. At the end of the service they mustered for a photograph on the steps. To help you identify who was there we have been given a sketch with a key to the names:

1. Sir Walter Riddell of Riddell 2. The Hon. Elizabeth Fairbairn 3. Madam Pauline Hunter of Hunterston 4. Sir David Bannerman of Elsick 5. Lord Polwarth 6. Andrew Wallace Younger of that Ilk 7. Andrew Dewar Durie of Durie CBE 8. Michael Ancram, Marquess of Lothian 9. Andrew MacThomas of Finegand 10. Earl of Dundee 11. David Campbell of Strachur 12. Roderick Macneil of Barra 13. Sir James McGrigor 14. Earl of Eglinton and Winton 15. Professor David Hannay of Kirkdale and of that Ilk 16. Henry Trotter Younger of Charterhall 17. John MacArthur of that Ilk 18. Duncan Paisley of Westerlea 19. Richard Carmichael of Carmichael 20. Earl of Caithness21. Earl of Lauderdale 22. The Hon. Alexander Leslie 23. Earl of Erroll  24. Lord Napier and Ettrick 25. Madam Arabella Kincaid of Kincaid 26. David Cranstoun of that Ilk 27. Jamie Macnab of Macnab 28. Earl of Wemyss and March 29. Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw  30. The Hon. Kate Nicolson 31. Duke of Montrose 32. The Hon. Peregrine Moncreiffe of that Ilk 33. Martin Haldane of Gleneagles 34.  Lord Sempill 35.  Andrew Marjoribanks of that Ilk 36. Donald MacLaren of MacLaren  37.  Duke of Hamilton 38. Field Marshal the Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank 39. Isla St Clair 40. Marquess of Ailsa 41. Madam Margaret Eliott of Redheugh 42. Sir Malcolm MacGregor of MacGregor 43. Lord Macdonald of Macdonald 44.  Richard Oliphant of that Ilk

This image will help you identify the chiefs:

The post The Flodden 500 Service at St Giles, Edinburgh. appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

Lordscairnie Castle

Lordscairnie Castle – situated on the outskirts of Fife near Moonzie – was built between 1493 and 1498 by Sir Alexander Lindsay, seventh Earl of Crawford. The forlorn ruins are being sold for around £200,000, with selling agent Smiths Gore hoping to find an ‘emotional purchaser’ ready to take on the castle’s challenges.

At the time the castle was built, Sir Lindsay was one of the most powerful noblemen in Scotland, with the castle acting as an important centre for Clan Lindsay’s operations and aspirations in central Scotland. Its colourful history includes castle raids, house arrests, conflicts with the Bishop of St Andrews and a visit by James V of Scotland just before his death in 1542.

The castle was abandoned in the mid 17th Century and was utilised by the local congregation as a church until the end of the 17th Century. Unoccupied since then, ownership was transferred to the Earl of Glasgow in the 1840s, then by a succession of local farmers before it became the property of the existing owner.

According to local lore, treasure was hidden in the castle, but to date nothing of significant value has come to light. The ghost of Sir Lindsay is also said to haunt the castle on New Years Eve. His ghost can be seen playing cards with the devil at midnight on December 31, though anyone watching it will travel to hell with them at the end of the match.

The B listed castle sits in 30 acres of open countryside at the foot of Colluthie Valley. The grounds also include a large pond, said to be home to about 50 different species of birds. The castle walls are 6 feet thick in many places and when restored the castle could be up to five stories tall, rising to a level of 65 feet. Smiths Gore has estimated that restoration would cost £600,000 to £1 million on top of the purchase price.

Lordscairnie Castle Property Listing

Cavers Castle

A slightly more ambitious restoration project is also available for purchase near the Borders. Cavers Castle, once a 64-room 100,000 acre residence, was the seat of Clan Douglas for more than 300 years. Today much of the land has been sold  – 11 acres remain – and all that remains of the castle is the east wing, but only as an empty shell.

The castle was constructed around 1200 and first inhabited by the Balliols. Clan Douglas, instrumental in banishing the Balliols from Scotland, were granted the lands by David II of Scotland in 1352. Sir Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas was responsible for the construction of Cavers Tower, a traditional fortified Scottish tower, on the site of the original castle after he succeeded to the earldom when James Douglas fell at the Battle of Otterburn in 1388.

In 1542 Cavers was burnt by Dacre with the help of Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm, and in 1545 it figures in a list of places “brent, raced, and cast doune” during the War of Rough Wooing. Cavers House was inhabited by a branch of the black Douglas family until the twentieth descendent, James Douglas died in 1878 leaving no male heir. The property passed to his niece Mary Malcolm who married Captain Edward Palmer in 1879 and the property was substantially re-modelled as Cavers House between 1881 and 1887.

Cavers House in better days, circa 1887

The house eventually became disused and was made available to the army for use in a demolition by explosives exercise in 1953. The army were partially successful in destroying the Victorian section but made little impact on the thick 11-feet thick walls of the older medieval section.

Cavers Castle Property Listing

Cavers Castle on Google Maps – You can see the castle in the woods near Cavers Auld Kirk.

Cavers Tower Flickr Set - Contains fascinating photographs of the castle as it was in 2009. Also contains an interesting story about a witch who cursed the 17th Century Douglases.

The post For Sale: Two Castles, TLC Required appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.