Dumbarton Castle

“ Three men of the garrison were killed. Many of the others, including Fleming himself, succeeded in escaping. Amongst those that were taken prisoners was the Bishop of St. Andrews. He was subsequently hanged for complicity in the murders of Darnley and of Murray. [242]
Another noteworthy capture of Dumbarton Castle occurred in 1639. At that time the fortress was held for the king by Sir William Stewart. On the last Sunday in March, having gone to the Communion service in Dumbarton, he was invited to dinner by Provost Sempill, a zealous Covenanter. ”

“ The Castle of Dumbarton, which has already been mentioned as the place from which Mary embarked for France in her early childhood, was below Glasgow, on the northern shore of the river. It stands there still in good repair, and is well garrisoned; it crowns a rock which rises abruptly from the midst of a comparatively level country, smiling with villages and cultivated fields, and frowns sternly upon the peaceful steamers and merchant ships which are continually gliding along under its guns, up and down the Clyde. ”

“ There are very few old houses, though still the town retains an air of antiquity which one does not well see how to account for, when everywhere there is a modern front, and all the characteristics of a street built to-day. Turning from the main thoroughfare I crossed a bridge over the Clyde, and gained from it the best view of the cloven crag of Dumbarton Castle that I had yet found. ”

“ That he had done is best to garrison the castle of Edinburgh, though it was in a precarious state, but that the castle of Dumbarton might be readily garrisoned by troops from Ireland. If he preserved his life, which he seemed to doubt, he would defend his post to the utmost, though "he hated the place like hell," and as soon as he was free of it, would forswear the country. He recommended his brother to the king's favour, and his children to his protection if they lived; and to these if they did not prove loyal, he left his curse. His daughters, he desired, might never marry into Scotland. ”

“ The advice of the most judicious among those about the queen was to shut herself up in the strong castle of Dumbarton, which, being impregnable, would give all her adherents time to assemble together, distant and scattered as they were: accordingly, the guidance of the troops who were to conduct the queen to that town was entrusted to the Earl of Argyll, and the 11th of May she took the road with an army of nearly ten thousand men. ”

“ Dumbarton (17) , the county town of Dumbartonshire, and a royal burgh, at the mouth of the Leven, on the Clyde, 15 m. from Glasgow; shipbuilding the chief industry; it was the capital of the kingdom of Strathclyde; adjoining is a castle of historic interest, 250 ft. high, kept up as a military fortress; the county, which is fertile, and was originally part of Lennox, is traversed by the Leven, with its bleach-fields and factories. ”

“ But for more than two centuries before the Union of the Crowns the only wars which troubled Stirling were those which Scots themselves stirred up when they found themselves at variance with their rulers. Dumbarton, again, lay open to invasion only from the sea, but this route was made use of by the traitor Earl of Lennox, when he sailed in the pay of Henry VIII., though he failed to induce the patriotic garrison to hand over to the English King the castle of which the Earl himself was governor and practical owner as well. ”

“ When Queen Mary was scarcely one year old, he audaciously proposed, in his scheme for uniting her with Edward, his heir, that she should be sent to England for her education, and that English garrisons should hold the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling and Dumbarton. The King therefore looked upon the fortress on the Clyde as one of Scotland’s three most important strongholds, thus differing from an earlier Henry, who did not demand Dumbarton in the Treaty of Falaise, but stipulated for three Border castles along with Stirling and Edinburgh. ”

“ In the time of Queen Elizabeth of England, when a quarrel was raging in Scotland between the partisans of King James and his mother Queen Mary, and when even the children of the towns and villages formed themselves into bands and fought with sticks, stones, and even knives for King James or Queen Mary, the castle of Dumbarton was held for the Queen ”

“ Dumbar ́ton, a royal and parliamentary burgh and seaport, Scotland, chief town of Dumbarton county, stands on the Leven near its junction with the Clyde, 16 miles W.N.W. of Glasgow. Shipbuilding is carried on to a great extent, and there are foundries and engine-works. Dumbarton unites with Port-Glasgow, Renfrew, Rutherglen, and Kilmarnock in sending a member to Parliament. Originally it was called Alcluyd, and it was the chief town of Cumbria or Strathclyde. Pop. 21,989. A little to the south is the famous rock and castle of Dumbarton, rising above the Clyde. ”

“ From Dumbarton Queen Mary, a child of six, set sail for France to wed the Dauphin; and to the friendly shelter of its castle she was hastening when—
“From the top of all her trust
Misfortune laid her in the dust.”
The town has still its great shipbuilding industry, its shipping trade, and its foundries and turkey-red and other manufactories. Some of the old houses remain, along with a fragment of its collegiate church. Other bold hills beside the Castle [Pg 367] Rock overlook it, and the broad and smooth Leven—harbour and river—divides it into two parts. ”

“ The castle of Dumbarton being taken by surprise, great joy was experienced by the king’s party on finding John Hamilton, archbishop of St Andrews, among the prisoners. The primate, a zealous adherent of the ancient faith, and partisan of the queen, was suspected of various crimes against the Protestant cause ”

“ Such fortifications as these houses had or still have were not designed to stand a siege, but to ensure privacy and keep off casual marauders. Even in the sixteenth century, dwelling-houses like Compton Wyniates in Warwickshire or Tolleshunt Major in Essex were surrounded by a moat or simply by a wall.
Against these minor fortifications, however, we must put the cases in which the process of crenellation definitely meant conversion into a castle. Dunstanburgh, which Thomas of Lancaster had licence to crenellate in 1315,328 is a military stronghold of the most pronounced type. ”

“ The keep, now refaced and restored, was rebuilt by Bishop Hatfield. The castle is commonly said to be no older than William the Conqueror; but a fortress must have existed from a much earlier period, and the mound is artificial. The Norman chapel of the castle, its most ancient portion, is usually assigned to King William I., though of the time of Rufus. The pavement of herring-bone is, no doubt, coeval. The whole of Durham Castle is now in excellent preservation, and the union of the past with the present is well maintained ”

“ The two contiguous shires of Norham and Island, probably given by Oswald of Northumberland to Lindisfarne, are reputed the oldest possessions of the see of Durham, and detached from the body of the bishopric, presented a bold and strongly-fortified front of twelve miles, from Coldstream to Berwick, to the Scottish invaders. Early in the twelfth century arose the castle, of which the ruins are still so grand, and for the possession of which English and Scottish kings contended for centuries with varying success. ”

“ Far up on the east coast of Scotland, where the huge breakers of the Atlantic dash in angry tumult against the granite crags of that rugged shore, stands the castle of Dunmorton, a grim historic pile.
For generations it has been the home of the McAllisters, and is still little changed since the days of Bruce and Balliol, when armed men issued from the low, arched doorway, to work destruction on their enemies of the South.
The last of the race dwells there now; a man yet in the prime of life, though one who takes but little interest in the doings of the busy world. ”

“ Notwithstanding which it is now demolished, and all this glory lyeth in the dust, buried in its own ruins; there being nothing standing but a few broken walls, which seem to mourn their own approaching funerals." The walls are formed of slate, and appear to be rapidly decaying. The grounds round the castle consist of steep eminences, covered with oak and other trees. Even in the court, and remains of the fortress itself, trees of nearly a century's growth are flourishing in luxuriance, and compose, with the shrubs thickly scattered within the area, a scene highly beautiful. ”

“ The case of Dudley is one of those which proves that Henry II. destroyed some lawful castles in 1175 as well as the unlawful ones. In 1264 a license to restore it was granted to Roger de Somery, in consideration of his devotion to the king’s cause in the Barons’ War. [414] The whole area of the castle, including the motte, but not including the works at the base of the hill on which it stands, is 13⁄4 acres. The bailey is an irregular oval, following the hill top. Dudley is an instance in which the value of the manor has gone down instead of up since the erection of the castle ”

“ In 1070 the brethren returned to Durham and in 1093 the building was begun, almost simultaneously, of the present glorious Cathedral of Durham and a new Priory and Church on Lindisfarne, and a strong resemblance may be traced between the two buildings The Abbey was deserted on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII., and gradually fell into ruins.
The Castle, which stands on a lofty whinstone rock at the south-east corner of the island, is a conspicuous object for many miles, whether viewed by land or sea. ”

“ Hutchinson in his history of the county of Durham, describes the remains of the castle as covering about six acres and three quarters of ground. The parts which were of chief strength, stand on the very brink of a steep rock, about eighty feet above the level of the river Tees, commanding a most beautiful prospect up the river. The area on the side of the market-place, appears not to have had any communication with the chief strongholds and bulwarks of the fortress, and is separated from the interior buildings by a deep fosse which surrounds the rest of the castle. ”

“ Many of these are dotted about the more exposed parts of the county; others are in the rear of the Roman wall.
The castle of Durham, taken alone, is rivalled both in position and grandeur by Bamburgh, but taken in conjunction with the cathedral and attendant buildings,
“Half church of God, half fortress ’gainst the Scot,” the group is without an equal. The main feature of the castle is the circular keep, a rebuilding of probably the oldest and most complete of that type in Britain. The lower ward also is spacious, and includes many buildings, some of them of early Norman date. ”

“ To him who is familiar with its history, Dunnottar speaks with an audible voice; every cave has a record—every turret a tongue; his ear is struck with "wandering voices," and words that never die seem at every step to arrest his attention.
The Castle of Dunnottar—now the stately and magnificent ruin thus feebly sketched—stands on an isolated rock two hundred feet perpendicular, washed on three sides by the sea, and on the other separated from the adjacent land by a wide and deep chasm, from which by a gate in the wall, nearly forty feet high, there is an entrance to the fortress. ”

“ Durham, a heavy and massive pile built by knight-bishops, overlooks the valley of the Wear, and seems a divine fortress, a castle erected for God. The donjons of the conquerors, Rochester, London, Norwich, Lincoln, are enormous, square and thick, so high and so solid that the idea of taking these giant structures could never occur to the native dreamers, who wait "till the end shall be good when God pleases"!
The masters of the land are ever ready for everything, and find time for everything: if their religious edifices are considered, it seems as though they had cared for nothing else ”

“ The contemplation of Dunstanbrough Castle, like that of many similar edifices, the ruins of which still frown upon the promontories and headlands of our coast, cannot but awaken feelings little favourable to what are frequently called the "good old times." If we may compare what our ancestors have left with what the present generation is exerting itself to accomplish, antiquity has little to boast of. ”

“ Its diamond-paned windows look into a wonderful courtyard, where you expect to see monks walking, or perhaps cavaliers; and on the hill above the garden, there are earthworks thrown up by Oliver Cromwell's army during the siege of Dunster Castle—the "Alnwick of the West." To-morrow, we are to be allowed, as a special favour, to see the inside of the Castle which towers up so grandly against the sky. It isn't open to the public; but Sir Lionel knows some relatives of the owners, so we are to be shown round. ”

“ Crowning the southward slope of the hill upon which the town is located, Narberth Castle occupies a position of considerable importance. The ruins of the fortress, though small, and devoid of striking features, are not without a certain picturesque appearance when seen from the Tenby road. It must, however, be confessed that 'distance lends enchantment to the view;' for the existing remains are of a very fragmentary nature, consisting of a few broken bastions, with some odds and ends of more or less dilapidated masonry. ”