Nestling amidst the rolling hills of Donside, Kildrummy appears at first sight to be little more than a ragged pile of grey stone surrounded by a deep moat. As you get closer however, the pile begins to take shape, blooming into a rather romantic-looking edifice, the remains of its once tall towers and massive curtain wall still impressive even as ruins. Even a casual glance around its courtyard hints at its past strength, contradicting its much diminished size. For someone all too familiar with the surplus of tower houses in the Central Belt the castle is surprising in its resemblance to what might be termed a "real" castle, being one of the few major thirteenth-century strongholds still kicking around. But Kildrummy is not merely a place of architectural importance: as the former centre of the ancient earldom of Mar, it has been the site of several interesting events in the history of not only the north-east, but Scotland as a whole.
An extremely old title, dating back to at least the eleventh century, the earldom (or, in earlier times, mormaerdom) of Mar was made up of vast swathes of land, particularly in the valleys of the rivers Don and Dee, in modern day Aberdeenshire. Not far from the provinces of Moray and Buchan, it was well-placed to guard one of the main routes into the Highlands, and the earls of Mar were, for many centuries, important figures in the history of Scotland. Though the initial centre of power in the earldom was probably at Doune of Invernochty, Kildrummy had appeared on the scene by the end of the thirteenth-century, possibly having been built by Earl William in around 1250. It was the start of a long and eventful career.
The castle first really came to prominence during the Wars of Independence. The Earls of Mar and the Bruce family were closely connected- Robert the Bruce's first wife was Isabella, a sister of the Earl of Mar, who was the mother of Princess Marjory, his only child until 1324. Meanwhile, his sister Christian was long thought to have been married to Earl Gartnait himself and mother of the future earl, Donald, who, after his father's death, became King Robert's ward- though this second family connection is now considered unlikely, there were still strong links between the Bruces and the earls of Mar. Thus, when Bruce and his supporters fled west after their defeat at the Battle of Methven in 1306, it must have seemed logical to send the important ladies of his court (including his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, his daughter Marjorie, his sisters Christian and Mary, and the Countess of Buchan, Isabella of Fife, who had officiated at his coronation) to take shelter in the strong fortress of Kildrummy, travelling there under the protection of the Earl of Atholl and Neil Bruce, the king's younger brother...
(Part of the remains of the Great Hall, with the windows of the chapel behind)
Unfortunately for the Bruce party, it was not long before a Plantagenet army arrived at Kildrummy, led by Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and Edward of Caernarfon, the Prince of Wales. A well-known tale attests that, though Neil Bruce and the garrison held out for a short while, they were betrayed by the castle blacksmith, who set fire to the grain that was then being stored in the great hall, forcing them to surrender. Neil and the garrison were sent south to Berwick, where they were executed on the orders of Edward I, Neil being hanged, drawn, and beheaded for his treason. The royal ladies meanwhile, had escaped further north with the Earl of Atholl as the English approached, but were captured at the shrine of St Duthac's in Tain when the Earl of Ross broke the laws of sanctuary handed them over to the English king. Queen Elizabeth was confined to the manor of Burstwick, and Christian Bruce was sent to the nunnery of Sixhills in Lincolnshire. For her sister Mary Bruce, and Countess Isabella, a worse fate awaited- two large cages were hung outside Roxburgh and Berwick in which the ladies were imprisoned like animals, suspended for all passers-by to see. It may have been originally intended that the twelve year old Princess Marjorie be imprisoned in a similar cage at the Tower of London, but King Edward changed his mind, and she was sent to a convent in Yorkshire instead. None would be released until after the Battle of Bannockburn. Meanwhile, the Earl of Atholl, also met a gruesome end, as the first earl to be executed in England for over two hundred years. Supposedly, some nobles pleaded that he was King Edward's kinsman, and should at least be given a more honourable execution than that received by Neil Bruce and others, but Edward I is alleged to have decided that this simply meant Atholl should be hanged on a higher gallows than the rest.
Donald, the young Earl of Mar, was also captured around this time, possibly at Kildrummy itself. He spent much of his youth at the English court, but grew so attached to Edward of Caernarfon that, when he was about to be handed back over to the Scots after Bannockburn, he refused to leave. He did not return to the Bruce camp until after Edward II's deposition, but seems to have displayed enough loyalty to the young David II to be made Guardian after the death of Thomas Randolph in 1332. Unfortunately, he died soon after at the Battle of Dupplin, leaving a young son named Thomas as his heir, along with a daughter, Margaret. By this time, however, the second phase of the Wars of Independence was in full swing and by 1334, Kildrummy was one of only five fortresses not in English hands. The following year, David of Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, the grandson of the one executed in 1306 and an important supporter of Edward Balliol, turned up to besiege the castle. He was opposed by Christian Bruce, sister of the late King Robert and aunt to the young David II, who had been left in charge of the same castle her brother Neil had been executed for holding nearly thirty years before. Christian managed to hold out until the arrival of her third husband, Andrew de Moray, whose army defeated Atholl at the Battle of Culblean, where the earl himself was killed. Three hundred men from Kildrummy marched out to join Moray at the battle, and he was made Guardian of Scotland for his services, an appropriate reward, considering that he was the son of the Andrew Moray who was Wallace's co-commander at Stirling Bridge.
Kildrummy reposed in peace for only a few decades after this siege. Though King David II visited his aunt Christian at the castle several times after his return from France, he later fell out with Thomas, earl of Mar, and turned up to besiege the castle in 1362. After Kildrummy fell, Mar was briefly deprived of his possessions and left the country, while David placed the knight Sir Walter Moigne and the man-at-arms Ingram de Wyntoun in charge of Kildrummy on behalf of the crown. It was not long before Mar returned however, and was reconciled with the king, possibly making the siege more of a show of royal might than a really dangerous threat.
(The Warden’s Tower)
Thomas died childless in 1374, and the succession passed to his only sibling, Margaret, who had married William, first Earl of Douglas, and over the following years the earl controlled the Mar lands in right of his wife. Douglas soon convinced Earl Thomas' widow, Margaret Stewart, to give up her terce (dower), which included her residence at Kildrummy, and sign over the rest of the earldom lands to him. At some point, the two also began an affair which would lead to the creation of the Red Douglas branch of the family through Margaret Stewart’s illegitimate son George. But with regards to the history of the castle of Kildrummy, the life of Douglas' legitimate daughter Isabella is more important, after she succeeded to the Earldom of Mar, as well as many other lordships and properties, upon the death of her brother, James, in 1388. Now a rich heiress, Isabella Douglas married Malcolm Drummond, the brother of Queen Annabella, but, though the marriage was a long one, it produced no children, and several other magnates began to look greedily upon the Mar estates.
Stephen Boardman has put forward the theory that Malcolm Drummond was an important supporter of his nephew, David, Duke of Rothesay, the eldest son and heir of King Robert III. Robert III was incapacitated by both mental and physical illness and for some time the country had been ruled by his brother, the Duke of Albany, who acted as governor and lieutenant of the realm. With his mother Queen Annabella’s backing, however, Rothesay was appointed lieutenant in 1398, and Albany discharged of the office, something he appears to have resented. In 1402, following the death of Queen Annabella the previous year, Albany and his allies managed to regain power when he succeeded in having Rothesay arrested (the prince died during this time in captivity, and it was strongly suspected that he starved to death in his uncle Albany’s care). Stephen Boardman suggests that it was as part of the Duke of Albany's elimination of Rothesay’s supporters after his suspicious death that Sir Malcolm Drummond was also arrested and imprisoned, and thus how he met his early end, leaving Countess Isabella a very rich, yet vulnerable widow.
This theory makes sense in light of the fact that several of Albany’s supporters were loitering around the widowed countess at Kildrummy shortly afterward- it would have been unlike Albany to pass up the chance to gain control of such a rich inheritance. However it is at odds with the traditional story that Malcolm Drummond was ambushed and murdered by Isabella’s second husband Alexander Stewart. This young man was the eldest of the illegitimate sons of Earl of Buchan, another of Robert III’s unruly brothers who later acquired the nickname ‘the Wolf of Badenoch’ due to his infamous and rapacious behaviour in the north of Scotland, and whose sons showed every sign of being just as uncontrollable. If Albany did have designs on the earldom of Mar, then these were quickly destroyed when in 1404, Alexander Stewart managed to force his way into the castle (possibly with the aid of local families such as the Forbes) and capture Isabella, marrying her soon afterwards. Having the ageing countess in his power, he then coerced her in to enacting a showy piece of PR in which he surrendered the keys of Kildrummy into Isabella’s hands outside the castle, only for her to grant them straight back to him, in the presence of many important magnates of the region. At the same time she agreed to a contract which granted the earldom of Mar and her other lands to Alexander, and any heirs he might have should their marriage be childless. As the age difference between the couple made this likely, Alexander Stewart must have been rather proud of himself, despite having shocked and frustrated a large portion of the Scottish political community.
Not least among the people whose noses had been put out of joint by Alexander Stewart’s behaviour were his uncle Albany and also the Erskine family, who had a hereditary claim to the earldom of Mar. Eventually, after the arbitration of King Robert III and his officials, it was decided that, while Alexander would remain in control of the earldom and countess for the duration of his life, it would pass to the Erskines if there were no children- it is unclear how Isabella felt about any of this, and after her death Alexander exercised power unopposed in the north-east. The Erskine claim was side-lined again in 1431, when King James I recognised the claim of Alexander Stewart’s illegitimate son, Thomas, to succeed to his father’s lands in order to guarantee the Earl of Mar’s support. As Alexander Stewart had since become the major power in the north and also royal justiciar, proving more of a watch-dog in comparison to his father’s wolf-like reputation, his support was essential for James I’s regime to maintain law and order in the north, and he remained allied with the Crown until his death in 1435. Despite all his careful building of a power-base, however, he was not succeeded by any heirs of his body, his illegitimate son Thomas having died young in 1432. The Erskines’ pleas were also unsuccessful though, as James I annexed the earldom of Mar to the crown.
Several royal princes held the title in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but it was not inherited by any of their heirs. One of the most famous of these was John Stewart, a younger brother of James III, who died suspiciously in Craigmillar Castle in 1479, having been arrested for treason. The earldom was then granted to James IV’s brother, who also died young and without heirs. In 1507, Kildrummy and some of the Mar estates were granted to Alexander, Lord Elphinstone, and his heirs, but the earldom itself was retained by King James IV. It also was briefly granted to Queen Mary’s older half-brother James Stewart, upon his marriage to Agnes Keith, daughter of the Earl Marischal, in 1562. The Lord James only held the earldom for a brief period however, as in the course of queen’s the campaign against the powerful earls of Huntly the same year, it was revealed that he had secretly been granted the earldom of Moray, bound to be a controversial endowment as the earl of Huntly had controlled that earldom for decades. James Stewart (later the Regent Moray) was not entirely without interest in the earldom of Mar, however, as his mother was Margaret Erskine, sister of John, Lord Erskine, who was finally granted the title of Earl of Mar in 1565. John Erskine later succeeded his nephew as one of the short-lived regents to the young James VI, and as keeper of Stirling Castle he and his wife also had responsibility for the upbringing of the young king. His son, who succeeded him as earl of Mar in 1572, also played a major role in central politics but the Erskines were to be less closely associated with Kildrummy and the north than their medieval predecessors, with the earls of Mar increasingly spending time at their Lowland seat of Alloa Tower. Kildrummy castle was finally sidelined as a result of the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1715, where the earl of Mar had backed the exiled James VII, and after its abandonment and the following year it was left to fall into disrepair. At some point some of its stones were removed to be used in the construction of the nearby Glenbuchat Castle. However, thanks to the care and attention of Colonel James Ogston, who bought the estate in 1898, what remained of Kildrummy was preserved for future generations, and it is now in the care of Historic Scotland, as monument of huge national importance in Scottish history.
To finish, a quick description of some of physical aspects of the castle is worthwhile. It is built of fine ashlar, which was unfortunately pilfered for other building works (including parts of nearby Glenbuchat) over the centuries. Built in a roughly pentagonal shape, it has four main towers, as well as the remains of two impressive early fourteenth-century gatehouse towers, which bear a remarkable similarity to those at Harlech Castle, in North Wales. Subsequent research, particularly by Douglas Simpson, has shown that it is likely that they were designed by Harlech's architect, Master James of St George, on the orders of Edward I in around 1303. The barbican is a later fifteenth-century addition. Meanwhile, of the four main towers, the two southern ones- Burges and Maldis- were smaller, while the northern ones (or what remains of them) would have been much larger. These were the Warden's Tower and the Snow Tower. The Warden's Tower is possibly the most intact of the four, and once contained a prison. A nearby postern gate leads out of the castle. The Snow Tower, now sadly reduced to a low shell after it collapsed in 1805, was a highly sophisticated piece of architecture, seven storeys high, and with a mechanism for drawing water up to each floor from the well below. It was the main residence of the castle owners until the construction of the adjacent Elphinstone tower in the sixteenth century. Lastly, the three large windows at the eastern end of the castle draw the eye- these were the windows of the chapel, and were positioned above the altar.
(The remains of the Snow Tower)
References:
Walter Bower's "Scotichronicon" Volumes 6 and 7, (Aberdeen, 1991)
"Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland", G. W. S. Barrow
Glenbuchat Castle was built in 1590 for John Gordon of Cairnbarrow to mark his wedding. Carved in the doorway is "NOCHT ON EARTH REMAINS BOT FAME", an appropriate Gordon epitaph.
The family sold the castle in 1738, and it remained in private hands until the 20th century. Both the castle and the surrounding land are managed by Historic Scotland.
The castle is located above the River Don, near Kildrummy, Aberdeenshire.
