Recording Your Heritage Online

Event ID 562832

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Recording Your Heritage Online

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/562832

Recording Your Heritage Online

Huntly Castle, from 12th century A radiant phoenix among the castles of Aberdeenshire, it began life in the 12th century

with the building of the Peel of Strathbogie, an earth and timber castle revetted by a great wall at its base which sheltered Robert Bruce during the Wars of Independence; the motte is still visible. By about 1400, a massive L-plan stone

tower was begun as a replacement. This tower was burnt by the Earl of Moray as part of the contest between James II and his unruly subject, the Black Douglas. A grand castle, it saw many visits from royalty, including the attendance, in

January 1496, of James IV at the marriage between the pretender to the throne of Henry VII, Perkin Warbeck, and Lady Catherine Gordon, 'the White Rose of Scotland'. This 'great olde tower' was eventually destroyed internally in 1594, in retaliation for a revolt of the sixth Earl.

In 1550, George Gordon, fourth Earl and Chancellor of Scotland, visited France with Mary of Guise, James V's widow; by 1556, his 'new wark', a grand palace-block (fr 'palatium', hall), perhaps drawing inspiration from this visit, had been created on the south side of the courtyard. Following the fatal encounter, for George and one of his sons, with Queen Mary at Corrichie on the Hill o' Fare (1562), Huntly, which, being a Gordon house, had become the focus of Roman Catholic opposition to the Reformation, was damaged and looted; the treasures carried off included the silk tent in which Edward II had slept before Bannockburn, given by Robert Bruce to St Machar's Cathedral in Aberdeen; other furnishings went to the Kirk o' Field, the house in Edinburgh where the Queen's husband, Lord Darnley, was mysteriously murdered.

This was but a temporary set-back for this resilient, exuberant family which, in the century between 1540 and 1640, counted as the richest in Scotland. George Gordon, the sixth Earl, who was created first Marquess of Huntly in 1599 (after a period abroad following his injudicious rebellion in 1594), completed the palace, his 'full fayre house' by 1606. This is the chief delight of Aberdeenshire, the château of the Gordons, Cocks o' the North, and a splendidly sophisticated place. An immense inscription commemorating the marriage of George to Lady Henrietta Stewart is triumphantly emblazoned across the whole 17.7 metre width of the upper works, framing a range of delicate oriel windows (1599-1602) inspired by the Chateau of Blois - all in glorious rose-red ashlar. Within is the finest heraldic doorway in the UK and a range of finely carved fireplaces. (The oriels themselves became the inspiration, 300 years later, for the

wing constructed by that latter-day selfaggrandiser, Alexander Forbes Leith at Fyvie (see 'Banff & Buchan' in this series).

Within the great palace and set over the earlier vaulted basement and dank prisons are a ground floor devoted to kitchen, service cellars and, within the huge round tower, the steward's suite from which access to the lord's private chamber above could be had. The two principal floors, which are approached by a ceremonial staircase entered from the heraldic doorpiece, comprise a progressively more private sequence of chambers, the lord's on the first floor, his lady's above, ending in the great bedroom stack of the southwest round tower.

Further work was carried out in the early 1640s, for the second Marquess, by George Thomson, who had been responsible for rebuilding the 'imperial crown' on the tower of King's College, Aberdeen (see 'Aberdeen' in this series). Inevitably standing for the King's party in the troubles of the Civil War, Huntly was occupied by the Covenanters in 1640, held by Montrose against Argyll in 1644 and, in 1647, starved into surrender, the garrison being exterminated. Gordon himself was taken in December 1647, housed briefly in his chateau and beheaded in Edinburgh.

Thereafter, its history was one of neglect and patronised decline until 'rescued by antiquarian sentiment' last century.

Symbols on the grand doorpiece ascend in importance from the lintel bearing four shields: Huntly, monogram of first Marquess and his wife; his father-in-law's arms (Lennox) and the date 1602. Above are the achievements of the first Marquess and Marchioness of Huntly; then James VI and his wife, Anne of Denmark; in the square panel above were the Five Wounds of Christ with the Resurrection in the oval. Over all stood the warrior archangel, Michael. In 1640 covenanting iconoclasm removed these symbols of Gordon's Catholicism. The noble fireplace in the palace block repeats this hierarchical arrangement: Huntly, Lennox, James VI and I, sacred symbols, while the one in the lady's great chamber bears portrait medallions of George, first Marquess, and Henrietta Stewart.

Glory in you is like the Sun which

giues

Eternall splendour, yet is often hid,

Ore-shadow'd in some clime, when yet

he liues

Reviving still: the world cannot forbid

Glory, her beams: but like fires hid in

night.

Expresle at last a more refulgent light

Grace then the Muses, who can giue

you light

Oblivion it selfe can never hide,

Respect those sacrifices, by whose

might,

Demigods soone are wholly Deifide:

Onely giue pardon to me who can giue

Nothing else yet, to make you longer

liue.

Acrostic to the Right Honorable and

Noble George Lord Gordon sonne and

heire to the Right Generous and

Potent, the Marquess of Huntley by

Abraham Holland, 1622

Near to the village stands Huntlycastle, the ancient seat of the Gordon family, whose chief residence has long been at Gordon Castle, near Fochabers ....The first-mentioned is a large building, but has nothing that merits a particular

description.

Francis Douglas, A general description of the east coast of Scotland from Edinburgh to Cullen, Paisley, 1782

Taken from "Aberdeenshire: Donside and Strathbogie - An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Ian Shepherd, 2006. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

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