Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 12 on 19/1/2004.

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Standing Guard

John Hannavy looks at fortress castles on Scotland's coastline

Sailing up the River Forth in mediaeval times, be you welcome guest or unwelcome foe, the sight that greeted you as you approached Blackness would have sent a chill through even the hardiest sailor. Blackness Castle – shaped unmistakably like a ship, its prow towards the prevailing winds off the estuary – protected not just this stretch of the river, but more importantly, the port which gave access to the great Royal Palace at Linlithgow.

The castle is first mentioned as late as the middle of the 15th century and, in 1453, it was gifted to King James II by the Crichton family. Subsequent monarchs used it both to defend the port, and as a prison for high-status prisoners. Cardinal Beaton was perhaps its most famous to be held there – in the mid 16th century – by which time it was as near to being an impregnable fortress as 16th century castle-designers could make it.

Cardinal Beaton’s name appears in connection with yet another of Scotland’s great coastal castles – at St. Andrews in Fife. As an exemplar of how close to nobility were the upper echelons of the mediaeval clergy, the first St Andrews castle was constructed in the early 13th as a residence for the Bishop. Later bishops, whose religious duties were often indistinguishable from their involvement in politics, enlarged and strengthened it.

By the mid 16th century, when in 1546 Beaton has incurred the wrath of the English King Henry VIII by refusing to sanction the marriage of Henry’s son Edward with the three year-o.....

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By John Hannavy

Section : Scottish Castles

Page number : 16