IX
OUR SHIP’S NAME-MOTHER
THE whole party returned to the ‘Dunottar Castle’ about five o’clock, and soon afterwards the anchor was weighed and we started on our homeward voyage. The wind, which had been blowing fresh from the north-west all day, fell away toward sunset, and during the night—the only night spent in sailing—we had a wonderfully quiet passage.
About five o’clock in the morning, those who were fortunate enough to occupy berths on the port side of the ship saw a magnificent sunrise. The sky was clear overhead, but there was a dense bank of clouds on the eastern horizon. Presently, in the midst of the dark mass, a ruddy longitudinal streak appeared. Then the streak was doubled and multiplied. The upper air glowed with opalescent tints. The clouds melted away, and the ruddy orb of the sun appeared on the verge of the ocean. The sea around us, and for miles away, was calm as a mirror, and reflected the gradations of light and the fiery hues of the eastern sky. It was an enchanting scene, such as could be witnessed only once or twice in a lifetime.
We passed Aberdeen about six o’clock, but at too great a distance to obtain a definite view. About breakfast-time we were off Stonehaven, which threw back from its windows the rays of the morning sun. It was a glorious day. Not a cloud darkened the sky, not a ripple broke the surface of the sea except in the track of the ship. Presently we were abreast of the ruins of Dunottar Castle, perched on its rocky pedestal—the veritable name-mother of our ship. The breakfast-bell was ringing (a welcome sound in ordinary circumstances), but every one was loath to leave the deck. The order was therefore given to lie-to until that necessary rite had been performed. Then we returned to the deck with satisfied spirits, and gazed for half an hour or more on the beautiful scene. Artists, photographers, and scribes were soon busily at work, all eager to catch the fleeting beauty.
The detached, or semi-detached, rock on which the ruins of the Castle stand is about two miles south of Stonehaven. It is 160 feet high, and a deep chasm separates it, all but completely, from the mainland, which at this point is wild and precipitous. The neighbourhood, indeed, is a continuous series of cliffs, which are frequented by numerous sea-birds: hence the popular name given to the coast, of the ‘Fowlesheugh.’
Here again the resources of our own Antiquary were called into requisition, and he assured us, with the unblushing confidence of an expert, that the name of the Castle meant in Gaelic ‘the fort of the low promontory.’ It is easy to believe that the rock was the site of a castle from very early times, a siege of ‘Dunfoither’ (as it was then called) by a king of the Picts in the seventh century being on record (681 A.D.). [1] The Castle the ruins of which remain is of course of much later date, though its buildings belong to different ages. It appears, from evident signs, to have covered the greater part of the surface of the rock, which is 4½ acres in extent.
Its position resembles very closely that of Tantallon Castle in the Firth of Forth, and before the days of artillery it must have been almost impregnable. Nevertheless, Blind Harry describes a capture of Dunottar by William Wallace, when four thousand Englishmen were burned in the Castle. It was re-fortified by Edward III. in 1336; but these incidents relate to an older castle than that of which the remains survive.
The present Castle, as far as can be ascertained, was begun by Sir William Keith, the ‘Great Marischal of Scotland,’ towards the close of the fourteenth century, and the lands and castle remained in the hands of the Keith family till the Rebellion of 1715, when the owner threw in his lot with the Pretender, and forfeited his estates. One of the mottoes of the family was couched in the quaint and defiant words,
‘They haif said:
Quhat say they:
Lat thame say!’
When the ship received the name of the Castle, these words also were adopted as its motto.
Dunottar Castle in olden time—from an old print.
Dunottar was besieged by the gallant Marquis of Montrose during the great Rebellion, the Earl Marischal of that time having been a Covenanter (1645). Montrose offered him fair terms if he would capitulate, but the Covenanting clergymen who had taken refuge within the Castle overruled him, as their kind overruled David Leslie at Dunbar; and he was not allowed to surrender. Thereupon the Marquis subjected the surrounding property to military execution, to the great dismay of the Earl, when he saw flames and smoke rising from his houses, and notwithstanding the assurance of Andrew Cant (ominous name) ‘that the reek would be a sweet-smelling incense in the nostrils of the Lord.’ Evacuation followed as a matter of course.
When Charles II. visited Scotland in 1650, he was entertained in Dunottar Castle by the seventh Earl Marischal. In the following year, when the English Parliamentary army overran Scotland, the Scottish Estates deposited the Regalia in Dunottar Castle, then deemed the strongest place in the kingdom, and George Ogilvy of Barras was appointed Lieutenant-Governor. It was besieged by Cromwell’s army, and Ogilvy held out until famine rendered his troops mutinous, whereupon he surrendered. Before he did so, however, the Regalia had been cleverly removed by Mrs. Granger, the wife of the minister of Kinneff—a village on the coast, four miles farther south. Having obtained the permission of the English commandant to visit her friend Mrs. Ogilvy, the Lieutenant-Governor’s wife, Mrs. Granger, carried with her, on leaving the Castle, a bundle of clothes, in which the Crown was imbedded, and also a huge distaff covered with lint, which was in fact formed of the Sceptre and the Sword of State.
The same night, the precious treasures were buried by the minister himself under the flags of his church at Kinneff; and there they remained till after the Restoration of 1660, when they were unearthed, and were presented to Charles II. by the same George Ogilvy who had formerly been Commander of the Castle. Ogilvy’s only reward was the title of Baronet, and a new coat of arms. The minister and his wife received no reward—not even thanks. Sir John Keith, the brother of the Earl Marischal, was made Earl of Kintore in 1677, and was the ancestor of the present Earl, who is the tenth to hold the dignity.
After its surrender to Cromwell, the Castle was partially dismantled and reduced to ruins. What remained of it was, like the Bass Rock, used as a State prison for the Covenanters during the persecutions under Charles II. and the Duke of York. One hundred and sixty-seven men and women were imprisoned at one time in its ‘Whig’s Vault,’ or Black Hole, and nine of them speedily died of suffocation. Driven to despair, some twenty-five of them one night crept out of a window and along the face of the cliff, in the hope of effecting their escape. Two of these daring men fell over the rock and were killed. The others were captured, and were subjected to terrible cruelties.
A few years after the forfeiture already referred to, the Castle was sold, and was completely dismantled. It was subsequently repurchased by the Keith family; and it passed finally into the hands of Sir Alexander Keith, Writer, Edinburgh, whose grandson, Sir Patrick Keith Murray of Ochtertyre, sold it in 1875 to Mr. Innes of Cowie, near Stonehaven.
Having studied the Castle and its surroundings long enough to deepen our impressions of it, we got up steam again, and went on our way past Bervie, with its outstanding Craig-David; past Montrose, stretched over a level site; past Arbroath, with its tall chimneys, its spires, and its ancient Abbey,—all seen in the dim distance, and reposing peacefully in the Sabbath calm.
[1] See Sir Donald Currie’s Book of Garth and Fortingall, page 83.
