Huntly Castle

Huntly Castle is a ruined castle in Huntly in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It was the ancestral home of the chief of Clan Gordon, Earl of Huntly.

History

Architecturally the L plan castle consists of a well-preserved five-storey tower with an adjoining great hall and supporting buildings. Areas of the original ornate facade and interior stonework remain. A mound in the grounds of the castle is all that remains of an earlier 12th century motte. Originally named Strathbogie, the castle was granted to Sir Adam Gordon of Huntly in the 14th century. King Robert the Bruce was a guest of the castle in 1307 prior to his defeat of the Earl of Buchan.

It was fired in 1452 by a force under the command of Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray. In 1449 the king was at war with the powerful Black Douglases, the Gordons stood on the king's side and, with their men involved in the south of the country, the Earl of Moray, a brother of the Earl of Douglas, took the opportunity to sack the Gordon lands, setting Huntly Castle ablaze. The Gordons returned and quickly destroyed their enemies.[citation needed]

Although the castle was burned to the ground, a grander castle was built in its place. In 1496, the pretender to the English throne, Perkin Warbeck, was married to Lady Catherine Gordon the daughter of George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly, witnessed by King James IV of Scotland at Edinburgh. James IV came to Huntly in October 1501 and gave gifts of money to the stonemasons working on the castle. In October 1503, James IV came again and played in a shooting contest at a "prop", and he came back again in the following October. These visits were part of his annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Duthac at Tain.

William MacKintosh was executed on 23 August 1550 at Castle Strathbogie.[citation needed]

Wings were added to the castle in the 16th and 17th centuries. The English diplomat Thomas Randolph stayed two nights in September 1562, and wrote that the castle was "fayer, beste furnishede of anye howse that I have seen in thys...