Dunnottar Castle

We chose a particularly dreary day to visit Dunnottar Castle. Saturday, January 23 was wet and cold, but we were antsy and eager for an outing. We decided to drive 30 minutes south to this ruined fortress situated on top of a stunning cliff.

The boys enter an area we learned is rich in Scottish history and has been important since the Middle Ages.

William Wallace attacked the English-occupied castle with an untrained army in 1297. The chapel, with many frightened English garrison within, was burned by Wallace. The rebuilt chapel is pictured below.

There was ample space to run on the bowling green.

The Whig's Vault held 167 Covenanters from May 24, 1685 until the end of July. These Covenanter's refused to acknowledge the King as head of the church and refused to acknowledge the new prayer book.

Of the 167 imprisoned, 37 agreed to take the oath of allegiance and were released. 25 escaped through the window pictured below. Of these, 15 were recaptured and tortured and 2 fell from the rock to their deaths. Five others also died. The survivors were sent to the West Indies. It is thought that approximately 70 of those died of fever.

Caleb

Cooper

Noah

There are numerous fascinating stories involving the castle. I'll relate only one more. Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1650, and the 'Honours of Scotland' could not be returned to Edinburgh Castle (which had already been taken by Cromwell's army) after the coronation of Charles II in Scone. The king ordered that the Honours be taken to Dunnottar. In September 1651, English troops began a siege of the castle in quest of the crown jewels. George Ogilvy, governor of the castle, ultimately surrendered in May 1652 but not before the Honours of Scotland had been smuggled out. There are several versions of the story. The most likely is that the regalia was lowered over the side of the castle to women who were there on pretence of gathering seaweed.