Castle Campbell

 There’s Castle Campbell, high in the Ochil Hills between the Burn of Care and the Burn of Sorrow, and once called Castle Gloom. How much more evocative can you get? If you have ten minutes, take a virtual walk through Dollar Glen and up to the castl now!

There is simply no choice but to write a scene–any scene!–in such a setting!  Whether that will be today, I don’t know, because there are so many wonderful sites that might work better for the underlying themes in the scene.

I moved on to abbeys, in particular, those along the “Four Abbeys Cycle Route,” a ride I fully intend to make some day.  There’s Jedburgh, in the haunts of the great James Douglas, Bruce’s close friend and loyal knight.  It’s tempting to set a scene here, as Douglas appears in Book 2 of the Trilogy.  There’s Dryburgh, secluded on ten acres in a loop of the River Tweed, and Kelso,  known as one of the grandest.

But for sheer picturesque beauty and mystique, Melrose stands out.  It is no wonder it has been lauded by several poets, including Walter Scott, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel:

and further in the poem:

Melrose is widely considered the most beautiful of religious houses in all of the United Kingdom, noted particularly for its Gothic architecture and its many detailed carvings of saints, gargoyles, plants, and dragons.  Notable among the sculptures is the bagpipe playing pig. 

Like all ancient churches, it is built in the shape of a cross, facing east and west.  It features 50 windows, more than 50 buttresses, and a number of side chapels, many containing tombs.  On one of its stairways, is carved the motto of the town of Melrose: “Be halde to ye hende.”  Meaning, Keep in mind, the end, your salvation. 

At the request of David I of Scotland, so renowned for his piety that he was sometimes called St. David, the  Cistercian monks founded this beautiful abbey in 1136.  They selected the site, two miles west of a former monastery on the River Tweed, preferring the better farm there, over the site of the former monastery.  Early records, recorded in the Melrose Chronicle, show grants of land to the abbey by Roger de Skelbrooke of Grennan, about 1193; and grants of Maybole and Beath to the Abbey by Duncan, Earl of Carrick.  Other lands came from Raderic mac Gillescop and his wife Christina (daughter of Roger de Skelbrooke), and from Walter Campania in the mid-1200′s.

The town of Melrose grew up around the abbey.  Through the years, the English attacked both town and abbey.  In 1322, 8 years after the Blue Bells Trilogy begins, Edward II destroyed much of the abbey.  Robert the Bruce rebuilt.  Richard II attacked in 1384, while driving Robert II of Scotland and his army back to Edinburgh.  It took more than a hundred years to rebuild, and in fact was still not finished in 1504 when James IV visited. 

Barely completed, it was once again attacked by Sir Ralph Evers during the “Rough Wooing” of 1544, in which Henry VIII demanded, rather forcefully, the infant  Mary, Queen of Scots, as his son’s bride.  The English, this time, vented special rage upon the tombs of the Douglases, some of whom are buried there.  The following year, in 1545, the English were back, under the Earl of Hertford, to wreak more damage. 

Melrose Abbey was never completely repaired after this, and it declined as a working monastery.  Its last abbot died in 1559, and its last monk some 31 years later in 1590.  Not quite content, the English assaulted one last time, under Oliver Cromwell, in the mid-1600′s. 

Although it was disestablished in 1609, it was partially re-roofed and continued, even in its semi-ruined state, to be used as a parish church from 1618 until 1810.  For years, nearby residents used the church as a quarry to build their own homes, further destroying its former grandeur.

Bruce’s Association with Melrose

Through the Arches

The Bruce seems to have had a place in his heart for Melrose.  (A little historical humor, as there is now a place in Melrose for his heart, but I suppose one logically follows from the other.)  On March 11, 1302, the 27-year-old Bruce wrote to ‘the anxious monks of Melrose Abbey’ that, despite being called to his Carrick army in previous years, he was now ‘troubled in conscience’ and thus promised never again to do so, ‘unless the common army of the whole realm is raised for its defense.’  (An echo, perhaps, of his own father granting certain freedoms to the men of Melrose Abbey in 1285?)

Around March of 1309, he made a royal grant of the lands of Eksdale to the abbey. 

In 1316, in the wake of his success against the English at Bannockburn, Bruce maintained especially close ties to Melrose Abbey.  He signed a charter there on June 8 of that year; 20 days later, from Kilwinning, he granted letters patent to Melrose.  On October 6, it was the Abbot of Melrose who was given safe-conduct to England, presumably to deliver Bruce’s own guarantees of safe-conduct for English negotiators to come north.  Those negotiators arrived at Jedburgh on November 21, and on that same day, once again from Melrose, Bruce signed a writ to James Douglas.

In 1322, Edward II pushed all the way to the gates of Edinburgh.  However, frustrated at the Scots’ harassment of his army (imagine that!), he retreated, attacking Scottish abbeys on the way.  The men of Melrose fought back, resulting in the English killing Melrose’s Prior William Peebles and three invalids  (what a glorious victory)  and going on to descrate, loot and seriously damage the abbey. 

 In January 1326, Bruce granted the abbey a hundred pounds per year to serve each monk “The King’s Dish” each day, a supplement to the standard rations.  The money was to come from Berwick, Edinburgh, and Haddington; James Douglas was charged with enforcing the payment, and as soon as August, had to do so, threatening the sheriff of Berwick with a 10 pound fine.  Several months later, Bruce gave 2,000 sterling, the equivalent of $50,000 today, to Melrose for repairs.  Those repairs are credited with making the abbey so particularly beautiful, as Gothic architecture was at that time at its height. 

In his last written requests as he lay dying at Cardross, on May 13, 1329, Bruce asked that his heart be buried at Melrose Abbey.  Does his request have anything to do with the fact that his own father was buried at Holm Coultram, a daughter house of Melrose, in England?  After Bruce’s death, as per another request, Bruce’s heart made a brief trip to Spain to fight the Crusades, embalmed in a silver casket.  On its return, it was buried at Melrose as requested.

The abbey became the burial place of many important figures.  An 1890 guidebookto Melrose Abbey, by J. Wass, lists William Douglas, “The Dark Knight of Liddesdale,”  and hero of Otterburn and Chevy Chase and many of his descendants; Alexander II and his queen Johanna; many of the Karr family; and the heart of Robert the Bruce, on its recovery from the Crusades, to which James Douglas carried it. 

Among the most interesting stories of the dead at Melrose Abbey is that of Michael Scot, “The Scottish Wizard.”  His life straddled the 12th and 13th Centuries,  and some believe he retired in old age to Melrose, and is buried there.  Sacred-destinations.com claims this is authenticated, while other sites call it conjecture and put forth other places as his retirement and burial.  Nonetheless, it is said that in 1812, roughly 600 years after his death, his stone coffin was found in the aisle of Melrose’s south chancel.

Got Ghosts?

Like all good ruins, Melrose is home to a few ethereal presences.  Michael Scott is reputed to be one of them.  Many people report a chill in the air near his grave.  A group of ghostly monks likes to walk the grounds, while another, unnamed figure ‘slides’ through the ruins like a snake, close to the ground. 

Cemetery at Melrose

A fourth story tells of  a vampire.  Answers.com gives a fairly detailed account, calling this an ‘actual vampire,’ and reporting that the case was chronicled by William of Newburgh, author of Historia rerum Anglicarum, in the 1100′s.  It is worth noting that William of Newburgh comes down through history with the reputation of a ‘careful historian,’ and that he reports his case on the authority of ‘reputable’ clerics who experienced the events firsthand.  The story is also recounted in Stories of the Border Marches, by John Lang.

These reputable clerics tell of  a priest of Melrose who neglected his vows for frivolous activity.  Other sources state more forcefully that he was given to all manner of sin and vices, and called Hundeprest, Dog Priest, for his love of hunting on horseback with a pack of hounds at his heels.  On his death, he rose from his grave and made several attempts at entering the cloister.  Failing this, he wandered the countryside, entering the home of a woman to whom he had been chaplain.  Apparently not caring for her dead chaplain’s nighttime visits, she reported him to the abbey. 

Several of the monks sat watch by his grave.  Most of them went to warm themselves by a fire, leaving only one witness to the nightly rising.  This monk struck the dead–or not so dead–with a battle axe and forced him back into the grave.  When the other monks returned, the earth appeared undisturbed.  They dug up the corpse to find it marked with the wounds of a battle axe, in accord with the monk’s story, and the coffin full of blood.  They burned the body and scattered the ashes over the Lammermuir Hills, but the story of the undead priest, and many say his presence, too, remain at Melrose.

The rumors of vampirism and other crimes are often linked back either to Michael Scott or to the delinquent priest, and the sliding presence is said to possibly be a manifestation of the evil spirits left behind by one or the other of them.

Today

Melrose Abbey stands today as a top attraction in the Borders region of Scotland, including the ruins, the old cemetery, and the Commendator’s House Museum, containing a variety of medieval objects.  If you’re interested in learning more about it, there is a fascinating and detailed guidebook from the 1800′s available online.

 Urquhart dates from medieval days, or earlier.  Adomnan’s Life of Columba tells us that a structure of some sort stood on the same site as early as the 6th Century, most likely the home of an elderly Pict noble, Emchath, whom St. Columba converted, on his way to visit King Brude.  As an interesting side note, other sources say it was on his trip to visit Brude that St. Columba became the first recorded observer of the Loch Ness monster.  He saw a sea creature attacking a man, and drove it off by making the sign of the cross and ordering it to leave.  As a second interesting sidenote, reports say that most Nessie sightings do occur near Urquhart.  I guess it’s as popular among behemoth semi-mythical sea creatures as among humans!

Despite evidence of some structure on the site that early, there are no actual records of Urquhart Castle until the 1200′s.  The land on which it is built was once the home of the Durward family, leading many to believe they built the castle.  In 1250, Alan Durward, a powerful Scottish noble and brother-in-law of King Alexander III, held Urquhart.  When Durward died in 1268, the castle went to the powerful Comyn family, Lords of Badenoch, who in later years became enemies of the Bruce family.

Through the years, however, Urquhart has gone through many hands.  In 1296, Edward I (Longshanks) of England,  threw the might of his trebuchet against Urquhart, tearing down its walls and taking it.  2 years later, the Scots regained it.  In 1303, Longshanks took it again, only to have it re-captured in 1308 by Robert the Bruce, who gave it to his nephew, Sir Thomas Randolph, future Earl of Moray.

From the 1500′s until 1912, it remained mostly in the hands of the Grants, although it was frequently attacked, and on occasion captured by, the MacDonalds in the 1500′s, and by the Covenanters in 1644.  1689 saw the last government troops living in Urquhart, and in 1691 or ’92, depending on the source, Williamite forces blew up the castle to prevent it being used as a Jacobite stronghold.  For part of its history, in the 1700′s, it lived the ignominous life of a stone quarry, but today is the third busiest of Historic Scotland’s sites.

Today’s question was another seemingly simple question: what might the chapel at Castle MacDougall look like?  In my initial draft, I called it ‘gothic.’  But then I decided I better check the years in which architecture was actually considered ‘gothic.’  It turns out the years are accurate: gothic architecture began in the 1100′s in France, and spread out to the rest of Europe, continuing into the 1500′s. 

But Europe is a broad term, and it turns out even gothic is a relatively broad term– if you want to be specific (or is that picky) about it.  I like to be, and found, in the process, that there is great regional variation in what the word means. 

A gothic cathedral in France, for example, would likely be built out of limestone, and feature a narrow transept, the crossarm which divides the long nave (where the pews are) from the choir.  Its eastern end– the choir– is likely to be polygonal with a ring of chapels (a ‘chevet.’)  The cathedrals of this time in France are more often found as ruins out in the country– because the prevalent order, the Cistercians, liked to build farther out.

A gothic cathedral in England, by contrast, may well be built of not only limestone, but red sandstone, dark green Purbeck marble, and timbered “hammer-beam” roofs.   Its transept is likely to have strongly projecting arms, compared to France’s rather narrow ones, its eastern end is going to be square, and the whole structure is probably going to be in a town, where England’s dominant order, the Benedictines, liked to build.

Typical of gothic church construction are pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses.  They exaggerate height and emphasize light.  I found this particularly interesting, as the word gothic, today, tends to have darker connotations.  Gothic fiction, for example, combines romance and horror.  A wikipedia article on gothic fiction says: The ruins of gothic buildings gave rise to multiple linked emotions by representing the inevitable decay and collapse of human creations.  And: Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period. Gothic fiction features such ‘light’ themes as hauntings, madness, doubles, decay, death, mystery.  Where are you, Edgar Allen Poe!  The cast includes a variety of madmen, evil-doers, and creatures of the night such as werewolves, demons and vampires, who you would most likely not want as your neighbors.  (Then again, maybe you would.)  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction)

Gothic fashion is typically dark, even morbid.

The word gothic, as applied to the architecture itself, was originally an insult, meaning barbaric or rude.

And yet, with the word gothic having so many dark and negative connotations,  the hallmarks of gothic architecture are light and height.  Solid walls have been replaced with rows of roof-supporting columns that let light flow through the building.  Ceilings soar high, with clerestory windows that pour in light.  The height and vertical emphasis give a feeling of lifting to Heaven, or airiness and lightness (in the other sense of the word.)  I personally find gothic cathedrals to be incredibly beautiful.

Gothic Cathedral

…all of which brings us back to the chapel at Castle MacDougall. 

A castle chapel is not a cathedral.  What applies to Europe between the 12th and 16th centuries is not necessarily accurate for the west of Scotland in 1314.  And even if it does, could the thieving MacDougalls, the Darth Vader of the 14th century, really have a beautiful, light and airy chapel?  It would be an interesting contrast to the character of the MacDougall.  Maybe that’s exactly what he will have.  Then again, maybe not.

It’s been fun, but right now, I’m back at square one.  Next I’m going to research specific churches of the thirteenth and fourteenth century Highlands.  And we’ll see what MacDougall’s chapel looks like in my head in a few days.  At least I know what Amy finds there!

What do you think MacDougall’s chapel should look like?