On the banks of a Highland burn, which falls into the River Nairn
some five miles from the town of Nairn, and fifteen from Inverness,
stands Castle Cawdor, perhaps the best specimen extant of the baronial
castle of the olden time. Its central tower is the oldest portion of
the structure. On its east side, commanded by loop holes, is a small
court, through which the visitor is ushered by an old drawbridge across
a moat. The drawbridge, raised by chains attached to beams resting
on the court wall, gives ingress through gateways secured by wooden
bars. The staircase, the iron gate—brought from Lochindorb—the great
baronial kitchen, partly hewn out of the rock, the massive tower walls,
the ample stone mantlepieces, carved with quaint devices, the old
furniture, and particularly the old mirrors and tapestry, carry one
back many a long year into the social life of the past. Of the building
of the castle there is a traditionary tale. In the dungeon of the
castle there is the stem of a hawthorn tree, and tradition says that
the noble builder was decided as to the position of his intended home
by turning adrift an ass loaded with a chest full of gold, and noting
the spot on which the animal rested, which was the third hawthorn tree
from which he started. That tree is still in the dungeon, the chest
itself is a part of the castle relics, and when friends wish prosperity
to the family, they do so in the words ‘Freshness to the hawthorn tree
of Cawdor.’ The tapestry on the walls was purchased in Arras in 1682,
and brought by ship from Bruges to Dysart and Leith, and thence to
Findhorn. It is curious to note that one of the grotesque figures on
the mantlepiece, dated 1510, is that of a fox smoking, and that, too, a
veritable cutty pipe, while the introduction of tobacco by Sir Walter
Raleigh did not occur till 1585. After the battle of Culloden, the
famous Lord Lovat was concealed in the roof of the castle, but finding
his enemies becoming too numerous within the building, he let himself
down over the wall by a rope, when he escaped, only to be taken in a
hollow tree in an island (in Loch-Morar), was thereafter carried to
London, tried, condemned, and beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 9th of
April 1747, in the 80th year of his age.
Shakspeare’s imperishable tragedy of Macbeth, founded upon a fictitious
narrative which Hollinshed copied from Boece, has immortalized the name
of Cawdor. Local tradition insisted on showing, until lately, the room
in which the grooms were laid—
“Those of his chamber, as it seem’d had done’t
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood,
So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows.”
The very blood-marks upon the woodwork were also shown as evidence of
Duncan’s assassination by Macbeth, and this, too, in the face of the
fact that the licence was granted by James II. to erect the tower in
which the tragedy was supposed to have taken place.
The myth has now disappeared locally, a fire having taken place a few
years ago, which destroyed the woodwork.
It is now an accredited piece of history that neither in Cawdor nor
in Macbeth’s Castle of Inverness, which once stood on the height
called the Crown, but at Bothgowanan, near Elgin, the tragedy was
accomplished. Macbeth by birth was Maormor of Ross, and—through his
marriage with Lady Gruoch, grand-daughter of Kenneth—the fourth Thane
of Cawdor. Her grandfather had been dethroned by Malcolm the Second,
who also burned her first husband, murdered her brother, and slew
the father of Macbeth. All these wrongs were avenged on Duncan, the
grandson of Malcolm, whose presence in this part of the country was in
order to compel his cousin, who had revolted, to pay tribute.
The castle was built by William, Thane of Cawdor, whose son, John,
married Isabel Rose, the daughter of Hugh Rose of Kilravock. This John
was a second son, and on him and his heirs was entailed the estate,
because his elder brother, William, was lame, and inclined to enter the
Church. John died in 1498, leaving two daughters, Janet and Muriel,
born after his death. Janet died while an infant, and Muriel succeeded
to the estate in virtue of the above-mentioned entail. The Laird of
Kilravock designed the heiress for her own cousin, his grandson, but
having joined with Mackintosh in a foray in the lands of Urquhart of
Cromarty, he was pursued in a criminal process for robbery. Argyle, the
then Justice General and Second Earl, had also his intentions regarding
Muriel, and having made matters easy for Kilravock, in the matter of
the law proceedings, induced the King, with her grandfather’s consent,
to award her in marriage to whomsoever he pleased.
Under pretence of sending the child to school, Campbell of Inverliver,
in 1499, was sent with a party of sixty men to Kilravock to convey the
child to Inveraray to be educated there in the family of Argyle.
The old lady of Kilravock, who did not quite approve of this mode
of disposing of the hand of her grandchild, to which the pretended
education tended, took good care to prevent the child being changed,
a common trick of the times, by marking her on the hip with the key
of her coffer, made red hot. That there was a necessity for this, may
be imagined from the reply of Campbell of Auchinbeck, who, when asked
what was to be done should the child die before she was marriageable.
‘She can never die,’ said he, ‘as long as a red-haired lassie can be
found on either side of Loch-Awe.’ The child was, however, delivered to
Campbell of Inverliver and his escort, but on arriving at Daltulich, in
Strathnairn, he became aware that he was pursued by Alexander and Hugh
Calder, the uncles of Muriel, who by no means agreed to the proceeding.
Inverliver faced about, with the largest portion of his party, to
receive the Calders, and, to deceive them, kept one of his men in the
rear, having a sheaf of oats wrapped in a plaid, as if it were the
child, who, however, had been previously sent off with a smaller escort
under charge of one of his sons, with strict instructions to proceed to
Argyle’s castle with all speed.
The conflict was a severe one, and many fell on both sides. It is said
that in the heat of the skirmish, in his extremity, Inverliver gave
utterance to the saying which has since passed into a proverb, ‘’S fada
glaodh o Loch-Ou, ’s fada cabhair o’ Clann Dhuine’ (’Tis a far cry
to Loch-Awe, and a distant help to Clan Duine), signifying immediate
danger and distant relief. When Macliver imagined she was safe, and at
a considerable distance, he retreated, and, following her, conducted
her to Inveraray, where she was educated, and, in 1510, married to Sir
John Campbell, the third son of the Earl of Argyle. For his conduct in
the affair, Macliver was rewarded by a gift of the twenty pound land of
Inverliver.
It was a sister of this Sir John Campbell who married Maclean of
Duart, and who was exposed on a low rock between the islands of Mull
and Lismore, that she might be drowned by the rising tide. The rock
is still known by the name of the Lady’s Rock. From this perilous
situation she was rescued by a boat accidentally passing, and conveyed
to her brother’s house. Her relations, although much exasperated,
smothered their resentment for a time, but only to break out afterwards
with greater violence. Maclean of Duart, happening to be in Edinburgh,
was surprised when in bed, and assassinated by Muriel’s husband. Sir
John Campbell died in 1546, but Muriel survived him until 1575.
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