Tantallon Castle

Tantallon Castle served as a great baronial residence for the Douglas family for 300 years.

The castle was built in the 1350's by William, 1st earl of Douglas, who had inherited the barony of North Berwick from his uncle, Sir James of Douglas, a close friend of Robert the Bruce. Following the death of his son James, the house heirless was divided in two with Tantallon passed to the 'Red' Douglases, earls of Angus.

The castle survived two siege attempts.

When the 5th earl, Archibald, entered a treasonable pact with Henry VII of England in 1491, James IV arrived to lay siege while the king's ship The flower blockaded the stronghold from the sea. There is little account of what happened but it appears that Archibald submitted to his liege and was soon back in favour, becoming Chancellor of Scotland in 1493.

Following the marriage of Archibald's grandson (also Archibald) to Margaret Tudor, the widowed queen of James IV, he reneged on the agreement to pass care for the child king James V to another noble family of Scotland. In 1528 when James escaped Edinburgh Castle where he was being held, Archibald withdrew to the safety of Tantallon where a second siege took place in 1528. Charged with treason once more, the king advanced on the castle with a large force of men and guns but had to withdraw 20 days later when a shortage of gunpowder and shot prevented him from breeching the strengthened defences.

The castle fell to the Crown, not by strength of arms but by negotiation in 1529 when Archibald fled to England in exile. The king immediately ordered the castle strengthened further with the addition of a green basalt fore tower and the filling in of the chambers in the main curtain wall, seen as the two weakest points in the castle defences.

However, the castle could not survive a third telling siege when in 1651, flush from defeating the Scots at Dunbar, Oliver Cromwell sent an English Parliamentary army of some 2,000 - 3,000 men to draw the thorn in his side; the castle had been used as a base to carry out raids on his army. Defeating the garrison of 91 officers and men commanding 16 large guns, the English gave quarter to the survivors in recognition of their defiant stand. The destruction of all but the main curtain wall is testament to the English bombardment which wrought almost complete destruction to its vulnerable flanks.

More images can be found on my Tantallon Castle blipfolio.