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ADVENTURE OF THE MONTH—MAY, 2005

(5th of a series)

        The classic castle, like great art, is difficult to define. Ask anyone to describe his or her idealized castle and you may get the same answer you commonly hear for great art: "I know what I like, and I’ll know it when I see it."
        We love castles—of all shapes and sizes and all states of repair. We have our favorites, too, just like we have our favorite music and painters. In this series we present castles we have enjoyed and hope our enthusiasm compels the reader to make their own pilgrimage to these great shrines of history and monuments to imagination.

DOUNE, CENTRAL SCOTLAND
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MONTY PYTHON'S SIEGE CASTLE IN "THE HOLY GRAIL"

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...
        Doune Castle is a relic reminder of the chaos of the dimly distant past. Doune Castle is a rollicking reminder of the chaos of the dim-witted present. Doune—often considered Scotland’s best-preserved medieval castle—also ranks highly as one of its most entertaining, most historic, and, because of its central location, one of its most accessible.
        The castle lies almost unnoticeable among the forested hills in a little river valley just outside of the former mill town of Doune about 20 minutes drive southeast of Callander and about 10 minutes drive northwest of Stirling. These are the foothills of the Highlands, rising just north of Scotland’s prosperous and populated midlands belt, a no-man’s land with a history of conflict that made the careers of national heroes Robert the Bruce and William Wallace. History at Doune doesn’t end with the castle’s partial destruction by Cromwell’s troops during the 17th century English Civil War, or the Jacobite Uprising of 1745. Quite a bit of history has been made here in the last 30 years. Monty Python is to blame.                     "BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!" 

GREAT SCOTS — THE STEWARTS
        Mind you, Doune’s first 600 years saw plenty of action, and some pretty odd—and pretty gruesome—characters were seen between its 6-foot-thick stone walls. Castle Doune was built 100 years after William Wallace ("Braveheart") wrenched Scotland away from English control at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, less than ten miles from Doune (see Stirling Castle!).
        The Duke of Albany, powerful brother of Scotland’s King Robert III, built the medium-sized, hulking fortress in the late 14th century. Albany became Scotland’s regent governor when his brother the king could no longer rule and his nephew the crown prince—while in the care of Albany—died mysteriously. The duke effectively reigned over Scotland until his death in 1420, when the power—and Doune Castle—passed to Murdoch, his son. When the true Stewart heir, James I, was restored to Scotland’s throne four years later, poor Murdoch was promptly declared a traitor and dispatched. His castle was taken by the Scottish Crown and used as a vacation house and hunting lodge.
        Despite numerous intrigues over the next 180 years, the Stewarts maintained their hold on Scotland. By the end of the 16th century, James VI, the son of the fabled Mary, Queen of Scots—who had visited Doune Castle—was poised to become King James I, monarch of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England, as the Stewart dynasty would replace the Tudors. The Stewarts would hold the unified throne for 100 years, more or less. It was a century of great expansion of the British Empire, but plagued by intrigue, civil war and, ultimately, with the royal replacement of the Scottish Stewarts by the Dutch House of Orange, then the German Hanovers.

   
      DEATH MASK OF
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

JACOBITES!
        Many Scots—and many Stewart sympathizers in England, Wales, Ireland, and France—felt foreign usurpers were wearing the rightful Stewart Crown. Over almost 60 years (1689-1746) these "Jacobites" (from "James", traditional name of Stewart kings) attempted to restore various "legitimate" or "pretender" Stewart princes to the British throne. Several of these attempts—"uprisings"—were noteworthy for their violent, open warfare. All came to a head with the Uprising of 1745, as a Jacobite army assembled under the "Young Pretender", Bonnie Prince Charlie (Prince Charles Edward Stewart), was slaughtered by combined British forces (yes—including non-Jacobite Scots) at Culloden near Inverness.
        It wasn’t all bad news for Bonny Prince Charlie during "the ‘45". During their siege of the English-held Stirling Castle 10 miles east of Doune, the Jacobite army surprised a English relief force coming to Stirling from Edinburgh late in the day of January 17, 1746. The Scots held the high ground at Falkirk Moor in the darkness and steady rain that January day. The English artillery was immobilized by mud at the bottom of the hill, and their troops were cut down by Highland volleys from above.
        A garrison of Jacobites led by Rob Roy MacGregor’s nephew, Gregor MacGregor, billeted some English prisoners, including some suspected spies, at nearby Doune Castle. Among these was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and scholar from Edinburgh, the Rev. John Witherspoon, who had been taken under suspicion at Falkirk. From their communal cells in the top of one of Doune’s towers, several of the captives plotted their escape by lowering themselves by bed sheets and blankets from the adjacent battlements 70 feet above ground level. The 24-year-old Dr. Witherspoon did not join the dangerous escape, which cost at least one man his life. Deemed no threat to the Jacobites, Witherspoon was released from Doune. Twenty-two years later, the now middle-aged Scottish minister/scholar agreed to accept appointment as president of the College of New Jersey—since 1896 called Princeton University—and emigrated to the United States. During his tenure, he promoted anti-British sentiment, became a delegate to the Continental Congress for New Jersey, and signed the Declaration of Independence. Evidently, Witherspoon had been wrongly imprisoned at Doune Castle as a possible pro-English spy.

JOHN WITHERSPOON      

INVASION OF THE PYTHONS
        Doune Castle remained a respected relic—it got a much-needed facelift in the late 19th century—but a little-visited one until going Hollywood in 1974. Fresh from their successful TV excesses on the BBC called Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the English comedy collective called Monty Python (John Cleese, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, and Eric Idle) made their second film feature, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, using Doune Castle as a primary location. The film uses absurdly irreverent tales of King Arthur and Camelot as vehicles for some of the Pythons’ silliest sketch comedy. Doune Castle is shown in the possession of sniveling, taunting French invaders being besieged by Arthur’s knights, horseless but with half-coconut shells for simulated clip-clopping of chargers that aren’t there. The film was a great hit in Britain and in the US, where it continues to enjoy cult status and is frequently listed among the funniest movies ever made.

MONTY PYTHON'S KING ARTHUR
AND HIS KNIGHTS INVADE DOUNE.

— STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 —

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