Dunbar Castle *
Region: Lothian & Scottish Borders
© Copyright Richard West and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
Description:
It takes imagination to really appreciate the odd piece of masonry overlooking Dunbar harbour for what it once was....one of Scotland’s most formidable castles. This great fortress rested on several stacks rising out of the water and all shipping was controlled by means of an enormous steel chain stretching across the harbour mouth. This is also the actual castle so well defended for 6 weeks by ‘Black Agnes’, Countess of Douglas with a giant catapult against the Earls of Arundel and Salisbury in 1338.
A reconstruction of Dunbar castle by Andrew Spratt
In April 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots visited her son (the later James VI) at Stirling for the last time.
On her way back to Edinburgh on 24 April, Mary was abducted, willingly or not (?), by Lord Bothwell and his men and taken to Dunbar Castle, where he may have raped her. On 6 May, Mary and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh.
That very same year 1567 parliament ordered Dunbar Castle to be destroyed.