Dunglass Castle and Estate
Dunglass Castle, once a stronghold of the Earls of Home, was built in the 14th century. It passed, on their forfeiture in 1516, to the Douglas Earl of Angus, but was besieged and destroyed by the English under the Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland in the winter of 1532, and again under the Protector Somerset in 1547, when held by Sir George Douglas.
The castle was rebuilt, in an enlarged and improved form, and gave accommodation in 1603 to James VI of Scotland, and all his retinue, when on his journey to London to take up the English throne.
However, it was again destroyed in 30 August 1640 when held by a party of Covenanters under Thomas Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Haddington. An English page, according to Scotstarvet, vexed by a taunt against his countrymen, thrust a red-hot iron into a powder barrel, and himself was killed, with the Earl, his half-brother, Richard, and many others.
The Hall family occupied Dunglass for 232 years from 1687. Francis James Usher bought the Estate from Sir John Richard Hall, 9th Bart in 1919, and the estate remains in the Usher family.
Read more about this topic: Dunglass
Famous quotes containing the words castle and/or estate:
“If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men’s failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal’s natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?”
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)
“Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
—Book Of Common Prayer, The. Solemnization of Matrimony, “Betrothal,” (1662)