Dumottar Castle

Dumottar Castle, the ancient seat, now in ruins, of the Keiths, the Earls Marischal of Scotland, on the Kincardineshire coast, $1\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ miles S. of Stonehaven. It occupies the top of a rock $4\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$ acres in extent, and 160 feet high, overhanging the sea, with a deep though dry chasm between it and the mainland, and it is approached by a steep winding path. The area is surrounded by a wall, and covered with dismantled buildings of very various ages, the oldest the square tower and the chapel. Blind Harry records a fabulous story that Wallace in 1296 took the rock, and burned the castle together with the kirk and 4000 Englishmen. During the Commonwealth, the Regalia of Scotland were hid in the castle from the republican army, and before the garrison surrendered to Cromwell's troops in 1651, the Regalia were carried out through a clever stratagem by Mrs Granger, wife of the minister of Kinneff, a neighbouring parish, and buried under the flagstones of that church, where they lay in safety till the Restoration. Having obtained permission to visit the governor's wife in the castle, she carried out the crown in her lap, while the sword and sceptre were wrapped up like the distaff for the lint which she was busy spinning into thread as she rode. For three months in 1685 no fewer than 167 Covenanters were confined with the most barbarous cruelty in the 'Whigs' Vault.' Dunnottar Castle was dismantled after the rebellion of 1715, on the attainer of the last Earl Marischal.