page_title: Scottish castles
section_title: Middle Ages
hierarchical_section_title: Scottish castles / Middle Ages
caption_attribution_description: English: The Bass of Inverurie. This is a motte, a Norman castle mound. There would once have been a wooden stockade around the top. The river flowing past is the Urie.
context_page_description: Scottish castles are buildings that combine fortifications and residence, built within the borders of modern Scotland. Castles arrived in Scotland with the introduction of feudalism in the twelfth century. Initially these were wooden motte-and-bailey constructions, but many were replaced by stone castles with a high curtain wall. During the Wars of Independence, Robert the Bruce pursued a policy of castle slighting. In the late Middle Ages new castles were built, some on a grander scale as "livery and maintenance" castles that could support a large garrison. Gunpowder weaponry led to the use of gun ports, platforms to mount guns and walls adapted to resist bombardment.
  Many of the late Medieval castles built in the borders were in the form of tower houses, smaller pele towers or simpler bastle houses. From the fifteenth century there was a phase of Renaissance palace building, which restructured them as castle-type palaces, beginning at Linlithgow. Elements of Medieval castles, royal palaces and tower houses were used in the construction of Scots baronial estate houses, which were built largely for comfort, but with a castle-like appearance.
context_section_description: Castles, in the sense of a fortified residence of a lord or noble, arrived in Scotland as a consequence of the centralising of royal authority in the twelfth century. Prior to the 1120s there is very little evidence of castles having existed in Scotland, which had remained less politically centralised than in England with the north still ruled by the kings of Norway. David I of Scotland (r. 1124–53) spent time at the court of Henry I of England, becoming Earl of Huntingdon, and returned to Scotland with the intention of extending royal power across the country and modernising Scotland's military technology, including the introduction of castles. The Scottish king encouraged Norman and French nobles to settle in Scotland, introducing a feudal mode of landholding and the use of castles as a way of controlling the contested Scottish Lowlands. Historian Lise Hull has suggested that the creation of castles in Scotland was "less to do with conquest" and more to do with "establishing a governing system".
  These were primarily wooden motte-and-bailey constructions, of a raised mount or motte, surmounted by a wooden tower and a larger adjacent enclosure or bailey, both usually surrounded by a fosse (a ditch) and palisade, and connected by a wooden bridge. They varied in size from the very large, such as the Bass of Inverurie, to more modest designs like Balmaclellan. In England many of these constructions were converted into stone "keep-and-bailey" castles in the twelfth century, but in Scotland most of those that were in continued occupation became stone castles of "enceinte" from the thirteenth century, with a high embattled curtain wall. The need for thick and high walls for defence forced the use of economic building methods, often continuing the Scottish tradition of dry-stone rubble building, which were then covered with a lime render, or harled for weatherproofing and a uniform appearance. In addition to the baronial castles there were royal castles, often larger and providing defence, lodging for the itinerant Scottish court and a local administrative centre. By 1200 these included fortifications at Ayr and Berwick. In Scotland Alexander II (r. 1198–1249) and Alexander III (1241–86) undertook a number of castle building projects in the modern style. Alexander III's early death sparked conflict in Scotland and English intervention under Edward I in 1296. The resulting Wars of Independence brought this phase of castle building to an end and began a new phase of siege warfare.
  The first recorded siege in Scotland was the 1230 siege of Rothesay Castle where the besieging Norwegians were able to break down the relatively weak stone walls with axes after only three days. When Edward I invaded Scotland he brought with him the siege capabilities that had evolved south of the border, resulting in the rapid fall of major castles. Edinburgh Castle fell within three days, and Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Dunbar, Stirling, Lanark and Dumbarton castles all surrendered to the English king. Subsequent English sieges, such as the attacks on Bothwell and Stirling, again used considerable resources including giant siege engines and extensive teams of miners and masons. As a result, Robert the Bruce (r. 1306–29) adopted a policy of castle destruction (known as slighting), rather than allow fortresses to be easily retaken and then held by the English, beginning with his own castles at Ayr and Dumfries, and including Roxburgh and Edinburgh. After the Wars of Independence, new castles began to be built, often on a grander scale as "livery and maintenance" castles, to house retained troops, like Tantallon, Lothian and Doune near Stirling, rebuilt for Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany in the fourteenth century.
  Early gunpowder weapons were introduced to Scotland by the 1330s. The new technology began to be installed in Scottish castles by the 1380s, beginning with Edinburgh. In the fifteenth century, gunpowder weaponry fundamentally altered the nature of castle architecture. Existing castles were adapted to allow the use of the new weapons by the incorporatio
caption: The Bass of Inverurie in Scotland, a large motte and bailey castle built in the mid-twelfth century
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