History of Sutherland - Part 2
Skelbo Castle on the southern shore of
Loch Fleet was originally a site chosen by the Norsemen for the
protection of these Viking Invaders. They came up the Fleet from
the open sea on marauding expeditions and found the shelving shore
ideal for the easy beaching of their long ships. In 1290, a young
Princess, Margaret, Maid of Norway, sole heiress to the throne of
Scotland, sailed south to marry the son of King Edward the First
of’ England. She died at sea off the coast of Orkney and the news
of her death was told to King Edward’s Commissioners as they
waited at Skelbo Castle.
The second Skelbo Castle, whose
ruined keep still stands, is a later example of the typical motte
and bailey. It was, in one sense, a work of carpentry, because
originally there was a timber castle on top of the earthwork or
motte.
Skelbo Castle.
Other castles of similar origin are at
Invershin, Proncy and the first Dunrobin. Ardvreck Castle, on Loch
Assynt, was the home of the Macleods of Assynt and dates back to
the end of the sixteenth century. It is chiefly remembered now for
its connection with the Marquis of Montrose. In 1650 he fought his
last battle on the Hill of Weeping, just south of the River Oykell
near Carbisdale. It was a final attempt to avenge the death of
Charles the First and to keep Episcopalian church government in
Scotland. Defeated in the battle, Montrose made for the west, was
captured by a Macleod of Assynt and imprisoned in the castle at
Ardvreck. Later, he was taken under guard to Skibo. From there he
went to his death by execution in
Edinburgh.
Of about the same date are the ruins
of Caisteal Bharraich on the Kyle of Tongue. The sixteenth century
keep probably replaced an earlier fortification against invading
Norsemen. A rhyme of the county
says:
Sinclair, Sutherland,
Mackay and Clan Gunn
There never was peace when they four was
in
Add Macleods, Mackenzies and
Murrays to these clans, and it is clear that the feuds and
quarrels of the clans were part and parcel of Sutherland’s story
for hundreds of years. The rivalries and open hostilities lasted
from the early thirteenth century (when 12 davaclis of land at
Balnukeil were acquired by the Mackays) right up to the time when
Sir Donald Mackay was raised to the peerage in l628. During these
years the old lands of Clan Mackay were gradually sold to pay off
debts. Each time, the House of Sutherland, quite legally, gained
possession. As Sir Robert Gordon wrote in his genealogy of the
Earls of Sutherland, “Thus was Mackay shifted out of Sutherland –
thus did Mackay’s pretences and aims in that county vanish and
melt away.” Tongue House, the home of the Chiefs of Clan Mackay,
and the old manor house of Balnakeil acquired new landlords. At
one period, the Mackays owned five-eighths of the territory of the
county. Now they own not one square inch. The House of Sutherland,
its seat at Dunrobin Castle near Golspie, was cherished and
nurtured by its famous Tutor, Sir Robert Gordon. When he handed
over the estate in 1630, it was not only on a sound legal basis
but on a sound financial basis also. During Sir Robert’s long
life, (1580 to 1661) the clan rivalries were beginning to lessen.
Law and order began to be experienced more in the county. Courts
of Law came into being. Dornoch became a Royal Burgh in l628. And
in the next hundred years or so, events which are still told by
word of mouth, make up the more modern story of Sutherland.
Carbisdale Castle on its crag above Culrain is now a famous youth
hostel.
Sometimes nicknamed “Castle Spite”
this remarkable structure was built in 1910 by the Dowager Duchess
of Sutherland, it is said partly to spite her Sutherland in-laws.
The Dowager was the second wife of the third Duke and on his death
had to quit Dunrobin – but not without a struggle. She stripped it
of everything capable of being transported including the gold
door-knobs of the royal suite. For this her step-son, the new
Duke, felt constrained to prosecute her. She was arrested and
sentenced to six months detention. She had her revenge when the
small estate of Culrain came on the market. She bought it and
proceeded to build Carbisdale Castle in such a conspicuous site
that it overlooked the rail gateway to Sutherland along which the
Duke and his family would have to travel en route to
Dunrobin.
The last wolf in Scotland was killed
in Glen Sletdale, near Glen Loth, in or about 1700. The killer was
a hunter, a man named Polson from Wester Helmsdale, so says the
stone set above the road by the track leading to Glen Loth. Wolves
were a dreadful plague in the Highlands from time immemorial.
Thomas Gordon was paid £6. 13s. 4d. for killing a wolf in l621. So
numerous were the wolves for so many years that corpses had to be
buried out of their reach, for example on the islands of Handa off
Scourie and on the islands of lochs such as Brora, Shin etc. The
tale used often to be told how Polson and two young lads tracked
down a wolf and her six cubs to a cleft in the rocks up Glen
Sletdale. The boys managed to kill all the cubs but Polson was
left to deal with the infuriated she-wolf. With great difficulty,
he got a grip of’ the wolf’s tail and wound it round his arm. With
his other hand, he contrived to get hold of his hunting knife and
stabbed her stone dead. Some years after the death of the last
wolf, occurred the death of the last witch in Scotland. A stone
marking the site of her death is in a garden at Littletown,
Dornoch. It bears the date l 722 but it is now generally accepted
that this date should be 1727. Correct or not the death of poor
Janet Horne by burning after being tarred and feathered was not
far short of legalised murder, whenever it
occurred.
By 1715 which saw the first of the two
rebellions the Hanoverians by the Stewarts, the House of
Sutherland and their old rivals the Mackays were in agreement. As
good Whigs, they were on the side of Hanover. Thirty years later,
they held the same opinion. When the Young Pretender landed in
Scotland in 1745, the Commander of the King’s Forces in the north
was Lord Loudon, with his headquarters in Dornoch. The Provost of
the Royal Burgh at that time was William, Earl of Sutherland. He
did all he could to raise men for the King’s army. He asked each
parish minister to send ‘a list of such men as you think can carry
arms from 16 years to 60 and what arms they can furnish. In the
list you will mark out such as know anything of Military
Discipline.’ There is extant a list with the names of 2,337 men
from the parishes sent to the Earl by the
ministers.
The Earl of Cromartie raised a
Jacobite force in Ross. Crossing the Meikle Ferry, he surprised
and captured the Hanoverian strongholds of Dornoch and Dunrobin.
But his success did not last long. A few days before the Battle of
Culloden in 1746, Cromartie, who was then at Dunrobin, received
orders to join Prince Charles Edward. He obeyed. Reaching the
Little Ferry, he was there routed by a Hanoverian force commanded
by Ensign John Mackay of Mudale near
Altnaharra.
Further north, on the shores of the
Pentland Firth, Captain George Mackay and 80 of his clansmen
captured a Jacobite sloop of war, The Hazard. It ran aground on
Melness Sands with its cargo of gold for the army of Prince
Charles Edward. The crew were taken prisoner after trying to rid
themselves of the £20,000 worth of gold pieces by throwing them
into Loch Hakel under the shadow of Ben
Loyal.
When Cumberland’s battalions finished
their work at Culloden, on Drumossie Moor near Inverness, all the
Highland clans, Sutherlands and Mackays among them, suffered in
varying degrees from the defeat. The clan system was face to face
with its ultimate destruction. Life was never the same again in
the
Highlands.
Not that life was particularly easy
for the ordinary people of the county. Statistics of only three
parishes prove the point. In Assynt, 300 families lived on a mere
300 acres of arable land. In Eddrachilles the average acreage was
a little over 1½ acres to a family. In Tongue, the average rose to
about 2½ acres.
The staple foodstuff was meal and, after 1750,
potatoes, but meal often had to be imported because local supplies
were not enough for a population which was increasing. The meal
was brought in by sea and carried up the straths by pack ponies or
in creels on the backs of men and women. The difficulty was that
such meal had to be paid for, and paid for in cash. The only
possible way to find cash was to sell a beast to one of the cattle
drovers, for him to sell in the lowlands. Cattle were never eaten
by the people, they were much too valuable as an essential source
of hard cash. Had it not been for the sale of their black cattle,
the economic life of the ordinary folk would have shrivelled up.
In 1760, these black cattle were almost the only saleable product
of Sutherland pasture. Their sale involved middlemen – the cattle
drovers who bought locally and walked with the black beasts to the
south to sell at the Crieff or Falkirk
trysts.
The droves came down the straths from
Eddrachilles and Assynt to Bonar Bridge, (only there was no bridge
for another 50 years). They swam across the Kyle at Port an Lec,
below what today is Invershin railway bridge – if they had an easy
swim, hearts were light for it foretold a good sale. Or the cattle
were driven from Strath Halladale and Strathnaver and Kildonan
down over the ferries at Helmsdale and the Little Ferry to
Clashmore where they joined the big Skibo drove. Men and beasts
then crossed the Firth below the old mansion-house of Creich to
the Ross-shire shore, then away up over the Struie to the great
Northern cattle market at Muir of
Ord.
Such sheep as were kept by the people
were poor specimens. They were seldom sold. Their wool was worked
at home and clothed the family. Very rarely, a dish of mutton
might be eaten but this was an unusual occurrence. When the
Napoleonic wars were being waged on the continent of Europe at the
and of the eighteenth century, the demand for wool increased.
Higher prices were paid and black cattle ceased to be the only
salable product of the county. Sheep and wool began to be worth
while. In Creich and Assynt between 1790 and 1808 the figures
speak for themselves. The number of cattle went down from 5,140 to
2,906 The number of sheep increased from 7,840 to
21,000.