page_title: Huntly Castle
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Huntly Castle / History
caption_attribution_description: Detail of the inscriptions at the front of Huntly Castle
context_page_description: Huntly Castle is a ruined castle in Huntly in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It was the ancestral home of the chief of Clan Gordon, Earl of Huntly.
context_section_description: Architecturally the L plan castle consists of a well-preserved five-storey tower with an adjoining great hall and supporting buildings.  Areas of the original ornate facade and interior stonework remain.  A mound in the grounds of the castle is all that remains of an earlier 12th century motte.
  Originally named Strathbogie, the castle was granted to Sir Adam Gordon of Huntly in the 14th century. King Robert the Bruce was a guest of the castle in 1307 prior to his defeat of the Earl of Buchan.
  It was fired in 1452 by a force under the command of Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray. In 1449 the king was at war with the powerful Black Douglases, the Gordons stood on the king's side and, with their men involved in the south of the country, the Earl of Moray, a brother of the Earl of Douglas, took the opportunity to sack the Gordon lands, setting Huntly Castle ablaze. The Gordons returned and quickly destroyed their enemies.
  Although the castle was burned to the ground, a grander castle was built in its place. In 1496, the pretender to the English throne, Perkin Warbeck, was married to Lady Catherine Gordon the daughter of George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly, witnessed by King James IV of Scotland at Edinburgh. James IV came to Huntly in October 1501 and gave gifts of money to the stonemasons working on the castle. In October 1503, James IV came again and played in a shooting contest at a "prop", and he came back again in the following October. These visits were part of his annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Duthac at Tain.
  William MacKintosh was executed on 23 August 1550 at Castle Strathbogie.
  Wings were added to the castle in the 16th and 17th centuries. The English diplomat Thomas Randolph stayed two nights in September 1562, and wrote that the castle was "fayer, beste furnishede of anye howse that I have seen in thys countrie." George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly died after the Battle of Corrichie, and the castle was garrisoned for Mary, Queen of Scots by Charles Crawfurd and twenty soldiers. Furnishings including beds and 45 tapestries were carted to Aberdeen and shipped in barrels to Edinburgh for the royal collection and refurbishment by Servais de Condé.
caption: Carved inscriptions feature on the facade
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