Glasgow Courier. — 1844-06-06 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

BILODICK CASTLE.  We have to record, with very sincere pleasure, that a princely addition to this ancient and picturesque fortress was commenced on Saturday, the 25th ult., by his Grace the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, in order to render it • suitable abode for his son, the hlarqiiis of Douglas and Clydesdale, and his amiable and illustrious consort, the Princess Marie. The great antiquity of this residua, and the many interesting *vents connected with it, must be well known to the antiquary and topographer. The island of Arran formed part of the ancient Kingdom of the Isles, and, for ages after the establishment of the Scottish monarchy, owed no allegiance to the Scottish Kings. It is believed that, early in the thirteenth century, it passed, by marriage with one of the daughters a its old native lords, Into the possession of the family of Stuart. This at least is certain, that it appears an one of the appanage' of the Crown immediately after the accession of that family to the Scottish throne, in the year 1371. About a century afterwards, in the year 1467, it was conferred by King James 111. in marriage with his sister, the Primes Mary, on Sir Thomas Boyd, of Kilmarnock, who at the same time was created Earl of Arran. On his death, the widowed Princess married James, second Lord Hamilton, the ancestor of the present Duke, and brought with her, as part of her dowry, the island of Arran; and it has since remained in the family of Hamilton, which, in 1503, added to its many other titles that of Earl of Arran. For the ipformation of our readers at a distance, we may add that this highly interesting and romantic islet is situated about eleven miles from the coast of Ayrshire, its length from north to south being about seventeen, and ita general breadth nine miles. It comprises about 72,000 acres, 11,000 of which are arable. The Castle of Brodick itself can boast of an antiquity of more than five centuries. In the year 1307 it is described by a contemporary chronicler as a " styth castell of steno, in Arens." It wan then garrisoned by the English. Archdeacon Barbour, in his metrical history of The Brace, writes— " Schir John the Hastingis, at that lid, With knychtis off full mekill prid, And squyeris, and yemanry, And that a weill gret company, Wes in the castell off Brothwik." And the venerable churchman proceeds, with great spirit, to relate how the garrison was surprised by the Good Sir James of Douglas, Sir Robert Boyd, and a few other adherents of the new-made King of the Boots; and how they —"lnk armyng, and cleything, Wictalis, wyne,.and othyr thing, . . .  Of this adventure Sir Walter Scott has made great use in his "Lord of the Isles," the scene of which is partly laid in Arran, and where ho duly commemorates how  —"rising through the woodland green, Old Brodiek's gothic towers were seen; From Hastings, late their English lord, Douglas had won them by the sword : The sun that sunk behind the isle, _  Now tinged them with a parting Brodick Castle again appears in history during the Douglas wars of the succeeding century. The murder of Earl William of Douglas, by the hand of King James 11., at Stirling, in the year 14.52, was the signal for a rising against the royal authority of all the friends and allies of his powerful house. Among these was John Earl of Roes and Lord of the Isles, who hastened to seek revenge for his kinsman's blood, at the head of an army of five thousand mar, and a fleet of a hundred galleys. This force was directed, in the first instance, against the coast of Ayrshire; but falling of sneoess there, its leader, says a recent historian of the Highlands, "proceeded to ravage the Cumrays Rad the Isle of Arran. Not, however, about twenty persons, men, women, and children, were slain by the invading islanders, although plunder to a considerable amount—including five or six hundred horses, ten thousand oxen end kine, and more than a thousand sheep and goats—was carried off. The Castle of Brodick in Arran was stormed and levelled with the ground; while one hundred bolls of meal, one hundred marts, and one hundred marks of silver, were exacted as tribute from the Isle of Bate." This was in the year 1155. Within less than a century, Arran again felt the scourge of war. King Henry