A Scottish doctor, an English Tory Lord and a British oil syndicate walked into Persia …

Why?

The Bakhtiari people of Persia (Iran) were nomads from the west of the country.  Bakhtiari I’ve read means fortunate (as in escaping danger) or the name might allude to their geographic location. The Bakhtiari were very active during Persia’s revolution of 1905-11 which resulted in the first parliamentary constitution in the Islamic world – until Russia smothered this infant democracy. In 1914, at the outbreak of the Great War, the Russian authorities in Persia instructed a young Scottish doctor, Elizabeth Ross, to abandon her work as a physician to Bakhtiari women and take over the running of a military hospital in Serbia – where she contracted typhus from her patients and died.  

Russia was one of the European powers that had been sniffing around Persia for about a century to extend its influence in the east. Another was Britain for Persia provided a shortcut to that jewel in its imperial crown, India. Among other things. By 1905 the majority of Persians were desperate to be rid of foreigners speculating on how best to strip their land of anything profitable, including oil, but the Russian-backed shah did not share the peoples’ frustration, instead he encouraged foreign speculation with incentive tax breaks and private deals. He accumulated a fortune from selling off Persia’s assets; encouraging Russia and Britain to divvy up Persia (Iran) into three regions. In 1907 Britain took over the south of the country including the Persian Gulf, Russia got the north while the middle of this economic sandwich was classified as neutral.

It had been suspected for many years that oil could be found under Persian soil and confirmation from geological surveys led to secret negotiations between the shah’s inner circle and a British-based syndicate resulting in it being given drilling rights for several decades into the future. Rights to the country’s natural gas, petroleum and asphalt. The oil to be extracted lay in the territory of the Bakhtiari at Masjed Soleiman and an agreement was hammered out that gave the British group 16% of the profits and just 3% to the Bakhtiari. Naturally the Bakhtiari felt fleeced by this arrangement. One positive for them it might be argued was that with so much water contaminated with oil there were fewer breeding areas for mosquitos. Small compensation as polluted water wasn’t great for humans and animals either.

In 1909 a Scottish company, Burmah Oil, created the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Burmah’s founder was David Sime Cargill from Maryton, Montrose who had been scouring the east for oil for several decades. Just five years before its start world war was looking very likely and the British navy sought to transfer from coal to oil. Burmah Oil won the supply contract. Then in 1914 the British government bought up 51% of Anglo-Persian Oil’s shares, effectively nationalising it. In 1954 Anglo-Persian became the British Petroleum Company, the forerunner of B.P.

Some people made vast fortunes out of Persia’s oil. Not many of them were Persians. The shah working hand in glove with Russia and Britain sucked wealth and economic opportunities away from the native majority. While the new oil industry provided jobs for some, many more were detrimentally impacted. Handicrafts long a source of income for Persians especially women who were highly skilled carpet makers were sacrificed on the altar of western capitalist trade. The lifeblood of Persia (Iran)was drained. Farms and villages reduced to sand disappeared altogether.

Corruption wasn’t confined to the shah and his family. Bribery and fraud were rife amongst the country’s tribal chiefs. Persia was a dangerous place to travel through with highway robbery endemic. Caravans of goods were frequently raided, villages and towns plundered. Every faction was armed to the teeth. Life was perilous. Rival tribes stole from each other. They in turn were robbed by regional governors who were robbed by the shah’s men. Britian knew which side its bread was buttered and backed the Bakhtiari holders of the land rich in oil but the chaotic state of affairs in the country gravely concerned the British government and commerce because lawlessness was an ever-present threat to their trade such as the movement of cotton and silver.

Dr Elizabeth Ross was working in Persia during the time oil was discovered. She had graduated in medicine in 1901, one of the first women in Britain to do so. She took up a few different posts in Colonsay, Oronsay, Tain and London but her sense of adventure and curiosity about the world, probably reflected in her speciality of tropical medicine, led to her taking up an appointment as a ‘Lady Doctor for the East’.

A sea voyage to Russia followed by hundreds of miles overland by horse-drawn carriages delivered Elizabeth to mystical and enchanting Tehran and then on to the medieval walled town of Julfa in difficult wintry weather conditions. In her memoir, A Lady Doctor in Bakhtiari Land, Elizabeth Ross draws comparisons between this exotic land and her homeland as, for example, similarities between the Bakhtiari tribal chief Samasam-os-Saltaneh and highland chiefs she had known back in Scotland. It struck her that in her part of Scotland two languages were widely spoken – Gaelic and English – while the Bakhtiari also communicated in dual languages, their own and Persian. The importance of education, both for girls and boys to some level, was shared by Scots and the Bakhtiari. As for Scotland’s reputed cold climate, Elizabeth had never at home encountered the freezing cold that froze her hot water bottle as she lay in bed or turn a cup of tea to ice that happened in Persia. On the other hand daytime temperatures soared as high as 160 degrees Fahrenheit under the Persian sun and nothing in Scotland comes close to that either.   

At Dehkord, “a dreary little townlet in the midst of a desolate district” she settled. The town made up mostly of mud houses had few gardens to soften the landscape and there was little in the way of agriculture but the surrounding countryside was thick with nut trees and figs. Out among the Bakhtiari hills ancient forts reminded Elizabeth of Knockfarrel, the iron age hill fort on the Cat’s Back, the distinctive range between Dingwall and Strathpeffer. Unlike Knockfarrel the Persian hill forts were only accessible by ladders and ropes and yet accessed they were by Bakhtiari shepherds for up there the land provided excellent fertile grazing for their herds. So rich were those eyrie pastures that sheep would sometimes have two seasons of lamb in a year. Here, then, was where the woman they called Bibi Golafrus (blazing flower) or Bibi Doctoor (Bibi being a polite title for a woman) settled into her work with the women of the Bakhtiari.

While Elizabeth Ross’ experiences of Persia are little known those of the 1^st Marquis of Kedleston, George Curzon, a British aristocrat and Tory MP who was in the country for a mere three months attracted lots of attention. While Elizabeth had gone to Persia to help its people Curzon set out to civilise them with British values. While Elizabeth recognised much to admire in Persia’s people Curzon dismissed them as “consummate hypocrites, very corrupt, and lamentably deficient in stability and courage” – and it was the work of the British to transform them into a race of gentlemen. Dr Elizabeth Ross condemned his views as ignorant.

Polygamy was practised among the Bakhtiari and it might be surprising that the devoted Christian Elizabeth Ross far from condemning it saw how it might provide care and shelter for older women, that polygamy did not involve the hypocrisy of much monogamy that vilified children born outside marriage as illegitimate and turned a blind eye to married men taking multiple sexual partners in the form of paid prostitutes.   

With Bakhtiari men often away from their families their women tended to take on greater responsibilities than their British counterparts. At the time Elizabeth lived among them the Bakhtiari were less nomadic than previously but men were often away such as on military campaigns or other business. Women, too, were important economically to the tribe through their expertise as carpet weavers – carpets were a major source of revenue for the Bakhtiari – and because of their status Bakhtiari women enjoyed greater freedom than their urban counterparts who endured considerable patriarchal control and were universally veiled.  

Elizabeth provides detailed descriptions of the appearance of the Bakhtiari women she lived among – how they had  

“long, dark silky hair parted in the centre and the front half of hair tied under the chin with the rest plaited down the back.”

Hair was decorated with strings of beads and gold coins strung across the forehead – heavy to bear, depending on their number. A silk scarf of scarlet, green, cerise or purple was wound around the head and neck and on top of this they wore a black handkerchief and veil (chador). Hair was highly prized, the darker the better, so blonds both adult and children, had their hair darkened with henna or indigo and hair was lengthened with what we call hair extensions.   

Women’s appearance was highly colourful. Their silk shirts, like their scarves, in strong shades of colour were topped with waistcoats and coats for warmth. Trousers were close-fitting and worn under embroidered linen petticoats, “pleated and fastened around the hips.” As we’ve seen nights could be very cold and clothes were worn all the time, day and night, but khan’s wives at the very least, changed their outfits weekly, following a bath.

Men’s dress was more monochrome. Their shirts not silk but muslin or linen and their coats usually sheepskin, not brocaded velvet that was favoured by women. While most Persian men wore black hats the Bakhtiari’s hats were tall, oval and white. As for children their clothes were smaller versions of adults; girls and boys dressing the same until about the age of 11 so girls weren’t restricted by skirts when travelling through the region.  

Dr Elizabeth found opium addiction and dependency on morphia pills to be rife among the Bakhtiari and whooping cough, for some reason, affected boys more than girls. Elizabeth’s work was mainly limited to the wives of khans so, of course, there were other doctors administering to the people – native healers known as hakims who were experts in herbal medicine.   

While the life of the Bakhtiari might seem drawn from a past age the tribe were significant players in the drama of Persian politics and government into the 20^th century. With the discovery of oil in their land they gained international prominence for a time but the growing power of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company proved too much for the Bakhtiari to contain. Their khans were inveigled into complex financial deals that were their undoing. Their tribal lands came to be ravaged by industry with the sinking of oil wells, an oil refinery and one-hundred-and-forty-mile pipeline to the Persian Gulf. Within 30 years Persia would be officially known as Iran. By then several of the tribe’s leaders were dead, executed to curtail their influence by competing interests. The Bakhtiari that Dr Elizabeth Ross had known would be swept away. She, too, would be gone.

Elizabeth left Persia for a short time because of her failing health. She worked briefly as a ship’s doctor but was back in Isaphan in April 1914. The following year and into the Great War, the Russian authorities pressurised her to go to Serbia to take charge of the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Kragujevac where she volunteered to work in the typhus wards and soon Dr. Elizabeth Ross herself contracted the disease and died on her 37^th birthday, on 14 February 1915.

The answer to the title question is of course they all wanted something Persia had to offer. The good doctor went to be an asset to Persians. Curzon and BP’s forerunner went to divest Persia of its assets.

When Buckhaven was nearly the Torremolinos of Escocia: herein lies a fishy tail

Buckhaven

Scotland’s European credentials are well established but it may surprise you to know that Buckhaven in Fife just missed out on being the Torremolinos of, well, Spain when Philip II of Spain took a liking to the place and a boat-load of Spaniards were so fixated gazing at this little Fife gem their ship ran aground. Might have been part of the plan for they don’t appear to have left but struck up relationships with the Fifers who were soon speaking with Spanish accents and conversing in Spanish, shouldn’t it have been the other way round? So taken were Buckhaveners and Spaniards they kept marrying each other, tell me any old fishing community which didn’t, and evolved their own distinctive dialect.

And it wasn’t only Buckhaven that Phillip II was interested in. To be fair he was mainly interested in extending his empire – but he recognised quality when he saw it. On the west coast, Ailsa Craig, (now famous for its granite curling stones) whose natives paid their land rents with solan geese, seabird feathers and rabbit skins and caught an awful lot of cod was where Philip thought he would begin his annexation of the British Isles by having a castle built. Why start with Ailsa Craig. Well, why not?

Spanish wrecks littered the seas and beaches of Scotland. Their love of the place was second only to the Dutch’s. Their links with northeastern Scotland are long. Aberdeen’s sold salt herring and cod to the continent as far back as the 12^th century and of such importance was this trade the Dutch word for salt cod is Labberdaan, its old spelling was haberdien – a corruption of Aberdeen.

White fish and pink. For hundreds of years salmon, fished out of Aberdeen’s two rivers, the Dee and Don, was exported, at first to the Continent and then around the whole world, in mind-blowing quantities.

In 1705, two years before the union, the Scottish parliament copied the Dutch example and remitted duties on everything herring-related, and other fish taxes. Fortunes were accumulated. Amsterdam is said to have been founded on the bones of Scottish herring (the stone for its Stadthouse was quarried and shipped out from the Firth of Forth but that is another story.)

With the waters around Orkney and Shetland teeming with fish they attracted the attention of European fishing boats. Don’t say I’m not contemporary. In 1633 1500 herring busses (vessels) protected by 20 armed ships and a further 400 dogger-boats went about in convoy as they fished. They were looking for cod, not difficult then, and caught them by rod and line. Sounds a slow business but tens of thousands were employed fishing. So thick on the water were these fishing vessels in what came to be known as the North Sea an area off England was named Dogger Bank.

Dutch dogger vessel

It’s as if fishing wars have always been with us. Post-union government bounties were offered to encourage more vessels take to sea to catch ever more fish, such was their value to the economy. The trouble was, and oh, how redolent this is of today, preferential treatment was provided to the biggest vessels over small fishing boats. After union with England, Scotland fishing trade declined, partly through the application of a salt tax (fish goes off quickly so must be cured for export and salt was one means of curing it.) Regulations surrounding the tax were complex and cumbersome. Salt was also difficult to acquire without having red tape attached. The setup was so confusing and risky potential fishers were put off from signing contracts.

When in 1720 an attempt was made to resurrect Scotland’s languishing fishing trade cash was paid to 2,000 of what were described as Scotland’s principal people. They failed but pocketed the cash. Similar failures followed, under royal patronage. Each one cost money. Each failed. Commissioners appointed to oversee every new scheme were richly rewarded. Always the same people. For them failure meant hardship for someone else, not them. They pocketed the cash. A lot of it.

Scotland’s water were then as now sources of incredible wealth, not always well-handled in the best interests of the people of Scotland. Bressay Sound at Shetland had one of the finest harbours in the British Isles in 1800. The fishing grounds here were almost monopolised by the Dutch; like those folk down the east coast many Shetlanders could communicate in Dutch. English vessels, too, headed north to fish for herring, ling, tusk, sea otters and seals. Sponges were sought and ambergris – a secretion of the bile duct in sperm whales that is disgorged into the sea and once used as for medicines, although Charles II loved to eat this stinking waste product. Whalers passed through this busy area on their way to and from Greenland and the Davis’ Straits from Dundee, Aberdeen, Arbroath and Peterhead.

Herds of grampuses (dolphins), sea otters, whales, fish of every description from round to flat were fished off Orkney including coalfish. Coalfish was a mainstay food for many of Scotland’s poorest folk. In Orkney the youngest fish were sillocks, year-olds were cooths and, I think, mature ones, Sethes. Orcadians preferred these wee fish to herring. They also harvested lots of sponges, corals, corallines, large oysters, mussels, cockles etc. and all kinds of unusual things washed ashore from the Atlantic including Molucca or Orkney beans. How they used these mimosa scandens seeds I don’t know – they might have roasted and eaten them or made them into drinks, used them as soaps or threw them at each other. Beyond exotic seeds many varieties of fish were landed. And the odd man. At least once a fin-man or Laplander turned up in his skin canoe.

Orkney beans

Situated between Orkney and Shetland is Fair Isle. Writing about 1800 one commentator described islanders living ‘almost in a state of nature’, whatever that means. His point was that crews on those fishing vessels from Holland and England fishing in the seas around the island raided not only their waters but stole everything they could lift from the island, leaving the people with next to nothing.

In addition to sea fishing carried out on an industrial scale, local communities fished in bays off their villages, in rivers and lochs. At the Solway Firth four distinct methods of catching fish were employed.

1. Leister – a 4-pronged fork, its prongs turned slightly to one side, and attached to a long shaft of about 20 -24 feet was run along the sand on its edge or thrown at fish. Some expert fishers could spear fish from galloping horses, at great distances. This method was, apparently, very successful.
2.  Haaving or hauling where the fisher stood in the current trapping fish with a small hand net.
3.  Pock or small nets were fixed to stakes in rivers to catch fish swimming downstream.
4.  Boat nets were used to catch salmon.

Fish provided food, oil for lamps and goods to barter for other items. Because fish was readily available it was an important source of income all around Scotland’s coasts. In the Black Isle or Ardmeanach to give it its old name, Rosemarkie’s salmon fishers preserved their catches in ice stored in an ice house near the shore , a deep, dark, dank echoing play place for local children that is now locked up, probably wisely. Avoch was a thriving fishing port taking large quantities of herring until recent times. Cromarty was another Black Isle fishing village, and Munlochy on the Moray Firth also had an excellent fishing station.

West Kilbride was known for its cod and white fisheries. Loch Leven for perch, pike, char, eels and especially its trout. Hebridean waters were rich sources of fish. Lewis took vast quantities of white fish, herring, trout and salmon as well as shellfish. Creeks around the rocky island of Muck provided shelter for fishing boats landing ling and cod. There, oil was extracted from cearban or sunfish – basking sharks. This oil was once popular as medicine and sold to Glasgow merchants. Seals were killed for their oil, too.

In addition to fish fish, shellfish were gathered from pools, off rocks, trapped in the water. It is patently obvious mussels were gathered at Musselburgh and there and Fisherrow were associated with good quality shellfish. Not only there, of course. Dornoch, Cramond and Inchmickery Island had their own enormous oyster beds, until overfishing of them put an end to that. Burntisland oysters were renowned, as were/are those from Loch Fyne. Loch Fyne also operated hundreds of herring boats. The harbour at Inverary at the head of Loch Fyne was called Slochk Ichopper, the gullet where vessels bought or bartered fish. Bartering herring for French wine took place at an area given the name, Frenchman’s point.

Men fished on boats but women and children were involved in all other aspects of the trade; preparing lines and nets, baiting lines, cleaning and processing fish and selling it. Local trading was hard graft for the wicker creels women carried on their backs were heavy before being loaded with wet fish and fishwives would walk long distances to make sales. As a point of interest, we often hear about fishwives but women hawkers sold all kinds produce in towns and country – kailwives sold vegetables and saltwives sold salt, for example.

The diversity of Scotland’s fishing trade began to dwindle when it stopped being a collective activity and became increasingly concentrated into fewer hands, of major businessmen. In addition, back in 1800 some small communities struggled to keep boats at sea and in rivers because their villages were targeted by the British Navy, eager to take away their fit and healthy young men who were able seamen. As with the army when men were needed all eyes turned northwards to Scotland. London could never get enough of Scots men, not only fit and strong but obedient. This was especially true during times of war – which was most of the time. Johnshaven, south of Aberdeen, lost many of its men to press-gangs.

Back in the day fishing was a community enterprise not confined to the handful of billionaire interests that we have now in the white fish industry but, as we’ve seen by the 18^th century, public money found its way into the pockets of the rich through subsidies and enticements. During Scotland’s independent centuries fishing as a trade flourished, it was an important source of revenue for the nation, despite the attentions of Spaniards, Dutch and, yes, English seamen. Post-union whaling was for a fairly brief period enabled by virtue of larger vessels capable of sailing to inhospitable places such as Greenland and the Davis’ Straits. Risks were great, though not for the moneyed men behind voyages to harpoon the whale who waited in the warm comforts of their homes for the expected huge profits to further inflate their fortunes. And there was part of that that went straight into Westminster’s coffers; Scotland’s first oil bonanza went the same way as its second. It is hard for us to appreciate the degree of wealth generated from whaling, white fish and salmon. Good riddance to whaling and as for fishing, Scotland’s waters are no longer stuffed with fish as they once were; greed and overfishing have diminished stocks in our seas, rivers and lochs – denial, greed and short-termism has afflicted the trade of fishing for a very long time.

From the Cock o’ the North to Commissioner Jim Gordon via Huntly Castle

Huntly Castle from the mid-15th to early-17th century

Huntly Castle is a ruin but what a ruin. It is big and bold and sits in a green park surrounded by trees and the rivers Bogie and Deveron.

The calm side of the River Deveron

Motte where the first motte and bailey Strathbogie castle was built in the late 1100s

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next to what remains of the castle is part of an extant motte site of the original 12th century Strathbogie castle – built for an earl of Fife. This first castle was wooden and was burnt down by the Black Douglas clan in 1496. Out of the ashes emerged first a tower house built soon after the fire and gradually more buildings were added until the great hulk of castle we see now – bigger and bolder than the earlier one emerged and to be on the safe side it was constructed of stone; mainly sandstone and freestone, altogether more resistant to fire than wood. Practically nothing remains of the tower house but the later castle, though tumbledown, hints at what it must have been like – something pretty amazing.

Stables for the short garron ponies, brew house, bake house and other remains including  the area where the L-plan tower house was erected in the 15th century to replace the lost wooden castle

King James IV used to make annual pilgrimages to the shrine of Saint Duthac in Tain, north of Inverness, and he often stopped off at Huntly en route. During one visit, in 1501, he watched the stonemasons at work building or biggin the castle as they say in the northeast of Scotland and so impressed was he with their handiwork he gave them some tokens in the way of money and I’m not surprised because they made a grand job of it; the stone carving is superb.

A fragment of the original roughly paved road made up of pebbles and boulders which led to the eastern part of the castle constructed in the 17thC

The spectacular ruin that stands in Huntly belonged to the Gordon family. Many of you will know that the name Gordon is very much associated with Aberdeenshire although scratch around and you might disturb some French roots in the guise of Gourdon (there is a place of that name farther down the Aberdeenshire coast) and a nod to Berwickshire where a bloke by the name of Sir Adam de Gordon thought he would like a bit of a change – and having shifted allegiance during the Scottish Wars of Independence he eventually ended up on the right side and was promptly rewarded with parcels of land in Strathbogie by Robert the Bruce. Such is how land came to be distributed – ending up in the hands of powerful families – handed out like sweeties. Cronyism has a long pedigree. Doing someone a favour, raising troops to fight their cause once secured immense tracts of land for families who prided themselves on their ability to accumulate piles and piles of the countryside. Some of them are still determinedly clinging on to land they acquired in all manner of dodgy ways in the past and will fight anyone who suggests they don’t have fair claim to their estates – in the courts not on the battlefield anymore.

The Gordons were proud of their lands and the great muckle house built at Huntly. George Gordon the 1st Marquess of Huntly had pride a-plenty which probably explains why plastered his and hers names right across the front of their impressive pile – akin today of installing neon lighting on the front of your house. The bold inscription reads:

GEORGE GORDON FIRST MARQUESS OF HUNTLY 16
HENRIETTE STEWART MARQUESSE OF HUNTLY 02

Not forgetting the hand of God pointing out each name. Well if you have it, flaunt it, said God.

 

The hand of God points to the names of the Gordons who owned the castle

All generations of Gordons included a George so the story of the George Gordons can get very muddled and as the Gordons were always in the thick of the action, more than your average family, I will avoid going into detail. However, I cannot entirely.

Three storeys of the castle

Original studded oak door

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the several George Gordons – the one who wrote his name across his house – was an influential political figure in Scotland, attached to the royal court, and a nephew of James V. He was no shrinking violet as you may have deduced and earned himself the nickname, the Cock o’ the North.

 

Certainly one of the oldest wooden lavatory seats in Scotland

The great fireplace was disfigured by Covenanters who disapproved of its Catholic imagery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This epithet transferred to the Gordon Highlander regiment who came to be known as the Cocky wee Gordons and not-so-long-ago a popular ditty was oft sung across Scotland – ask your granny or maybe your great granny and watch her face light up with the memory.

A Gordon for me, a Gordon for me,
If ye’re no a Gordon ye’re no use to me.
The Black Watch are braw, the Seaforths and a’
But the cocky wee Gordon’s the pride o’ them a’.

Mary of Guise, Mary Queen of Scots’ mother, was involved in a plot to clip the wings of the Cock o’ the North. I should have said the Gordons were Catholics and so was Mary of Guise but then she turned on some other Catholics at the time of the Reformation because – well, because that was the politic thing to do – and heads were optional extras in those days.

Gordon the Catholic was ambushed by a party of royalist Stewarts and he was killed. His corpse was then embalmed and put on trial for treason. I can assure you stranger things have happened. His castle was looted and religious carvings relating to the old faith found there, including two medallions above his front door – most unusual in Scotland, were destroyed.

The main doorway beautifully carved

 

Oriel window high up on the south-facing wall with spectacular views across the countryside

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you will have gathered people, let’s be clear men, were pretty bloodthirsty all those centuries ago – and that’s without video nasties – and there was a definite trend for Scotland’s landed families to go at it hammer and tongs against their neighbours. You would think history has been a constant power struggle for land and political influence and you’d be right.

A remnant of ornate plaster work. The whole castle once was adorned with such intricate craftsmanship

Back to the castle. Medieval palaces tended to expand over the centuries ending up in a melange of architectural styles. Huntly Castle is no different. Building was still going on when the Scottish civil war broke out in the 17th century. All these centuries on and the Gordons were still fighting anyone and everyone; family, strangers, neighbours – everyone.

 

Graffiti is there in abundance in the castle with some beautifully written letters

At the Battle of Aberdeen in 1644 at the time of the Scottish Civil War the Gordon clan fought on both sides – Covenanters and Royalists so that at least some of them would be on the winning side.

Another fireplace with medallions of George Gordon and Henrietta Stewart

George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly, (son of George Cock o’ the North and Henrietta Stewart) brought up a Protestant Episcopalian at the court of James VI, was on the winning, royalist, side at the Battle of Alford in 1645 at which he fought alongside his son, also George, who was killed. George the 2nd Marquess had, in 1639, been secretly appointed to oppose the Covenanters in the north of Scotland and at Turriff he led a force of 2,000 in a show of strength against a gathering of 800 men led by the Marquess of Montrose (then in support of the Covenanters.) The two sides sized each other up but a tense situation passed without the spilling of blood.

 

Stone stairs lead to all kinds of interesting nooks and crannies. Some original joist ends have survived and the later castle from the north side

The peace was not to last and there followed a game of cat and mouse between Montrose and Gordon who was none too keen on getting dragged into the whole difficult affair with the Covenanters.

One day Montrose said to Gordon, “Do you fancy a trip to Edinburgh?”

Gordon smelling a rat replied, “No, not really.”

Montrose, however, wouldn’t take no for an answer and so Gordon was taken to the capital to intimidate him into behaving but he shrugged off the threat and travelled north again and fought in a battle at the Brig o’ Dee at Aberdeen. As a punishment Huntly Castle was plundered and the fate of both castle and the Gordons thereafter followed a downward trajectory. Gordon/Huntly was again a wanted man who embarked on the 1640s equivalent of trains, planes and automobiles to make his escape – by horse, foot and boat. He kept on the move – all around the north of Scotland but was captured at Strathdon in a violent incident that saw both his servants and friends killed. Gordon ended up back in Edinburgh, locked up in the tolbooth until in March 1649 he was beheaded.

Prisoners abandoned in a deep, dark hole beneath the castle had no chance of escape

Life was one long power struggle for wealthy families in past centuries but there were occasional intermissions when peace broke out long enough for a game of football to take place or even a marriage. Football was a popular pastime with the rich and powerful in Scottish society in past centuries – less so today.

 

The Gordons enjoyed a game of fitba and like most landed gentry they also liked to keep their options open by shifting allegiances according to where their interests happened to lie on any particular day. They were split as a family during the Jacobite risings in 1715-16 and 1745-46 when once more royalist/government troops took over Huntly Castle and the gentle decay that had begun in the previous century continued apace following the unfriendly attentions of anti-Jacobite government troops.

It’s hard to get an impression of how opulent Huntly Castle must have been in its heyday – reputedly no expense spared and very grand indeed with all the main rooms highly decorated and beautifully painted ceilings. John Anderson was the painter responsible for some of the ceiling work, not sure if he was local, might have been and so impressive were his efforts he was commissioned to work on Falkland Palace and Edinburgh Castle. Of course Huntly Castle set the standard. The few remaining carvings tease us into regretting what has been lost but Historic Scotland have done a grand job both with the preservation of the place and a highly informative glossy booklet available in the shop.

As for the Gordons they were scattered across the country and the Continent some settled in Poland. There are still an awful lot of Gordons around Aberdeenshire and some famous ones around the world – and the most famous of all surely Commissioner Jim Gordon of Gotham City unless you think Lord Byron better known – he was half-Scottish – a Gordon through his mother’s family and known as – well what else but George Gordon before England claimed him.

The castle is now home to nesting swallows

Enjoy Huntly Castle.