Dunglass Castle was a castle at Dunglass in East Lothian, Scotland. It was a seat of the Home family and frequently visited by the Stewart kings. A fortification was built during the Rough Wooing. There are no upstanding masonry remains of the castle. A more recent mansion has also been demolished. The medieval Dunglass Collegiate Church at the site is maintained by Historic Environment Scotland.
Origins The first medieval castle at Dunglass was built by the Pepdie family in the 14th century. On the marriage of Nicola Pepdie to Sir Thomas Home of Home, the castle and lands passed to the Home family. James IV stayed at Dunglass in December 1496, and played cards. He gave a tip, also known as "drinksilver", to masons working on the building and enjoyed a banquet which included spices brought from Edinburgh.Thomas Dickson, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1877), p. 308.
Regent Albany Alexander Home, 3rd Lord Home was allied with Margaret Tudor against John Stewart, Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland. Albany brought his army to Dunbar and Dunglass in October 1515. The Earl of Home was persuaded to meet Albany at Dunglass and was arrested. Home was able to make an alliance with the Earl of Arran against Albany.Ken Emond, The Minority of James V (John Donald, Edinburgh, 2019), 54. Home was executed in 1516 and the family were forfeited, and for a time the castle passed to Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. Dunglass was besieged and slighted by the English under the command of Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland in the winter of 1532.
Rough Wooing In September 1547, during the war now known as the Rough Wooing, Dunglass was captured by the forces of the Duke of Somerset from George Douglas of Pittendreich,Grafton's Chronicle: A Chronicle at Large, 1569, vol. 2 (London, 1809), p. 500. and was refortified and garrisoned by the English. According to the English journalist of the campaign, William Patten, the Scottish captain of the castle, Matthew Home, had only 21 soldiers, and surrendered without a fight. John Brende led 300 workmen, called "pioneers" to demolish the old fortifications.David Caldwell, Vicky Oleksy, Bess Rhodes, The Battle of Pinkie, 1547 (Oxbow, 2023), p. 191. The walls had solid foundations in the craggy bedrock.Lorna Hutson, England's Insular Imagining: The Elizabethan Erasure of Scotland (Cambridge, 2023), p. 52: A. F. Pollard, Tudor Tracts (Westminster, 1903), pp. 87–89 Some of the stone was taken to Eyemouth, where Richard Lee was building an artillery fort on a new site.Marcus Merriman, 'The Forts of Eyemouth: Anvils of British Union?', Scottish Historical Review, 67 (1988), p. 146. Richard Lee seems to have been the designer of the new English fort at Dunglass, with his assistant William Ridgeway.Marcus Merriman & John Summerson, "The Fortresses in Scotland", Howard Colvin, The History of the King's Works, 4:2 (London: HMSO, 1982), pp. 699, 703.
In January 1549, the French landed two boat loads of ladders at Dunbar, intending to attack the English garrison, but they did not make an assault.Joseph Bain, Hamilton Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1892), p. 623. The English soldiers were entertained by two Irish minstrels on 9 July 1549.HMC Duke of Rutland, vol. 4 (London, 1905), p. 354. The garrison was commanded by Sir Thomas Holcroft.Joseph Stevenson, Selections from unpublished manuscripts illustrating the reign of Mary Queen of Scotland (Glasgow, 1837), p. 47.
A new artillery fortification was built on new a site nearby overlooking the remains of the older castle of the Home family, set out by Richard Lee. He also enclosed the village of Dunglass with a rampart. The Earl of Shrewsbury envisaged the fortified site would be a base for the whole English army, but Protector Somerset objected to the increasing cost.Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings (Tuckwell, 2000), p. 318 & fn, 340–341: Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, IV, p. 401. During September 1549, Holcroft reported the "fort now groweth in a great strength". He described his men's "continual labour of carrying baskets, sods, and going to the wood, watching", despite sickness in the camp.Joseph Stevenson, Selections from unpublished manuscripts illustrating the reign of Mary Queen of Scotland (Glasgow, 1837), pp. 44–5, 49 (modernised here). The captains were Christopher Asheton, followed by Francis Aslaby. It was one of the most expensive works undertaken during the war, costing £2,300.C. S. Knighton, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Edward VI (London, 1992), p. 260 no. 721: TNA SP 10/15.
The French diplomat in London, Odet de Selve, heard news of the building of the fort on a hill near the sea. He obtained a plan made by a spy in December 1548, and commented that the fort itself was small, and had no battery of guns on one side which was defended only by the steep valley of the Dunglass water.Germain Lefèvre-Pontalis, Correspondance politique de Odet de Selve (Paris, 1888), pp. 446, 476–7. According to Jean de Beaugué, the new site was hard to defend and had no water.Patrick Abercromby, History of the Campaigns of 1548 and 1549 (1707), p. 63 The original French of Jean de Beaugué is, 'se meit à construire vn petit fort, qu'il nomma Donglas, sur une crouppe de montagne, ou ne se trouvoit commodité d'eau quelconque, & outre ce mal, cete montagne, ou il sit son fort, est veuë & commandée d'une colline à cinquante pas, si haute qu'un homme n'y sauroit demeurer à la muraille pour defendre la bresche: par ce que de cete colline, qui est au dessus, il seroit à decouvert battu en flanc", from Histoire de la Guerre d'Écosse pendant les campagnes 1548 et 1549 (Maitland Club: Edinburgh, 1830), p. 70.Marcus Merriman, "The Fortresses in Scotland]]", Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 4:2 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 725.
On 31 January 1550, soldiers from Dunglass fired two barn yards at the Place of Nether Keith and burnt houses in the village. The English raiders were chased back to Dunglass.Thomas Thomson, Diurnal of Occurrents (Edinburgh, 1833), p. 49 Regent Arran gave orders for cannon to be shipped to bombard the fort on 11 April 1550.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 396-7. The Earl of Rutland was at Dunglass in May 1550 and took the opportunity to have his mail armour scoured in a bag of bran and had his pistol mended. He bought white fabric in the camp at Dunglass to modify his hose for the hot weather in July.HMC Duke of Rutland, vol. 4 (London, 1905), pp. 360-1.
The fort at Dunglass was surrendered to the French in March 1550.Thomas Thomson, Diurnal of Occurrents (Edinburgh, 1833), pp. 49-50Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings (Tuckwell, 2000), pp. 347–8. In June, after the Treaty of Norham,Marcus Merriman, "The Fortresses in Scotland", Howard Colvin, The History of the King's Works, 4:2 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 703. the remaining cannon were taken to Dunbar Castle and the villagers in the area were summoned to slight the fort.Marcus Merriman, "The Fortresses in Scotland", Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 4:2 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 725.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1911), pp. 420-1. In France, Henry II organised a triumphal entry to Rouen on 1 October 1550. Mary of Guise and Mary, Queen of Scots took part. The entertainment included verses and banners and representing Dunglass and the other surrendered fortresses in Scotland.
Earls of Home After going to Jedburgh to hold justice courts, and viewing the English town of Berwick-upon-Tweed from Calf Hill in April 1588, James VI rode to Dunglass Castle to banquet with Lord Home.James Dennistoun, Moysie's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 67
Lord Home invited an English official, John Carey, to come from Berwick to meet James VI at Dunglass in January 1595, but Carey refused to make the trip.Joseph Bain, Calendar of Border Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1896), p. 11 no. 19. James VI made a hunting trip to the area in February, planning to visit Dunglass, Spott, Beil, Waughton, and Seton.Annie Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1593-1595, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 529 nos. 464-5: Calendar of Border Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1896), p. 13 no. 24.
In October 1595 Christian Douglas, Lady Home moved her best household goods from Dunglass to Fife, sparking rumours of a marital separation.Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1595-1597, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), p. 41 no. 38. James VI stayed with Lord Home at Dunglass Castle on 13 March 1596, for his "sports".Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1595-1597, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), p. 167: Thomas Birch, Memorials of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 1 (London, 1754), p. 454. King James alarmed the English garrison by coming to hunt near Berwick-upon-Tweed, staying a night the house of the laird of Billie, six miles from Berwick, and then returning to Dunglass.Joseph Bain, Border Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1896), p. 114.
The castle was rebuilt, in an enlarged and improved form, and gave accommodation on 5 and 6 April 1603 to King James,Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stewart: The regime change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford, 2024), p. 109: John Nichols, The Progesses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, of King James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1828), p. 62. and all his retinue, on his journey to London to take up the English throne at the Union of the Crowns.'The True Narration of the Entertainment of his Royal Majesty', Edward Arber, An English Garner, vol. 8 (London, 1896), p. 494: Robert Chambers, The Life of King James the First, 2 (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 16.Maureen Meikle, A British frontier? Lairds and Gentlemen in the Eastern Borders (Tuckwell, 2004), p. 272.
The castle and gardens, including the "Priest's Yard", were improved by Mary, Countess of Home and her husband, Alexander Home, 1st Earl of Home. Some of the luxurious furnishing of the castle and its long gallery are recorded in inventories made by the Countess of Home.Michael Pearce, 'Approaches to Inventories' in Architectural Heritage, 26 (Edinburgh, 2015), pp. 76-77: NRAS 217 box 5 no. 5. On 13 May 1617, the Earl of Home escorted King James from Berwick to Dunglass, where an entertainment including flattering poems by William Struthers and David Hume of Godscroft delivered by Alexander Hume, the schoolmaster of Prestonpans.John Adamson, The Muses Welcome to the High and Mightie Prince James (Edinburgh, 1618), pp. 1-16. David Hume of Godscroft wrote a Latin verse to be said on this occasion which contrasted Mary's rebuilding of the earl's houses with the destruction wrought by her grandfather during the war of the Rough Wooing.Marilyn M. Brown & Michael Pearce, 'The Gardens of Moray House, Edinburgh', Garden History 47:1 (2019), p. 47. He refers to the improving work of her English hand;Mentiar; aut nullis horrendam ducimus Anglam,Judice te; vultum respice, sive animum.Nec fera miscemus, truculento, proelia, Marte:Sed colimus, casti, foedera sancta, thori.Hinc surgunt mihi structa palatia, diruit AnglaQuae quondam, melior iam struit Angla manus:Hinc quam fausta tibi procederet UNIO, si sicExemplo, saperes Insula tota, meo.The Muses Welcome to the High and Mightie Prince James (Edinburgh, 1618).Either I’m a liar, or we think that an Englishwoman is not terrible in any respect, as you judge: just consider her countenance or her mind. Nor shall we join battles in cruel war, but rather we are observing the sacred laws of a chaste marriage. Hence a castle, built for me, which an English hand had once demolished, a better English hand is now rebuilding. Hence this union will go prosperously for you and your entire island, if you grow wise after my exampleText translated for The Philological Museum by Dana F. Sutton