Qualla: Rothesay Castle

Rothesay Castle: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Rothesay Castle is round, and that alone makes it strange. Almost every other medieval castle in Scotland is built on a polygon - square, rectangular, L-plan, courtyard - because corners are easier to defend. Rothesay's builders, working on the Isle of Bute in the early 13th century, raised a near-perfect circular curtain wall instead. Forty-two metres across, nearly three metres thick, eight metres high, ringed by a broad moat connected to the sea. It is one of the most remarkable castles in Scotland not for its size but for its plan. The shape gave its attackers a problem and gave its chroniclers a story, because here is the earliest recorded assault on a Scottish castle, told in a Norwegian saga: a fleet of Norse axes, three days of hacking at the curtain wall, and the stone giving way.

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Image: Tom Parnell from Scottish Borders, Scotland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rothesay Castle: Built by a Steward

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Farrow, CC BY-SA 2.0. The castle was built either by Alan fitz Walter, Steward of Scotland, who died in 1204, or by his son Walter, who died in 1246. During Alan's tenure the family added the Isle of Bute to their lordship. A wooden castle came first, but a stone circular curtain wall - 9 ft thick, 26...

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Image: Rob Farrow | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rothesay Castle: The Norwegian Axes

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Farrow, CC BY-SA 2.0. Rothesay's fame begins with an attack. In the 1230s, the Norwegian-backed fleet of Óspakr-Hákon, King of the Isles, came to Bute and assaulted the castle. Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, the Old Norse king-saga that preserves the story, records that Óspakr's forces fought for three da...

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Image: Rob Farrow | CC BY-SA 2.0

Rothesay Castle: Stewart Kings and a Duke's Title

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reading Tom from Reading, UK, CC BY 2.0. During the Wars of Scottish Independence, Rothesay was held by the English; Robert the Bruce took it in 1311. It returned to English hands in 1334, then to the Scots again. After the Stewart accession to the throne in 1371, the castle became a favourite residence of kings Robert ...

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Image: Reading Tom from Reading, UK | CC BY 2.0

Rothesay Castle: Cromwell and Argyll

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reading Tom from Reading, UK, CC BY 2.0. In 1527 the castle withstood a siege by the Master of Ruthven, which destroyed much of the burgh of Rothesay. In 1544, the castle fell to the Earl of Lennox during the so-called Rough Wooing - the English crown's brutal attempt to force a marriage between Mary, Queen of Scots, an...

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Image: Reading Tom from Reading, UK | CC BY 2.0

Rothesay Castle: The Marquess Who Saved It

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ellievking1, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1816-17 the 2nd Marquess of Bute employed seventy men to excavate the ruins, hauling out the accumulated rubbish. Real conservation work began in 1871, when the 3rd Marquess - a serious restorer of historic buildings - hired his regular architect, William Burges, to advise. Th...

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Image: Ellievking1 | CC BY-SA 4.0