The booklet below was published through The Clackmannan Society, and written by Clackmannan church minister of the time, The Rev. Dr. T. Crouther Gordon. It follows the history of Clackmannan Castle, later Clackmannan Tower, through the centuries until the 1950's where the tower was slowly being repaired after tragic mining subsidence. These repairs continue to this day, now through Historic Environment Scotland.
THE TOWER OF CLACKMANNAN
THE ANCIENT SEAT OF THE BRUCES
by
T. CROUTHER GORDON
D.F.C., B.D., P.H.D.
Published by
THE CLACKMANNAN SOCIETY
1959
The Clackmannan Society
Founded 1952
Office Bearers
President : County Councillor George Gray
Chairman of Council : The Rev. Dr. T. Crouther Gordon
Secretary and Treasurer : Mr. Robert Sharpe, M.A., Lynnwood
Members of Council
Miss Jenny Forsyth
Miss Nettie Forsyth
Mr John Reid
Mr Luke Sharp, J.P.
Mr Alex. McA. Wilson, C.A.
Mr James Burns
Mr Alex. Fyfe
Mr James George
Mr Wm. McGregor
Mr Henry Murray
PREFACE
This short account of the structure and history of Clackmannan Tower is now published by the Clackmannan Society in the hope that many readers in Scotland and far beyond will find some interest and not a little pride in discovering its romantic and royal past.
Thanks are due to the courtesy of the Rt. Hons. The Earl of Mar and Kellie, The Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, and Lord Balfour of Burleigh and the Most Hon. The Marquess of Zetland for their donations towards the cost.
It is hoped that the reception accorded to this first venture will encourage the Society to continue further literary work as a valuable part of its activities.
T. Crouther Gordon,
Chairman of Council
A SURVEY OF THE STRUCTURE
The impressive tower of Clackmannan stands on a commanding hill, 195 feet above sea-level, with an unobstructed view of undulating and peaceful country. From the east the main thoroughfare runs steadily up the incline of the town to terminate at the barbican of the castle. Till recently it presented a solid and imposing appearance, with distinctive details that told its age and character, and even now these features are well preserved despite the threat of dissolution. Such a building arrests the eye at once and speaks of the great days of feudalism. It incites our curiosity and urges us to discover its secret and tell its romance.
The official view is that this “is one of the most interesting towers” in this part of Scotland “inasmuch as it is structurally complete and in good preservation” (Inventory of R.C.A. & H. Mon. 11th Report, p.316).
This completeness allows us to detect the three main stages in the erection of the structure. The oldest portion of the building is the lower half of the northern tower, and this is easily recognised by the heavy, splayed foundation course at its base and the intake course at its top. In this earliest building a vaulted chamber occupies the upper part, and though originally used as a kitchen, became in the sixteenth century the hall, complete with elaborate fireplace, with moulded jambs and bell-shaped capitals. In the initial period it was well-lighted with windows on the south, north and east. and was enhanced with a dais for the baron's table. It must have been a gay and pleasant abode. Within the wall at the east end can be seen a servant's chamber complete with slab ambries. Entry to this earliest tower was gained probably by a wooden ladder of some twelve feet, stretching from the ground up to the door in the wall (cf. Castle Milk, p.33 of W. M. Mackenzie’s The Medieval Castle in Scotland).
Below the hall is the kitchen, with a hatch in the floor for raising heavy loads to my lord’s table and a service stair in the western wall, which twists to the right and downwards behind the great fireplace to the basement. This lowest room is oblong in shape with walls of a thickness of some seven feet, and above its vaulted roof there was an entresol floor of timber. The east window is a mere slit of six inches, as was probably that of the west in its first form, though it is now enlarged to the proportions of a full doorway. In this vault oyster-shells have been discovered between the stones, which help to fix the date of its construction.
It has been stated that in the introduction of the timber castle Scotland was rather more than half a century behind England; in the substitution of stone for timber it is impossible to say how it compares with England, where this process went on actively from the middle of the twelfth century (p.39, Med. Castles in Scot.). Since this squat, oblong tower clearly antedates the building directly above it, and since substantial building operations were going on at the “castle” by command of Roger de Quencey, the Constable of Scotland, about 1264 A.D. (Charters in Register Ho. 1, No.54), we may place the erection of the earliest tower towards the end of the thirteenth century.
If the Church of Clackmannan, consecrated by Bishop David de Bernham in 1249 A.D., was of stone, as may well be assumed, and the castle was royal property, as is established beyond doubt, then the secular power was not likely to be behind the in the strength of its structures.
In the following century or in the early fifteenth century the northern tower rose to its full height. The collateral house of Bruce took possession of the property in 1359 A.D., and, although it ceased to be in royal hands, the new owners were in the ascendant and in such troublous times sought more adequate and more imposing accommodation for themselves and their friends.
To the south of the hall a large kitchen was built, thus making easier the serving of the hall, and a capacious fireplace, with a small window at the back looking to the south. The eastern window was enlarged to yield a locker in the south jamb and a garderobe in the north. The west window was later filled in and used as a locker, probably for linen and clothes. Directly above the hall two more storeys were added, crowned by a parapet, which, projecting over the perpendicular wall, was supported by double corbels but without machicolations. The floors of these storeys have now disappeared, and one can see only the corbels overhanging the windows and fireplaces. The top floor is an attic, rising from inside the parapet walk, and the gables are crow-stepped. One reaches the rooms and the wall-head by means of a turnpike stair, which rises to a cap-house with both an eastern and a southern doorway leading to the lower parapet walk and to a sentry’s seat on the eastern side. Thus, the northern tower was quite self-contained and complete in itself and presented in the middle period a "finished feudal structure to the four winds of heaven."
But even this building was found inadequate, and in the following years of the fifteenth or early sixteenth century the large southern tower was added. On top of the solid kitchen, which already had beneath it the guard-room and the guards’ sleeping-chamber, was built a second floor, with a comfortable room, beautified by chaste windows and embellished with seats and lockers facing east, south and west.
Conveniently placed in the eastern wall is a garderobe with easy access from the stone lobby. A large fireplace must have kept this apartment warm and cosy. The most delightful room of the entire Tower, it was built somewhat later, probably about 1580 A.D. The large space for the fire has been built up to reduce the area for fuel and doubtless to curtail draughts. Above this charming room, the most interesting in the whole edifice, the floor-corbels of the higher room can still be seen jutting out, but the floor and chamber proper have vanished. Only the windows east, south and west remain, together with a fireplace in the east wall. There is a sanitary convenience in the eastern wall, which serves a like purpose for the fourth-floor garderobe, which also gives an easy access to the parapet of the tower. The distinctive features of this last stage of construction are at the bottom and the top.
The eastern entrance on the ground level is enhanced by a Renaissance archway, ornamented with cornice and pediment, and the symbolism of the thistle and the rose, with a figure faintly reminiscent of an eagle. This is the only conscious attempt at beauty in the whole edifice and is balanced by the successful attempt at feudal grandeur in the southern wing. This highest part of the castle, seventy-nine feet above ground level, is reached by walking along the western parapet of the northern tower and ascending the short stair to be found in the re-entrant angle, above which is a cap-house and a delicately-designed belfry, supposed to be of the seventeenth century (cf inventory). But the splendidly corbelled parapet is the crown and glory of all.
The bold and slightly unnerving machicolations may be “a piece of feudal bravery” (Med. Castle in Scot. P.90), but these, together with the undulating parapet wall and the carefully carved shield of the Bruces on the outside of the corner stones, must have sent a thrill of pride to all who belonged to the household of the lairds of Clackmannan.
Such is the structure as it presents itself to the observer to-day. We must note, however, that some vital elements that once graced the compound are missing. The moat that guarded the barbican has now shrunk to a mere pool. This is not irreparable and hopes exist that it may be restored to its original form.
The forecourt or barbican is a feature of the medieval castle which was borrowed from the Saracens during the long periods of the Crusades. In Clackmannan this feature is present but in a ruinous condition. Fortunately, the postern gate on the northern side of the barbican is still complete.
A large building abutted on the northern wall of the north tower, which is clearly discerned in Farrington's sketch of 1788, and recent clearing of the foundation would indicate it was a stable. It may be connected with Roger de Quencey’s alterations in the thirteenth century.
On the southern side of the Tower is a raised bank, where the ancient game of bowls was played.
A short distance to the south-west stood a fine Scots baronial mansion, the main features of which can be gleaned from the sketches of Eldin, Allan, and Farrington. This was the true home of the Bruces from the seventeenth century onwards until the line became extinct with the death of Mrs Henry Bruce. The two structures were apparently joined together with connecting extensions, and the turrets and crow-stepped gables of the manor indicate not only the period, but the comeliness and the comfort of the interior. It is to be deplored that this gainly and handsome mansion should first have fallen into ruin and then by stealthy hands have vanished entirely from sight.
Even the balls-finial that crowned the entrance pillars of the forecourt fell down from their eminence and lay for long in neglect at the gate. One at least of these was rescued in time and placed on top of the Town Cross to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897.
Here then stands the rare survival of a dim and distant past, when feudalism, with its pyramidal structure, bore heavily on the shoulders of those at the foot and threw into light and sunshine those much fewer and more privileged ones at the top.
An eminence like the King’s Seat of Clackmannan was clearly destined to be from the earliest times a strategic and strongly-fortified defence. Even if the land has risen considerably since Roman times, Agricola issuing from Camelon in 83 A.D. on his brief raid into Pictland must have cast his eye on the dominating seat, while Septimus Severus could hardly have constructed his pontoon-bridge across the Forth at Alloa in 209 A.D. without placing at least a Roman guard on the adjacent commanding hill.
When St Serf founded the first church on the eastern shoulder of the hill it could only have been because the crest of the hill was a valuable and occupied site of vital importance to the whole community. If the link between Kenneth, the son of Alpin, in the ninth century and the adjacent land of Kennet has any real foundation, royal interest in the area was pronounced, and the surrounding names of Craigrie or King’s Crag, the King's Seat, and King’s Meadow Park confirms the impression.
By the middle of the twelfth century the King was claiming the town as his property, for Malcolm IV. (1141-1165) issued a charter in which he uses the term “toft and croft in my town of Clacman” (Reg. Dunfermline p.XXIV.), and what is still more significant is that the King himself was in residence in the town.
He could reside, of course, only in the one building suitable for his royal presence, namely, the Castle. It was not, needless to say, the present structure, but a less substantial affair.
It is now admitted that the stone towers of medieval times were preceded by the mote-and-bailey castles such as appear on the Bayeaux Tapestry. One description of 1130 A.D. says of Merchan, near Dixmude: “It is the custom among the rich and noble men of this region - who spend most of their time in private war in order to protect themselves from their enemies - to heap up a mound (aggerum) of earth as high as they can and surround it with a wide ditch of great depth. The crest of this mound they surround in the manner of a wall with a strong close stockade of squared timbers with as many towers as possible in its circuit. Within this stockade they build at its centre a house or citadel which overlooks everything. In this way the entrance to the place can be reached only by a bridge, which, starting from the outer edge of the ditch, rises by degrees on posts set at equal distances two or three together. Thus, at an easy slope, it rises above the ditch till it reaches the surface of the mound, where it meets and rests upon a threshold.”
The mote was a hillock of earth or rock upon which a tower of wood was erected. In the case of Clackmannan it is possible that the King's Seat Hill was levelled, a strong stockade of squared timbers enclosed the whole area of say a couple of acres, and in the centre a stout tower of wood hewn from the Royal Forest of Clackmannan was raised to command a watch over the whole area and to afford protection in the final stages of an assault. It is worthy of note that only the mote and the bridge survived to find a place in the later and more elaborate Tower.
This, then, was the kind of building that provided a residence for the king and a place of security for the lieges from the time of David I. to that of Alexander III. No document asserts that David I. actually resided in the wooden tower, but we know that later Edward I. renewed an old charter of David’s, granting to the Prior and Friars of May Island rights in the wood of “Clacmanec." This charter is addressed to the "Gille-serfis of Clacmanec,” and points to an order or religious corporation that traced its inspiration to St Serf, the eighth-century missionary who founded the church in Clackmannan. The point to note is that the Forest was royal property and the castle by implication a residence of the King. It is very likely that David I. dwelt there.
The first King authentically recorded who lived in the mote-and-bailey tower was Malcolm IV. He reigned from 1153-1165, coming to the throne when he was but a lad of twelve. His own father, Henry Earl of Huntingdon, was the eldest son of David I., but died in 1152, and so Malcolm was called to the throne and was the first King of Scotland, duly recorded, to be crowned at Scone. Although he was nicknamed "The Maiden," being afflicted with poor health and deeply devoted to a life of Christian almsgiving, fasting and devotion. he nevertheless mastered the recalcitrant nobles in a lawless age. In his wanderings through a turbulent and disunited kingdom he came to stay in his Castle of Clackmannan. It is probable that he had just left his royal town of Dunfermline, for he had heard from its Abbot of its poverty and destitution, and he signalised his occupation of Clackmannan by granting him “the toft and croft in my town of Clackman.” He was strongly under the influence of churchmen and followed the policy of his grandfather in endowing abbeys and monasteries, for he went one better and donated his own mill, or what is now the King's Park Mill, to the Abbey at Cambuskenneth. This was equivalent in value to 10 marks, or the cost of a vicar for the church in the town. And so we know the activities of the King while residing in the Tower.
When the King was not residing there his Sheriff acted not only as his military agent but also as his treasurer and deputy. Indeed, the Royal Castle was for the most part of the year the office of the Sheriff, who acted as Keeper. The Tower, also, was a protection for the buying and selling of merchandise, a very welcome service in such disorderly times, and we ought to recall that county markets could not be held without the royal sanction. This explains why the sheriffdom carried with it the privilege of holding such fairs, for if this brought some profitable perquisites it also involved the duty of maintaining order and protecting the buyers, the sellers and the merchandise.
“The Maiden” died in 1165, and was followed by his younger brother, a king of a much different stamp. William gained for himself the surname of “The Lion,” and it sufficiently indicates the calibre of the man. He it was who after a fruitless spell at the Court of the English Henry II. reacted to the only alternative of a Scoto-French agreement and began the “Auld Alliance” which brought so much woe and bloodshed to Scotland in the following centuries.
William went foraging into England and was captured at Alnwick in 1174, but worse still was to follow, for by signing the Treaty of Falaise he placed both Church and State of Scotland under the suzerainty of England. He patched up his quarrel by marrying the cousin of Henry and then turned his tireless energy to quell his rebellious nobles. From Galloway to Sutherland, he made his name to be respected.
By 1188 he had secured from the Pope a bull which liberated the Scottish Church from all subjection to either York or Canterbury. He was well aware of the critical nature of his times and strove to establish justice in his realm, to bring peace out of chaos, to strengthen the Church, and finally to define his relations with both England and France. This was the strong and determined king, who travelled regularly round his castles, the seat of his authority in each sheriffdom, dispensing both the King’s Justice and the King's Bounty.
While living at Clackmannan between 1165 and 1174 he gave a charter to the Provost and Burgesses of Inverkeithing (cf. Dr Stephen’s Inverkeithing p.3), and again in 1190 from the same castle he gave to Roger de Haden “the whole of Frande in Glendevin by its right marches and with all its pertinents to be held by him of the King and his heirs for the service of a knight,” issued “apud Clacmanan ” (Misc. Scot.“Hist. Socy. IV. Series Third p.307).
“The service of a knight” involved taking the field with all his men for a space of forty days each year, and was an integral part of the feudal system which William had learned at the English court. Besides this grant he added another for the benefit of the Cambuskenneth Abbey, which provided for a priest’s toft in the town and “the easements in bush and plain” (Cart. Cambuskenneth, xxii/xxiii).
But the most important visit paid by William the Lion to Clackmannan Tower was in 1195, and it was the lengthiest too. He fell very ill while there, and so serious was his condition that he bethought himself of a successor. He did not as yet have a son to follow him, but he had a daughter Margaret, and his proposal was that she should marry Otto, the son of Henry, Duke of Saxony and nephew of King Richard of England, and that Otto should thus be the virtual ruler of turbulent Scotland.
Looked at from today this was a wise and far-sighted move. But the King had to take the country with him, and so he called the three estates to the Castle of Clackmannan. This was, in effect, one of the earliest Parliaments ever held in Scotland, and has therefore great historical importance. Many, owing to the King’s prestige, agreed to the proposal, but Patrick Earl of Dunbar led an opposition against it. He contended that Scotland had always allowed a brother or a nephew to succeed to the throne failing a male heir, and that this practice should be followed in the present instance. He also maintained that those were not the times when a woman should wield the royal prerogative, for it needed a man of fearless courage to sustain order in the kingdom.
It is clear that a constitutional crisis developed, for William was not of the type that compromises, and it was resolved only by the ultimate recovery of the King. Roger Hoveden says: “And shortly afterwards through God's mercy the King of Scots recovered from that infirmity; continuing in the same purpose which he had of marrying his daughter with the kingdom to the aforesaid Otto.”
Margaret did indeed go to England in 1209, but as a hostage of war, and later she was lucky enough to marry, not the royal Otto, but the far abler, wealthier and more powerful Hubert de Burgh. The Tower, therefore, was the scene of a vital occasion in Scottish affairs. William, too, must have liked it much, for he returned and lived there in 1204, and on 9th November issued a charter, which was witnessed by Nicolas his chancellor, Matthew Archdeacon of St Andrews, Richard Chaplain, Richard de Morville his Constable, and David Oliver his butler, thus indicating that he had his entourage of officials with him, but he did not have his Council present. (Scot. Doc. in Records Office, II. p.422).
The constitutional crisis of 1195 continued until a son was born to William in1198, and in due course when William died in 1214 this Alexander, the second of the name, carried on the house of Canmore. Although but in his sixteenth year, the new king displayed both courage and energy in controlling the noble houses from the Borders to Argyll till they acknowledged his king-ship. He inspired in Henry of England a profound respect and even the Lord of the Isles felt his power.
Amidst such a vigorous, life he found time to call at the Tower on the 27th of March, 1226, and grant a charter in favour of the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, and once again in 1231 he dispensed justice at his castle and granted by charter the lands of Culbracht in Fife to the Abbey of Balmerino.
On one or other of these visits, too, Alexander gifted some of his own land in Clackmannan to Sir Godfrey - doubtless a loyal supporter - and he later donated a portion of it to the Sacrist of Scone (Early sources of Sots Hist. A. O. Anderson, II. p.500). The facts sufficiently attest the importance alike of town and tower in the ancient seat of the sherrifdom.
In the very year of Alexander's death David de Bernham arrived from St. Andrews to reconsecrate the church, and we may take it that he would receive the full hospitality of the King's Castle, more especially as the news had just come through that Alexander had succumbed to a fever on the Island of Kerrerra on the 8th of July 1249, and the bishop gave his apostolic blessing on the 24th of August. Bernham was a man of prodigious energy and personality, a force in the kingdom, and no king's sheriff could afford to ignore him. The new king, moreover, was but a lad eight and was within two years of being married to Margaret of England!
But his day was coming, for he was no sooner twenty-one than he challenged Haakon for the control of the Western Isles, and the Battle of Largs decided the issue in his favour. And yet if he was successful in arms, he tasted bitter disappointment in his royal successors, for in a very short time his three sons died and he was left only with a granddaughter (the Maid of Norway) to carry on his royal blood. The Estates met in 1284 and agreed to accept her as queen and heir. The King married for a second time, still hoping for a son, but in a matter of months he met a tragic death at Kinghorn. The little Maid also died, and so Scotland was plunged into the throes of political chaos and civil troubles. So bitter was the rivalry between the many claimants to the throne that only an appeal to the English King saved the country from civil war. Edward I. was a true Plantagenet, and seized his chance. He laid it down as a condition of his mediatorial and unbiased services in the dispute that every royal castle should be placed in his hands.
And so it came to pass that the Tower of Clackmannan passed into English hands on 11th June, 1291, and remained thus until Bannockburn broke the English yoke and Bruce duly arrived at the King’s Seat Hill to claim his own. Nor was Edward merely the nominal holder of the castle. Within two months of taking over control Edward had gifted four of the finest oaks of the nearby Forest of Clackmannan to the Templars and had given the order to no less a dignitary than the chancellor of Scotland himself.
We may be sure, too, that when the English knights and soldiers came to live there they hung their cloth and arras on the walls and added a touch of comfort to the rough and austere Scottish appointments. Glass windows were almost certainly installed, as at Cardross, and rushes and carpets laid on the floor. By 1303 Edward had completed the occupation of every royal castle, and by 3rd March, 1304, being aware of the strategic position of the tower on the hill with its command of many miles of the Forth, he ordered Sir Alexander Abernethy to watch all passages of the river and enlist the assistance of William Bysset, the Sheriff of Clackmannan, to seize Sir William Wallace and demand his unconditional surrender. Sir William Bysset was succeeded in September, 1305, by Sir Malcolm Innerpeffer, who again was succeeded in 1306 by Henry of Annand.
But though the castle might be under the heel of the English soldiery, the laird of the town was not, and it is pleasing to record that among the names that signed the Bond of Loyalty in the spring of 1306 that of “Clackmannan,” the superior, has its own honoured place. It would be to the castle also that would come Robert Doget, Edward's messenger, with a written command to send the well-known carpenters of Clackmannan to Stirling to prepare that great war engine "The War Wolf " which by the 24th of July secured the fall of Stirling Castle.
Another messenger, Ade Pratli, arrived with a letter on 7th September, and on 18th October, 1305, another order came from Edward gifting twenty oaks from the forest to the Priory of St Andrews. Edward also reserved the rights of the Prior of the Island of May to wood in the forest. The English interest in the place is seen in the Muster ordered by Edward II. in 1311, which made available to the King the forces at his disposal in all the royal castles of Scotland, and it adds some interest to note that two men from Clackmannan appear among the forces posted in Roxburgh Castle.
And then Bannockburn was fought and won. Indeed, the battle might easily have been seen by the sentry from the parapet of the Tower, for Torwood is still identifiable. Certainly he might have discerned the bold banners of the English knights as they marched forward to overawe the waiting army of Bruce. The guard in Clackmannan Tower must have trembled with fear when the news of defeat reached them, and, snatching their gear, they no doubt made for the Pow, crossed the ferry, and rejoined the broken and retreating remnants of the English host.
The undisputed Bruce now set about occupying his own royal residences, and on 26th February, 1317/8 he came to Clackmannan Tower. While there he remembered his gallant Churchman, the Abbot of Inchaffray, who, against all church law, had drawn the sword for him at Bannockburn, and he issued a charter from the King's Seat presenting the cleric with the income from the church of Killin.
Bruce came again in 1323, and yet again on the 22nd July, 1327,when he gave a charter to Sir Andrew Moray, His brother-in-law, of all the lands of Garioch and such related rents, etc., as belonged to David the late Earl of Huntingdon. Bruce was now in broken health and retired to Cardross, where he died on the 7th of June, 1329. His body, however, was removed to Dunfermline Abbey, and on its last journey it passed under the shadow of his beloved Clackmannan.
His son David was a weakling and ill-suited for the storm and stress of his times, but he discharged his task of Supervising his royal domains and dispensed Justice on the King’s Seat. Preceding his royal master came Sir Robert Peebles, the Chamberlain of Scotland, in 1329 to receive the royal rents and dues. The Treaty of Northampton provided that £20,000 should be paid to England on the anniversary of Bannockburn - making it a rather mixed memory for the Scots- and Clackmannan had to pay £29 as its share of the indemnity that year.
The Constable of Clackmannan emerges into history at this time, and the accounts show that having dwelt in the castle in 1330 he charges the royal exchequer with expenses amounting to £16 19s 8d. The King, too, had lived for a time at the Royal Tower, and the account for his victuals had to be paid. The Vicar of Clackmannan also comes in for recognition, for he is granted eight bolls of grain, probably for giving hospitality to the royal entourage. Included in the bill are 280 fishes, 72 salmon, one barrel of olive oil, and 20 chalders of salt. The gardens, also, were remembered for in this year, four bolls of seed were procured for them. John Clerk certainly must have been kept busy checking up on the daily arrivals of malt and meal. Moving the marts from various places to the town cost 8s. 3d. Silver had to be brought from Aberdeen and herrings from Crail. These and other details in the exchequer rolls provide a vivid picture of the royal life in Clackmannan Tower in 1329.
David II. on his itineraries came to the place several times, and there is a letter preserved in the Tower of London which he sent to Edward III. on 2nd February, 1331, from Clackmannan. It deals with obscure matters relating to Thomas de Wake and Henry de Beaumont, but its value lies in the apologetic tone of it, for David is at pains to explain, by way of excuse for delay, that his Council is not at Clackmannan and he cannot call it together until 18th March, when it was to meet in Berwick-on-Tweed. This letter states further that Edward’s letter had arrived only the previous day, and this would show that David was anxious to allay English anger. His effort was futile, for in 1333 Edward swept northwards on a conquering campaign and, we may be sure, included the Tower among his many captures.
David could not well visit the place between 1346 and 1357 for he was a prisoner in England during these years, having been seized at the Battle of Neville’s Cross.
He did, however, return in 1358 to hold his Court and give charters to Sir Robert Stewart of the Barony of Shanbody, lying between Kennet Village and the Garlet. Stewart in return had to provide a knight's service - forty days of service by the knight and his retinue – each time the king visited the Tower. But David was doomed to have a trying and disastrous reign. His captivity in England was long and bitter, and his ransom of 100,000 merks bled Scotland white.
These and other factors led him to hand over his properties to wealthy kinsmen, and so Clackmannan changed hands. While at Pert on 9th December, 1359, David signed the charter which gave to his kinsman - “consangineo” is the Latin term used in the deed – not only the castle and town but also all perquisites and powers attached thereto. By 1363 he had added Kennet and by 1365 Grassmainston, Gartlove, Carse, the Park, Meadow and Craigrie. Even so the ransom contribution was an irksome burden, and the exchequer roll tells us that Robert Bruce refused payment of it in 1369 and actually “deforced the contributor”.
The precise relationship of Robert Bruce of Clackmannan to King David II. who calls him “dilecto consanguieno,” is not clear. Edward Bruce was the brother of the great King Robert, and besides being Earl of Carrick, was King of Ireland. He fell at Dundalk in 1318. His son Thomas Bruce was a great supporter of the throne an organised an armed resistance to the English in 1334, which is referred to in the Scotichronicon I. Xiii. o. 32. Dying in 1348, his son Robert was placed in the care of Sir Robert Erskine and John of Menteith, and this is the youth who, in 1359, was granted possession of the royal tower and town of Clackmannan (see Reg. Mag. Sig. p.38 No.61; Robertson's Index p76 No.27). Thus, the direct royal link was broken, although we may assume that the Sir Robert Bruce who now became the owner was a close kinsman if not a full cousin of the King David II.
This change in ownership represented also a change in use. The building was no longer an occasional residence of the King or an office where the sheriff collected taxes, ransom, or peace-money. It was a recognised home of a scion of the Bruces and so a centre of constant life and activity. If the townsfolk, clustering under the protection of the castle, did not see the royal entourage clattering up the slope to the drawbridge, they had daily speech and contact with the magnate of the town and the presiding genius of the district. When he died in 1390 this Sir Robert Bruce left four sons, one to succeed him in Clackmannan, another to found a new branch at Airth, another to become Bishop of Glasgow and Lord High Chancellor of Scotland, and still another, Thomas, to establish a new branch at Kennet. Sir David lived on at the Tower after the death of his father in 1390, and he appears in the Cambuskenneth Cartulary as having donated the mill--probably Parkmill - to the Abbey on 6th October, 1406. He married Jean, the daughter of Sir John Stewart of Lorn, and his own son John by her followed him in the succession to the Tower.
The fifteenth century was uneventful in the history of the Tower, and the life of noble and peasant followed its wonted way. Another Sir David arose, who married a Herries of Terreagles, and died in 1473. The third Sir David followed his father in the Tower and did not go so far afield for a wife. Indeed, he went no farther than his next-door neighbour, Sir Patrick Blackadder of Tulliallan Castle, and won the hand of his daughter Jane. From this marriage sprang John, who, marrying Margaret, daughter of Sir William Murray of Touchadam, left Sir Robert Bruce to carry on the line of Clackmannan Bruces, while other members of the family were linked with the Bruces of Kennet, of the Green and of the Garlet.
It should be kept in mind that possession of the Tower and town did not carry with it the office of Sheriff. James IV., for instance, while at Stirling on 25th September 1497, appointed William Mentieth of Kerse to succeed John Schaw of Alloa as sheriff. Indeed, from1306 this office had been hereditary, for Sir John Mentieth, having married Marjory, tho only issue of Sir John Stirling, the Sheriff of Clackmannan, thus succeeded to the office, and it remained in the Mentieth family for nearly three hundred years.
Experts seem to be agreed that it was in the fifteenth century that the south tower was added to the older building, and this would confirm the presumption that this branch of the Bruces flourished throughout the period. It calls for remark, too, that this is the more ornate and imposing part of the whole structure, rises higher by some ten feet than the northern tower, and boasts of stout corbels and machicolations.
From the Tower windows and parapet the household could see the men carting timber from the royal forest and loading up the barges at the Pow of Clackmannan in 1504. It took carters and marines five days, and, being thirsty work, it cost the King 28s in drink silver. The laird that watched the loading of the timber for Leith did not look on much more of this world, for he passed away in 1506, and the King confirmed the charter at once to is heir, the young Sir David. But if David had to keep himself right with the crown on the one hand, he had to define his rights with the Church on the other, and so on 6th March, 1506, he accompanied the Abbot of Cambuskenneth as he re-defined the church's forty acres and protected it with the King's peace.
On 18th April, 1517, the Duke of Albany as Regent gave Sir David Bruce the right to hold St. Batholomew's Fair, a privilege and a prerequisite which belonged only to the Sheriff. This raised legal issues with the Menteiths which continued until 22nd August, 1569, when the Privy Council deprived both Bruce and Mentieth of holding the Fair. The rivalry only ceased with the extinction of the Menteiths in the following century and the appointment of Sir Henry Bruce by Charles II. In 1669. The year 1522 was a time of alarms and excursions, for John Anderson was sent with a letter under signet to call out the outer guard of Clackmannan. The murders of Patrick Hamilton and Cardinal Beaton is echoed in a summons of 1546, read from the Town Cross, calling for all “landit ” men to go to St Andrews.
On 12th February, 1551, Mary Queen of Scots, in view of the fact that Sir David Bruce of Clackmannan had no direct heir, conferred upon his nephew Robert Bruce of Rait the Barony of Clackmannan, together with “ its castle, tower and fortalice, the Town of Clackmannan with the mill, the grinding, the house, the annual rents, holdings, etc. . . . with the privileges of the annual public fair in the town of Clackmannan at the Feast of St Bartholomew the Apostle and for eight days following, along with the tolls; besides towers, fortalices, manors, mills, multures, trees, fish both in salt and fresh waters . . . with the right of presentation to churches, benefices and chapels.” It should be observed that no mention is made of the market at the Feast of St Simon and St Jude, probably a later development.
But by far the most interesting feature of this valuable charter is the creation of the Burgh of Barony of Clackmannan. It read as follows :--
Moreover the Queen, in virtue of the good services of the said David and Robert, with a view to increasing the wealth of her loyal subjects in the said town of Clackmannan, and in order that the Sheriff in his Sheriff Court should never lack barons, freeholders and headmen, so that they (David and Robert Bruce) might be better able to provide hospitality, has erected the said town of Clackmannan, with all bonds, buildings, lands, acres, crofts and commons presently attached thereto, IN FREE BURGH OF BARONY, and she gives to the inhabitants freedom to buy and sell, etc., with the holding of two market days annually, namely the days of Bartholomew and Simon and Jude, when public trading will be permitted, etc., and in order that the said inhabitants may observe the custom of electing annually the bailies and officers of the said burgh, in which bailies the Queen invests the power of creating burghesses and freemen of the said burgh, and of receiving judicial oaths according to custom, of making statutes and of holding burghal courts, etc.
Continuing to the said Robert and heirs male of his body legitimate, whom failing, his legitimate and nearest male heir with the name of Bruce and carrying the insignia, whom failing it reverts to the Queen and her successors by process of ancient infiefment; with free forest wherever there are trees, With the power of holding the market at the Cross, within the said burgh, the Court-House, the shackles and fetters and other kinds and instruments of punishment.
This important document raised the prestige of the town and gave to the natives an opportunity of directing its affairs, increasing its amenities, and developing its wealth. Incidentally, also it ensured the continuance of the Bruces as lairds and knights. On 15th September, 1561, Mary Queen of Scotland travelled from Stirling to Culross en route for Lochleven, and Sir Robert Bruce, as Baron of Clackmannan, would afford her protection and refreshment. Had she not in 1551 honoured both him and the town ? Seven years later, when Mary escaped from her prison on Lochleven and flung herself upon the much-tested loyalty of her subjects, the Hamilton Bond that swore fealty to her included the name of “Clackmannen.”
It is very probable that this century saw the erection of the baronial mansion, seen clearly in Farrington's Sketch of 1788 to the south-west of the main double Tower. Several sketches indicate that it was in close connection with the older building, and it was here in this more comfortable and convenient house that the Bruces lived for two hundred years. The tall Tower was reserved for storage, but the doorway which led straight through the tower to the mansion beyond was embellished with adornments of the thistle and rose and what resembles at the moment a double eagle.
The seventeenth century was unexciting. In 1635 Sir Robert Bruce was appointed a Commissioner with the unusual task of watching for ships arriving from the Low Countries lest they should quietly lay their plague-stricken crews and passengers ashore in the dead of night and so spread the disease throughout the town and district. The trade in coal and timber between the Pow and Kennetpans and the Low Countries was steady and extensive, and from his window in the Tower or Mansion he could detect the arrival and departure of every vessel. Three years later, on 24th September, 1638, Sir Robert presided at the Cross while the men and women crowded forward to sign the National Covenant, professing at once their loyalty to Charles and their antagonism to his religious policy.
Sir Henry followed his father at the Tower about 1642, and by 1666 he was appointed Sheriff to succeed Alexander Hope. He was remarkable, when he died in 1674, for leaving debts amounting to £1333 chiefly for his funeral, drugs, and medicines. The estate in fact, was not prosperous, for Sir David in 1693 had to sign a trust deed admitting his insolvency.
His coal mines in Sauchie and Clackmannan were turning out a dismal failure despite the fact that Dutch experts were brought over to construct waterways and water-wheels. No wonder he failed, for all but two of the inhabitants were in 1698 fined for stealing his coals. The same Sir David, during an interregnum in the Church when there was no minister to watch over affairs, took the session minutes “surreptitiously” from William Smith the Session Clerk and burned them. This high-handed action was doubtless designed to obliterate the record of disciplinary action, but was none the less reprehensible.
The laird, it seems, was heading for trouble, for in 1702 he was publicly excommunicated by order of the Presbytery. In 1704, on 28th August, Sir John Erskine pleaded successfully to Parliament that David Bruce be not imprisoned for debt. It appears that he took over his father’s debts and assets only to find himself hopelessly insolvent and, while “the most considerable of his creditors dealt leniently with the laird, some few out of humour” sought to have him put in prison. The laird was embittered to find that the coal-mines which under him had failed miserably now yielded handsome profits to his creditors.
The situation worsened, however, and the Tower, together with the lands of Clackmannan, were put up for sale in 1708, and were bought by William Dalrymple and his factor, Alexander Inglis. Dalrymple, who was A colonel in the Foot Guards and second son of the Earl of Stair, was Member of parliament for Clackmannan in the first united parliament of 1708. But his roots were down in Wigtownshire, and he acted as Sheriff only through deputies. He did not live in the Tower, although it is recorded that his wife, the Countess of Dumfries, died in Clackmannan in 1742.
As for Sir David he died in the Tower in 1712, and describes in his testament dative, preserved in the Register House, Edinburgh, what his possessions were in the Tower. Apart from the brewhouse, the vault contained 1 long table, 8 dozen bottles, 8-gallon barrel, 3 ½-ankers, 1 empty hamper, 1 old stoll, and 2 old gantries.
The Laigh Hall contained old hangings, 24 maps, 26 pictures, 1 clock and case, 5 nodding boyes, and 1 picture of Royal Oak with armaments. In the Little Laigh Hall, referred to as the Barons’ Room, were two timber presses, one box bed, and one standing bed with hangings.
In the Ladies’ Room were feather pillows and a four-stooped bed with cover and hangings. In the High South Room were one large bed with dark curtains, straw pallias, 4 white linen window curtains, 44 pictures, and 11 glass pictures.
The Laird had his own little “snuggery” or closet with 15 books, napery, 1 bed, 1 pistol, and a speaking trumpet.
The most interesting articles were in the large Upper Hall, where there were 13 maps, 12 caesars, 23 small pictures with frames, marble table, cane chairs, wainscott table, one old sword, and one map or family tree.
From a Minute of Session of 2nd August, 1719, we learn that the doors were secured by heavy bars, one room was called the “red room” and was my lady's bedroom and another was the “green room.” Alexander Rait stated in 1722 that the Tower was “very pleasant for sight and air," but he clearly did not see the inside of it.
The Tower Hill was very popular as a promenade on the Sabbath, for the elders of the kirk were appointed to watch there for Sabbath-breakers in 1716. This was but mild treatment compared to the sentence imposed by colonel Dalrymple in 1733 on a Weaver in Clackmannan who stole six shirts belonging to his wife, the Countess of Dumfries. This poor wretch was scourged from one o’clock till two o’clock each day during his sentence from the head to the foot of the town by the public hangman, and thereafter he was burned on the cheek and banished the Shire.
Nor was the Sheriff-depute one whit more merciful, for he sentenced poor Robert Livingston, chapman at Crook of Devon, for stealing a black tup and two wedder sheep “to be stripped naked of his clothes and scourged by the hand of the hangman through the whole town of Clackmannan with one of the sheep’s heads and four feet hanging about his neck, and thereafter to be banished out of the said shire . . .”
Colonel Dalrymple himself died in 1742, and so brought to an end this curious interruption in the Bruce Ownership, for the whole property was bought now by Sir Laurence Dundas of Kerse, who had married the Sister of Robert Bruce of Kennet, who was raised to Lord Kennet, a Lord of Session. Dundas had amassed a large fortune as an Army contractor during the eighteenth century wars, and belonged to the south side of the Forth.
The town was still the County centre and from the Tolbooth rung out the curfew, so Sir Laurence installed a new bell in the steeple, which bears the inscription "Given to the town of Clackmannan by Sir Laurence Dundas, Baronet, 1765.” The property being once again in Bruce hands, it is not surprising that Henry Bruce and his wife were allowed to occupy the old Tower and Mansion for as long as they needed.
And it was well, indeed, that such a pair dwelt in the hoary old Castle, to gild its latter days with a sunset glory. Henry’s father was the insolvent Sir David who died in 1712, and it is possible that his knighthood passed with his solvency, for Henry his son seems never to have enjoyed the title. Title or no title, however, Henry Bruce had his own strong convictions and feelings and his heart warmed to the old Stewarts. True, he had not much to lose when Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the standard of the ’Forty-Five, and perhaps he reckoned he had much to gain by a Jacobite victory, but he flung in his lot with the rebels and drew his sword for the old Scottish house. He marched with Charles, and although we have no trace of him at Culloden his name certainly appears on the list of those who were marked for attainting for their part in the rising.
He apparently escaped capture for some time, and prepared to get quietly away to Holland by securing a pass under an assumed name, a pass which was actually signed by the Lord Advocate and the Lord Justice Clerk! And so, on the 22nd January, 1747, he boarded the small ship “Fortrose” at Leith with all his plans complete and on the eve of success. Just then, unfortunately, he was arrested by the King's messengers and prevented from sailing. There was nothing of his estate to forfeit, and the government did not reckon him important enough for execution. He was allowed, therefore, to return to his old tower on the hill, and there he dwelt quietly until 1772, when he died on his own bed.
He left no child to continue the line, and so in him the Bruces of Clackmannan came to an end. He did leave behind, however, a lady, Mrs Catherine Bruce, who maintained to the last all his Jacobite loyalties and added to them an independence and originality of her own. She was born in 1696 and claimed to come from the same Bruce stock as her husband. She was fond of insisting, when asked if she belonged to the line of the great Bruce, that it was the other way round and that Bruce came from her line!
She opened her door and her heart to all worthy travellers, and it was recognised that no traveller of note would think of passing the Castle on the Hill. She welcomed many notable people to her hospitable table, charmed them with vivacious conversation, and made no secret of her Jacobite sympathies. She met David Allan, the Alloa artist and “Scottish Hogarth,” in 1774 when he sketched the antique and decaying Tower, and she was likewise flattered when Joseph Farrington, R.A., asked her sanction in 1778 to execute his delightful sketch which is now in the British Museum.
The Rev. John Jamieson, the famous lexicographer who wrote the first Scots Dictionary, was warmly welcomed by the old lady for two reasons. Was he not the great-grandson of Alexander Bruce, the first of the Garlet? Was he not, also, collecting the precious memory-haunted words of the old Scots dialects to preserve in his grand new book? He could not have gone to a better living authority, for she studiously retained the Doric words of her race and hated the encroachments of the southern dialects.
She displayed on her wall the Family Tree of the Bruces, constructed by a Hungarian, John Zombatinus, in 1686, and showed a long, two-handed sword which reputedly was used by Bruce at Bannockburn. A helmet also was said to be on view which was used on the same occasion, although it is worthy of note that the testament dative of 1712 does not mention it. This sword she regularly brought into use for the benefit of her most distinguished visitors, for she knighted them with it and claimed that to do this she had a greater right than “some folk,” with a point of the finger to London! And so, when the interesting kinsman Dr Jamieson came to her royal abode, she insisted on conferring a knighthood upon him.
But the most vivid visit recorded was that of Robert Burns and Dr James McKittrick Adair. It will be recalled that after the poet’s conquest of the Edinburgh wits and pundits in 1786 and 1787 he set out to see more of Scotland for his poetic muse. In October, 1787, after varied travels he visited John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, near Stirling, who, himself an accomplished classical scholar, rejoiced in the natural and spontaneous genius of the poet. Ramsay strongly urged him to turn to pastorals, like “The Gentle Shepherd,” for he felt that Burns could far excel Alan Ramsay if he cared to try.
He also urged Burns when staying at Harviestoun Castle to ride over to the Castle of Clackmannan and call on Mrs Bruce. Burns did stay at Harviestoun about the 15th of October and rode over with his companion Dr Adair to the Tower. Ever the perfervid Scot, the poet had early espoused Jacobitism and so found a kindred spirit in the aristocratic old lady of ninety-one.
How Burns must have warmed when he heard her husband had been “out” in the 'Forty-Five! She entertained them to dinner and her first toast thereafter was “Hooki, uncos!” which being interpreted meant "Away with the Hanoverians” The second, we may be sure, was to “The King o’er the water” -- Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was actually at that moment sunk in debauchery in Rome.
She then insisted on Burns and Adair kneeling, and, drawing the mighty sword of Bruce, she conferred knighthood on them both. A delightfully human touch is preserved in the fact that when Burns, departing, dropped on one knee and took her hand and kissed it she retorted, with a twinkle in her eye, “What ails ye wi' my mou'?” It has been said that later she disliked to have this incident recalled, for Burns it is true was plebean enough, and yet Time here, as so often, has surely turned the tables and Burns is to myriads a knight in his own inalienable right and shines with a greater title than ever Catherine Bruce could bestow.
So passed the Bard. And so too passed the glory of the ancient and ancestral Tower, for four years later on 4th November, 1791, Mrs Bruce died. For years she had suffered paralysis, but this did not curtail her energies and she rose daily at six in the morning to superintend the domestic arrangements of her home, and in the end it was by an accident that she passed away. “The memory of this lady,” said Dr Robert Moodie, her parish minister, in 1795, “will ever be revered by all who knew her. She was one of those rare characters who at times appear on earth as the ornaments of their nature. To all the high sentiments of a dignified and enlightened mind she added these amiable virtues of the heart which render their influence irresistible.
As long as she lived, therefore, the Tower of Clackmannan was frequented by her numerous friends and acquaintances of various ranks and of all ages, for her extreme weight of years had not made the least impression upon that happy vivacity and cheerfulness of temper which had always made her company so much the admiration and delight of her friends She was formed to support to the last with undiminished dignity the character of the race from which she was sprung.”
Her will directed that the sword of Bruce, the helmet, and the family tree should go to the Bruces of Broomhall, and this seems to indicate that she believed the Earls of Elgin to be entitled to the chiefship of the Bruces. Curiously enough the family tree shows that the Kennet branch came from Sir Robert Bruce, the eighth laird of Clackmannan, while Lord Elgin derives from the fifth laird.
To-day these points of kinship and chiefship are losing their old importance before a rapidly changing social order and the slow but steady disappearance of feudalism, but they have a historical and sentimental value. In Broomhall to the present these gifts of Mrs Bruce are highly treasured and well preserved.
The gifts might go and the donor might go, but the old Tower stood foursquare on the hill. Here is what Dr Moodie says of it in 1795:--
“It contains a variety of apartments and has been surrounded by a moat, with a drawbridge, part of which still remains. Adjoining the tower stands the old mansion, the residence of the family, till the direct line became extinct. Both the tower and house, however, are fast crumbling into ruins and exhibit a sad spectacle of human grandeur. Though said to have been the abode of kings, the chief residence of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, yet they now afford only a very comfortless dwelling to a common ploughman.
The account written by the Rev. Peter Balfour in 1845 adds little to the previous notice: “To the top of the tower the tourist may ascend by a spiral stair. In going around its summit the views vary at every step, and whether contemplated separately or in conjunction are truly grand.” It appears that the main Tower continued to house a humble occupant well through the nineteenth century, and at last became quite uninhabitable."
The baronial mansion, so often depicted by artists from Lord Eldin to Allan and Farrington, was less substantial, and it steadily disintegrated in the early decades of last century, so that towards the later decades the heap of stones proved a suitable quarry from which to build new houses in the neighbourhood. Despite protests from the more enlightened, the entire mansion gradually disappeared until not a single vestige remains to tell the visitor of to-day that a handsome, turreted, crow-stepped Scots mansion had once stood on the commanding site.
The Tower itself still stands facing the four points of the compass. It is true that that part of the eastern wall which abuts on to the northern tower has collapsed in a heap of rubble, but the most part still stands and surely it is not beyond the skill of the experts to restore and preserve this fine historical structure. Both the State and the community are now more conscious than ever of the irreplaceable value of these mighty monuments of the past, and when, as in this case, it is a Tower of unique architecture and of royal romance, there is surely honour and pride in preserving it.
There is challenge in the fact that the oldest portion of the whole structure is the one which has survived the best the decaying hand of time.