[MR] Wikipedia: Loch Leven Castle and Mary's Escape

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends, Especially Fellow Scots:

Loch Leven Castle is one of Scotland's more unusual surviving castles. The
structure may date from as early as the mid-1200s, and the keep was a
5-story tower house, possibly dating from the early 1400s, making it one of
the oldest tower houses in Scotland (it's a bit shorter now). The castle is
sited on the appropriately named Castle Island in the midst of the loch. It
has been the site of important events in Scottish history, especially as a
prison. It was once put under siege by the English who tried to drown the
castle by damming the Loch Leven's outfall and raising the water level
(they failed!).

On this date in 1568, Mary Queen of Scots escaped her captors at Loch Leven
Castle. After Mary wed the Earl of Bothwell and began a brief and
ineffectual civil war against Scotland's Protestant lords in 1567, she was
captured and imprisoned in Loch Leven's Glassin Tower. It was here that
Mary was forced to sign an article of abdication in favor of her infant
son, who became King James VI of Scotland (and later James I of England).
Mary gained the loyalty George Douglas, bother of her keeper Sir William
Douglas of Lochleven. Another sympathetic member of the Douglas family, the
young orphan Willie Douglas, obtained the keys to Glassin Tower on May 2,
1568. He snuck Mary out of the castle and rowed her to shore where George
Douglas waited with 200 horsemen to spirit Mary off to what turned out to
be her last bit of freedom.

Mary's ghost is said to haunt the castle, possibly in sorrow for Bothwell's
twins she miscarried while at Loch Leven. Her ghost is said to haunt a host
of other places in Scotland. Perhaps Mary proves that in the afterlife at
life, at least, it is possible to be in two places at once when you're not
anywhere at all.

More about Loch Leven Castle is found at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Leven_Castle .

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
(aka That Crazy Scot)