THE INS AND OUTS OF BORTHWICK CASTLE

Mary, Queen of Scots, employed trickery to flee. Oliver Cromwell needed an army to force an entrance. But today, historic Borthwick operates as a guest house, and visitors can come and go as they please.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in British Heritage magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

By Betsa Marsh

Such a narrow window; such an immense decision. When Mary, Queen of Scots, donned her pageboy disguise and jumped out the window of Borthwick Castle, she leapt for a freedom that eluded her for the rest of her troubled life.

At Borthwick on 11th June, 1567, a thousand Scottish nobles cornered the newly-wed Mary and her third husband, the dubious James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. They demanded Bothwell’s head and Mary’s renunciation of the Earl and his influence.

Bothwell, a suspect in the murder of Queen Mary’s second husband, Lord Darnley, just a few months before, fled the castle’s sheltering 110-foot towers and the asylum offered by the 6th Lord Borthwick, leaving his wife and queen behind. After Bothwell slipped through the cordon, the nobles withdrew in deference to their sovereign. Mary then made a decision that forever altered her life and realm. Exchanging her royal gown for the shirt and breeches of a pageboy, she left the stoneclad sanctuary of Borthwick–where she had so often danced in the reception room and dined in the Great Hall–to follow her husband and ultimately face the uncertain winds of political fortune alone.

No wonder these ancient stones, first set in 1430, can seem so solemn, so melancholy. Sunlight still lances through the narrow Gothic window of Mary’s escape, but it is a thin, watery light. Can these insensate stones know that after the Queen’s short and futile reunion with Bothwell she never knew true freedom again?

But today, with a blaze in the vast, canopied fireplace, and candles on the gleaming length of table, the castle’s Great Hall provides modern travellers with a glimpse of its impressive past. The heat rolling out of the fireplace, the candlelight glinting off the armour, and footsteps echoing against the vaulted stone ceiling amaze visitors today no less than they did Alexander Nisbet, a 17th-century heraldic chronicler, who noted: ‘It is so large and high that a man on horseback could turn a spear in it with all the ease imaginable.’

Indeed, loyal spear-wielding knights were necessary when the first Lord Borthwick built his magnificent fortress home on a wind-raked knoll just 12 miles south of Edinburgh. His stone seat of honour, a sedile, remains carved into the wall of the Great Hall, beneath the Borthwick coat of arms. From this stony vantage point he could see every entrance into the castle, and quickly escape via his own private staircase if his loyalists failed to repulse the attacks that came with alarming regularity.

Even though the strangers passing through his portals today are decidedly friendlier than their 15th-century counterparts, the original Lord Borthwick would nonetheless recognize his stately home and fortress. Borthwick’s sheer immensity, designed to intimidate, continues to do so to this day. You pass through twin 110-foot towers as you enter the gate from a tiny country road. But what you see now represents less than half the original structure. In 1650 Oliver Cromwell besieged the castle, destroying three of its towers. Artillery damage, raw and clawing, still mars the keep’s back wall.

Since then, the castle has been treated with more respect. Helen Bailey, who leased the castle from the Borthwick family, brought it up to its current genteel standards and lovingly and authentically restored their ancestral home before handing it on to the present owners.

Certainly, Borthwicks through the centuries have worked to maintain their family seat. In 1813, a tree grew through the 20-foot-tall Great Hall fireplace, wedging out the massive stones. The Borthwicks restored the chimney breast and, almost a century later, in 1903, renewed the Hall’s woodwork.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to