Lady Lindsay's Castle
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- Date:
- 1550
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Lady Lindsay's Castle
In his book ‘The History of Blairgowrie (Town, Parish and District)’ John A.R. Macdonald gives this description of the location of Lady Lindsay’s Castle:
‘Stood on an impending ledge near Crag Liach – the Eagle’s Crag - north-west from Craighall. The crag is a huge mass of conglomerate, a sheer grey precipice, and almost as smooth as though dressed by a mason’s chisel. At the base is a cave which seems to have been cut out by the violent removal of some masses of rock. Viewed from the top of the crag, the spectator becomes impressed with awe; far below the ireful Ericht wheels round an abrupt angle and suddenly composes itself in a great pool, calm, deep, and black as night.’ It is on this promontory, jutting out from the face of the Glen Ericht Gorge, that what is believed to have been a round tower house, which became known as Lady Lindsay’s Castle, stood.
Lady Lindsay was Janet Gordon whose mother was Princess Annabella, daughter of James I, who was the only child of Mary Queen of Scots. Her father was George, Earl of Huntly. Janet Gordon became Lady Lindsay when she married Alexander, Lord Lindsay, Master of Crawford.
No doubt, following her marriage, Janet would have expected a comfortable lifestyle, befitting someone of royal descent. However, being married to Alexander proved to be no walk in the park. Alexander and his younger brother John were a wild and wayward pair, who spent much of their time feuding and fighting, thieving and robbing. At one point, Alexander was imprisoned in Blackness Castle for an attack on the monks of Coupar Angus Abbey.
The Lindsay’s owned land around Alyth, and Alexander chose to take Janet to live in Inverqueich Castle.
Inverqueich stood at the junction of the Alyth Burn and the River Isla, with a sheer drop down to the river gorge. Little remains of Inverqueich Castle today, but these ghostly remains bore witness to a heinous crime committed by Lady Lindsay in 1489.
> Ruins of Inverqueich Castle coming >
Alexander and his brother John quarrelled and John challenged Alexander to a duel. This resulted in Alexander being severely wounded, but it is believed that he may have been able to recover. However, as he lay in bed at Inverqueich Castle, weak from the loss of blood, Lady Lindsay smothered him with a feather pillow.
The murder of Alexander Lindsay went unpunished until 1500 when Lady Lindsay stood trial and was found guilty of his murder. She was sentenced to spend the rest of her life imprisoned in the tower on Eagle’s Crag, also known as Raven’s Rock. In addition, every day before she was allowed to eat or drink, she was doomed to spin an unbroken thread, long enough to reach down to the waters of the River Ericht.
A ballad was written about Lady Lindsay. Unfortunately, only this verse survives:
‘Lady Lindsay sat on the Raven’s Rock
An’ weary spun the lee lang day,
Tho’ her fingers were worn, they aye bore the stain
O’ the blood o’er her first lurve, the lycht Lindsay’.
It is said that she lived in her prison cell on Raven’s Rock until her death at the age of 100, and that her shrivelled fingers were almost worn away by the constant friction of the thread.
Long after her death, fishermen fishing in the River Ericht below Raven’s rock, have been startled to seea filmy thread slowly working its way down until it touched the water, before disappearing. Some have even claimed to have seen the ghost of Lady Lindsay sitting in the ruined tower, bent over her spinning wheel.
The Lady Lindsay’s Castle story is told in ‘The Lady in the Tower’ in Maurice Fleming’s book ‘ The Ghost o’ Mause and Other Tales and Traditions of East Perthshire’.
For more about the ruins of Lady Lindsay’s Castle go to https://canmore.org.uk/site/28720/lady-lindsays-castle