Carryck

The Carryck Family Tree

Robert, 5th Lord Scott,  killed in the service of Charles II, had only one child by
Beatrix Scott of Pykeston:  Robert, 6th Lord, who was created Earl of Carryck and Viscount Moffat by his grateful sovereign in 1660. >

Robert Scott, 6th Lord Scott of Carryckcastle, 1st Earl of Carryk married Frances, illegitimate daughter of *Francis Scott, 2nd Earl of Buccleuch* (prominent Royalist). Their son:
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The Laidlaw Connection

Jean Laidlaw, who will be the head housekeeper at Carryckcastle, marries Ian Hope Their son Simon is born.

Ian dies in an accident shortly after the Earl’s lady, Marietta dies.

Widower Alasdair and Widow Jean begin a relationship. . Their daughter Jennet is born at Carryck in 1784.  The same year Hannah is born to Nathaniel and his first wife, Sings-from-Books, at Trees-Standing-in-Water.

The identity of Jennet’s father is closely guarded, but known to many in the Earl’s employ.  Jennet, her half brother Simon and her half sister Isabel are a close knit group.

When Isabel (at twenty) is assaulted by Angus Moncrieff, ten year old Simon comes to her defense and dies of his injuries. Isabel elopes with a Campbell, and is disinherited.

At this juncture Alastair has a daughter who has been disinherited, and no other living children. He lacks a male heir to inherit the Earldom.  This changes when he learns that he  has a first cousin, Daniel (Hawkeye) Bonner, in the Colonies, and that Hawkeye and his wife have a son and heir, Nathaniel.

Hawkeye and Nathaniel and Nathaniel’s son Luc are, by law, heirs to the Earldom. Jennet, born out of wedlock, has no rights.

Luc is sent to Scotland with the idea that he will be the Earl’s heir, but that plan is abandoned when the Earl marries Jean Hope, and she bears him a son and heir, also called Alastair..

Carryckcastle

The following information about the Earls of Carryck and Carryckcastle are are the work of of the editor and staff of Baronage, the best source of information for the history and heraldry of Scotland.

Carryckcastle is a property of strategic importance on the edge of the Johnstone lands in Annandale between the Moffat Water and the Scott territories along the Ettrick Water. The castle is sited on a promontory of the mountain called Aidin Rig, giving a very steep approach from the north and east, and has three wings.

The corners have massive square towers equipped with angle turrets and high crow-stepped gables, and in the centre of the south front two drum towers project to protect the main entrance. At about 40 feet above the ground the two drum towers are united by an arch to form a consolidated tower called the Scott Tower. Our castles are but the story of our families writ in stone, and here at Carryckcastle the four towers perpetuate the names that have contributed to its fame.

In the southeast corner Johnstone Tower is built on the remains of the tower house destroyed by Longshanks (the Johnstones, as their arms indicate, being followers of the Bruce), and after the Campbell Tower was built (towards the end of the 15th century) Johnstone Tower was remodeled to match in outward appearance the new tower, as can be seen in the view of the south elevation. The lowest room of the Campbell Tower has no window and no door. Entry is from a trap in the floor of the charter room above.

When Robert Scott, yr of Ballerlaw married the heiress Catriona Johnstone of Carryckcastle, he strengthened the curtain wall between the two towers, built Scott Tower to protect the grand entrance, built the new wing towards the north, terminating it with a chapel, and developed the area in the angle of the wings into an imposing courtyard. His son survived Langsyde, where his father died, but in the subsequent religious turmoil the chapel was destroyed, its stones being used for the now vanished stables on the eastern side of the courtyard.

Serious building began again when the 3rd Earl married the Forbes heiress and built Forbes Tower on the site of the old chapel, using the ground floor for a new kitchen and the first floor for a dining room. Aware of the retribution his Jacobite friends had faced after the 1715 Rising, and conscious of the possibility that more troubles lay ahead, he cleverly built into the new tower’s thick wall a secret stair that led to an underground corridor running south and terminating in a large room underneath the pit of the Campbell Tower. Small vents in the straw-covered floor of the pit allowed sufficient air through for a man to survive there. Entry to the secret stair was from the window alcove next to the kitchen and beneath the great stair, allowing food to be passed into the corridor discreetly. The 3rd Earl built also the new chapel adjoining the Johnstone Tower, using the stones of the stables built with the stones of the original chapel.

On the first floor are two principal bedrooms and a library, a sitting room, a drawing room and a dining room. Further bedrooms are on the second and third floors and, in the towers, on the fourth floor. Brother Septimus says that the 4th Earl built the new wing to the east of Forbes Tower to accommodate a great hall and 30 more bedrooms, and to protect the courtyard more effectively from northern winds.

Carryckcastle appears to be typical of many Scottish castles, starting its life as a 13th century fortified tower house, then incorporating more towers and curtain walls, then smoothing and modernizing in the French fashion, as the south front elevation shows well, and then introducing improvements to increase the comfort of the interior. It is typical, too, that such work be financed by judicious marriages.

Frederick tells me that legend insists there is a secret place in the wall of the Johnstone Tower, last used by the David Johnstone who died at Flodden, father of the posthumous Catriona who brought Carryckcastle to the Scotts, to hold a secret charter (but such stories are many and almost always wholly unreliable – still, the wall of the ground floor room is very thick). The new wing stretching east from the Forbes Tower that the 4th Earl built ends with a square tower named Elphinstone Tower in discreet memory of his wife’s martyred father (a Jacobite).

The Earl’s Household, at various points:

MacQuiddy, house steward