Castles and Murdered Earls. Traditional Geocache
Castles and Murdered Earls.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This cache has been placed for the event Spring
Caching in the Highlands 2007 please do not look
for / log until Saturday 21st April 2007 :)
A tower house to the East of Inverness, Castle Stuart dates from
the 1620's and was a stronghold of the Earls of Moray.
Castle Stuart became a derelict ruin for almost 300 years. It
remained empty - except for the ghosts.
When Mary Queen of Scots came back to Scotland in 1561, after the
death of her husband, the Dauphin of France, she gave this land to
her half-brother, James Stuart, granted him the title 'Earl of
Moray' and he ruled Scotland as Regent for her. Unfortunately he
was murdered and the 2nd Earl of Moray was also murdered - stabbed
to death 13 times. Thus Castle Stuart was finally completed in 1625
by James Stuart, 3rd Earl of Moray. He married Anne Gordon - it was
her father, the Earl of Huntly, who stabbed to death his father,
the 2nd Earl of Moray. We think he built the castle for protection
from his in-laws.
No sooner was the castle built than it was attacked by 500
MacIntoshes who came down the drive and took over the castle.
The Stuart Family decided the best thing to do would be to pay off
the MacIntoshes - they took the money and ran.
Some 20 years later, with the power of Oliver Cromwell in England
gaining strength, the cultured and melancholy Stuart king, Charles
the First, died beneath the headsman's axe outside his own London
Palace of Whitehall. Castle Stuart suffered, fell into decline and
gradually became a derelict ruin for almost 300 years. It remained
empty - except for the ghosts.
Throughout centuries of Scotland's troubled history, Castle Stuart
has stood a strong refuge and retreat for the Earls of Moray and
the Stuart family. Within sight of this great house on high
Culloden Moor, the Highland Broadsword rose and fell in the last
futile attempt to restore the exiled Stuart kings to the British
throne.
Charles Edward Stuart, the romantic 'might have been' of British
history, shared with the Lords of Castle Stuart a proud descent
from the Royal House of Albany, rulers of Scotland and, for a time,
of the United Kingdom. The Stuarts and their kin wrote much of the
bloody and poetic history that is Scotland's heritage.
This splendid 17th century structure is now once more home to a
Stuart family.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ng gur onfr bs gur jnyy, oruvaq n syng ebpx.