Threave Castle

Tradition attaches the island to Fergus, the 12th-century Lord of Galloway, though there is no evidence for it. John of Fordun records that in 1308 Edward Bruce defeated a force of Gallwegians on the Dee and afterwards "burnt up the island"; a penny of 1300 found among burned buildings may place that event here, and excavations in the 1970s traced structures that could have belonged to an early stronghold of the Lords of Galloway.

Archibald Douglas, son of "Good Sir James", was created Lord of Galloway in 1369. Known as Archibald the Grim, he had been Warden of the West March since 1361, and in 1372 gained the lands of the Earl of Wigtown, bringing all of Galloway under his control. Threave is assumed to have been built to secure those holdings in the 1370s — one of the first tower houses raised in Scotland, standing alone without outer defences. He took Lochmaben Castle, the last English stronghold in south-west Scotland, in 1384, inherited the earldom of Douglas in 1388, and died at Threave in 1400, the first historical reference to the castle.

Archibald's son, the 4th Earl, had married Princess Margaret, daughter of Robert III, in 1390; he was killed at the Battle of Verneuil in 1424. Margaret took on the Lordship of Galloway and ruled from Threave for the next 23 years as Countess of Douglas and Duchess of Touraine, outliving her son and her grandsons.

In 1440 the 5th Earl's sons William and David were summoned to Edinburgh Castle and beheaded at the "Black Dinner" on trumped-up charges, over the protests of the ten-year-old James II. William Douglas, 8th Earl, married the Fair Maid of Galloway in 1444 and in 1447 forced the elderly Princess Margaret to give up Threave and retire to Lincluden; in 1449 she ceded Galloway itself. In 1452 the Earl seized Patrick Maclellan of Bombie, Sheriff of Galloway, and imprisoned him at Threave, where he was murdered despite the King's request for his release. On 22 February that year James II stabbed Douglas at Stirling Castle, and the King's retainers finished him.

Earl William had already begun remaking the island's defences, demolishing the older outbuildings. The centrepiece was the "artillery house", a curtain wall with three towers built to be defended with guns, facing the higher ground east of the river from where attack was most likely; it is considered one of the first purpose-built artillery defences in Britain. His brother James, the 9th Earl, completed the work and added earthworks north of the keep, taking money from Henry VI's government to pay for it.

The 9th Earl's uprising was broken at the Battle of Arkinholm near Langholm on 1 May 1455, after which his strongholds were systematically besieged. Threave was the last to fall. The royal forces arrived in June and the siege ran over two months, with King James lodging at Tongland Abbey. The artillery house held: even a bombard brought up from Linlithgow Palace at a cost of over £59 could not take the castle by force, and the King ended it instead by paying the garrison and granting lands to Douglas supporters.

Castle and lordship were annexed by the Crown and a succession of keepers appointed. James II returned in 1460 on his way to the siege of Roxburgh, where an exploding cannon killed him; James IV visited in 1502, the royal accounts recording cloth, wine and falconers.

In 1513 Robert Maxwell, 5th Lord Maxwell, was appointed keeper after his predecessor John Dunbar of Mochrum fell at Flodden, and in 1526 the office was made hereditary to the Maxwells. Captured after the Battle of Solway Moss in 1542, Maxwell was forced to hand Threave to the English invaders; the Earl of Arran retrieved it for Scotland in 1545. In the Bishops' Wars the Maxwells stood with Charles I, garrisoning Threave with up to 100 men and adding further earthworks. The Covenanter army arrived in the summer of 1640 and, after 13 weeks, the garrison surrendered on the King's orders.

The Covenanters ordered the buildings dismantled and the materials disposed of "to the use of the public"; two of the three artillery towers, damaged in the siege, later collapsed. The keep and artillery house largely remained standing, but Threave was never lived in again. The ruins passed into state care in 1913, and were scheduled as a monument of national significance in 1921. Historic Environment Scotland cares for the castle today and it is open to the public, reached by boat across the Dee from the Threave Estate, a National Trust for Scotland nature reserve.