FYVIE CASTLE.
Great are the vicissitudes of landed property in these modern times. Estates of more than local name are constantly being placed in the market, and even manors and castles of national interest are occasionally brought to the auctioneer’s hammer. Old families are dying out or becoming embarrassed, and many of ‘the stately homes of England’—often associated with legendary lore and the history of centuries—have to be handed over to the highest bidder. We are not here concerned with the political or economical aspect of this transference of landed property; but even the most utilitarian will admit that there is something melancholy in seeing a fine old historic mansion advertised for sale, or a family divorced from an estate with which it may have been connected for generations. On the other hand, nothing, we should fancy, would be more tempting to the new class of rich men desirous of acquiring landed possessions than the chance of securing some old family seat, of quaint architectural design, and crowded with memories of the past. A splendid chance of this kind was offered some time ago in the proposed sale of Fyvie Castle, in Aberdeenshire, along with the adjoining estate; but no sale was effected. This castle may be said to be complete in its way. It possesses dungeons, a ‘murder-hole,’ and a secret, inaccessible chamber, with, of course, a dreadful threat hanging over the head of him who first enters it; a ‘Green Lady’ is said to occasionally walk up and down its main staircase; a ‘dripping stone’ is one of its curiosities; a family history is associated with each of its four towers; it figures prominently in a well-known local ballad; and Thomas the Rhymer even delivered himself of a prophecy concerning it. Yet, withal, it is a comfortable and commodious mansion, pleasantly situated, with park, lake, river, and shootings attached. What more could one wish for in a castle?
The traveller from Aberdeen to Banff by railway may catch a glimpse of Fyvie Castle to his right when he has accomplished about three-fourths of his journey. He will only see its turret-tops, however, for the castle stands in a well-wooded hollow—familiarly known in the Aberdeenshire dialect as ‘the howe o’ Fyvie’—encircled by low, undulating hills and stretches of highly cultivated land. The castle occupies two sides of a square, and is a high and narrow structure of the old Scotch baronial type, which would be designated plain were it not for its numerous turrets and dormer windows, surmounted with carved canopies and statuary. It has something of the appearance of a French chateau, and it has indeed been cited by John Hill Burton in his Scot Abroad as one of the finest specimens of how the chateau architecture of France was superimposed upon the original grim square block of a Scotch baronial mansion. The chief front is to the south, and is formed by the union of three tall towers, built by and called after three successive families who, at one time or other, have been owners of Fyvie. Of these three towers, the most noticeable is the central one, the Seton Tower, named after a member of the Seton family, to whose French upbringing and architectural tastes the general design of the building is attributed. It is curiously recessed, two semi-round twin towers being united by an arch above the fourth story. In the recess thus formed, which is rendered striking by its great height and width, is the former grand entrance, leading into a low, vaulted passage, the doorway being defended by a ponderous iron grating bolted into the massive walls. The west side, terminating in a corresponding tower at the north end, is of more modern construction, but is in perfect harmony with the front. The main architectural feature of the castle, however, is, as already hinted, its many bartisan turrets and dormer windows and high-pitched gables, the turrets being surmounted with stone figures, and the dormer windows with carved canopies. A good view of this portion of the structure is given in Billings’s Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland, the castle being there described (again by Hill Burton, who furnished the letterpress to Billings’s engravings) as ‘one of the noblest and most beautiful specimens of the rich architecture which the Scottish barons of the days of King James VI. obtained from France. Its three princely towers, with their luxuriant coronet of coned turrets, sharp gables, tall roofs and chimneys, canopied dormer windows, and rude statuary, present a sky outline at once graceful, rich, and massive, and in these qualities exceeding even the far-famed Glammis.’ The interior of the building is in keeping with the exterior, and abounds in narrow passages, winding staircases, and small rooms; though there are apartments the size and elegance of which could hardly be predicated from a mere survey of the outside of the castle. For such an old place, the light and airiness of the rooms are something remarkable; while the views across the park and policies that are obtained from the windows are charming and charmingly diversified. But the main attraction is a grand stone staircase of unique design, said to be without an equal, or even a rival, in Scotland. It is best described as ‘revolving in corkscrew fashion round a massive central pillar, the skill of the architect being chiefly shown in the turns and windings of the ribbed and vaulted roof, with its arches springing occasionally out of carved capitals in the walls.’ The steps are of great breadth, and are so gently graduated, that it is easy to accept a tradition to the effect that the horse of one of the lairds used to ascend them.
The stone figures on the tops of the turrets, wrought in the red sandstone that lends colour to the canopies and other ornamentations, are somewhat diminutive, and, with one exception, have lost their personality, if they ever had any. This exceptional figure is said to represent Andrew Lammie, ‘the trumpeter of Fyvie,’ immortalised in a well-known Aberdeenshire ballad, Mill o’ Tifty’s Annie. The miller’s daughter fell in love with the trumpeter, and was done to death by her family in consequence, the tragedy being completed by the pining away of the trumpeter. We quote the concluding verses of this truly pathetic ballad:
‘Fyvie lands lie braid and wide,
And oh, but they be bonny!
But I wadna gie my ain true-love,
For a’ the lands in Fyvie!
‘But mak my bed, and lay me down,
And turn my face to Fyvie,
That I may see, before I die,
My bonny Andrew Lammie!’
They made her bed, and laid her down,
And turned her face to Fyvie;
She gave a groan, and died or morn—
She ne’er saw Andrew Lammie.
The laird o’ Fyvie he went hame,
And he was sad and sorry;
Says, ‘The bonniest lass o’ the country-side
Has died for Andrew Lammie.’
Oh, Andrew’s gane to the house-top
O’ the bonny house o’ Fyvie;
He’s blawn his horn baith loud and shrill
O’er the lowland leas o’ Fyvie.
‘Mony a time hae I walked a’ night,
And never yet was weary;
But now I may walk wae my lane,
For I’ll never see my dearie.
‘Love pines away, love dwines away,
Love—love decays the body;
For the love o’ thee, now I maun dee;
I come, my bonny Annie!’
Mill of Tifty is still ‘to the fore,’ and the effigy of the trumpeter points his trumpet in its direction; and the ballad seems to have some truth in it, for the tombstone of the unfortunate Annie—her real name was Agnes Smith—was till recently in Fyvie kirkyard, being now replaced by a handsome monument; and documents show that her father was owner of the mill in 1672.
The castle as it now stands—there is supposed to have been an older castle or keep—is believed to date from about 1397, the oldest tower extant having been built by Sir Henry Preston—of the family of Preston of Craigmillar—who fought at Otterburn, and who acquired the estate from Sir James de Lindsay, ‘Dominus de Crawfurd et Buchan.’ From the Prestons, the estate passed by marriage into a family called Meldrum; but the family most associated with the castle is the family named after it. In 1596, Fyvie was purchased from the Meldrums by Alexander Seton, third son of George, sixth Lord Seton, and brother of the first Earl of Winton. This Alexander Seton was first created Lord Fyvie, and then Earl of Dunfermline—the former title being apparently used by the family in the north. He was a lawyer-statesman of great ability and influence, and a favourite councillor of James I.’s. He held a number of state and judicial offices, being successively President of the Court of Session and Lord Chancellor of Scotland; and he was the King’s Commissioner to the Scotch parliament of 1612, which rescinded the Act of 1592 establishing the Presbyterian system of church government. The second Lord Fyvie took a prominent part, under Montrose, in the operations against the Covenanters, and afterwards lived abroad with Charles II., and shared in the honours distributed at the restoration of the Merry Monarch. The fourth and last peer fought at Killiecrankie on the royalist side, was outlawed, and died at St Germain. The estate, which had been forfeited to the Crown, was sold in 1726 to William, second Earl of Aberdeen, who settled it on his eldest son by his third wife, Lady Anne Gordon, sister of Lord Lewis Gordon—the ‘Lewie Gordon’ of the Jacobite ballad; and it has since descended through members of junior branches of the Gordon (Aberdeen) family. Its present proprietor is Sir Maurice Duff-Gordon, son of Lady Duff-Gordon, whose pleasant Letters from Egypt have not yet escaped memory.
It will thus be seen that a considerable historic interest attaches to the castle that was so recently in the market. The domain of Fyvie, indeed, is said to have been a royal chase at one time; and some would even have it that in the reign of Robert the Bruce it was a royal residence, and was visited in 1296 by Edward I. on his progress through the north of Scotland. There is a ‘Queen Mary Room’ in the castle, and some good specimens of the furniture of Mary’s period, though it is doubtful if Mary herself ever occupied the room. The great Marquis of Montrose, who certainly encamped once in the neighbourhood of the castle, is reported to have spent a night under its roof; and a century later, the Duke of Cumberland marched through the policies of Fyvie on his way to Culloden.
Turning from the historical to the legendary, we have a prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer’s respecting Fyvie:
Fyvns riggs and towers,
Hapless shall your mesdames be,
When ye shall hae within your methes,
Frae harryit kirk’s land, stanes three—
Ane in Preston’s tower;
Ane in my lady’s bower;
And ane below the water-yett,
And it ye shall never get.
Two of these stones have been found in their respective places, but the third one remains true to the seer’s prediction. One of the weird stones is carefully kept, and is known as the ‘dripping stone,’ as at times it exudes a large quantity of moisture, often sufficient to fill a large basin with water. Singular to say, nothing is known of a ‘water-yett,’ or of there having been one; while the alleged raid on Church property is equally a mystery; and though the hapless fate of the ladies of Fyvie is not specified, it is a curious circumstance that no heir has been born in Fyvie Castle for several generations. But whatever the prophecy may portend, it completes the charm of a castle which possesses much to delight both the lover of the picturesque and the worshipper of the past.