Ardtornish Castle
Ardtornish Castle is a ruined castle on the grounds of the Ardtornish Estate on the Morvern Peninsula on the west coast of the Highland administrative division of Scotland . It is located at the seaside end of a headland that protrudes about 1.6 km southeast of the village of Lochaline to the south into the Sound of Mull . The castle was one of the headquarters of the chief of Clan Donald from the beginning of the 14th century to the end of the 15th century . Today the ruin is a Scheduled Monument .
John Islay, Lord of the Isles , the 6th chief of Clan Donald, died at Ardtornish Castle in the 1380s . From there, his funeral procession sailed through the Sound of Mull to the island of Iona .
His son and successor, Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles , issued charters in Ardtornish, at least two of which have survived to this day, one in Latin and the other in Gaelic. From here, according to tradition, the galley fleet , which transported the vassals from the islands to the west coast of Ross-shire , where they landed and began their invasion in support of the Donald's claim to the Earldom of Ross , in the 1411 to the undecided Battle of Harlow led.
Also at Ardtornish Castle, John of Islay's grandson, who was also called John of Islay, the fourth and last Lord of the Isles, met the commissioners of King Edward IV of England in 1461 to negotiate the well-known Treaty of Ardtornish-Westminster , the John of Islay, his relative Donald Balloch of Dunnyvaig and the Glens , and the exiled Earl of Douglas each granted a third of the Kingdom of Scotland and, until its conquest, rich payments of money if they became loyal citizens of the King of England.
The revelation of this treaty by the English government to the Scottish government in 1474 resulted in the loss of the Earldom of Ross for John of Islay the following year and the final withdrawal of the Lordship of the Isles in 1493. After John of Islay's exile, the lands of Ardtornish remained in the hands of the Crown for a time, but were then given as fiefs to the MacLean clan , the lords of Duart Castle , who had already acquired large estates on Morvern.
The castle was probably abandoned at the end of the 17th century. At that time Ardtornish and the other MacLean lands on Morvern had been annexed by the Campbells , the Earls of Argyll .
Web links and sources
- Ardtornish Castle . HighlandConnection.org ( Memento of May 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- At the Baile . High Life Highland.
- Ardtornish Castle . Canmore.
Coordinates: 56 ° 31 ′ 9 ″ N , 5 ° 45 ′ 14 ″ W.