Castles are buildings that combine fortifications and residence, and many were built within the borders of modern Scotland. They arrived in Scotland with the introduction of feudalism in the twelfth century. Initially these were wooden motte-and-bailey constructions, but many were replaced by stone castles with a high curtain wall. During the Wars of Independence, Robert the Bruce pursued a policy of castle slighting. In the Late Middle Ages, new castles were built, some on a grander scale as "livery and maintenance" castles that could support a large garrison. Gunpowder weaponry led to the use of gun ports, platforms to mount guns and walls adapted to resist bombardment.
Many of the late Medieval castles built in the borders were in the form of tower houses, smaller pele towers or simpler bastle houses. From the fifteenth century there was a phase of Renaissance palace building, which restructured them as castle-type palaces, beginning at Linlithgow. Elements of Medieval castles, royal palaces and tower houses were used in the construction of Scots baronial estate houses, which were built largely for comfort, but with a castle-like appearance. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the military significance of castles declined, but they increasingly became tourist attractions. Elements of the Scots Baronial style would be revived from the late eighteenth century and the trend would be confirmed in popularity by the rebuilding of Balmoral Castle in the nineteenth century and its adoption as a retreat by Queen Victoria. [1] In the twentieth century there were only isolated examples of new castle-influenced houses. Many tower houses were renovated, and many castles were taken over by the National Trust for Scotland or Historic Scotland and are open to the public.
Castles, in the sense of a fortified residence of a lord or noble, arrived in Scotland as a consequence of the centralising of royal authority in the twelfth century. [2] Prior to the 1120s there is very little evidence of castles having existed in Scotland, which had remained less politically centralised than in England with the north still ruled by the kings of Norway. [3] David I of Scotland (r. 1124–53) spent time at the court of Henry I of England, becoming Earl of Huntingdon, and returned to Scotland with the intention of extending royal power across the country and modernising Scotland's military technology, including the introduction of castles. [4] The Scottish king encouraged Norman and French nobles to settle in Scotland, introducing a feudal mode of landholding and the use of castles as a way of controlling the contested Scottish Lowlands. [2] [3] Historian Lise Hull has suggested that the creation of castles in Scotland was "less to do with conquest" and more to do with "establishing a governing system". [5]
These were primarily wooden motte-and-bailey constructions, of a raised mount or motte, surmounted by a wooden tower and a larger adjacent enclosure or bailey, both usually surrounded by a fosse (a ditch) and palisade, and connected by a wooden bridge. [6] They varied in size from the very large, such as the Bass of Inverurie, to more modest designs like Balmaclellan. [7] In England many of these constructions were converted into stone "keep-and-bailey" castles in the twelfth century, but in Scotland most of those that were in continued occupation became stone castles of "enceinte" from the thirteenth century, with a high embattled curtain wall. [8] The need for thick and high walls for defence forced the use of economic building methods, often continuing the Scottish tradition of dry-stone rubble building, which were then covered with a lime render, or harled for weatherproofing and a uniform appearance. [9] In addition to the baronial castles there were royal castles, often larger and providing defence, lodging for the itinerant Scottish court and a local administrative center. By 1200 these included fortifications at Ayr and Berwick. [10] In Scotland Alexander II (r. 1198–1249) and Alexander III (1241–86) undertook a number of castle building projects in the modern style. Alexander III's early death sparked conflict in Scotland and English intervention under Edward I in 1296. The resulting Wars of Independence brought this phase of castle building to an end and began a new phase of siege warfare. [11] [12]
The first recorded siege in Scotland was the 1230 siege of Rothesay Castle where the besieging Norwegians were able to break down the relatively weak stone walls with axes after only three days. [12] When Edward I invaded Scotland he brought with him the siege capabilities that had evolved south of the border, resulting in the rapid fall of major castles. Edinburgh Castle fell within three days, and Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Dunbar, Stirling, Lanark and Dumbarton castles all surrendered to the English king. [13] Subsequent English sieges, such as the attacks on Bothwell and Stirling, again used considerable resources including giant siege engines and extensive teams of miners and masons. [14] As a result, Robert the Bruce (r. 1306–29) adopted a policy of castle destruction (known as slighting), rather than allow fortresses to be easily retaken and then held by the English, beginning with his own castles at Ayr and Dumfries, [15] [16] and including Roxburgh and Edinburgh. [17] After the Wars of Independence, new castles began to be built, often on a grander scale as "livery and maintenance" castles, to house retained troops, like Tantallon, Lothian and Doune near Stirling, rebuilt for Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany in the fourteenth century. [8]
Early gunpowder weapons were introduced to Scotland by the 1330s. [18] The new technology began to be installed in Scottish castles by the 1380s, beginning with Edinburgh. [19] In the fifteenth century, gunpowder weaponry fundamentally altered the nature of castle architecture. Existing castles were adapted to allow the use of the new weapons by the incorporation of "keyhole" gun ports, platforms to mount guns and walls that were adapted to resist bombardment. Ravenscraig, Kirkcaldy, begun about 1460, is probably the first castle in the British Isles to be built as an artillery fort, incorporating "D-shape" bastions that would better resist cannon fire and on which artillery could be mounted. [20] It also used "letter box" gun-ports, [21] common in mainland Europe, although rarer in England, they rapidly spread across the kingdom. Scotland also led the way in adopting the new caponier design for castle ditches, as constructed at Craignethan Castle. [22]
The largest number of late Medieval fortifications in Scotland built by nobles, about 800, [23] were of the tower house design. [11] [12] Smaller versions of tower houses in southern Scotland were known as peel towers, or pele houses. [24] The defences of tower houses were primarily aimed to provide protection against smaller raiding parties and were not intended to put up significant opposition to an organised military assault. This has led historian Stuart Reid to characterise them as "defensible rather than defensive". [25] They were typically a tall, square, stone-built, crenelated building. They were often also surrounded by a barmkyn or bawn, a walled courtyard designed to hold valuable animals securely, but not necessarily intended for serious defence. [26] [27] They were built extensively on both sides of the border with England from the fourteenth century. James IV's (1488–1513) forfeiture of the Lordship of the Isles in 1494 led to an additional burst of tower building across the region. [28] [29] A number were also built in Scottish towns. [30]
An option for small landholders and farmers was the bastle house, a form of fortified house that combined the functions of a tower house and a barmkyn. They were usually two-storey houses with the ground floor acting as a byre into which animals could be driven, while the living space on the upper floor could only be reached by a removable ladder. Most are within 30 miles (48 km) of the border and were built around the turn of the sixteenth century. [31]
An extensive building and rebuilding of royal palaces probably began under James III (r. 1460–88) and accelerated under James IV, reaching its peak under James V (r. 1513–42). They used exceptional one-off revenues, such as the forfeiture of key lands, to establish their power across their kingdom in various ways including constructing grander castles by extending and modifying existing fortifications. These works have been seen as directly reflecting the influence of Renaissance styles. Linlithgow was first constructed under James I, under the direction of master of work John de Waltoun and was referred to as a palace, apparently the first use of this term in the country, from 1429. This was extended under James III and began to correspond to a fashionable quadrangular, corner-towered Italian signorial palace of a palatium ad moden castri (a castle-style palace), combining classical symmetry with neo-chivalric imagery and using harling to give them a clean, Italian appearance. There is evidence of Italian masons working for James IV, in whose reign Linlithgow was completed and other palaces were rebuilt with Italianate proportions. [32] According to architectural historian John Dunbar, the results were the "earliest examples of coherent Renaissance design in Britain". [33]
The shift in architectural focus reflected changing political alliances, as James V had formed a close alliance with France during his reign. [34] He encountered the French version of Renaissance building while visiting for his marriage to Madeleine of Valois in 1536 and his second marriage to Mary of Guise may have resulted in longer term connections and influences. [35] Work from his reign largely disregarded the insular style adopted in England under Henry VIII and adopted forms that were recognisably European, beginning with the extensive work at Linlithgow. [36] This was followed by re-buildings at Holyrood, Falkland, Stirling and Edinburgh, [37] described by Roger Maison as "some of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in Britain". [38]
Much of this castle rebuilding was planned and financed by James Hamilton of Finnart (c. 1495–1540), in addition to his work at Blackness Castle, Rothesay Castle, the house at Crawfordjohn, the "New Inn" in the St Andrews Cathedral Priory and the lodging at Balmerino Abbey for the ailing Queen Madeleine. [39] Rather than slavishly copying continental forms, most Scottish architecture incorporated elements of these styles into traditional local patterns, [37] adapting them to Scottish idioms and materials (particularly stone and harl). [40] Similar themes can be seen in the private houses of aristocrats, as in Mar's Wark, Stirling (c. 1570) and Crichton Castle, built for the Earl of Bothwell in 1580s. [41]
In the period of French intervention in the 1540s and 1550s, at the end of the Rough Wooing, Scotland was given a defended border of a series of earthwork forts and additions to existing castles. These included the erection of single bastions at Edinburgh, Stirling and Dunbar. [42]
The unique style of great private houses in Scotland, later known as Scots baronial, has been located in origin to the period of the 1560s. It kept many of the features of the high walled Medieval castles that had been largely made obsolete by gunpowder weapons and may have been influenced by the French masons brought to Scotland to work on royal palaces. It drew on the tower houses and peel towers, [43] with their parapets, corbels, and bartizans. [44] The new estate houses built from the late sixteenth century by nobles and lairds were primarily built for comfort, not for defence, although they were often called castles. They retained many of these external features which had become associated with nobility, but with a larger ground plan. This was classically a "Z-plan" of a rectangular block with towers, as at Colliston Castle (1583) and Claypotts Castle (1569–88). [43] The internal layout included a sequence of rooms of increasing privacy. The hall was often on the first floor. When used for dining, the owner of the castle sat at the top table or "high board". Beyond the hall, a more private room, often a bed chamber, was known as the "chamber of dais", and had feudal connotations. [45] The term appears in inventories, and in legal records. [46] In 1601, James Wood broke into his father's castle at Bonnyton in Angus, intent on stealing legal documents from a chest in the chamber of dais. [47] Larger castles had further bed chambers, sometimes in a vertical jamb or wing, and a gallery at attic level for family leisure. [48]
Particularly influential was the work of William Wallace, the king's master mason from 1617 until his death in 1631. He worked on the rebuilding of the collapsed North Range of Linlithgow from 1618, Winton House for George Seton, 3rd Earl of Winton and began work on Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh. He adopted a distinctive style that applied elements of Scottish fortification and Flemish influences to a Renaissance plan like that used at Château d'Ancy-le-Franc. This style can be seen in lord's houses built at Caerlaverlock (1620), Moray House, Edinburgh (1628) and Drumlanrig Castle (1675–89), and was highly influential until the baronial style gave way to the grander English forms associated with Inigo Jones in the later seventeenth century, which were used to produce classically inspired and comfortable country houses. [43]
In 1603 James VI of Scotland inherited the crown of England, bringing a period of peace between the two countries. The royal court left for London, and as a result – with the exceptions of occasional visits – building work on royal castles north of the border largely ceased. [49] [50] Some castles continued to have modest military utility into the eighteenth century. The royal castles of Edinburgh, Dumbarton and Stirling, along with Dunstaffnage, Dunollie, Blackness and Ruthven Castle, continued in use as practical fortifications. [28] [51] Tower houses were being built up until the 1640s. After the Restoration the fortified tower house fell out of fashion, but the weak state of the Scottish economy was such that, while many larger properties were simply abandoned, the more modest castles continued to be used and adapted as houses, rather than rebuilt. [52] [53]
In the Bishop's Wars castles that held out for the king against the Covenanters, including Caerlaverock and Threave in 1640, were slighted, with their roofs removed and walls breached to make them uninhabitable. Tantallon was used as a base for Scottish attacks on Oliver Cromwell's advancing army in 1651. As a result, it was pounded into submission by the New Model Army's siege train, losing its end towers and ceasing to be a residence from that point. [54] The sequence of Jacobite risings from 1689 threatened the Crown in Scotland, culminating in the rebellion in 1745. [28] Stirling was able to withstand the Jacobite attack in 1745 and the siege of Blair Castle, at the end of the rebellion in 1746, was the final castle siege to occur in the British Isles. [55] [56] In the aftermath of the conflict Corgaff and many others castles were used as barracks for the forces sent to garrison the Highlands. [53] Kildrummy, Huntly and Doune were destroyed as a result of their part in the rebellion. [54]
From the late eighteenth century, castles became tourist attractions. Blair Castle was a popular location on account of its landscaped gardens, and Stirling Castle because of its romantic historic connections. [57] Tours became increasingly popular during the nineteenth century, usually starting at Edinburgh and then spending up to two weeks further north, taking advantage of the expanding rail and steamer network. [58] Blair Castle remained popular, but additional castles joined the circuit, with Cawdor Castle becoming popular once the railway line reached north to Fort William. [59] Scottish castle guidebooks became well known for providing long historical accounts of their sites, often drawing on the plots of Romantic novels for the details. [60] [61] Sir Walter Scott's novels set in Scotland popularised several northern castles, including Tantallon, which was featured in the poem Marmion (1808). [62]
In Scotland there was a revival of the castle in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as part of the wider Gothic Revival movement, as new houses were built and existing buildings remodeled in the Gothic and Scots Baronial styles. [63] Inveraray Castle, constructed from 1746 with design input from William Adam, displays the incorporation of turrets and is among the first houses in the revived style. His son Robert Adam's houses in this style included Mellerstain and Wedderburn in Berwickshire and Seton House in East Lothian, but it is most clearly seen at Culzean Castle, Ayrshire, remodelled by Adam from 1777. These were largely conventional Palladian style houses that incorporated some external features of the Scots baronial style. [64]
Important for the adoption of the revival in the early nineteenth century was Abbotsford House, the residence of Walter Scott. Re-built for him from 1816, it became a model for the modern revival of the baronial style. Common features borrowed from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century houses included battlemented gateways, crow-stepped gables, pointed turrets and machicolations. The style was popular across Scotland and was applied to many relatively modest dwellings by architects such as William Burn (1789–1870), David Bryce (1803–76), [65] Edward Blore (1787–1879), Edward Calvert (c. 1847–1914) and Robert Stodart Lorimer (1864–1929) and in urban contexts, including the building of Cockburn Street in Edinburgh (from the 1850s) as well as the National Wallace Monument at Stirling (1859–69). [66] The rebuilding of Balmoral Castle as a baronial palace and its adoption as a royal retreat from 1855 to 1858 confirmed the popularity of the style. [67] Scots Baronial architects frequently "improved" existing castles: Floors Castle was transformed in 1838 by William Playfair who added grand turrets and cupolas. [68] The style spread south and the architect Edward Blore added a Scots Baronial touch to his work at Windsor. [69]
The Baronial style peaked towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the building of large houses declined in importance in the twentieth century. It continued to influence the construction of some estate houses, including Skibo Castle, which was rebuilt for industrialist Andrew Carnegie (1899–1903) by Ross and Macbeth. There was a lull in building after the First World War, and social change undermined the construction of rural country houses. Isolated examples of "castles" include houses that combine modern and traditional elements, such as Basil Spence's Broughton Place (1936) and Glenskirlie Castle, Stirlingshire (2007). [70] [71]
Restoration of castles began in the early twentieth century, with projects including the renovation of Duart Castle on Mull, [72] and the complete reconstruction of Eilean Donan from a few fragments of masonry. [73] The restoration movement grew after World War II with a fashion for renovating tower houses, including Oliver Hill's restoration of Inchdrewer Castle, near Banff in Aberdeenshire, in 1965. [70] The restoration of tower houses and smaller castles continues, with recent examples including Fenton Tower in Lothian and Ballone Castle near Portmahomack. [72] [74] Historic Scotland have launched a "Scottish Castle Initiative" aimed at encouraging private investment in the restoration of Scotland's castles, including a register of potential restoration candidates. [72] Despite these efforts, a number of castles remain on Scotland's Buildings at Risk Register. [75]
Most of Scotland's castles, whether ruined or occupied, remain in private ownership, though many are open to the public at least occasionally. During the twentieth century a number of older castles were transferred into the care of the state, and these are now the responsibility of Historic Scotland, which was created as an agency in 1991. Historic Scotland cares for over 300 properties – all of which are publicly accessible – including around 65 castles. [76] [77] These include some of Scotland's most famous castles including Edinburgh and Stirling, as well as numerous tower houses and ruined castles. The National Trust for Scotland (founded 1931) cares for several post-Medieval castles and estate houses, including Culzean and Craigievar that were still in occupation until the twentieth century. [78] The Landmark Trust restores and operates historic buildings as holiday homes, including Saddell Castle, Castle of Park and Roslin Castle. [79] Several other castles are in the hands of local government, for example Dudhope Castle in Dundee, and some are maintained by building preservation trusts and other charitable bodies, for example Sauchie Tower, Clackmannanshire. [80] [81]
Edinburgh Castle is a historic castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It stands on Castle Rock, which has been occupied by humans since at least the Iron Age. There has been a royal castle on the rock since at least the reign of Malcolm III in the 11th century, and the castle continued to be a royal residence until 1633. From the 15th century, the castle's residential role declined, and by the 17th century it was principally used as a military garrison. Its importance as a part of Scotland's national heritage was recognised increasingly from the early 19th century onwards, and various restoration programmes have been carried out over the past century and a half.
Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 1050s, the Normans began to build motte and bailey and ringwork castles in large numbers to control their newly occupied territories in England and the Welsh Marches. During the 12th century the Normans began to build more castles in stone – with characteristic square keep – that played both military and political roles. Royal castles were used to control key towns and the economically important forests, while baronial castles were used by the Norman lords to control their widespread estates. David I invited Anglo-Norman lords into Scotland in the early 12th century to help him colonise and control areas of his kingdom such as Galloway; the new lords brought castle technologies with them and wooden castles began to be established over the south of the kingdom. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 1170s, under Henry II, castles were established there too.
Stirling Castle, located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most historically and architecturally important castles in Scotland. The castle sits atop an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Its strategic location, guarding what was, until the 1890s, the farthest downstream crossing of the River Forth, has made it an important fortification in the region from the earliest times.
Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th-century Gothic Revival which revived the forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reminiscent of Scottish castles, buildings in the Scots baronial style are characterised by elaborate rooflines embellished with conical roofs, tourelles, and battlements with machicolations, often with an asymmetric plan. Popular during the fashion for Romanticism and the Picturesque, Scots baronial architecture was equivalent to the Jacobethan Revival of 19th-century England, and likewise revived the Late Gothic appearance of the fortified domestic architecture of the elites in the Late Middle Ages and the architecture of the Jacobean era.
Edzell Castle is a ruined 16th-century castle, with an early-17th-century walled garden. It is located close to Edzell, and is around 5 miles (8 km) north of Brechin, in Angus, Scotland. Edzell Castle was begun around 1520 by David Lindsay, 9th Earl of Crawford, and expanded by his son, Sir David Lindsay, Lord Edzell, who also laid out the garden in 1604. The castle saw little military action, and was, in its design, construction and use, more of a country house than a defensive structure. It was briefly occupied by English troops during Oliver Cromwell's invasion of Scotland in 1651. In 1715 it was sold by the Lindsay family, and eventually came into the ownership of the Earl of Dalhousie. It was given into state care in the 1930s, and is now a visitor attraction run by Historic Environment Scotland. The castle consists of the original tower house and building ranges around a courtyard. The adjacent Renaissance walled garden, incorporating intricate relief carvings, is unique in Scotland. It was replanted in the 1930s, and is considered to have links to esoteric traditions, including Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry.
MacLellan's Castle in the town of Kirkcudbright, in Galloway, Scotland, was built in the late 16th century. It stands in the centre of Kirkcudbright, on the south side of the River Dee which flows into the Solway Firth. The L-plan castle was the residence of the MacLellan family from whom it derived its name. The family sold the castle in 1752, and from 1782 to 1912 it was held by the Earls of Selkirk. Today, the site is in the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
Historically, Scotland has a long military tradition that predates the Act of Union with England in 1707. Its soldiers today form part of the armed forces of the United Kingdom, more usually referred to domestically within the UK as the British Armed Forces.
The architecture of Scotland includes all human building within the modern borders of Scotland, from the Neolithic era to the present day. The earliest surviving houses go back around 9500 years, and the first villages 6000 years: Skara Brae on the Mainland of Orkney being the earliest preserved example in Europe. Crannogs, roundhouses, each built on an artificial island, date from the Bronze Age and stone buildings called Atlantic roundhouses and larger earthwork hill forts from the Iron Age. The arrival of the Romans from about 71 AD led to the creation of forts like that at Trimontium, and a continuous fortification between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde known as the Antonine Wall, built in the second century AD. Beyond Roman influence, there is evidence of wheelhouses and underground souterrains. After the departure of the Romans there were a series of nucleated hill forts, often utilising major geographical features, as at Dunadd and Dunbarton.
Warfare in Medieval Scotland includes all military activity in the modern borders of Scotland, or by forces originating in the region, between the departure of the Romans in the fifth century and the adoption of the innovations of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. In this period conflict developed from minor raids to major conflicts, incorporating many of the innovations of continental warfare.
The Renaissance in Scotland was a cultural, intellectual and artistic movement in Scotland, from the late fifteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late fourteenth century and reaching northern Europe as a Northern Renaissance in the fifteenth century. It involved an attempt to revive the principles of the classical era, including humanism, a spirit of scholarly enquiry, scepticism, and concepts of balance and proportion. Since the twentieth century, the uniqueness and unity of the Renaissance has been challenged by historians, but significant changes in Scotland can be seen to have taken place in education, intellectual life, literature, art, architecture, music, science and politics.
The architecture of Scotland in the Middle Ages includes all building within the modern borders of Scotland, between the departure of the Romans from Northern Britain in the early fifth century and the adoption of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century, and includes vernacular, ecclesiastical, royal, aristocratic and military constructions. The first surviving houses in Scotland go back 9500 years. There is evidence of different forms of stone and wooden houses exist and earthwork hill forts from the Iron Age. The arrival of the Romans led to the abandonment of many of these forts. After the departure of the Romans in the fifth century, there is evidence of the building of a series of smaller "nucleated" constructions sometimes utilizing major geographical features, as at Dunadd and Dumbarton. In the following centuries new forms of construction emerged throughout Scotland that would come to define the landscape.
Architecture in early modern Scotland encompasses all building within the borders of the kingdom of Scotland, from the early sixteenth century to the mid-eighteenth century. The time period roughly corresponds to the early modern era in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the start of the Enlightenment and Industrialisation.
Architecture in modern Scotland encompasses all building in Scotland, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the present day. The most significant architect of the early twentieth century was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who mixed elements of traditional Scottish architecture with contemporary movements. Estate house design declined in importance in the twentieth century. In the early decades of the century, traditional materials began to give way to cheaper modern ones. After the First World War, Modernism and the office block began to dominate building in the major cities and attempts began to improve the quality of urban housing for the poor, resulted in a massive programme of council house building. The Neo-Gothic style continued in to the twentieth century but the most common forms in this period were plain and massive Neo-Romanesque buildings.
Architecture of Scotland in the Industrial Revolution includes all building in Scotland between the mid-eighteenth century and the end of the nineteenth century. During this period, the country underwent an economic and social transformation as a result of industrialisation, which was reflected in new architectural forms, techniques and scale of building. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Edinburgh was the focus of a classically inspired building boom that reflected the growing wealth and confidence of the capital. Housing often took the form of horizontally divided tenement flats. Some of the leading European architects during this period were Scottish, including Robert Adam and William Chambers.
Church architecture in Scotland incorporates all church building within the modern borders of Scotland, from the earliest Christian structures in the sixth century until the present day. The early Christian churches for which there is evidence are basic masonry-built constructions on the west coast and islands. As Christianity spread, local churches tended to remain much simpler than their English counterparts. By the eighth century more sophisticated ashlar block-built buildings began to be constructed. From the eleventh century, there were larger and more ornate Romanesque buildings, as with Dunfermline Abbey and St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney. From the twelfth century the introduction of new monastic orders led to a boom in ecclesiastical building, often using English and Continental forms. From the thirteenth century elements of the European Gothic style began to appear in Scotland, culminating in buildings such as Glasgow Cathedral and the rebuilt Melrose Abbey. Renaissance influences can be seen in a move to a low-massive style that was probably influenced by contacts with Italy and the Netherlands.
Estate houses in Scotland or Scottish country houses, are large houses usually on landed estates in Scotland. They were built from the sixteenth century, after defensive castles began to be replaced by more comfortable residences for royalty, nobility and local lairds. The origins of Scottish estate houses are in aristocratic emulation of the extensive building and rebuilding of royal residences, beginning with Linlithgow, under the influence of Renaissance architecture. In the 1560s the unique Scottish style of the Scots baronial emerged, which combined features from medieval castles, tower houses, and peel towers with Renaissance plans, in houses designed primarily for residence rather than defence.
Warfare in early modern Scotland includes all forms of military activity in Scotland or by Scottish forces, between the adoption of new ideas of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century and the military defeat of the Jacobite movement in the mid-eighteenth century.
The Royal Court of Scotland was the administrative, political and artistic centre of the Kingdom of Scotland. It emerged in the tenth century and continued until it ceased to function when James VI inherited the throne of England in 1603. For most of the medieval era, the king had no "capital" as such. The Pictish centre of Forteviot was the chief royal seat of the early Gaelic Kingdom of Alba that became the Kingdom of Scotland. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Scone was a centre for royal business. Edinburgh only began to emerge as the capital in the reign of James III but his successors undertook occasional royal progress to a part of the kingdom. Little is known about the structure of the Scottish royal court in the period before the reign of David I when it began to take on a distinctly feudal character, with the major offices of the Steward, Chamberlain, Constable, Marischal and Lord Chancellor. By the early modern era the court consisted of leading nobles, office holders, ambassadors and supplicants who surrounded the king or queen. The Chancellor was now effectively the first minister of the kingdom and from the mid-sixteenth century he was the leading figure of the Privy Council.
Cavers Castle, also known as Cavers House, is a ruined tower house located at Cavers, Scottish Borders, Scotland. Cavers Castle was a much extended tower house of the Douglas family dating back to the 15th or 16th century, and built upon the site of an earlier stronghold of the Balliols. It was repeatedly attacked during the 16th century wars with England, and substantially remodelled in the 17th century to form a mansion house, itself extended and remodelled in baronial style by Peddie and McKay in the 1890s. It was eventually deroofed and partially demolished in the 1950s, and was sold most recently in 2019. There are developing plans to restore the building, which is a listed building.