On the banks of a Highland burn, which falls into the River Nairn some five miles from the town of Nairn, and fifteen from Inverness, stands Castle Cawdor, perhaps the best specimen extant of the baronial castle of the olden time. Its central tower is the oldest portion of the structure. On its east side, commanded by loop holes, is a small court, through which the visitor is ushered by an old drawbridge across a moat. The drawbridge, raised by chains attached to beams resting on the court wall, gives ingress through gateways secured by wooden bars. The staircase, the iron gate—brought from Lochindorb—the great baronial kitchen, partly hewn out of the rock, the massive tower walls, the ample stone mantlepieces, carved with quaint devices, the old furniture, and particularly the old mirrors and tapestry, carry one back many a long year into the social life of the past. Of the building of the castle there is a traditionary tale. In the dungeon of the castle there is the stem of a hawthorn tree, and tradition says that the noble builder was decided as to the position of his intended home by turning adrift an ass loaded with a chest full of gold, and noting the spot on which the animal rested, which was the third hawthorn tree from which he started. That tree is still in the dungeon, the chest itself is a part of the castle relics, and when friends wish prosperity to the family, they do so in the words ‘Freshness to the hawthorn tree of Cawdor.’ The tapestry on the walls was purchased in Arras in 1682, and brought by ship from Bruges to Dysart and Leith, and thence to Findhorn. It is curious to note that one of the grotesque figures on the mantlepiece, dated 1510, is that of a fox smoking, and that, too, a veritable cutty pipe, while the introduction of tobacco by Sir Walter Raleigh did not occur till 1585. After the battle of Culloden, the famous Lord Lovat was concealed in the roof of the castle, but finding his enemies becoming too numerous within the building, he let himself down over the wall by a rope, when he escaped, only to be taken in a hollow tree in an island (in Loch-Morar), was thereafter carried to London, tried, condemned, and beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 9th of April 1747, in the 80th year of his age.

Shakspeare’s imperishable tragedy of Macbeth, founded upon a fictitious narrative which Hollinshed copied from Boece, has immortalized the name of Cawdor. Local tradition insisted on showing, until lately, the room in which the grooms were laid—

The very blood-marks upon the woodwork were also shown as evidence of Duncan’s assassination by Macbeth, and this, too, in the face of the fact that the licence was granted by James II. to erect the tower in which the tragedy was supposed to have taken place.

The myth has now disappeared locally, a fire having taken place a few years ago, which destroyed the woodwork.

It is now an accredited piece of history that neither in Cawdor nor in Macbeth’s Castle of Inverness, which once stood on the height called the Crown, but at Bothgowanan, near Elgin, the tragedy was accomplished. Macbeth by birth was Maormor of Ross, and—through his marriage with Lady Gruoch, grand-daughter of Kenneth—the fourth Thane of Cawdor. Her grandfather had been dethroned by Malcolm the Second, who also burned her first husband, murdered her brother, and slew the father of Macbeth. All these wrongs were avenged on Duncan, the grandson of Malcolm, whose presence in this part of the country was in order to compel his cousin, who had revolted, to pay tribute.

The castle was built by William, Thane of Cawdor, whose son, John, married Isabel Rose, the daughter of Hugh Rose of Kilravock. This John was a second son, and on him and his heirs was entailed the estate, because his elder brother, William, was lame, and inclined to enter the Church. John died in 1498, leaving two daughters, Janet and Muriel, born after his death. Janet died while an infant, and Muriel succeeded to the estate in virtue of the above-mentioned entail. The Laird of Kilravock designed the heiress for her own cousin, his grandson, but having joined with Mackintosh in a foray in the lands of Urquhart of Cromarty, he was pursued in a criminal process for robbery. Argyle, the then Justice General and Second Earl, had also his intentions regarding Muriel, and having made matters easy for Kilravock, in the matter of the law proceedings, induced the King, with her grandfather’s consent, to award her in marriage to whomsoever he pleased.

Under pretence of sending the child to school, Campbell of Inverliver, in 1499, was sent with a party of sixty men to Kilravock to convey the child to Inveraray to be educated there in the family of Argyle.

The old lady of Kilravock, who did not quite approve of this mode of disposing of the hand of her grandchild, to which the pretended education tended, took good care to prevent the child being changed, a common trick of the times, by marking her on the hip with the key of her coffer, made red hot. That there was a necessity for this, may be imagined from the reply of Campbell of Auchinbeck, who, when asked what was to be done should the child die before she was marriageable. ‘She can never die,’ said he, ‘as long as a red-haired lassie can be found on either side of Loch-Awe.’ The child was, however, delivered to Campbell of Inverliver and his escort, but on arriving at Daltulich, in Strathnairn, he became aware that he was pursued by Alexander and Hugh Calder, the uncles of Muriel, who by no means agreed to the proceeding.

Inverliver faced about, with the largest portion of his party, to receive the Calders, and, to deceive them, kept one of his men in the rear, having a sheaf of oats wrapped in a plaid, as if it were the child, who, however, had been previously sent off with a smaller escort under charge of one of his sons, with strict instructions to proceed to Argyle’s castle with all speed.

The conflict was a severe one, and many fell on both sides. It is said that in the heat of the skirmish, in his extremity, Inverliver gave utterance to the saying which has since passed into a proverb, ‘’S fada glaodh o Loch-Ou, ’s fada cabhair o’ Clann Dhuine’ (’Tis a far cry to Loch-Awe, and a distant help to Clan Duine), signifying immediate danger and distant relief. When Macliver imagined she was safe, and at a considerable distance, he retreated, and, following her, conducted her to Inveraray, where she was educated, and, in 1510, married to Sir John Campbell, the third son of the Earl of Argyle. For his conduct in the affair, Macliver was rewarded by a gift of the twenty pound land of Inverliver.

It was a sister of this Sir John Campbell who married Maclean of Duart, and who was exposed on a low rock between the islands of Mull and Lismore, that she might be drowned by the rising tide. The rock is still known by the name of the Lady’s Rock. From this perilous situation she was rescued by a boat accidentally passing, and conveyed to her brother’s house. Her relations, although much exasperated, smothered their resentment for a time, but only to break out afterwards with greater violence. Maclean of Duart, happening to be in Edinburgh, was surprised when in bed, and assassinated by Muriel’s husband. Sir John Campbell died in 1546, but Muriel survived him until 1575.