Redcastle & the Lordship of Ardmannoch: the genealogy of a Highland estate - #2

Redcastle today. Photo credit David Galloway

Continuing from Part 1 of the story of Redcastle and its surrounding estate on the Black Isle, I had hoped the Exchequer Rolls might give some clues about its transformation from a medieval castle of enclosure of the type mentioned at the top of the last post to a 16th/17th century tower house as it appears today, more of a defensible residence than a fortification. Sadly they don’t but there’s a clue from another source: the 1526 feu to Henry Kemp of Thomaston.

What’s a feu? A feu is a lease except it lasts in perpetuity. Feus also have different terminology, some of which is borrowed from the feudal system. Thus:

lease (noun and verb) - feu

lease (contract document - ‘tenancy agreement’) - feu charter

landlord (owner of freehold) - superior

tenant - feuar

rent - feuduty

leased subjects (property let by a lease) - feu

Feuing became more and more common on estates belonging to the Crown and the Church as the 16th century progressed. Typically, the Crown would feu land to a feuar for a one-off lump sum payment called a ‘composition’ (or ‘grassum’) and an annual feuduty equal to the rent paid by the tenant(s) of the feu plus an increment called an ‘augmentation’. 

Thus in 1526 did the Crown feu to Henry Kemp of Thomaston, the King’s purse bearer (and his proximity to royal finances is probably not a coincidence in this context), the farms of Garguston, Newton of Redcastle and Hilton (which no longer exists but was on the shore between Redcastle and Coulmore) in the Lordship of Ardmannoch. Also included in this feu was not the castle itself but the office of heritable constable of the Redcastle in perpetuity. I couldn’t find any record of the composition which would have been paid but the annual feuduty was £17 plus 1 chalder and 8 bolls of barley, 2 marts (beef carcases) and 2 muttons (sheep carcases). That was calculated as the rent paid by the tenants of Garguston and Hilton with an augmentation of 27.5% of the cash element. No feuduty was charged for Newton because Kemp was to have that rent free as compensation for acting as constable of the castle.

Abbreviate of Henry Kemp's feu charter in the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland

A further condition of the feu charter was what was known as a clause aedificando (‘building’) requiring the feuar to build on the feu a “sufficient mansion with a hall, chamber, kitchen, stable, barn, barnyard, gardens, and other necessary buildings and outbuildings”. So did Kemp comply with this obligation by adapting the existing castle into something like the Redcastle we see today?

There is a circumstantial adminicle (as we lawyers say) of evidence supporting that possibility. It’s Urquhart Castle again, the very recognisable tower at the north end of which (below) is considered by the castle experts MacGibbon & Ross (here) to have been built in the early 16th century pursuant to a feu charter of the Barony of Urquhart to John Grant of Freuchie in 1509 with a clause aedificando requiring “a tower with a rampart of stone and lime for a guard against the invasion of thieves and malefactors; and a hall, a chamber, a kitchen with other necessary houses, viz. a a brewery, a wine-cellar, a cheese-cellar, a cott, a grove, a dovecot and an orchard with trees”. Now admittedly that’s a rather more muscular and martial clause, specifically calling for a tower as opposed to the ‘mansion’ stipulated in the Redcastle clause. But having said that, there was no such thing as an unfortified ‘mansion’ in Scotland in the early 16th century.

Urquhart Castle. Photo credit: Bill Cumming

But there’s also a strong adminicle against the transformation of Redcastle into a tower house having been due to Kemp’s feu charter. That is that, although I said feus lasted in perpetuity, a feu granted during the King’s minority was revocable up to his 25th birthday. And a feu of annexed property of the Crown, even if granted during the King’s majority, was revocable at any time if not ratified by Parliament. Kemp’s feu was affected by both of these syndromes, having been granted when King James V was only 14 and with Ardmannoch having been annexed to the Crown when forfeited by the Black Douglases in 1455: while I found parliamentary ratifications of some feus from Ardmannoch (see here for example), I couldn’t find one for Henry Kemp’s feu. Is he likely to have invested in transforming Redcastle when his title to it was so vulnerable?

I don’t know exactly what became of Kemp’s feu of Garguston, Newton and Hilton with the constabulary of Redcastle. Robert Innes of Invermarkie appears as constable of the castle in 1533 suggesting the feu may have been transferred to him but there is no further reference in the Exchequer Rolls to Redcastle being kept on behalf of the Crown after 1535 - was that when it was abandoned as a royal fortress? James V issued a revocation of all feus and other charters granted during his minority in 1537. These revocations usually resulted in the affected deeds being regranted on payment of another composition and/or augmentation of the feuduty but I couldn’t find any sign of that in the case of the Kemp feu (if it even still existed in 1537) and what we do know for certain is that the Crown re-let Garguston, Newton and Hilton along with the rest of the farms of Ross and Ardmannoch in 1539 proving that the feu had disappeared by then at the latest.

Extract from James Dorret's map, 1750. Note Hilton between Redcastle and Coulmore. National Library of Scotland

Nowadays on an estate with farms, they are re-let individually as and when they become vacant. But in previous centuries, all the leases of the farms on an estate were timed to end and thus be re-let at the same time: such mass re-lettings were called ‘sets’. The 1539 set of Ross and Ardmannoch was carried out at Dingwall by commissioners on behalf of the King in terms of instructions from him which are worth quoting from:

Becaus we ar informitt that ane grete parte of oure saidis landis and lordschippis ar in gentilmennis handis, parte of auld and parte of new, ye consider and se gyfe [see if] thai gentillmen hes uthir grete heretage or nocht; and gyfe thai have nocht, bot that thai and thare foirbearis hes levit upoun the saidis takkis [lands which they rent] in oure faderis tyme and utheris oure predicessouris, ye sall mak to thame takkis [leases] thareof, with this restrictioun, that thai have na mare nor thai may lauboure with thare awne pleuch and laubouris, and nocht to be sett to subtennentis; and quhat landis thai have that excedis, to sett [let] the samyn to the tennentis occupiaris thareof, as ye sall think maist convenient for the wele of oure liegeis and oure proffitt.

[And] as to oure landis sett to grete gentillmen in oure les age that thai nor thare predicessouris had nevir of before, ye sall sett the samyn agane to the auld possessouris, and gyfe thai be sobir gentillmen and occupiis ane part of the saidis landis with thare awne gudis, and nane uthir man clames rycht thareto, ye sall sett that parte to thame and the remanent to the tennentis occupiaris of the grund, gife thai will tak the samyn;

These instructions allude to the fact that there were two types of farm tenant in 16th century Scotland: the first was “tennentis occupiaris” as referred to in the second paragraph there. They were the ordinary folk - peasants, in the original, non-pejorative sense of the word - who cultivated the land themselves to grow their food. Each farm was normally farmed by several families jointly and they shared the rent. The other class of tenant was the “gentillmen” referred to in the King’s instructions to the commissioners. They usually had a farm exclusively and might cultivate it themselves (the work done by hired labour, of course - they didn’t get their own hands dirty!) or sub-let it to “occupiaris” of the first class of tenant, or a mixture of both. An example of this latter class was the tenant of Drumderfit Farm who was James, the brother of Fraser of Lovat. 

Against this background, the King’s policy in his instructions becomes clearer: a preference that the farms be let directly to their “tennentis occupiaris” with “gentillmen” only allowed when they, or their ancestors, had had the land before the King’s reign began (in 1513) and had cultivated it themselves and would promise to do so in the future: any land they’d sub-let would be taken off them and let directly to the sub-tenants. As a land management prescription, it’s enlightened even by today’s standards. 

You can read the full results of the 1539 set of Ross and Ardmannoch here but looking just at the farms that were later to become parts of Redcastle Estate - Garguston, Newton, Hilton (which no longer exists but lay between Redcastle and Coulmore), Lettoch and Easter Kessock - we see that most were re-let to their existing “tennentis occupiaris”. Having said that, the new leases they were given were only for five years. I don’t know if that implies a new set every five years - none is mentioned in the Exchequer Rolls apart from in 1504 and 1539. Were these tenants at risk of being thrown out at the end of five years? Provided they paid a sum called a grassum equal to the cash element of a year’s rent for their leases to be renewed, I suspect in practice probably not but it’s a reminder that peasants’ tenure was not necessarily quite as secure prior to the 18th century Clearances as was claimed in some quarters. I’ve extracted the names of the tenants below along with their rents (click to enlarge). Included for comparison, shaded grey, are the names of the tenants of these farms in 1504. (1504 and 1539 are the only two years for which the ERs give tenants’ names.) There’s some evidence of continuity between the two years but not a huge amount, perhaps.

The exception to the farms being let to “tennentis occupiaris” is Newton with its brewer’s croft and smiddy croft. These last two are examples of the fact that, as well as farms occupied by multiple tenants, there were also smaller holdings occupied by individual artisans such as smiths and brewers: elsewhere on Ardmannoch, there was a forester’s croft, a mair’s croft, a sergeant’s croft and a messenger’s croft, the last three being local officials. Anyway, Newton Farm with its associated crofts was let to Robert Innes of Invermarkie. He would, no doubt, have sub-let it (or bits of it) to “tennentis occupiaris” and a brewer and a smith but this appears to be a departure from the King’s ‘no toffs except of long standing’ policy for Innes only appeared on the scene as recently as 1533 as already noted.

As far as the rent was concerned, there were increases in the cash element since 1504 of roughly 15% and I think this was due to inflation because the grain and livestock elements of the rents remained static. Incidentally, marts (beef carcases) were valued at £1 10s each and muttons (sheep carcases) at 3 shillings meaning, I think, that the tenants were expected to pay these cash equivalents in lieu of the actual carcases. And as regards the grain rents (barley), these were unchanged since 1504 except that, henceforth, they were to be paid according to the Leith measure of a chalder. That was larger than the local Ross measure in use hitherto but, if I'm reading the Exchequer Rolls correctly (not easy considering they're in an abbreviated sort of Latin that doesn't always spell things out explicitly), the tenants were given an abatement on their headline rents of 6.25% as a sort of transitional measure to compensate for this.

 

Finally, note the column headed bondagiis containing figures ranging between 5 and 40 shillings. Payable over and above the rents, these appear for the first time in 1539 and what I think they are is that, in past centuries, as well as paying their rents, tenant farmers typically had to perform for their landlords what were known as services. These were fixed by local custom and included things like so many days unpaid work on the landlord's home farm at harvest time or providing (free of charge) so many cart loads of fuel to his house etc. So I think the sums in the bondagiis column are the services of each farm commuted into a cash payment in lieu.

 

In the 16th century, land was farmed in clusters of narrow strips called rigs. the remains of which can be seen here in the north of Lewis overlaid by regular modern croft field boundaries. In 1539, the Black Isle would have looked like this

Turning from the revenue, let's have a look at the expenses the chamberlain of the Lordship of Ardmannoch disbursed locally before remitting the balance of the rent received to Edinburgh. 1538-39 was a typical year (here). A total of £24: 17s was paid to local ecclesiastical institutions and clergymen endowed by the King or previous owners of the Lordship. These included Beauly Priory (£9: 3s: 8d including 7 shillings in lieu of a pound of pepper: this account attempts to link this payment to the 2 merks (£1: 6s: 8d) payable annually at Redcastle originally granted by the de Boscos in 1278 updated for inflation); the chaplain officiating at a side altar in Tain parish church endowed by King James II from the rent of Dunskeath (10 merks or £6: 13s: 4d); and £1 to the Friars Preachers of Inverness. That last was an endowment by Alexander, 3rd Lord of the Isles in 1437 while he was Earl of Ross out of the rents of the farm and ferry of Easter Kessock. As such this is properly a charge on the Earldom of Ross but it’s an example of the ‘cross contamination’ which occured between the accounts and rent rolls of the earldom and Ardmannoch due, no doubt, to their neighbouring each other and being managed by the same chamberlain. 

Another example was the salmon fishery on the River Conon. This was part of the Earldom of Ross but for some reason accounted for in the Ardmannoch accounts. Anyway, the fishery wasn’t let to a tenant but operated by the Crown in hand. This was commercial netting of salmon, of course, not fishing by sportsmen with rod and line: nowadays we think of salmon as a luxury food and catching it an elite pastime but it wasn't in the 16th century when it was seen as a cheap source of protein for the poor to be harvested by the most efficient method possible. The stretch of the river involved is not disclosed but each year the chamberlain accounted for a catch of 11 ‘lasts of Hamburg measure’. A ‘last’ comprised 12 barrels of salted fish each of about 100kg, so we’re talking about something in the region of 2,000-3,000 fish (compare with the annual rod catch in recent years from the whole river of around 1,000). A last of salmon was worth about £30 and in 1538-39, the chamberlain paid £34: 16s 8d for the construction of a new coble (flat bottomed boat for working the nets), repair of nets and purchase of salt; £2 and 4 bolls each of barley and oatmeal to the canar (water bailiff); and £2 to the cooper for making the barrels. It would appear that not all the barrels were made locally, though, for the 1540-41 accounts have £4: 4s paid to one Alexander Watson, master of a ship called the Michael, for bringing 7 lasts of barrels from Leith.

 

I couldn't find a picture of salmon netting on the Conon but this one is at the mouth of the River Ness opposite Kessock

After paying his own fee of £10 and those of the mairs and messenger and one or two other minor local expenses (including 14 shillings to a carpenter to repair the hall at Dingwall Castle which is another one that looks as if it should more properly have been charged to Ross) and making what look like accounting adjustments which I confess I didn’t fully understand (being written in Latin!), the chamberlain paid the balance of the cash rent to the Comptroller, one of the Crown’s principal financial officers. As regards the balance of the victual (agricultural produce) rent - 26 chalders, 13 bolls, 4 firlots and 2 pecks (about 25 tonnes) of grain plus 19 and a quarter each of marts and muttons, 53 dozen hens and 16 capons and the 11 lasts of salmon - the chamberlain sold some of it locally for about £75 and left the rest to be disposed of by the Comptroller in due course: what arrangements were made for its storage until then are not stated but in another year it was noted that the remaining unsold victual was in the granary at Dingwall Castle. 

The Earldom of Ross and Lordship of Ardmannoch accounts were amalgamated in 1560 and two items of expenditure that recurred thereafter I can’t resist mentioning even if they are more related to Ross than Ardmannoch are 7 bolls and 2 firlots of grain to men for cutting peat and a further 4 bolls, 2 firlots to more men for stacking it in Dingwall Castle. That’s a pleasing image, isn’t it? Note to Historic Scotland - if you want to create a more realistic immersive experience for visitors to your castles, put a stack of peat in the courtyard!

 

On the subject of visitors to castles, when you google Redcastle, you quite often see the claim that Mary Queen of Scots visited it in 1562 (see here for example). I always like to see a primary, or at least academic, source to confirm claims like that but there’s nothing to suggest such a visit in the Exchequer Rolls. And unfortunately the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer (which confirm her grandfather King James IV visited Redcastle because they tell us he paid  5 French Crowns for a goshawk there in 1505) for the Queen’s time in Scotland are not available to consult online. But it’s not improbable because we do know she was in Inverness twice, once 1562 and again in 1564. This scholarly 1987 article by Edward Furgol says she was at Redcastle (and Dingwall), and presumably he was able to verify that from primary sources, but he doesn’t say when or in what circumstances. George Chalmers, in his 1818 biography of the Queen, tells us, basing himself on the dispatches of the English ambassador, Thomas Randolph, who accompanied her, to Queen Elizabeth’s secretary of state, William Cecil, that Mary spent three days in Inverness in September 1562. But as some of that time was occupied by a fracas with the Earl of Huntly denying her access to the castle there, I wonder how much time she would have had to visit the Black Isle? I think the Redcastle visit is more likely, therefore, to have been during her 1564 visit to the north: Furgol places the Dingwall visit then and Chalmers (on whose authority I don’t know) tells us (here) the Queen went to Fortrose (then called the Chanonry of Ross) in 1564 and speculated that she 

probably went to Ross-shire to enquire, without the knowledge of the statesmen, at Edinburgh, what was the value of the earldom of Ross, which she meant to settle on [her husband to be, Lord] Darnley, before their marriage, wishing, in case of any accident to her, to leave him an Earl, with a large estate, and a great following, which was so sought for, in those times, when men were of more value than money. 

 

Henry Stuart, Earl of Ross

What we do know for sure is that, in 1565, Mary granted the Earldom of Ross and Lordship of Ardmannoch, including Redcastle, to Darnley (above), in a charter (here) which merged and incorporated them into a single Earldom, Lordship and Barony of Ross with Dingwall Castle as its seat. At the same time Darnley was also created Earl of Ross and Lord Ardmannoch. I couldn't find an Act of Parliament approving that grant of annexed estate but it was kind of academic because, as we all know, Darnley didn’t live for long to enjoy these honours. After his murder in February 1567 they all descended to his infant son, James Duke of Rothesay, who, of course, in very short order (July 1567) became King James VI.

 

And as this post has also become far longer than I imagined, I'll break here and try and conclude the story of Redcastle in the next post.