Tour Scotland photograph of Caerlaverock Castle, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Close to the English border, Caerlaverock Castle controlled the important waterways of the Solway and the Nith, the south western gateways to medieval Scotland. Built to a unique triangular shield design and surrounded by a moat, Caerlaverock was also protected by the rough Solway landscape of marshes, thickets and surging tides. Locals knew it as the island of Caerlaverock. Its castellans were the fiercely belligerent Maxwells. No wonder that one chronicler in 1300 described it as so strong a castle that it feared no siege. Edward Longshanks respected Caerlaverock's reputation for impregnability. In 1300 the Plantagenet laid siege to Caerlaverock with a force of 87 knights and 3000 men, aiming to punish the Maxwells for their role in organizing resistance to him throughout the south west. Siege engines were brought from the castles of Carlisle, Lochmaben and Roxburgh. One of these was the Warwolf, a giant trebuchet that hurled 200 pound stone balls high over Caerlaverock's marshy defences. Ninety of these missiles smashed into the castle's towers and curtain walls before the terrified garrison of 60 Scots emerged to surrender.
Caerlaverock was now garrisoned by English troops although the castellan was still a Maxwell. However, when Sir Eustace Maxwell switched allegiance from Edward II to Robert 1 in 1312, an English army surrounded Caerlaverock once more. This time the Scots held out. After Bannockbum, King Robert offered various privileges to the Maxwell family as compensation for the demolition of the castle. Enough remained however for Sir Eustace to repair and pledge to the puppet king Edward Balliol in 1333. Caerlaverock was only recaptured by the Scottish Crown in 1356 when Roger Kirkpatrick took and demolished it.
Caerlaverock also suffered in later wars. The fifth Lord Maxwell was twice captured by the English, after the battle of Solway in 1542 and again in 1544. He was forced to surrender the castle into English hands as a guarantee of his future 'good' behaviour. The Earl of Sussex is said to have 'threwn down' the castle in the siege in 1570, though the damage from this siege was soon repaired. In the religious wars of 1630's and 40's, the royalist Earl of Nithsdale held out in Caelaverock against a besieging Covenanting force for thirteen weeks. Nithsdale's garrison of 200 starving men only marched out of the castle in 1640 when Charles I granted them permission to surrender with honour. The Covenanters proceeded to dismantle parts of the fortress which gradually fell into ruin.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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