Old Photograph Fast Castle Scotland

Old photograph of the ruins of Fast Castle located four miles North West of Coldingham which is near Eyemouth, Scotland. Fast Castle is first recorded in 1333. In 1346 the site was occupied by an English garrison and was used as a base to pillage the surrounding countryside. In 1410, a force led by Patrick Dunbar, second son of the 10th Earl of Dunbar and March seized the castle and imprisoned the governor. The castle fell into the hands of the Home family, pronounced " Hume ", and in 1503 they hosted Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England, at Fast Castle en route to her marriage to James IV. Following the Scots defeat and the death of James IV at the battle of Flodden in 1513, in which numerous Homes were killed, a power struggle ensued between the Regent Albany and various other nobles including Alexander Home, 3rd Lord Home, Chamberlain of Scotland. Fast Castle was destroyed in the chaos in 1515, and Alexander Home was executed in 1516 and his land forfeit. The castle was rebuilt by 1522, when the Home estates were restored to Alexander's brother George Home, 4th Lord Home. During the " Rough Wooing " of Scotland by Henry VIII, the castle was captured again by the English in 1547, but was back in Scottish hands by the time of Mary, Queen of Scots stay here in 1566. The castle passed to Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig through his mother, a widow of Lord Home. It was briefly recaptured by the English in 1570.] Fast castle was well armed: some of the guns were taken to Berwick on Tweed during the English intervention against the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots in the 1570s. The castle was by now ruinous. It passed briefly to the Douglas family, then back to the Earls of Dunbar, then the family of Arnot, back to the Homes and finally to the Hall family.



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