CASTLE OF URQUHART. FORT AUGUSTUS. 59 



of three stories, and surmounted by four square projecting turrets, still exists. 

 The outer wall encloses a spacious area, and in some places is terraced, with 

 platforms iu the angles for the convenience of the defending soldiery. The 

 entrance is through a spacious gateway, between two guard-rooms, projecting 

 beyond the general line of the walls, and guarded by more than one massive 

 portal, and a huge portcullis. These entrance-towers are much in the style of 

 architecture peculiar to the Welsh castles built by Edward I. ; and in front of 

 them lay the drawbridge across the outer moat- The whole buildings were of 

 superior masonry, strongly secured, and so extensive as to accommodate a gar- 

 rison of at least five hundred men. 



The first siege sustained by this castle was in 1303. In that year, the 

 officers of Edward I. who did not venture in person beyond Nairn were sent 

 forward to subdue the country around Kildrummie, and began their operations 

 against Castle Urquhart, which, of all the strongholds in the North, maintained 

 the most determined resistance. At length, however, the place was captured, 

 A.D. 1334,* and the intrepid governor, De Bois, and his garrison, were put to 

 the sword. 



Fort Augustus, the central stronghold erected in the Great Glen, stands on 

 a peninsula formed by the rivers Tarf and Oich, at the western extremity of 

 Loch-Ness. The scenery is wild and mountainous ; but in respect to convenience, 

 and the facilities of communication, the locality is well chosen. All the supplies 

 necessary for a garrison could be transported at little expense by land and 

 water. It is a regular fortification, with barracks for nearly four hundred troops, 



Thirty-one years later, Sir Robert Lauder, a knight of Morayshire, was governor of Urquhart, and 

 held the castle successfully against the Baliol faction. His daughter having married the laird of Chisholm 

 in Strathglass, the offspring of that union, Sir Robert Chisholm,* on coming into the inheritance of his 

 maternal property, the estates of Quarrel Wood, becam^constable of Urquhart Castle, in right of his 

 grandfather. After this period, it is known to have lie n royal fort or garrison ; and such, probably, 

 it also was at the commencement of the fourteenth century, the period of the siege, and during the reigns 

 of the Alexanders, and other early Scottish sovereigns. About the middle of the fourteenth century, the 

 barony and castle of Urquhart were disponed by David II. to William count of Sutherland, and his sou 

 John ; and were subsequently held for the king by the ancient family of Grant of Freuchie, now Grant of 

 Grant, who, as chamberlains of the crown, obtained possession of most of the lands around, constituting the 

 domains of the Castle. Finally, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, when James IV. was 

 empowered by parliament to let out in feu-farm the royal lands, both annexed and unannexed, he granted 

 three charters of the lordship of Urquhart, and baronies of Urquhart and Glenmoriston, in different por- 

 tions, to John Grant of Freuchie, and his two sons ; from the latter of whom are descended the GRANTS 

 of Glenmoriston and Corymony. Paroch. Statist. 1836. 



A gentleman of Inverness is in possession of an original charter of this Sir Robert Chisholm, to the 

 church of the Holy Cross, in Inverness, of certain lands near the town, dated on the first of the Epiphany, 

 A.D. 1362. 



