188 JULY 



Of the original stronghold 



' The aventurous castell of Douglas, 

 That to kep sa peralous was ' 



not a trace now remains. The present house is part 

 of a magnificent design undertaken by the Duke of 

 Douglas in the eighteenth century, to replace an 

 earlier structure battered down by Cromwell in 

 1651. Fired by that ardour for stone and lime 

 which has told so banefully on the fortune of 

 many a Scottish laird less able to sustain it, the 

 Duke commissioned the architect Adam to build 

 him a castle ten feet greater in height, length, and 

 breadth than the Duke of Argyll's at Inveraray. 

 All that Douglas lived to see was one wing com- 

 pleted, which forms the present house, for the main 

 block was never even begun. 



It is from the teeming past that Douglas depends 

 for its power on the fancy on the days when the 

 very existence of Scotland among the nations was at 

 stake. Sir James of Douglas, afterwards the first 

 Lord Douglas, was the trustiest and doughtiest of 

 Bruce's comrades in the terrible winter of 1306-7, 

 and Sir Robert de Clifford held his castle for King 

 Edward. Leaving his king among the mountains 



