THE 1692 PLANNED JACOBITE RAID ON SLAINS OR DUNNOTTAR CASTLE

Mike Shepherd

While researching my book (with Dacre Stoker) on the history of Slains Castle I came across references to a planned Jacobite raid on either Slains Castle or Dunnottar Castle in 1692. It gets briefly mentioned in the book.

The references come from the Calendar of the Stuart Papers Belonging to His Majesty the King Preserved at Windsor Castle (published in 1902), and I’ll start by quoting large extracts from them. The James II referred to below had been James II of England and James VII of Scotland.

 

James II to Major-General Buchan. Queneville, France. May 1692.

‘Ordering him to march, with such Scots officers and soldiers as are at present with him, from Havre to Dunkirk, where he is to take command not only of those with him but of such others as shall be ordered to attend him, and embark with the same on the frigates appointed to transport him to the North of Scotland, where he is to land at or near the Castle of Denoter [Dunnottar Castle] in the shire of Mearns, or of Slains in Aberdeenshire, or at any other place where he shall think it best to debark, the King not doubting that the foresaid places will on demand be put into his hands to serve for garrisons, if need be, and he is to act according to the further instructions which shall be given him...’

And a later missive:

James II to Lord Keith. Queneville, France. May 1692.

‘Whereas it has pleased God to put us in a condition to return to England... and requiring you to forward the success thereof by declaring for our interest, taking up arms for us, raising the militia, and all others... for which effect we have sent you our commission of colonel, and we further require of you, that, in case it be thought necessary to put a garrison in Slains Castle, you shall deliver it to such troops as Major-General Buchan shall think fit to put thereinto...’

The 1902 text adds the comment ‘With note that a like letter was writ and signed to Lord Erroll to desire him to deliver up Denotar Castle, and both were to have been delivered by Major-General Buchan, but the expedition of La Hogue failing, they were not sent.’

 

James VII / II

Before explaining the context of the planned raid, I’ll point out that James II had mixed up his orders.  Lord Keith (George Keith, Earl Marischal)  was the resident of Dunnottar (‘Denoter’) Castle, whereas it is Lord Erroll (the Earl of Erroll) who was resident at Slains.

James had been both King of England and Scotland up until 1688. That is, until William of Orange turned up in the south of England with an army. James panicked and then fled to France. William had been invited in by English parliamentarians who despised the Stuart king; James having made himself unpopular in both countries by promoting the Catholic faith and through his autocratic approach to both Parliament and numerous official bodies throughout both England and Scotland.

When William and his wife Mary were made joint rulers on the throne in 1689, the first Jacobite rebellion arose and was led by John Graham, Viscount Dundee. The Jacobites subsequently won the Battle of Killiecrankie, although their leader was killed. After that the Jacobite fortunes went into reverse: they lost a battle at Dunkeld in Perthshire and then suffered utter humiliation in May 1690 at Cromdale near Grantown-on-Spey when their camp was ambushed at three o’clock in the morning by government soldiers. The Jacobite commander on this occasion was Thomas Buchan, the Major-General Buchan mentioned in the orders above. The rebellion was now over.

In 1692 France was at war with England and nominally Scotland. James VII in exile in France now persuaded Louis XIV, the French king, to mount an invasion of England in May with the objective of restoring him to the throne. Louis XIV probably liked this idea because the English would have had to move their soldiers from the European theatre of war to defend their homeland.

Troops, mainly Irish exiles, gathered around Cherbourg in Normandy in preparation for the invasion. Their transports required protection by warships, so the French navy was sent for to accompany the transports across the England Channel. It was at this point that Thomas Buchan was ordered to Dunkirk where he was to meet up with the exiled Scots Jacobites who had been sent there to take part in the raid.

The plan came to nothing. An Anglo-Dutch naval force with 82 ships confronted the 40 ships of the French fleet off the Normandy coast.  After both sides received a severe pummelling, the outnumbered French fleet made their escape. Fifteen of their ships, badly damaged, tried to seek refuge at Cherbourg and La Hogue: all were destroyed by the Anglo-Dutch navy.

Badly beaten, the weakened French navy had lost control of the seas to their enemies in the alliance against them. It would have been too dangerous to launch the Jacobite raid on Slains or Dunnottar which was intended to accompany the planned invasion of England.

James VII would now remain a king ‘o’er the water’.

You can find more about the history of Slains Castle in Shepherd and Stoker, 2021: Slains Castle's Secret History.  Available in paperback on Amazon and in local outlets including Cruden Bay Post Office and the nearby shop.

 

 

 

 

 WHAT CONNECTS SLAINS CASTLE AND CASTLE DRACULA?

Mike Shepherd

You will see stated on the internet that Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, is somehow linked to Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Now, I’ve researched this connection on account that Slains Castle is a very special place for me: it lies half a mile from my house in Cruden Bay.

The connection between Slains Castle and Dracula appears to be valid.  But first of all, I would like to drive a stake into the heart of a common myth and then stuff its mouth full of garlic. Die, you undead myth... Slains Castle did not inspire the plot for Dracula. Bram Stoker had much of the novel’s plot already in place before he first set eyes on Slains Castle in 1892.

Bram’s notes for Dracula survive, and early on – about 1890 or so - he recognised that a castle should be part of the story: not any specific castle, merely the idea of a castle. In the summer of 1890 Bram Stoker visited Whitby and consulted books about Transylvania in the local libraries. Here, he found line drawings of castles in Transylvania atop high rocky crags, Bran Castle was one of these. Inspired by the dramatic settings he saw, he now sited Dracula’s castle in Transylvania.

So how then did Slains Castle become linked with Dracula?

Bram Stoker didn’t start writing Dracula until 1895, and according to his biographer Harry Ludlam this happened in Cruden Bay (then called Port Erroll).  When Bram Stoker was writing the early chapters of Dracula in the village, Slains Castle loomed on the horizon. I have no doubt that the sight of the castle fired his imagination while writing the book.

And more. In her 2004 book, Six Buchan Villages Re-visited, Margaret Aitken,  a local historian living in Cruden Bay, suggested that the octagonal room in Slains Castle had been used in Dracula. Margaret notes the scene in the novel where Jonathan Harker arrives at Castle Dracula and is beckoned through the front door by the count:

‘The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort.’

Compare this to the layout of Slains Castle as described in 1922 when the castle was up for sale:

‘On the Principle Floor: Entrance Hall (heated with stove) leading to Central Octagonal Interior Hall (heated with stove and lighted from above)...’

The walls for the octagonal hall still stand inside the ruined shell of Slains Castle, and a brief inspection shows that no window openings are present. A photograph from 1900 when the castle was intact shows that the hall was lit by a single lamp (it survives today and hangs from the ceiling  of a room in a London house).

The similarity of these descriptions give credence to the case that the octagonal room in Slains Castle was used in Castle Dracula. Perhaps a jury reviewing this matter in a court of law would hand down a not-proven verdict at the end of their deliberations: this on account that there is no evidence that Bram Stoker was ever inside Slains Castle (don’t believe any biographies that claim otherwise).

But here’s something: Bram probably visited the castle. What is intriguing is that the octagonal hall was once referred to by the castle’s residents as ‘the salon’. A salon, nowadays a name used for a hairdresser or beautician’s studio, was originally a reception room in a large house. The octagonal hall in Slains Castle occupied a central location in the part of the castle containing the principal rooms including the drawing room and the library. Visitors would have been kept waiting in the salon until the butler arrived to tell them, ‘The earl will see you now’, and then they would be led into the drawing room.

Now, it’s quite likely that the castle’s owner, Charles Gore Hay, the 20^th Earl of Erroll, would have invited Bram Stoker for a visit. Bram knew everybody in London society, and the earl would not have passed up the opportunity to invite him in for a chat. It’s known that they had previously met at a jamboree in 1894, which was organised to raise funds to build a village hall.

 

Bram Stoker came to the Cruden Bay area most years after 1892, and wrote his books under the shadow of Slains Castle. There is a much stronger link between the castle and his other novels, including the two books where Bram Stoker mentions Slains Castle by name.

From his 1895 novel, The Watter’s Mou’: ‘At first the cleft runs from west to east, and broadens out into a wide bay of which one side a steep grassy slope leads towards the new castle of Slains...’

And his 1902 novel, The Mystery of the Sea: ‘My own section for watching was between Slains Castle and Dunbuy, as wild and rocky a bit of coast as anyone could wish to see. Behind Slains runs in a long narrow inlet with beetling cliffs, sheer on either side, and at its entrance a wild turmoil of rocks are hurled together in titanic confusion.’

Slains Castle appears in disguised form in other Bram Stoker novels, most notably in The Jewel of Seven Stars. It appears as Kyllion, ‘a great grey stone mansion of the Jacobean period; vast and spacious, standing high over the sea on the very verge of a high cliff.’ The name is one of Bram Stoker’s private jokes which he liked to slip into his novels; Otto Kyllmann was the editor for Dracula at the publishing firm Constable.  The events in Kyllion inspired later horror films. Kyllion was where the spirit of an Egyptian mummy was brought to life with disastrous consequences.

 

But back to Dracula again. Although there is not an exact match between the floor plan of Slains and Castle Dracula – the front door of Castle Dracula was at ground level, whereas the front door for Slains was accessed up a flight of thirteen steps, yet once inside, the interior descriptions of both castles mostly match up.

Conclusion: Part of the floor plan of Slains Castle was probably used for the interior of Castle Dracula.

You can find more on this topic in Shepherd and Stoker, 2021: Slains Castle's Secret History.  Available in paperback on Amazon and in local outlets including Cruden Bay Post Office and the nearby shop.

Bram Stoker and the Bleedy Burn.

“Bram Stoker walked along Cruden Bay beach agonising over the next chapter of his book. His hands behind his back, and head stooped in thought, he stepped over the shallow stream called the Bleedy Burn. Viking hordes had long ago fought the Scots on the sandhills behind the beach, and when the crimson sun went down that evening, the stream, gashing deep as it exited the dunes to the sea, disgorged blood across the flesh-coloured sand. Cruden Bay is a place stained forever by the horror of that moment: the name Cruden, it’s said, means slaughter of the Danes.”

These are the opening lines of my new book: When Brave Men Shudder: the Scottish origins of Dracula. It’s the true story about how Bram Stoker discovered Cruden Bay in Scotland and returned there year after year to write his books.

The Bleedy Burn is a small stream that crosses Cruden Bay beach and the local residents have probably been calling it that for over a thousand years ever since the Scots fought the Vikings in the 1012 Battle of Cruden Bay. It’s said that the stream ran red with blood for three days afterwards.

Not a great deal is known about the Battle of Cruden Bay. Monks wrote about it five centuries later, describing how the Vikings landed with a large army to be met by the Scots under King Malcolm II. The battle was bitterly fought and raged over several miles of foreshore. The Scots eventually won, making a deal that they would bury the dead in return for a pact whereby the Vikings would not invade Scotland again.  Legend has it that the Viking overlord was the young King Canute and he turned his attentions to England thereafter. A church was built dedicated to St Olaf, the patron saint  of Norway, although nothing remains of the building.

Bram Stoker would probably have known about the Bleedy Burn, although surprisingly he doesn’t mention it in his two books set in Cruden Bay. The idea of blood streaming across the flesh-coloured sand of the beach would have reminded his readers about Dracula!

Bram walked across the beach every morning before breakfast while he was on his monthly holiday. The two-mile stretch of beach bracketed by rocky promontories at either end reminded him of a mouth with teeth. And some of the rocks, he wrote, resembled fangs rising from deep water – a knowing reference to Dracula, much of which had been written In Cruden Bay.