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| Reconstruction of Girnigoe Castle by Andrew Spratt |
Does power lead to
cruelty, or does cruelty lead to power?
Did George Sinclair (1527-1582) have the same “bad gene” that turned his great-uncle William Sinclair into the person known in history
as “William the Wastrel”? Was it the
same gene that turned his grandson, another George and the 5th
Earl of Caithness, into the person we know as “the Wicked Earl”? Or were these fellows bad because they lived
in cruel times? It’s the age-old Nature
v. Nurture debate, I suppose, but there were no niceties of the psychiatrist’s
couch in the earl’s time. There was just
blunt force.
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| Girnigoe Castle Today |
George’s
grandfather, William Sinclair, 2nd Earl of Caithness, had added to
the Sinclair castles by building Girnigoe Castle three miles north of Wick on
the east coast of Scotland. (The
spelling Groën gho is found in some
documents.) It was a massive beast of a
castle of the L-Plan towerhouse type with a massive square multi-storey tower typical
in Scotland at the time. Similar castles
are known to have had walls 14 feet thick on the ground floor, and since
Girnigoe was nearly impregnable until it was attacked in the seventeenth
century by Cromwell’s cannons, we can probably assume that it was a pretty
sturdy place.
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| Dungeon of Girnigoe Castle |
Of
interest to us in the story of George Sinclair, however, would more likely be
the dungeon of Girnigoe Castle. George’s
son and heir, John (called Master of Caithness as he was in line to be the next
earl), fell (to put it mildly) from his father’s good graces. In a dispute with the Sinclairs’ arch-enemy,
the Earl of Sutherland, George sent his son John into the town of Dornoch to
attack Hugh Murray of Aberscors,
a Sutherland ally. In this assault, John
first burned down the Cathedral and destroyed the town, then besieged the castle. The Sutherland allies “cried uncle” and
surrendered the castle. Agreeing to
leave the county, the defeated group left three hostages as a pledge that they
would follow through. However, Earl
George—was he paranoid?—took John’s decision not to kill the Sutherland allies
as a sign that he (John) had turned against his father and was in league with
the Sutherlands. Therefore, when the
three hostages were delivered, George immediately had them beheaded and threw his
son John, aged 27, into the dungeon of Girnigoe castle, where he lived for
seven years in darkness. During the last
months of his life, his two jailers (actually Sinclair kin) began feeding him
salt-beef while depriving him of water.
The history books say that in 1577, John, Master of Caithness, “died insane
from thirst.”
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| Sinclair Aisle in Wick, Caithness Photo by Gordon Mackay |
Sources
Anderson, William. The Scottish Nation: Or. the Surnames,
Families, Literature, Honours, and Biographical History of the People of
Scotland. London: Fullarton, 1877. Available on Google Books.
Images
Girnigoe Castle Today. “Sinclair Girnigoe Castle.” Wikipedia.
11 Jun 2013. Web. 22 Jun 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girnigoe_Castle
Inside the Dungeon. “Sinclair and Girnigoe Castle.” Caithness.org. n.d. Web. 22 Jun 2013. http://www.caithness.org/caithness/castles/photogallery/index.php?gallery=14&start=24
Reconstruction of Girnigoe Castle. Used with the kind permission of Andrew
Spratt. Stravaiging around Scotland. 2013.
Web. 22 Jun 2013. http://www.stravaiging.com/history/castle/castle-girnigoe
Sinclair Aisle. Used with the kind permission of Gordon
Mackay. Gordonmac Dot Com. http://www.gordonmac.com
© Eileen Cunningham, 2013
